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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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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