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Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

(www.nytimes.com)
437 points Vinnl | 3 comments | 13 May 25 10:43 UTC | HN request time: 0.387s | source
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stuaxo ◴[15 May 25 07:21 UTC] No.43992625[source]▶
Hi from London:

The centre is much more pleasant to walk in, as are most places in the zone.

Pollution is much, much better: if you came to London and travelled on the underground you would have black snot when you blew your nose, this hasn't been the case for a few years now.

I hope NY gets the sake improvements.

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jampekka ◴[15 May 25 09:15 UTC] No.43993206[source]▶
Travel of low-income people also declined significantly while high-income travel did not. So quite literally the London congestion pricing got the poor off the zones.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03611981221138801

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1. pirate787 ◴[15 May 25 09:24 UTC] No.43993252[source]▶
From the report: "the highest income earners contributed to more of the revenue than the lowest income earners, making the scheme progressive in the scale of its equity impact"

It is quite likely that the lower income users are mostly retired people, and students, and they shouldn't be crowding the system at peak times unless willing to pay.

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2. jampekka ◴[15 May 25 09:57 UTC] No.43993425[source]▶
If you price out low-income people, you do get relatively more revenue from high-income earners. But the low-income people also get less service.

The non-charge eligible trips of the low earners declined as well. The paper did not differentiate between sources of income, and I'm not sure how relevant that is.

So the "poor off the zones" stands. Of course it's a matter of opinion whether this is desirable or not.

The paper is available without paywall here: https://www.mit.edu/~hamsa/pubs/Craik-Balakrishnan-TRR2022.p...

3. chgs ◴[15 May 25 11:34 UTC] No.43993927[source]▶
A retired millionaire living off savings will be counted as a “low income” person unlike than a working person on 50k paying 20k a year in rent.

I treat “income” with a healthy dose of salt