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Why shouldn't he exist? $9 per commute is $18 a day, is $396 a month assuming 22 working days in a month. Would you like to be out an extra $396 a month? I mean, I wouldn't, and I work as a software developer (albeit not in the US). And if you're still commuting to work 5 days a week you're probably not a software developer. And I'm not even counting other trips, though in a big city you can probably do your groceries on foot.
Yeah, but your time is worth $X an hour, where X>9! Not evenly, it isn't. My hours at work are worth ˜$25 after taxes but my hours outside of work are worth $0. Averaged over the day, an hour of my life is worth ˜$1, slightly more, which you will note is less than 9. If I had an extra 1.5 hour a day I wouldn't know how to use them to consistently make $18 after taxes to earn back the congestion charge. And you don't even get that, you get two blocks of 45 minutes.
Now, I wouldn't die if I were out $396 a month. It would just suck. But again, these people who are still physically coming into work 5 days a week probably aren't programmers.
Probably, lots of these people are just taking the subway now, which the Internet tells me costs $132 for a month, which is at least less than $396 albeit some crazy person might set you on fire. Notably, people would rather spend two hours a day in New York traffic than ride the subway if given the choice, which has to mean something. Others will have switched jobs, but again, that would be a job so much worse than their previous one that they'd rather spend two hours in New York traffic each day, when given the choice.
What is important to note is that almost all of these people were already picking the car over the bus/train for a reason. This is just a tax on cars. In other words, why do so many people not currently like the state of the public transit? Will this fix those reasons? Obviously not. Thus, its another tax resulting in DWL as taxes usually do.
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If you could give me 90 minutes of extra time per day at the cost of only $400 per month I'd consider it the deal of the century and try to make the trade at least 10 times. This is cheaper than the monthly price of a course of GLP-1 agonists for Americans!
Yeah, I'd pay that if it was somebody possible.
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This a feature and not a bug.
The time of working class people is less valuable than those who make more than them per unit of time. If a working class person (or person of any class, really) deems $18 dollar a day to be too much, they can come in earlier and/or leave later, take alternative means of transportation (e.g., subway, bus, train), or arrange carpooling with others in a similar situation.
Plus, the working class is likely almost all lifetime net-tax consumers (especially in an area like NYC). Since they're free-riding on—or at least riding the coat-tails of—net-tax payers, if anyone gets last dibs at (quasi-)public goods, it should be them (other than the underclass).
No, the time of working class people is less valuable in dollars than the time of rich people, but dollars themselves are worth less to rich people than to working class people. A dollar comparison is not a utility comparison and a libertarian analysis should not pretend that it is.
No, your reply is by no means convincing, unless perhaps one has a noble savage view of working class persons.
A dollar being worth more to a working class person than to someone higher-earning is a feature, not a bug, as per my previous comment. Congestion pricing ultimately trades off time with money. People who value $X more than their unit of time can voluntarily select themselves out of traffic jams.
A "dollar comparison" has the advantage over a "utility comparison" in that a dollar comparison incorporates the opinion of third parties, namely their employers. The dollar comparison reflects the notion that the employers of the working class value the employee's time less than the employers of their employees who earn more per unit of time, skin in the game and all.
Plus, even if we moved toward a utility-based comparison, it's not axiomatic that everyone's utility should be equally valued by third parties. The utility comparison has very obvious failure states. Namely, utility monsters. Perhaps I value every marginal dollar I receive or don't infinitely relative to everyone else, should society cater to my interests? Perhaps I value my time infinitely relative to everyone else, should society cater to my interests?
People can value $x more than their unit of time because
The argument for congestion pricing depends on #1, not on #2, and in fact there's a motte and bailey here where the motte is "they value their time less" and the bailey is "they value their time using a smaller dollar amount" (which is not the same as valuing it less).
The employers are paying in dollars too, so claiming they "value the employee's time less than" their own bosses has the same problem--they value it less when measured in dollars, not when measured in utility (and especially not in utility to the employees).
But the argument that poor people "value their time less" implicitly assumes that you're comparing utility already, so you're stuck with it. There's no reason to care that they value their time less in dollars if dollars aren't proportional to utility.
While not forgetting utility monsters...
So now the claim, or at least a pathway for the introduction of obfuscation, is that the employers of high-earners pay more to their employees than the employers of low-earners because the employers of high-earners have lesser utility of dollars? McDonalds Corporation likely has little utility with respect to a given dollar, yet their burger-flippers aren't exactly getting splashed in cash.
Suppose members of Group A owned paintings that they have historically been observed to sell at on average $150 each, because they're willing to part with the paintings at such a price and buyers are willing to pay such a price. However, members of Group B are willing to sell their paintings at an average of $50, as observed by historical transactions, and buyers aren't willing to pay a price too much higher, on average, for the paintings Group B owns. I hardly doubt you'd quibble if someone remarked, "The paintings owned by Group B are less valuable than those owned by Group A."
