That's the cost of having a functioning society. I don't have kids, yet I still pay school taxes because even though I'm not participating in that particular aspect of society, I still benefit from it.

Public biking infrastructure wouldn't be possible without the roads and right-aways we already have for cars and pedestrians; someone only using a mile of roadway on their daily commute is benefiting from the entirety of the transportation infrastructure that everyone has been paying into equally despite their level of use.

The guy biking or even walking to work every day I'm sure orders food occasionally, buy groceries, pays for utilities, or otherwise participates in commerce, all of which require roads and vehicles. He's getting a massive benefit from something he doesn't directly use.

I don't think your op was arguing against roads, I think they were more arguing that the cost algorithm is wonky for those roads - for some reason, people that chose the significantly more road- and space- and environmentally- damaging option of the SUV while on that road are paying the same to use it as the bicyclist.

The cost structure of most roads is that the cost is in having them exist independent of how much they're used. Most of what causes road maintenance to be required is weather rather than traffic. Moreover, if you have an empty road that nobody is using, you can't save up the unused capacity and use it later.

And as for the environmental damage, that is clearly the bailiwick of fuel taxes rather than congestion pricing.

So the only thing congestion pricing could be good for is to reduce congestion, i.e. suppress demand. But you don't want to suppress demand -- you don't want people to stay home instead of patronizing local businesses etc. The problem isn't too much demand. Demand is good. The problem is insufficient supply.

In some cases, particularly in suburban areas, when there isn't enough supply you can solve it by expanding the roads. In urban areas you typically end up with alternatives like increasing housing density near mass transit hubs, to shift the demand away from the roads because there isn't space to expand them. But in any case what you want isn't to eliminate the demand, it's to satisfy it somehow. Because once you have enough supply to satisfy the demand, you no longer have congestion.

>. But you don't want to suppress demand -- you don't want people to stay home instead of patronizing local businesses etc. The problem isn't too much demand. Demand is good. The problem is insufficient supply.

This is not a choice between people staying home and patronizing local businesses. People are not driving into the congestion zone in Manhattan during rush hour to patronize local businesses. They're going to work. They are going to go to work one way or another. You realize there are other options besides driving alone in a car and sitting at home, right? If people have to pay the full cost of driving by themselves, they might instead choose to carpool, take public transportation, bike, telecommute, or other options.

Do you honestly believe people who take public transportation don't go to coffee shops? This is Manhattan we are talking about. You walk out of the subway...there's a coffee shop. You actually see it because it's on the walk from the subway to your office. You're not parking in an underground garage and getting directly into an elevator. You get your coffee before or after you get on the transportation. Obviously you don't stop in the middle for it. That is a ridiculous strawman.

> you don't have your car at work to go anywhere on your lunch break either.

Dude. Again. We are talking about downtown Manhattan, not some suburban office park. Nobody needs to drive anywhere for lunch. There are hundreds of places to get lunch within walking distance.

> Options that are worse, by definition, or they would already have chosen them.

They are worse because you are currently able to offload the negative externalities of your driving onto everyone else. Now that you have to pay for those, you can weigh the true cost of driving vs. the cost of other options.

> And one of those options is to not go to work -- you take a job closer to where you live at the cost of lower pay, because you've been priced out of the one you had before. That is not a social benefit.

That's fine. How is that not a social benefit? If it encourages people to find work closer to home, that means less transportation, less pollution. Everyone wins. On the other hand, maybe it encourages employers in the city to pay more to offset the costs. That's good too.

>Compare this to improving the alternatives. Build more housing in the city,

This is not mutually exclusive. We can have congestion pricing and build more housing in the city. With fewer cars running around thanks to congestion pricing, that means we don't need as much parking, so there's more space to build housing. There you go.

> And then you pay more for lower quality, because if you have to buy it in a specific location there is less competition and they know it.

Ok, I'm beginning to suspect you are arguing just for the sake of arguing, or have possibly never been to Manhattan or any other major city. Where do you think there is more competition among coffee shops:

1. Downtown in one of the most densely populated cities in the world.

2. A suburban strip mall.

Seriously, just think about this a little bit.

> This is all about marginal costs and competition. There is a place you love to go for lunch, but it's three miles from where you work and you don't have a long enough lunch break to walk there and back. There are six places right across the street that aren't as good.

