Congestion pricing seems like a good idea, doesn’t it?
My first encounter with congestion pricing was in Singapore in the late 1990s; [dot] when you went into certain areas of the city, all you saw was taxis. Personal cars are an expensive luxury anyway, so keeping the roads clear for taxis makes a sort of sense. Besides, the costs can be passed on to the customer, so it doesn’t really matter to the taxi operator. That’s what the driver of my taxi said, anyway.
[link]
Back when I was working on Wall St. a lot in the 1990s, the streets down there were more or less permanently taken over by Lincoln town cars and the occasional limo or taxi. Anyone who’s got a town car service is not worried about the extra tax, and getting all the jalopies and Uber drivers out of the area will just make it less crowded, or at least it’ll be crowded with shiny black gas guzzlers.
Naturally, these systems encourage cheating. In order to collect the taxes and levy fines, Singapore built a powerful infrastructure of toll systems (in the picture, you can see the transponder readers on the overhead, just like Fastpass systems here in the US) – hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to catch the cheaters when, ironically, the worst of the cheaters are riding in the limos. It’s a good application, we are told, for license-plate scanning technology. Never mind that it hasn’t worked well in Pennsylvania [stderr] because the scanners can’t tell a Virginia stolen car’s plate from a Pennsylvanian’s plate.
[wired]
There are plenty of reasons for outrage coming out of Washington, DC, these days, but this week the divided region found a common enemy. The express lanes on Interstate 66 near DC, previously reserved for vehicles carrying two or more people, opened up to solo travelers. Except those single-occupancy vehicles have to pay a toll, one that fluctuates according to demand. The world watched, aghast, as tolling prices hit $40 for folks headed into the capital on Tuesday morning.
The idea was sold as traffic reduction but if you have driven in Singapore, lately, you’ll have noticed that it only reduced inexpensive traffic. The same could be said for the I-66 “high occupancy vehicle” lane: in Washington a “high occupancy vehicle” has 2 people in it. Washingtonians have been known to buy lifelike fake passenger dolls so they could take advantage of the less congested lane; it’s typical of the American automotive mentality that people would rather buy a $1200 doll than have to save money by joining a carpool. Washington’s public transportation system, meanwhile, is decrepit and falling apart, and new line construction has been overshadowed by massive cost overruns that have as much to do with corruption as rising property values.
When I read the coverage about this topic, I’m always left scratching my head and wondering if I am the only one who sees it this way. People around the world have been so acculturated to the idea of taxes on luxuries that they never seem to realize that such taxes simply serve to increase inequality of outcome. Or, perhaps they’re hoping that Elon Musk’s hyperloop gets built and periodically turns a bunch of Los Angeles oligarchs into squashy red paste. It’s their fault for not being able to afford a helicopter like Musk’s or Bezos’.
Few people also seem to look at the effects on non-load roads that suddenly become loaded roads. When the “Cross County Connector” outside of Washington went up, people started driving at high speeds through formerly quiet neighborhoods. That wouldn’t have mattered if they had been poor people’s neighborhoods but some of them were Potomac, Maryland where people like Michael Moore, and assorted diplomats live. The last time I drove in Potomac it was late at night and my car’s tank was on “empty” and I couldn’t find a gas station because the local residents have turned the streets into a warren of speed bumps, banned convenience stores and gas stations, and made the area inhospitable for travelers who hop off the freeway looking for road services. The next step is gated communities and private security guards (or “off duty police” cashing in on their badges). Not too surprisingly, the neighbors of these people “get it” [nj]
The last time I took the NJ Trans train into New York, from Netcong, the train was dilapidated, late, and smelled like pee. Every car smelled like pee. Since then I take a commercial bus from Allentown. Buses really jam the New York streets around the port authority building, but it’s not Wall St. and it’s not a rich neighborhood so … the overwhelming sentiment in the US remains “screw people who aren’t rich”, which is surpassingly odd since most Americans aren’t rich.
In Guangzhou, the Chinese are experimenting with the same thing except they’re more overt about it. Restrict private vehicle ownership by making it more expensive. [nyt] Does anyone want to bet that idea was thought up by an oligarch or aspirant to the oligarchy?
Back in 2013 I was an invited speaker at a security conference in Qatar, funded by some royal heir. It was lavish: first class seats on Emirates Air, a bentley picked me up at the foot of the jetway and drove me in through customs (I stopped and sat in padded comfort while the driver ran into the customs building with my passport and asserted that the person in his car matched the picture on the passport) Driving in quiet darkness to the Ritz Carlton in Doha, I asked my minder, who was along for the ride to make sure I checked in smoothly, “where is all the traffic?” and they informed me that there is a private VIP road to the airport, for all the bentleys and lamborghinis. Then I stupidly said (forgetting that I was in a monarchy) “Thank you for giving me the royal treatment.” They looked at me and said deadpan, “the royals have their own airports.” The interior of the bentley smelled like pears’ soap and leather.
