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Bowing to Special Interest Pressure, NY Governor Hochul “Indefinitely Delaying” Congestion Pricing
(nyc.streetsblog.org)
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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Aren't congestion charges a regressive punishment for those who are stuck driving in cars? Increasing the cost of driving is an attempt at a market solution to traffic. Market solutions suck balls, are ineffective, punish the poor, and don't mean anything to the rich.
I don't think anyone on Hexbears should be supporting making driving (something that working class folks are forced to do and rich folks treat as a luxury) more expensive. We need to focus on making alternative transportation modes more effective and free instead
At least as far as New York City goes this is wrong. Car ownership in the city is correlated with income; the poorer you are the more likely you are to not own a car and instead take public transit to work. https://wellango.github.io/posts/2021/06/who-owns-cars-in-nyc/
There have been repeated studies (see https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2007/11/02/fact-check-congestion-pricing-is-not-a-regressive-tax or https://citylimits.org/2017/09/07/debate-fact-check-is-congestion-pricing-regressive/) that in NYC congestion pricing would not be a regressive tax, and in fact would be progressive given the composition of car ownership in the city. Couple this with the fact that less cars means a more pleasant experience for those walking and taking transit (the vast majority of New Yorkers, especially amongst the poor) it's clear that congestion pricing would be a good thing.
Oops, I replied before actually looking at the studies you put in there. That is good info.
I would still say that overall, opposing flat fuel taxes, tolls, and congestion taxes is a good stance, because in nearly all areas it is the workers who are tied to car ownership for their employment. We should be making it easier for workers to save time and money and have more time for organizing!
However, it appears in this case there is at least an argument in support of the tax. Although diverting existing gas and driving tolls and taxes instead of adding new ones might be better.
It is good that the money is going to fund transit.
I feel like a crazy person though being the only one to suggest that carbrained america has tied it's workers to the expense of driving and then ratchets up the cost in the name of fighting climate change or congestion if peace of mind and that that hurts workers. It's true.
Yeah your last point is correct, which is why having a congestion price that just makes it harder to drive with no increase in transit is stupid. Luckily that's not the case here, the congestion pricing is directly tied to expanding transit options for workers to get into the city.
Yeah, there's the IBX rail project which should help a lot with transit in the outer boroughs. Also the Q line expansion, which should help add more transit capacity to East Harlem. And there's a lot more that could be done.
I don't think the people who this is going to negatively affect can afford to live in Manhattan. They live outside and commute in.
The environmental and peace push is fine but it's really a NIMBY argument and separate from the extra cost on the workers.
Yeah the studies I linked show that it's not just folks who live in Manhattan, most workers commuting into Manhattan don't drive cars, and those that do are disproportionately wealthy.
The congestion pricing was only going to apply to cars driving downtown in Manhattan. The only people driving to work in downtown Manhattan are wealthy Americans who work a bullshit email job and commute from their oversized mcmansions in New Jersey or Long Island.
The money raised from the congestion pricing was also going to be put into public transit.
I know several gen-x and millennial working class folks who need to drive into Manhattan with their tools to do jobs in Manhattan. Offices don't just materialize and sadly its hard to bring ladders and boxes of power tools on the subway.
Yes, exactly.
Do they pay the bridge tolls out of their own pocket, or does their boss/customer pay the tolls?
Depends. At least one has a company truck that probably has tolls paid for, but the boss wont even pay for new tires so who knows.
The others are more or less contractors and take their own ride in and pay for the tolls.
There aren't service workers who drive to downtown Manhattan or Uber drivers? I would be supportive of a progressive charge, but simply implementing a new cost for people forced to drive isn't supporting the working class.
Think of it like this: A parking spot in downtown Manhattan costs more per hour than minimum wage. Working class people already cannot afford to drive there. It's cheaper, faster, and easier to take the subway. But white email job workers don't want to share a physical space with working/non-white people so they pay extra to drive in.
As far as Uber goes, the cost gets passed on to the customer so it doesn't really matter.
Also note that in Manhattan there is already a service charge tacked on to all Ubers, and you need to be a licensed cab driver by the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission to drive an Uber in the first place. It's not like other places in the United States where anybody can be an Uber driver.
