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In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

(e360.yale.edu)
473 points Brajeshwar | 3 comments | 10 Dec 25 15:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.621s | source
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JumpCrisscross ◴[10 Dec 25 16:53 UTC] No.46220095[source]▶
I'm curious how congestion pricing became a national issue. The strength of conviction people have about this policy–almost either way, but certainly among those against–seems to scale with distance from the city.

Nobody in Idaho gets uppity about New Jersey's tolls. But they have strong, knowledge-free, almost identity-defining opinions about congestion charges.

Is it because it's a policy that's worked in Europe and Asia and is thus seen as foreign? Or because it's New York doing it, so it's branded as a tax, versus market-rate access or whatever we'd be calling it if this were done in Miami?

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1. sebstefan ◴[10 Dec 25 17:14 UTC] No.46220405[source]▶
Probably very clear-cut, right? "No parking, no business" never made sense, but it makes even less sense in a city where cars are involved in less than a third of all trips

Especially considering that

* Congestion is an opportunity cost in itself already, which is paid in wasted time by all road users, impacting mostly those who spend a long time on the road, which is busses, taxis, professionals and delivery drivers, as they spend the most amount of time actually driving in congested roads

* Congestion pricing forces trips to self-select on cost/benefits in actual dollars, instead of time, so you optimize for wealthier trip takers, short stays or high value trips, where before you would favor long stays (which make looking for parking forever not so bad), and people who don't value their time very much

* Car use remains heavily subsidized, as motorists do not come close to paying the full costs associated with their road usage

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2. JumpCrisscross ◴[10 Dec 25 17:24 UTC] No.46220549[source]▶
...did you respond to the wrong comment?
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3. sebstefan ◴[11 Dec 25 05:32 UTC] No.46228014[source]▶
yep

Not sure how I managed that