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Comment by BoorishBears | Hacker News Reader

> A dynamic charge based on social status/wealth?

That's one I like actually, maybe something like the blue book value of the car?

I recently moved out of NYC but I remember looking forward to the congestion charge because I loved taking my greyhound to the union square dog run, which was driving distance for me. 20$ wasn't enough to affect my plans to do that, and less traffic would actually make my life way easier when I took him there.

There were plenty of people like that: totally unaffected by whatever a reasonable toll is, and actually more likely to drive if they enact it.

At the end of the day I don't buy that in a city like NYC we'll see the type of effect congestion pricing has had in other less connected cities. Here owning a car is already expensive, parking already cost more than people pay in rent in some places, etc. It's like stacking a regressive tax on a regressive tax, it doesn't really have the same effect.

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> That's one I like actually, maybe something like the blue book value of the car?

Suppose two people make the same amount of money. One chooses to buy a cheaper car and pays higher rent for a nicer apt. The other, the opposite. Under your pricing scheme, you're unjustifiably charging two persons of equal means different rates.

You can adjust this many ways. One person gets a cheaper car but spends more on luxury vacations or invests more aggressively or spends large sums eating at nice restaurants often or buys expensive clothes or or or etc.

Edit: Lastly, why should we be charging expensive cars more? A BMW M4 is, by all measures, much less irritating to have to share the road with than a large SUV or Ford F-250 (god forbid it's also lifted). Tolls should scale with vehicle size and weight and when vehicles have poor fuel efficiency, not the sticker price.

You'll always be able to imagine cases where a broad toll doesn't perfectly align with a narrow goal, why even waste energy listing them out?

Instead consider how you get the toll to actually do something: in the case of a congestion charge it's by making driving in Manhattan expensive enough to reduce how much it happens for as many people as possible.

Regardless of the corner cases you can imagine, there are more people who drive an M4 that would be unaffected by a $20 charge rate than there are people who drive an 430i. So increase the cost for the people with M4 and you've made your toll strictly more effective... even if there are people who can afford M4s and chose to drive a 430i.

One could also just make the base rate $150/day and then you'll definitely make it untenable for as many people as possible, which is apparently the goal. This leads to an outcome which is you think is an unfair distribution. But luxuries are necessarily for those who can afford them.

The 'cost' of the action is the same. A vehicle in the city is a vehicle is a vehicle and therefore the toll should be flat, unless that type of vehicle in particular causes more damage to roads or empirically worsens outcomes like traffic or pollution relative to other types of vehicle. Charging people more because they are wealthier is unfairly discriminatory.

Their goal isn't to make it impossible, it's to reduce it. They want you to really need to drive, not just do it because it's convenient.

It seems you might not familiar the actual toll to start, it carves out a lot of special cases for that reason: people with certain incomes are exempt if they already live in the area, ride-shares have special rules, they excluded corridors around the edges of the city, etc.

You're also confused on cost here. It's not cost to the city they're trying to change with a toll (that'd be nonsensical) it's cost to the driver. If cost is hard for you to follow, think of it as "attractiveness".

They want driving to be unattractive, not impossible, not untenable... just unattractive.

> regressive tax

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

It does, but if you'll elaborate on your incorrect understanding I'd be happy to educate you: https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop08040/cp_prim5_...

> most forms of transportation finance—fuel taxes, sales taxes, and tolls—are regressive forms of taxation in that they burden the poor more than they do the rich.

I agree with you, and the source, that most transportation taxes are regressive. Where you lose me is that THIS one is. Driving into Manhattan isn't something the vast majority of poorer commuters are doing.

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