Strange how NYC is somehow the only place in the world where service, technician, maintenance, etc workers magically don't own cars but still get their tools around town.
Think about it like this: if driving is a necessity for many working class jobs, even if it's already expensive, how does making it even more expensive help? Also, if it's already rich people who can afford driving in Manhattan, what will adding a congestion fee do to deter existing drivers who already pay out the butt?
Mate, what are you trying to insinuate? Do you really think that commercial van drivers pay tolls out of pocket instead of their employers paying for them? Or are you weeping for petit-bourgeois owner-operators who are just going to pass down the costs to their millionaire clients anyways?
Do you know what does hurt commercial van drivers? It's the unrelenting and crippling traffic congestion that NYC suffers from. And do you know what will relieve this traffic congestion? It's a congestion tax.
Congestion taxes empirically reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality downtown, as shown in London and Stockholm. This is not up for debate. This is proven by empirical evidence.
And so what if millionaire laptop workers drive anyways? Let them pay out the ass even more for the privilege! Society needs to stop subsidizing these useless drivers whose cars carry nothing but their ass and their laptop.
Listen, maybe there are special factors at play in Manhattan that make this better, but what I see on other jurisdictions, nay, every other jurisdiction, is that it is the minimum wage support worker and service workers who are forced to rely on car infrastructure, and forced to own cars, to get to their work. And those jobs are unforgiving. In every other case, increases to the cost of driving put the burden squarely on the workers. Yes, many "progressive voices" call for gas tax, toll roads, congestion taxes, etc. in the name of "pushing" people to get on public transit or carpool etc., but what it does is make it a market choice for those who can afford it, and put those who are barely scraping by in the situation of needing to choose between unaffordable driving, losing time from public transit, or finding new work.
I will admit that Manhattan is a unique place. Maybe this doesn't apply there. But in nearly every other circumstance, anything that makes driving more affordable puts the pressure directly on the most vulnerable workers.
Forget what you see in other jurisdictions, were talking about Manhattan here. Your points would make sense in Phoenix, Arizona, but they are completely irrelevant in New York City.
I don't think you even read the linked article. I don't think you are familiar with New York City at all. You are coming from a position of extreme ignorance when you say that minimum wage workers in NYC are relying on private vehicles to get to work when an hour of parking costs more than an hour's wages.
NYC is not Phoenix, Arizona. You do not need a car to live in NYC. Owning a car in NYC is not even optimal. 54.5% of households do not own a single car there. When you talk about how subsidizing motorists is essential for improving the plight of workers, you ignore how the extreme subsidizing of cars in North America commits systematic violence against everyone outside of a car. It bears repeating that 54.5% of NYC households do not own a single car. 54.5% of NYC households do not own a single car and therefore are always outside of a car.
https://blog.tstc.org/2017/04/21/car-free-new-york-city/
You are completely ignorant about the realities of transportation in NYC. You are talking about people wasting time by taking the subway when the subway is literally both faster and cheaper than driving in NYC.
NYC has a world-class public transit network that is on the level of European metropolises. If you were to suggest that a minimum wage worker would own a car and drive their car every day to work in one of those European metropolises, you would be laughed out of the room. You are completely ignorant about the realities of transportation in NYC.
I have already replied to you about how contractors and other obligatory drivers would benefit from congestion pricing. I'll repeat it for you again. Congestion pricing saves obligatory drivers tens of minutes per trip for only a few dollars per day. Time that is otherwise spent stuck in traffic is instead spent working and making money. Congestion pricing saves obligatory drivers' time, and time is money.
It once again bears repeating that it's absolutely incredible that you actually believe that McDonalds workers driving to work from the suburbs is a phenomenon that actually exists in NYC. I'm truly shocked at how you could be this ignorant. Are you someone who lives in some horrible sunbelt suburb where literally everyone drives literally everywhere for literally everything and has never visited anywhere else? If so, I'm sorry. You should visit NYC sometime and take the train. It's truly amazing how liberating being able to go places without a car is. It's something that everyone should experience at least once.
