Someone should tell these people about gasoline (or electricity) if they think "having to pay to use your car" is an insane notion.
this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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I asked Google and told me that's like one mile distance.
This fucker is serious that he has no other way of traveling that then by car?
I bet taking the car actually takes longer if there's any traffic at all.
The one time I was in NYC, I was flabbergasted by the traffic because it was literally the opposite of what I expected from hearing about it and having seen jokes about it for literally my entire life.
There was basically no cars on the road, but so many people on the sidewalk it was hard to walk anywhere unless you walked in the street. Also everytime I hailed a cab to go somewhere thinking it was pretty far, they would be like "Bruh! You don't need to pay me for that, it's literally just down the street!" So I ended up walking all over the city and never taking any kind of vehicle.
Driving in Manhattan is for truck deliveries and taxis only.
If you try to drive a car from point to point in Manhattan, you're an asshole.
That goes for every densely populated city. In Europe we have similar problems and still there are those SUV Assholes driving their cars in areas even delivery vehicles fear to enter. (Imagine Roads made for horse carriages... they are now one way and barely fit those dick extensions)
25 years ago, I felt safer riding a bicycle in Manhattan than I did in Boston...
Car owner.
Congestion fees are a very capitalist way of solving it. This law basically exists for everyone except rich people (i,e. Those who can afford to pay fees).
All this is based on a false assumption that money has an objective value. But in reality, 1$ means different things for different classes.
In NYC in particular though, I have a feeling that very few low income people drive into Manhatten instead of taking transit.
According to Wikipedia "Low-income residents receive a 50 percent discount on daytime tolls after their first ten trips into the congestion zone in a calendar month". So to some extent the system does take your concern into account.
Well it pretends to but no system like that will equalise it.
Do the same as we do with fines, based on income.
So that the congestion charge for a billionaire is also actually significant. Enough for then to reconsider using a car.
Billionaires using cars aren't the ones causing congestion though, there just aren't enough of them
No, but it's tied to your income, so it doesn't matter what you make. Poor people should have it practically for free (but still for a small nominal fee) as they're often completely broke. Someone making an average salary should pay an average sum, a wealthy person should pay more and an ultrawealthy person should pay even more.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/finnish-businessman-hit-with-121000-speeding-fine
That's one of the world's largest speeding fines, and that guy isn't actually even that rich. Like he's barely in double digit millions. That's honestly not that rich on a global scale.
I tried looking for someone with "just" ten times the estimated net worth, so someone worth 100 million. But top 25 richest hollywood actors and #25 is still 170 million. When the fines grow progressively, then those people would pay something like 4-5 million in a fine, probably.
Like when you get a fine of any sorts, unless it's for a very basic infraction, it's going to be day fines. So if you commit an infraction that you don't go to prison for or get probation, you'll have day fines. A day fine is equal to roughly your daily income. You can get 1-120 dayfines for an infraction and if you're getting multiple infractions at the same time it's at most 240 day fines.
The point here is that it would actually be good tax income and it would remove the effect of any regulations being cheaper to break for rich people, which is inherently very unjust.
Yes but the money goes 100% to public transit so it benefits the lower income public transport commuters too.
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I mean, you are right and the fee should be proportional to wealth, but it is not gonna affect the poor people because they use the public transit. Maybe anywhere else in the US may be true that "even the homeless need/have a car" but NYC would be the exception.
What I've read says that you aren't charged unless you cross the boundary. If you reside inside the zone and never leave and enter again, you won't be charged a toll.
Even better, he's north of the boundary. It ends at 60th st.
I think his complaint is that he lives outside the boundary (on 61st at 5th) but that because of one way streets he is forced into the tolled area even if he wants to go the other way.
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