See also: Singapore. When I first visited I was amazed at how little traffic there was. Turns out they had imposed so severe costs on car ownership that the vast majority can’t afford to own one.
Why Driving in Singapore Is Like 'Wearing a Rolex'
The biggest improvement are for the very poor, who rely more heavily than other socioeconomic classes on bus transportation, which has seen the greatest efficiency improvements from congestion pricing. The merely poor or middle class, in NYC, are already reliant on mass transit (although more likely the subway rather than the bus system), which sees somewhat more indirect benefits from increased funding as a result of the congestion charge.
The people whom congestion pricing hurts the most are those who feel that public transit is beneath them but still rely on driving in Manhattan to a degree that the congestion charge is a significant tax. Which unfortunately seems to include most of the media class in NYC, hence the incessant whining about it.
With this new moneys coming in they will not even fix one of these 50-year old subway switches. Nevermind buying some new subway cars, or improving ventilation / air conditioning during summer. This new moneys will go to waste. Meanwhile, yeah, rich investment bankers get to spend less time in traffic.
"The M.T.A. expects to spend $10.9 billion to buy roughly 2,000 new rail cars, an order that will include 1,500 subway cars and more than 500 for the Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road. Some of the train fleet has not been updated since at least 1980, the year of the M.T.A.’s first capital plan. Another $3.3 billion will buy and support 2,261 new buses."
"The plan includes $5.4 billion to modernize the subway signal system, which dates back to the Great Depression. Over the past 15 months, the antiquated system has led to an average of nearly 4,000 train delays a month, according to the M.T.A."
That was the original criticism, or rather the cynical attempt to block it.
It hasn't panned out that way at all however, it's just great for everyone.
OK, actually not everyone. There's one very specific group that this sucks for, which not-coincidentally was the group that was loudly opposing it using the excuse you tried.
That group is people who work for the city and/or are connected so they get free daily parking. That's a lot of cops and firefighters and various city functionaries at various levels and agencies that have been able to get their hands on parking placards. It's a core NYC subculture and they were the annoying loud voices that tried to stop this.
Almost anyone who was driving into central Manhattan and paying for parking already is thrilled by this, it's only a little more expensive and in exchange they shave hours of traffic out of their commutes.
It's the people that were gaming the system to get free parking that are suddenly screwed. Fuck them.
> It hasn't panned out that way at all however, it's just great for everyone.
Oh, come now. Try a little bit harder to see the other side.
Live here, don't have a car -- haven't had one for 20 years. Ride the subway every day.
I freely acknowledge that the roads feel less crowded, but it makes no practical difference to me. As far as I am concerned, the entire thing is a small net loss, in that it's another tax, and on the rare occasions I do actually need a car or a service that requires a car (plumber, mover, etc.) it costs me more.
I look at congestion pricing purely as a question of "do I consent to another tax for the MTA?", and when framed in that way, the answer is emphatically "No."
It's literally added on a as service fee. You want receipts or something? This is standard stuff -- go ride in a taxi and you'll see the same thing.
I encourage you to adopt this level of skepticism to claims on both sides of this debate, and not just things that violate your pre-conceptions of the world.
Edit: not that I use FreshDirect, but it took me about 30 seconds of searching to find this obvious example.
Well yes if you are in a car on the congestion pricing area it costs money. Of course it does, that the point.
Your argument is that there are indirect costs. That’s the part that has to be proven.
Some company using it as an excuse to add a junk fee is anecdotal but hardly conclusive. It’s about as much evidence as a hotel saying they didn’t bring me new towels because they care about the environment.
> Some company using it as an excuse to add a junk fee is anecdotal but hardly conclusive. It’s about as much evidence as a hotel saying they didn’t bring me new towels because they care about the environment.
Got it. I show you an example of exactly what you ask for, from one of the most common delivery services in NYC, and you dismiss it as a "junk fee".
