As the article discusses at the end: the MTA is a black hole of money, it's overly optimistic to assume cash generated from congestion pricing would go back into public transit (e.g.: the NYT recently reported how Gov. Cuomo directed the MTA to hand over millions to ski resorts in upstate NY because there hadn't been a lot of snow that year).
By comparison London implemented a $15 congestion fee in 2003 and it resulted in a 26% reduction in traffic, which is good but likely not life-changing for most commuters.
So if you cynically assume you won't get free transit and congestion pricing is not a panacea for rush hour gridlock, what do you get implementing this?
Less CO2 emissions. Fewer pedestrian accidents. But mostly: more money for the city. Aka a tax.
Once you accept that, the discussion boils down to your belief in what constitutes a fair taxation scheme: should the users of a service pay per use, or should essential city services be subsidized by the wealthiest citizens? Good arguments for and against.
While I'm in favor of congestion pricing in general I think it's important to not be overly optimistic in our assumptions in what it can accomplish.
> By comparison London implemented a $15 congestion fee in 2003 and it resulted in a 26% reduction in traffic, which is good but likely not life-changing for most commuters.
It is becoming life-changing. It's just taking a while to do it. But here's the most startling result:
In a few years, at this trajectory, cycling will overtake driving as the most popular means of personal transport in central London. That's astonishing. It was unthinkable even ten years ago.
The Congestion Charge isn't the only factor behind this. The new protected cycling infrastructure makes a huge difference. The 7/7 terror attacks were, oddly, a big boost to cycling (the Canal & River Trust, which owns the Regents Canal - a popular cycling route - says that this was the tipping point for cycling on the towpath). But 2003 is when driving started falling and cycling started rising in London, and the Congestion Charge is a big part of that.
Wait, you say a 26% reduction in traffic is not life changing?
Congestion can be caused by a slight undercapacity. One case I know of from Bergen, Norway a reduction in traffic of 5% caused reductions in travel time of 50%.
Bergen is several orders of magnitude below London or NY and not comparable, my point is just that small reduction in traffic can lead to massive reduction in travel time. I would be very interested to hear the travel time numbers for London..
Not only is traffic noticeably lighter than in 2003, it is INCREDIBLY lighter than what it would have been without congestion charge, given the city growth.
"should essential city services be subsidized by the wealthiest citizens"
It's interesting you bring up London's congestion charging scheme. The burden of that scheme doesn't fall on the wealthy: they live within the congestion charging zone and are thus entitled to a 90% discount (i.e. they pay just a tenth of what we South Londoners pay). And they can afford to take taxis, which are too expensive for most people, and are exempt from paying the congestion charge.
If they live within the city, use public transportation systems and don't bring additional cars into it, it sounds like they aren't the ones causing or even contributing to congestion problems. Therefore, why should they pay for a problem they aren't causing?
Well you only pay the charge when you're using it right?
Why does living in the city make it cheaper per use?
It'd be like having a cheaper subway ticket if your house was closer to the station. Maybe one thing affects usage of the other, but that shouldn't change per-use.
Slight detail here though: if you suddenly can't use your car anymore because you happened to live in an area with heavy traffic that's not great
"Slight detail here though: if you suddenly can't use your car anymore because you happened to live in an area with heavy traffic that's not great"
Right, but if you can lobby the government to extend the boundary of the zone a bit so that you live inside it, then suddenly (i) there's a reduction in traffic near you, (ii) you get the resident 90% discount on the scheme.
People who live within the zone get the traffic reduction for almost free. Everyone else pays for it directly (having to pay full price for the congestion charge) or indirectly (due to increased traffic elsewhere).
> Why does living in the city make it cheaper per use?
Because people living in the city pay all kinds of city taxes, none of which is paid by those who move out of the city to avoid paying them.
Then, those who move out of the city end up creating all kinds of traffic problems commuting back and forth between their city-tax-avoiding homes and their city-paying jobs, or requiring local and central governments to waste huge sums of money in public transportation systems to serve them.
> It'd be like having a cheaper subway ticket if your house was closer to the station.