I'll just repeat this again: 54.5% of NYC households do not own a single car. The vast majority of working people commute via public transit. The congestion tax proposed is a tax on cars and a subsidy for public transit (the proceeds go towards funding transit). Therefore, the congestion tax is actually subsidy for transit, something that the vast majority of working people actually rely on every day to get to work.
Is this what Hexbear has become? What a shitshow. You seem really angry about this but I'm making like a really simple point and you are going on and on about New York, and transit as if I'm an idiot. Please read anything that's not about NYC. Theory, would be great. Read something about organizing read something about the reality of work today. Read about health care workers and service workers. Read about factory work or PSWs.
I'm not wrong that making driving more expensive is burden that harms workers. Sure, maybe NYC is special - but get over yourself. There are other, better ways that money could be raised for supporting transit infrastructure. I recognize that NYC has better transit than anywhere you've been - it's fine. It's nice that many people walk and bike. I'm glad to hear that the toll will go to support better transit. That seems like a good thing. My point is that in general market solutions price out the poorest. Cars are needed by many to get to their jobs. Increasing the price means that it costs people who don't have the option of taking a taxi, for example, or spending the hours on transit a day to go from borough to borough to their jobs.
Anyway.
But we're talking about transit in New York City. About implementing congestion pricing in New York City. Yes, congestion pricing in most places in the Untied States is a regressive tax on the poorest. That is not the case in New York City.
Here I found something that has some actual numbers in it too:
https://socialistrevolution.org/mobilize-labor-to-fight-nycs-congestion-tolls/
About NYC
This doesn't have any numbers! Yes, 300k workers commute to Manhattan by car. Who are those workers? Where are they from? How much do they make? Overwhelming they're vastly richer than those that take transit, and mostly from outside the city entirely. As we've tried to explain, the overwhelming majority of the working class in NYC does not own a car at all, and their daily lives will be made far better by a lessened presence of cars in the place where they work. The working class of NYC may not all live in Manhattan, but a good very many do commute to Manhattan and walk around during the week. Implementing a congestion charge reduces pollution and pedestrian deaths, both of which affect way more workers than the small amount of who may happen to drive into Manhattan.
EDIT: Of course you're linking to a Trotskyist rag that doesn't use any numbers outside of just telling me that 300k workers (again, that number is mostly wealthy people who can afford to park in Manhattan; parking alone is like $20 an hour, this has been shown by various different studies that the working class by and large does not drive into Manhattan) commute to Manhattan without examining what workers.
Fair, thanks for at least listening. I may have been off topic with the non-NYC angle. It just seems like nobody was even entertaining the concept that car taxes are bad for workers.
Hey you know that really annoying bullshit redditors always do where they ignore the entire point of a commenters thread, seemingly on purpose?
Stop doing that
I find it shocking that you're defending the idea that making driving more expensive is good in general from a worker perspective.
For the environment? Sure! Reducing congestion? Ok! But in almost every situation, looking at the car-centric world were in - those gains are paid for predominantly by the working class.
Yes, I'm not responding to stats about who owns cars in NYC. Maybe there is an argument and this will be carried out properly. Maybe it's even a good idea. It just looks to me that the labor groups and socialist groups are opposing this and we should listen to them.
The people who live on NYC are the ones who will get the gains of better air and reduced traffic, but it is the commuters who will pay. And I don't know if you've seen the numbers of how many working class folks drive into Manhattan daily. The last number I saw was 300,000.
Percentages don't tell the full story. These people are the ones who will be paying the tax. For example https://socialistrevolution.org/mobilize-labor-to-fight-nycs-congestion-tolls/
Anyway I've put multiple, good, socialist and labor opinions on why these kinds of taxes are bad in general.
I appreciate the good information about this particular case that really makes it look not that bad, but I also am listening to socialist and labor groups who oppose this tax in NYC as a burden on workers. I don't want to use the L word, but it seems like everyone here supports these taxes as free-market solutions and ignores the on the ground story. Liberalism. On my Hexbear.
Ironic
Are you sure? I would believe that tons of workers (maintenance, technicians, service) live outside of Manhattan and commute there, and probably many drive, since the subway is good, it doesn't reach everywhere
They do not commute in their personal cars, no.