I mean my bias is that we started with crippling traffic congestion and not enough money for transit and now we have instantly obvious improvements in congestion and more money for transit. And no visible downsides whatsoever.
You having to pay fifty cents more for FreshDirect is not a persuasive counter argument. Especially since that’s not actually an indirect cost at all.
Your order is quite literally causing more traffic congestion, directly, as the car pulls up in front of your apartment and double parks while some guy hand delivers your yogurt or whatever.
> Your order is quite literally causing more traffic congestion, directly, as the car pulls up in front of your apartment and double parks while some guy hand delivers your yogurt or whatever.
I told you that I don't use FreshDirect. You asked for an example of companies passing through the cost, and I provided one.
It's a bit absurd though. The roads are paid by tax payers from the general fund of the city, but they discriminate on how much it costs to use those roads based on where you live. If everyone entering the zone paid the same then it would be one thing. But they have exemptions and deductions based on residency and income. If they are going to charge people who don't live in the area and not charge the people who do live in the area, then the people in the area should have to buy all the roads and pay for the upkeep.
To someone who can't afford to drive it might seem absurd to be paying for roads with their taxes in the first place. Driving has been generally subsidized for so long that it's easy to forget it's subsidized at all. The backlash to proposals for free public transport demonstrates this.
> It's a bit absurd though. The roads are paid by tax payers from the general fund of the city, but they discriminate on how much it costs to use those roads based on where you live. If everyone entering the zone paid the same then it would be one thing. But they have exemptions and deductions based on residency and income. If they are going to charge people who don't live in the area and not charge the people who do live in the area, then the people in the area should have to buy all the roads and pay for the upkeep.
These aren't deep moral questions. You're trying to draw some sort of universal fairness doctrine around this that doesn't apply. It's just public policy. The people who live in the area are buying all the roads, through various taxes and fees.
Roads don't work the way you describe. Are you aware that there's literally no way to drive to Long Island without going through New York City? Or that driving from Princeton New Jersey to Providence Rhode Island requires going through New York City or driving about 40-50 miles out of the way? Why is all this solely the problem of people who live in Manhattan below Central Park again?
The majority of my social circle consists of middle and upper middle class Newjerseyans. Many commute daily into Manhattan via public transit. But if they’re going in for anything other than work, it’s always the car.
Which congestion price is perfectly fine for if you’re only going in occasionally.
Do people put a value on time when not doing value added stuff? When they go for a walk, do they instead run? Do they try to only meet up with friends who can return an investment on their time? Do these people not shoot the shit? Are they busy beavers at all times maximizing wealth?
I dunno, man, It's rumored they have this thing called cellular telephony technology allowing just such a thing while in traffic --I could be wrong though, thems being wealthy and shit.
The supply demand curve might mean prices temporarily drop with demand, but that might put pressure on some parking to convert to other uses, which will then lower supply.
I agree. Also, the money from the fee is supposed to improve transit (we will see how long that lasts…), and IMO a share should go to NJ transit into manhattan.
I have a school teacher friend who commutes by car every day between the Bronx and upper Manhattan (outside the congestion zone - but you said "Manhattan" without any qualifier). Obviously she doesn't pay for parking. Public transportation in her case would be quite inconvenient due to how the subway lines are laid out.
Tell me you've never lived in lower Manhattan without telling me you've never lived in lower Manhattan.
Edit: Happy to be downvoted by people who actually live in Manhattan and take 5 seconds out of their day to talk to anybody who works in a local store. Brooklyn transplants can move along.
Yeah, this is the only disagreement I have with congestion pricing too. I have a friend that lives in Tribeca (in the place he grew up in in the 80s) and needs a car to drive to his art studio in New Jersey. I feel like they should get an exemption or at least a heavily reduced rate.
But my in laws that drive in from the suburbs a few times a year? They can afford the $9.
Your buddy should move to NJ if he needs low cost access to his studio. The roads will be tolled and the price will only go up. The entire point is to reduce the amount of people using the roads for a cheap benefit (ex living in Tribeca one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city and complaining that you have no low cost access to NJ).