The time of my surgeon neighbor is more valuable than the time of my nearby McDonald's manager (to circle-back to the previous reference), whose time in turn is more valuable than those who panhandle on our nearest main road. The working class versus higher-earning classes situation is just a generalization of that.
No thanks, I'm not stuck with anything. However, if we play along with the utility framework, and suppose that decreased wealth/income means increased utility with a given dollar we could consider:
Why might a low-earning person value a dollar more?
Because typically, they own fewer dollars.
Why might such a person own fewer dollars?
Because it's the accumulation of others not valuing his or her time as much as those of higher-earners, and such a low-earning person is willing to sell their time for fewer dollars than those of higher-earners. That is, we could say, this low-earning person's time is less valuable than that of higher-earners.
All roads lead back to lower earners' time being less valuable.
And if I were a net-tax payer in NYC (or anywhere), I'd much rather that any frictions in employment and/or hours-worked be incurred by low-earners than high-earners, as high-earners better help shoulder city, state, and federal taxes. Although granted, from an accelerationist standpoint, one might want to starve the beast, and deprive NYC/New York State/USA of tax dollars.
It is true that dollars are worth a lot to employees, and are worth little to McDonalds. But employees and McDonalds are also on opposite sides of the transaction.
Employees accept jobs which pay very little because they value dollars a lot. "Dollars are worth a lot" compensates for "it's few dollars". McDonalds has jobs which pay very little because McDonalds is on the other side of the transaction, so "it's few dollars" is not something they need to compensate for--it's something that's already good to them. The fact that dollars are not worth much to McDonalds just makes it better.
Comparing paintings usually takes place in a context where comparing dollar values is useful. If you tried to make an economic argument where the distinction between "costs more in dollars" and "is more valuable" actually mattered, then you could no longer just compare the dollar value of the paintings.
No, you couldn't say that. The low-earning person's time is less valuable than that of high earners, in dollars. Treating it as less valuable in utility is circular reasoning, since you're using it to justify treating dollars as like utility.
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I suspect that working class people present in lower manhattan have a reason to be there and should have their access made easier, rather than harder, because of that.
Every human or even non-human animal with sentience present in lower Manhattan presumably has a reason to be there. However, commuting from other areas into lower Manhattan entails limited space on roadways, which translates into limited time. And some peoples' time is worth more than others.
An area staffed and entered only by doctors, lawyers, accountants and so on is going to having leaky plumbing, dirty windows, and crumbling buildings. Plus all the nice-to-haves: shop workers, barbers and the like.
Wages are not a fixed edict from God, and can adjust if congestion pricing leads to a shortage of working class workers in Lower Manhattan.
Via supply and demand, wages can thus rise for working class workers. And meanwhile, if they so choose, doctors, lawyers, and accountants can DIY to fix their own plumbing, windows, and buildings, even though it's likely a rounding error for them as to a pay-bump for their in-house working class workers to compensate for a $9 (or $18? day surcharge).
There's also an abundance of lower-tier, lower-earning white-collar knowledge workers (e.g., compliance, operations) who live within lower Manhattan who would be first to DIY trades themselves, and perhaps serve as after-hours skilled-labor providers for those who make more.
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In the first place all those except tradespeople who require a van can, and indeed mostly do, commute in by transit - in the second place, all that will happen is that for things like plumbing in the area prices will simply rise by the cost of paying the charge, so in the end all the costs get passed on the users of the services, which would seem ideal.
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Perhaps, if you amortize the fixed costs of overpriced government evenly. But I suspect the "working class" are marginal taxpayers. They don't get much in the way of direct subsidies, and they pay a ridiculous amount of tax.
Even if we suppose somehow, someway, the NYC working class are marginal net-taxpayers if we squint and kick fixed costs under the refrigerator—as per my previous comment—the NYC working class would be still riding the coattails of those who earn more. If my brother and I buy a large pizza for $45, where he pays $35 and I pay $10, it'd certainly be understandable that he get first priority as to which slice he picks, and I would wait.
You're not buying a large pizza though. You're buying hooker and blow for Mayor Adams or something. Neither of you really wants to, neither of you is actually getting the benefits at all, so what difference does it make?
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I would propose that the most valuable use of your time is neither working nor sitting in traffic.
Socializing, reading, going for a walk, etc...
The reason that going to the dentist is awful is not because you could be working during that time, it's because it's boring and uncomfortable. Traffic is the same for most people.
As a society, it's better if more people do things that give them joy instead of rage.
Would you pay $396 per month if you were in return given two separate 45-minute blocks of extra time each day in which to read a book or go for a walk?