Sure, they drive the company van or truck in to work, but who pays the gas and tolls for the company van or truck?
This is, at it's core, reinventing homo oeconomicus but for transportation. I don't mean this argumentative, but it stems from the idea that "were they alternatives good enough, people would not drive a car" which sounds reasonable, but given how carbrained society and many individuals are, just isn't true.
Unfortunately, it is true. What doesn't make sense from a leftwing perspective is making life less affordable for people who depend on driving to get to their work. Rich people don't give a shit about a few extra dollars to drive. Yes they'll whine about it, but it doesn't affect them really. Who it does affect is the maintenance worker who has to pay more to get to their work site with their safety equipment and tools, or the technician who comes in from out of city to work on fixing stuff.
I think commercial van drivers can afford to have their millionaire clients pay a few extra dollars for their services.
Who congestion pricing does affect is maintenance workers who would save tens of minutes per trip from reduced traffic congestion. In these tens of minutes, these workers could get to other clients and earn way more money instead of sitting still in unrelenting gridlock.
Look, I'm tired of this, as I feel like I'm just repeating myself. This is a market-based attempt at a solution. And it's basic econ101 that supply and demand market efforts just make whatever it is unaffordable for the poorest among us.
A standard leftwing position should be against market solutions to problems, unless there's very good evidence, and consultation, that this is what everyone wants.
You are still talking about how cars and driving should be affordable when they should not be.
Cars are an expense that are paid for in the blood of humans and animals. Cars literally kill millions every year. Air and noise pollution kill more.
While you are in support of cars, I am against cars. You think that poor people should own cars because of equity. I think that poor people should not own cars because nobody should own cars.
There is an ongoing global ecocide going on right now. The Anthropocene is the sixth mass extinction. I do not care that you care that cars should be affordable. Cars should not be affordable. Externalities should be priced in. Every time you drive, the world pays in blood.
Fuck cars.
P.S. I'm not sure where you got the idea that to be leftist is to be anti-market, especially to be opposed to all market-based incentives. China does a lot of that stuff. Maybe you should look into it. Congestion pricing is a market-based solution that is empirically shown to work, as seen in London and Stockholm. Please read the linked article next time before you comment. No investigation, no right to speak.
Also, I don't really know what to say in response to this. First of all, it's not "basic econ101" that "supply and demand market efforts just make whatever it is unaffordable for the poorest of us." An example of a free market good that has been made affordable to the poorest amongst us are basic smartphones. They cost like $20 now. But also I'm not sure how this is relevant at all to the topic of a congestion tax, which is specifically supposed to suppress demand to increase the amount of fixed supply that can be allocated to each user.
You can hate cars all you want. I see where you might have got the idea I love cars, but in fact like a reasonable person I look at car-centric infrastructure as a bad thing.
However, like a reasonable person, I can also see how workers are tied to that infrastructure. Workers need cars to hold jobs in today's society. Making driving more expensive makes it harder for working class people to get to their jobs.
I don't really know how much more straightforward I can be.
Bringing in environmental considerations to this seems on the surface like it's relevant but it's not. Yes, everyone needs to stop driving cars. Increasing the cost of driving will mean that people who have the ability will think about other methods of transport. Many people cannot, and making cars more expensive just puts the burden on poorer people to survive.
At some point, I think it's important to break down what talking about increasing the cost of driving as an environmental win actually means. It means that poorer people will not be able to afford to drive, and so will lose their jobs. The rich don't give a crap about a couple of bucks extra - they don't ride public transit for entirely different reasons.
Anyway, thanks for telling me very aggressively that I'm wrong, dumb, uninformed, and should not have an opinion. I actually think you haven't thought through your views and considered what effect environmental policy can have on vulnerable people. And if you think that means I support cars, well I'm not sure what to tell you.
Actually, this is a good overall view on where I'm coming from. This is about Toronto, but it's overall the gist I'm (poorly) attempting to communicate:
https://www.socialist.ca/node/3223
Here's another good one, but about London. Similar gist.
https://socialistworker.co.uk/news/can-congestion-charges-work/
Also, there was one I posted in a different comment specifically about NYC.