Only if your ticket was cheap to go around the corner from your home in a trip you don't need to take nor need a full blown regional-wide public transportation system to do.
In practice, though, non-Londoners subsidise London transport.
"IPPR North annual analysis shows Yorkshire and the Humber will get £190 per head, North East £220, North West £680 and London £1,940 per head for transport from 2016/17 onwards."
> Once you accept that, the discussion boils down to your belief in what constitutes a fair taxation scheme: should the users of a service pay per use, or should essential city services be subsidized by the wealthiest citizens? Good arguments for and against.
Very tangentially related but wanted to hear your opinion on this: I know it is not in my best interest as a poor person but I think there should not be any handouts or subsidies for poor people. We should transform any entitlement program that requires you to show you make $X or under a year and replace them with programs that everyone (regardless of income or wealth) can participate in. I am still a firm believer in a progressive tax regime to fund these programs but we should not divide beneficiaries based on income or wealth.
Another thought experiment I sometimes think about is what would change if public transit were fully paid for by taxes? How would things change? Would we see more traffic? How much more traffic would we see? Would we see more people camping out inside the subway stations?
There are two strong practical arguments for no means-testing.
The first is that these programs are much cheaper and easier to administer. The forms are simpler, there is less opportunity for fraud, the programs are easier to understand so less outreach is required, etc.
The second is that such programs are much more politically durable. In the US, compare the ever-teetering Medicaid or TANF with Medicare or Social Security, which enjoy broad support.
Depends on your definition of "handouts". Free cash transfers don't seem to be a successful antipoverty program but what about free college tuition? High education levels strongly correlate with above average lifetime incomes but you can't expect poor mothers to feed their children on college degrees. I guarantee you even the most ardent proponent of regressive taxation schemes has some pet govt benefit they consider not a handout but a right.
As to the second, it's an interesting idea. Everyone complains about the NYC MTA but for $2.75 you can traverse the entire city -- even with delays it's a steal. People are definitely disconnected from the price vs reward of public transit.
I love it! However, if we can afford to make college tuition to people making under $x, I think we can make college tuition free for everyone without checking for their income. (This is my main objection to the New York state scheme. They can make it so only NYS residents are eligible but we should drop the income requirement.)
I've sad it once and I'll say it again: we need to stop subsidizing cars and drivers as a matter of public policy. In places like NYC we need to go further and punitively tax the ownership and operation of private cars.
Every time this issue comes up, someone will pipe up that gas taxes pay for the roads. Bzzzzt, wrong [1].
Want to see how far this could (and IMHO should) go? Take a look at Singapore [2].
While we're at it, let's:
- eliminate street parking on the avenues and other major roads (eg 14th, 23rd, 34th, 42nd, 57th, 59th, etc streets) in Manhattan;
- eliminate half the street parking in the other streets
- stop using the remaining parking as long-term parking. Want long-term parking in Manhattan? Put it in a garage.
As for Cuomo, he's a disaster for NYC. Then again, probably every NY Governor is and will be because they're beholden to all the upstate voters who live in SFHs, which also explains why apartment dwellers are taxed punitively by the state (except if you're a billionaire) [3] [4].
Another point worth considering is this: why do we charge anything for using the subway? It unfairly hurts low-income workers. This should be completely covered by NYC income taxes and taxes on car ownership in Manhattan in particular.
> Another point worth considering is this: why do we charge anything for using the subway? It unfairly hurts low-income workers.
i don't disagree with your larger point about the benefits of incentivising alternative forms of transportation, but im not sure i can agree that it is "unfair" to charge low income workers literally any amount of money to ride the subway. when you look at the operating expenses vs. fare revenue for the subway, its already subsidized by the city and state at something like 50%. the fact that you can ride on the subway for the current price already represents a substantial transfer from wealthier citizens who pay more taxes.
i think there is certainly room for debate as to what exactly the price should be, and there may be other compelling reasons why it benefits everyone to make it free; i just find it absurd to argue that making such an expensive service anything other than free is unfair.
is the spreadsheet itself. Interesting is that it justifies most of the savings by saving drivers time.