You're still thinking like this is a suburban office park. Nobody. I mean, not one single person, who works in Manhattan below Central Park is currently traveling 3 miles anywhere, by any means for lunch. Nobody. There are not "6 mediocre places across the street" there are "hundreds of restaurants ranging from hot dog carts to Michelin-starred restaurants" within a 10 block radius. Seriously, visit a city once in your life.

> Because it's a regressive tax that generates perverse incentives. Today you make $50,000 working in the city. Introduce congestion pricing and you would have to pay $5,000 in congestion fees a year, so you take a $40,000/year job somewhere else because all the extra $10,000 would now be going to state and federal taxes and congestion charges.

What? Congestion pricing is going to force people to give up $10000 rather than spend $5000? It's somehow going to make people forget how to do math? That seems unlikely. The state and federal taxes already exist and have to be paid regardless of whether there's congestion pricing, so those are a non-issue. The only difference would be the congestion charge, which from what I've seen, will probably be more like $3k per year, and most of the people driving in to work in Manhattan are making significantly more than $50k. For those that aren't, there will be subsidies.

If you want to shoot yourself in the foot and take a massive pay-cut rather than pay a nominal surcharge as some form of protest, well, your prerogative I guess.

> Or you can build more housing without parking and there are fewer cars running around, and then you don't need congestion pricing.

The congestion isn't coming from the people who live there. They can already walk or take the subway. The congestion is people driving in from elsewhere.

> Where do you think there is more competition among coffee shops

The comparison isn't between coffee shops in Manhattan and coffee shops in the suburbs, it's between coffee shops within ten minutes of your office in Manhattan as measured at a walking pace compared to the speed of a motorized vehicle.

> Nobody. I mean, not one single person, who works in Manhattan below Central Park is currently traveling 3 miles anywhere, by any means for lunch. Nobody.

Because the transit situation is such a mess. You can get away with it because of the density, but that doesn't make it good that it's so inconvenient to get from one end of the island to the other. You have a huge relative advantage and then give half of it back because the MTA sucks.

> What? Congestion pricing is going to force people to give up $10000 rather than spend $5000? It's somehow going to make people forget how to do math? That seems unlikely. The state and federal taxes already exist and have to be paid regardless of whether there's congestion pricing, so those are a non-issue.

Apparently some people have already forgotten how to do math.

If you make $50,000, the various governments take $5000 or more of the top $10,000 in taxes and benefits phase outs. So if you made $40,000 instead, you wouldn't have $10,000 less money, you would have $5000 less money because you would also pay $5000 less in taxes. If keeping the $50,000 job also costs you $5000 in congestion charges, the job that "pays more" no longer does.

The taxes on the extra $10,000 don't have to be paid regardless, if you make $40,000 instead of $50,000. There is $10,000 in total being lost, but $5000 is being lost by the employee (which is equal to the congestion charge) and the other $5000 is being lost by the government (who doesn't get to choose which job the employee takes).

> For those that aren't, there will be subsidies.

Which makes no sense at all, because then they won't be deterred from driving at those times even though they're the most price sensitive and that's how congestion pricing operates. Is converting it from a tax on the poor to benefit the rich to a tax on the middle class to benefit the rich supposed to be some great advantage? And that requires you to raise the congestion charge even higher to achieve the same level of deterrence.

> The congestion isn't coming from the people who live there. They can already walk or take the subway. The congestion is people driving in from elsewhere.

That's the point. So you build more housing in the city and then more people can live there and take the subway.

> If you make $50,000, the various governments take $5000 or more of the top $10,000 in taxes and benefits phase outs. So if you made $40,000 instead, you wouldn't have $10,000 less money, you would have $5000 less money because you would also pay $5000 less in taxes. If keeping the $50,000 job also costs you $5000 in congestion charges, the job that "pays more" no longer does.

> The taxes on the extra $10,000 don't have to be paid regardless, if you make $40,000 instead of $50,000. There is $10,000 in total being lost, but $5000 is being lost by the employee (which is equal to the congestion charge) and the other $5000 is being lost by the government (who doesn't get to choose which job the employee takes).

My friend, you are seriously, seriously confused about taxes. People making $50k per year are not in the 50% marginal tax bracket. If you want to work this out with real numbers, you'll see it's nowhere near as dire as you're pretending.

I would be willing to wager there is almost nobody making $50k who drives to work in lower Manhattan by themselves. They would already be priced out by the current tolls and parking. People at that wage are going to be taking the subway. You're arguing for a figment of your imagination.

> People making $50k per year are not in the 50% marginal tax bracket.