I'm not saying it's not a fair price -- I think largely it's a positive to discourage people from deciding to commute into Manhattan by car. I'm in my 40s and only recently got my license, so I'm certainly on team public transit.
But I am saying that not everyone that lives in the congestion zone are well off office workers, particularly those born and raised in lower Manhattan that have housing arrangements that go back a few decades. An extra $2-300 month in tolls is not nothing for many people. You can't easily bring hundreds of pounds of art and building supplies to your art warehouse in Newark every day on the path train.
That’s fair, I guess I just don’t have much sympathy for that person as from my perspective, they were getting a massive subsidy for a long time, and we’re all better off if we cut off their gravy train. And I say this as a former artist myself — if they need the space, they can move to Brooklyn like the rest of us.
I see where you’re coming from, but it does assume the American approach to basic housing as an investment opportunity vs a basic need the government should ensure is available and affordable.
Because on public transit, you're paying to use someone else's vehicle, and needing to cover the maintenance, depreciation, etc., of it, plus the driver's time. But with your own vehicle, those are all already your expenses, so it's double-dipping to charge you like that at all.
But it's not double dipping, because the cost of infrastructure for motor vehicles is absurdly high - higher than even a lot of public transportation. Because individual vehicles are horribly inefficient, and require significantly more space per capita. Roads are not free, congestion is not free, pollution is not free. You're used to being subsidized, so when you're not it may seem unfair. But it's not.
Cars are still subsidized, just a little less. And public transit is absolutely subsidized, but in a similar position to cars - some of it is subsidized, and some of it you pay. It's not free to ride the bus. To me, it seems fair.
Why does this friend in particular deserve an exemption or reduced rate? Why don't they do something like take the trains into the nearest NJ suburb and leave their car at the parking lots there, which will probably be free or much cheaper, since they're doing the opposite of most commuters. Then they'd avoid this and all of the other tolls, most of which are much more expensive, and would probably be faster too.
They're a visual artist that is often lugging around hundreds of pounds of supplies/fabricated materials/finished pieces/etc. If they just needed a laptop bag or something that'd be a different story, public transit would work for them. I think they're avoiding the tolls by just working until 2am or so every night.
I only brought this up to agree that there are definitely working class people that live in the congestion zone and happen to need a car, and the extra $200-300/month does have a real impact on their lives. It would be nice to have taken them into account a bit more.
Yep. The people who agree with congestion pricing either hate or ignore these people, along with the thousands of lower Manhattan small-business employees, subsidized housing residence that have cars or street park daily.
I postulate it's because they don't actually live there, or just moved there, if they do actually live there, they'd have to be severely socially inept to never speak to a store or restaurant owner and ask what their commute is like.
To act as though it affects nobody of moderate or lower income is downright dishonest, when 22% of Manhattan households own one - it's no longer an upper class activity, just a basic tool to get to work.
The subway is also a basic tool to get to work, which even more people use, and we charge a fare for that. So why not for driving?
The point isn’t that it won’t negatively affect anybody of moderate or lower income, it’s that overall it will positively affect most people of moderate or lower income, because most of those people do not drive regularly into Manhattan.
I would (I’ve since moved) worry that less traffic would mean faster cars. As a pedestrian I did appreciate just how slowly cars normally move in Manhattan.
This. I've had my email for years. Admittedly my engagement on HN is chaotic and somewhat rare but in all those years, I think I've had half a dozen one-off emails.
Maybe that shows the actual benefit (or lack thereof) DM would have?
I mean "one-off" suggests that what you received might not have delivered significant value -- what I get is usually please-use-my-product marketing encouraged only by my non-negative commenting.
> Given the contracts signed so far, the average annual salary for NBA players during the 2024-25 season will be $11,910,649, according to Basketball Reference. That's up from the $9.7 million from the 2023-24 season.
There's about 500 of them, so that's about $6B per year.
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