I'm a little dubious that's valid, most notably because the costs of mass transit projects tend to occur early ($14 billion of the second avenue subway and east side access in NYC), while the benefits manifest later, if at all.
I’m guessing that this spreadsheet is rife with false accuracy. Modeling and forecasting markets is incredibly difficult. The reason he can get away with it is nothing will ever happen that can prove it wrong.
Not to denigrate what is clearly a labor of love and noble intentions (this is, of course, the necessary preamble for a comment in which I'm going to denigrate what is clearly a labor of &c.) -- but the idea of a complex 72-worksheet Excel file put together by someone who has never heard of source control ("Komanoff has more than 2,000 versions saved on a hard drive") is making my left eyelid twitch uncontrollably. I wonder what the unit testing situation is, here...
Also what the sensitivity of the final result is to each of the variables... seems like they are using a lot of assumed or estimated values for the variables.
I'm 100% in support of less car traffic in NYC but I think there has to be other reliable options in place before that change is made. Many people are using cars and ride-hailing apps as a remedy to the broken public transportation system. If I was working downtown and had a meeting in the middle of the day uptown on the East Side, taking the train would risk missing the meeting. Taking a car meant I had to leave earlier and pay a lot more money, but also meant I could be sure of actually getting there roughly on time. At least in my circles, the preference is public transportation and cars are used for the times when you're waiting 45 minutes or an hour for a train that never comes, watching the arrival timer continually count down to 0 and reset to 12 minutes.
wait, who does that? If you have to go somewhere, and don't want to take the subway, you usually get a cab. I am assuming normal yellow cabs will not be affected by this charge.
I live in Manhattan, and the people that I know that own a car and live here, they fall in the categories:
1. Work outside/far in the burbs, and need the car to go to work.
2. Are rich, and their car is there for the weekends...
3. Have a "commercial license", and can park at places where most normal folks can't.
In some areas you can find parking during the day, but in most places where there are businesses (most of downtown, and midtown), it is impossible finding a parking place unless you are paying a lot of money.
I think everyone (I guess other than emergency services?) should pay the congestion charge and the money should never go back to the general treasury and be directly earmarked for subways and buses only.
Yes, I usually would take a cab. But if there are no cabs available, which can happen often near Broadway and Canal Street, for example, then it can be easier to use a ride hailing app.
In seven years, that hasn't been my experience. The thing about taking a car is that if you get stuck in traffic, you can get out. You cannot easily exit a train that has stopped running.
Seems like this begs to have a simplified web interface, where people can adjust some of the top-level parameters, and see the results.
Maybe write a tool that reads (a snapshot of) the .xls file, and knows which cells are interesting inputs and outputs, to instrument and monitor. But then you need to "eval" all the formulas... seems tricky. Is there an easier way?
Maybe just automate tweaks to a small set of input parameters -- limiting the number of permutations -- and collect the outputs of interest. Then make a simple visualizer of that data. Perhaps even just visualize 5 primary scenarios.
> At one point, I asked Komanoff is he’d ever considered converting the BTA into some kind of web app to make it accessible to more people. He expressed interest in the idea, but worried he wouldn’t be able to modify the model as easily. Moreover, he values the spreadsheet’s transparency and flexibility, which would be lost in a basic web platform. Of course, a gigantic spreadsheet with 72 worksheets and hundreds of thousands of cells has its own issues of opaqueness.
I agree with you, though; I don't know how you'd even begin to tease this thing apart for bugtesting.
By comparison London implemented a $15 congestion fee in 2003 and it resulted in a 26% reduction in traffic, which is good but likely not life-changing for most commuters.
So if you cynically assume you won't get free transit and congestion pricing is not a panacea for rush hour gridlock, what do you get implementing this?
Less CO2 emissions. Fewer pedestrian accidents. But mostly: more money for the city. Aka a tax.
Once you accept that, the discussion boils down to your belief in what constitutes a fair taxation scheme: should the users of a service pay per use, or should essential city services be subsidized by the wealthiest citizens? Good arguments for and against.
While I'm in favor of congestion pricing in general I think it's important to not be overly optimistic in our assumptions in what it can accomplish.
Very cool spreadsheet though.