You're not counting state and local taxes and benefits phase outs. The benefits phase outs are a bear -- for low and middle income people they often exceed the taxes.

> I would be willing to wager there is almost nobody making $50k who drives to work in lower Manhattan by themselves.

To wear a suit and work in an office? No, probably not. But many service workers don't get paid very well and nonetheless work in Manhattan. And it's hard for people making that amount of money to afford to live in Manhattan either -- because there isn't enough housing there.

> They would already be priced out by the current tolls and parking.

This is why the current tolls are also bad. (And Uber and Lyft have got a solution for the parking.)

But what about the principle is dependent on the income level to begin with? It's just an example. Isn't it also bad to force out the person making $70,000 who then takes another job somewhere else for $60,000?

How is congestion pricing better than building enough housing in the city that everyone who works there can afford to live there instead of having to commute in?

> But what about the principle is dependent on the income level to begin with? It's just an example. Isn't it also bad to force out the person making $70,000 who then takes another job somewhere else for $60,000?

You have to use real numbers. The congestion charge is going to be about $3k per year, which is NOT a $10k difference in gross income at this level, no matter how many taxes you include. If someone happens to find a job that pays exactly the perfect amount less where they break even on paying the congestion charge, well, good for them, I guess? Salary is not the only reason people take jobs, and it's likely they'd have more opportunities to advance in the city anyway.

>How is congestion pricing better than building enough housing in the city that everyone who works there can afford to live there instead of having to commute in?

Here are several ways it is better:

1. Building housing costs money. Congestion fares raise money.

2. The city is generally not in the business of building housing. This is something the private sector does.

3. Again, there is absolutely no reason we can't do both.

> I think they were more arguing that the cost algorithm is wonky for those roads

The cost algorithm is wonky because the value algorithm is wonky. Actually, there IS no value algorithm. Even if the data were available (and it wasn't Big Brotherly for the gov to collect and keep it) there's no way to calculate the individual value extracted per person, it's NP-ish yeah?

All motor vehicles are already registered with the state. The dimensions of unmodified vehicles are already a matter of public record, easily looked up based on make and model. Seems to me that all you'd have to do is a simple cross-check of the person's vehicle size before charging them. Bikes and motorcycles would only need a separate fixed cost for each.

Honestly, it seems like a pretty simple matter to look up a car's make and model from its license plate/EZ-Pass registration. You could do it on the spot before charging the toll.

You could even just base it on the class of license you need to operate the vehicle, if you wanted to keep it very efficient.

All I'm saying is that it's not so easy to figure out how much value a person gets from the road system based on what vehicle they drive.

For example, I ride a bike and don't own a car. Should I pay taxes to maintain a freeway I never use? What about the day that I get hit by a car and the ambulance takes that freeway to and from the hospital?

Traffic is a problem, I agree. But to me congestion pricing seems like economic segregation.

(In the example, should I be able to, say, pay an extra $100 and get priority lane scheduling?)

And that creates the social incentive to have a very large vehicle, because it indicates social status, because it costs more!

Subsidizing harmful and stupid behavior is the cost of living in a non-functioning society.

There is nothing wrong with having road infrastructure to move people and goods between urban centres.

There is however, a lot wrong with designing cities around the use of the most inefficient form of transportation, which increasingly looks like one person in a giant gas powered SUV or pickup truck going to work or the grocery store.

There is a reason that cities with functioning political systems are tearing down urban freeways and moving toward narrower, human centred street design. These are highly desirable places to live, and people are clamoring to move to these communities.

If you ever have the pleasure of riding on a properly funded and maintained rapid transit system (of which there are very few in the US), you will know that it is preferable to being stuck in traffic in a private vehicle.

Your logic, as usual in the US, is predicated on cars being a de facto unassailable guarantee from God, and all other modes of transport being simply blessed to use them.

You don't need a road for public biking infrastructure. The BEST public biking infrastructure doesn't come anywhere near a road.

But, unless they're driving an electric car, wouldn't we expect that they do in the form of gas taxes?

In most states, EV owners pay a lot more in registration fees to make up for the gas tax disparity.

Not to mention they pay the state some (much smaller) amount in tax on their electricity bill

When was the last time US raised gas taxes? I understand those weren't indexed to inflation for a long while, not to mention adjustments for changing usage patterns.

The vast majority of road maintenance and construction is paid for by the states, counties, and cities. Those entities raise gas taxes all the time, or raise property taxes to pay for the roads.