I mean, maybe if you're a high-powered lawyer who makes half a million a year but works 90-hour weeks, you might. Presumably that's the kind of person still driving and paying the congestion charge. Someone to whom money is nothing and time is very short, i.e. someone whose time is actually worth a lot.
In fact not many people are taking the deal. You can tell by how the roads are empty. Presumably they're on the subway now, which I can't imagine is going to save time, what with the delays and transfers. It still costs $132, and then there's the getting set on fire bit which I also can't imagine is giving them joy instead of rage. If the subway were a more pleasant experience than sitting in traffic, people would've been choosing that in the first place.
Even in Europe nobody takes public transport if they can avoid it. This is despite every American urbanist YouTuber squeeing with glee upon seeing it, and despite many people not being able to afford a car at all.
You're talking as if it's about sitting in traffic vs not sitting in traffic. That's not true. It's sitting in traffic, vs standing in a dingy subway station with a bunch of hobos wondering if the train's still coming, vs taking a worse job outside of the area, vs paying $396 per month.
As others have said, this is total nonsense. The vast majority of even the highest earning city lawyers and bankers in London take the tube or suburban rail to work, and to get around to other leisure pursuits too.
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That varies. In most of Europe commuter public transport is barely better than it is in the US (long distance transport certainly is, but not commuter stuff). But in a few big cities like Paris and London most well-paid professionals still use public transport. NYC used to be like this in the 2000s and 2010s, but a combination of huge wage inflation in the PMC and the subway homeless schizo crisis have increasingly led to Manhattan residents with some money commuting by Uber.
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Yes. Please summon the genie or demon needed to make this deal.
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I can afford a car in London. I still prefer the Elizabeth line.
Yeah, I imagine we both know people who make many millions a year who commute by tube. If you live in South Ken and work in the City, you can spend an hour in a car or 20 minutes on the (now even air conditioned) circle line, why would you pick the former? Likewise if you live in Mayfair and work in Canary Wharf.
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Likewise, I lived in London and took the train and tube for years until I started cycling to work. I had exactly one incident (on a bus) where some drunks threatened me after I politely asked them to turn their music down. That sucked, but overall the public transport felt very safe.
In America that young guy blasting music on public transportation is daring people to challenge him so he can fight them or threaten to fight them.
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Yeah, other than the stale piss smell in some stations I always found the tube nicer than the actual streets.
It's odd, because I don't remember especially strict policing, but people seemed to be on better behavior than usual anyway.
Everything is surveilled by CCTV. With modern face recognition software TfL could flag it every time a person "known to the authorities" uses the system. They don't go that far, but I assume they use all available analysis tools on the pictures they pull after someone commits a serious crime on public transport. The 7/7 bombers were identified within 3 days based on CCTV footage, and the technology has got a lot better since then.
This was long before any of that. I haven't been back to the UK in decades
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The toll is $9 per day, not each way. And you can enter and leave as much as you want.
So figure 20 working days a month = $180/month.
I am wealthy so, yes, my I value my time at more than $6/hour. But I think that all rational people in New York should.
Yeah, trains are slow. Driving makes for faster commutes unless density is really high. Although, in a place like New York, if everyone drove that would no longer be true. I'll quibble with the cost though, since owning and operating a car in Manhattan is ruinously expensive. Parking might be $40/day for instance.
In any case, if you want someone to argue with about congestion charges, it's probably not me. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about them.
Personally I'd rather take longer on the Train (assuming no random homeless enemy encounters) than driving for a commute at a reasonable ratio, since the former means I can use my various devices and don't have to deal with parking/the continued existence of my vehicle when returning home
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Unless you work an hour per day, there's something seriously wrong with your math.
I think he's saying that his total time working gets him $25, not that he gets $25/hr.
I entertained that hypothesis, but rejected it on the basis of how then the expense would not "just suck" in his words but be devastating, and of how an hourly wage of an hair above three dollars would be completely irrelevant to the New York City situation.
Yeah, this particular post is odd. Either he lives in Africa and his calculations are irrelevant or he works 1-2 hrs a day, at which point, yes you shouldn't be in transit to your job longer than you work. The real problem with the congestion fee is its just an additional tax with no offsets and taxes are bad. No one seriously thinks there will be less crazy people stinking up subways and erratically lunging at people or pushing them in front of trains as a result of the congestion fee.
Well... In theory pushing more Daniel Perrys onto the subway system could offset the crazy hobos.
Before you laugh, this is literally just the anti-homeschooling argument from "exit, voice, and loyalty." If parents are forced to send their children to state schools, they lose the "exit" option and will be forced to fix the environment their child is stuck in..
Reading between the lines this is the argument behind a lot of "people must be forced to take the public option to spread out the pain" policies. And making public transit mandatory is definitely one of those cases.
I call that the hostage-taking argument.
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