Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

Not to settle on "It's bad" but their so called "results" seems completely obvious.

The congestion policy is disincentivizing/suppressing people's preferred method by making it unaffordable to some, and unappealing to some. We already know that we can use policy to push people away from their preferred to a less preferred method. The items listed in green are mostly obvious as people seek alternatives. It's like highlighting how many fewer chicken deaths would occur if we created an omnivore or meat tax.

IMO what they should be keeping a careful eye on and tracking is how many fewer trips happen to businesses in those areas. How much fewer social interaction is happening across the distances that those car based trips used to occur. And how much harder is it to get goods into the areas. Is less economic activity happening.

In the long run, yes, maybe things will be net better for all, when the $45M per year has had a chance to make alternative transportation methods to be not just policy enforced, but truly _preferred_ option.

> people's preferred method

You have some evidence of this?

To be fair, I think this is just definitional? If you would normally do one behavior, but an increased cost to it causes you to do something else; I think it is fair to say the first would be your preference?

Now, if it was claimed as a superior method, that would be different. I could easily see it being people's preference as much from habit and availability as from any active preference. Certainly few people want to sit in traffic. But without an obvious immediate cost, many will jump in the car to drive somewhere.

Example of the "force of habit" factor:

Every time my mom comes to visit us in the city, at some point she says she could never live here because she couldn't imagine having to drive in city traffic every day. And every time she does that, I remind her that her car hasn't moved even once since she first arrived a week ago. Mostly we walk everywhere. And every time she responds, "Oh, you're right. You know, that's been really nice."

She's lived in suburban and rural areas her entire life. The idea that she simply has to get in a car to go anywhere is so ingrained into her psyche that even a solid week of not driving is insufficient to dislodge it.

>She's lived in suburban and rural areas her entire life. The idea that she simply has to get in a car to go anywhere is so ingrained into her psyche that even a solid week of not driving is insufficient to dislodge it.

I'm in a suburban area. When I was a child, I got driven everywhere - until I was old enough to take public transit by myself.

I'm about to walk ~3km (2mi) each way to a grocery store, something I do regularly. I save thousands of dollars annually like this. I could feed myself several times over with that money.

It will never stop being strange to me that people actually get that car-dependent mindset ingrained into them.

1. Possibly reasons like this: https://archive.is/tjdZ2 ... to save you the click, the title/subtitle reads:

> When Getting Out of Jail Means a Deadly Walk Home > Nearly every day in Santa Fe, N.M., people released from jail trudge along a dangerous highway to get back to town. Jails often fail to offer safe transport options for prisoners.

2. You must have a preference for walking, since a bicycle would be at least 3x and as much as 10x faster than walking.

3. The thousands of dollar number seems misleading. If you bought a car solely for this purpose, yes, I believe you're right. But that seems unlikely. The actual marginal cost of using a car you already owned for this purpose is on the order of $3-500.

I commend and support what you do (though I prefer to use my bike when I can). But I don't think the financial benefits should be overstated. There are, of course, other benefits.

The average annual cost of owning a car in Canada is >$16000 CAD. In the US it's even higher at >$12000 USD.

Obviously owning a bike, taking public transit and taxis, and occasionally renting a car isn't free, but if you live in a walkable neighbourhood and can take public transit to work it's easy to keep your monthly transportation expenses under $200. The great part about not needing to own a car is that there's no sunk cost that incentivises you to choose one option over another.

"If you live in a walkable neighborhood" is doing a ton of work there. The increase in housing cost almost certainly eats at whatever savings you might see. And the opportunity costs of having fewer work options is not nothing.