The reality of commuter traffic is that every city needs nice, efficient, clean, safe public transportation. If it’s absolutely necessary to throw a bone to the wealthy, have first class subway cars, like the Paris Metro used to. Maybe even have a VIP train every so often, with VIP lounge chairs, a DJ and Cristal and cocaine at the bar, for all I care. Bezos and Musk’ll take their helicopters, which, I wish reeked of pee.
I have pictures I shot of the suite at the Ritz in Doha; it was absurd: a dining room for 11, a walk-in closet the size of my bedroom and a bedroom the size of the first floor of my house. I wish they had just given me the money for the tickets and hotel room and let me fly tourist class and stay at the Hyatt and pocket the $20,000 or so difference.
You would have probably just blown it on a power-hammer or a blast furnace.
In theory, I generally support taxes on luxuries. If some rich person whom I’ll never know has to pay tax money that will be used to financially support some homeless person whom I’ll never know, that seems like a good deal. Personally, I’m neither a rich person who pays these taxes, nor a potential recipient of social welfare, so taxes on luxury goods don’t influence me. In practice, however, it gets more complicated. In the USA, owning a car isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. A tax on “luxury goods” that ends up hurting middle class people who are trying to obtain some necessity is no longer something I can support. Then there’s also the pesky fact that in the USA tax money isn’t used to financially support poor people, instead it’s used to fund the military.
As for taxes making luxury goods more expensive and thus also harder to obtain for middle class people, well, this is where my opinion gets complicated. Luxury goods are expensive and considered luxuries due to their scarcity. Some of them are simply scarce (for example, paintings created by some famous artist). Many other luxury goods are scarce due to being resource intensive and devastating for the environment. Private jets and mansions, to a somewhat lesser extent also unnecessarily large homes or private cars are all unsustainable and harmful for the environment. I don’t want more middle class people to have access to these luxury goods that are part of an unsustainable and environmentally harmful lifestyle. Yes, taxing private cars or large homes is pretty damn unfair. Instead of using taxes to make these goods too expensive for the middle class, I’d rather see them banned altogether. I’d be thrilled if cars were banned in the center of the city where I live. It’s an 800 years old city with narrow streets and poor air circulation. Most streets are too narrow to accommodate space for cars, bicycles and pedestrians. The fact that cars are given a priority and so much space means that cyclists must risk their lives driving between the cars (last summer I saw a cyclist lying in a puddle of his own blood in front of my home). The huge amount of cars in the city also means that I am forced to breathe shitty air. I’d be happy if private cars were banned altogether. Unfortunately, all the local politicians are rich car owners who’d never ban cars from entering the city center. Thus, if somebody proposed a tax on cars, I’d accept that as the next best alternative. A tax would at least somewhat reduce the amount of cars in the city, thus making life a bit nicer for cyclists, pedestrians and public transport. Yes, that would be unfair as the rich would still keep on driving cars in the city. But I’m not naïve, I know that fairness is unimaginable in this kind of situation. Even if private cars were banned, politicians would still invent some “special permits,” and the rich would figure out some way how to have access to cars or at least better transportation than what’s available for the rest of us.
Of course, I’m living in Europe, here we have good public transport, thus cars are luxuries rather than necessities. I’m aware that it’s different in the USA. I’m also aware that my opinion is influenced by the fact that I don’t earn much money. I made an intentional decision to work less than 10 hours per week and learn to live with as little money as possible. I value free time higher than spending money. By your standards, I’m pretty poor. I’m not one of those middle class people who might aspire to obtaining some luxuries. For me a car is a luxury just like a private jet, because I can afford neither of them. I’m perfectly happy with there being a tax on luxury items, because I couldn’t afford to buy this stuff even if there were no taxes at all.
Is there really any other way how to restrict private vehicle ownership? Right now, there are too many cars in the developed world. They harm the environment. Thus we do need to restrict private vehicle ownership. A proposal to just ban them sounds naïve for me. Firstly, politicians who make these decisions happen to be rich car owners, so they just wouldn’t pass a law that bans cars. Secondly, even if some country banned ownership of luxury goods, the rich would still figure out ways how to have access to these goods anyway. For example, the Soviet Union forbade people from living in large private homes. That was declared to be bourgeois and anti-communistic. People were expected to live in small communal apartments. But do you seriously believe that rich party members lived in small communal apartments? Of course they didn’t. They lived in fancy and large private homes, which were just called in different names. Of course, creating good public transportation systems and cycling roads does help to reduce the number of private vehicles. But that’s insufficient. People perceive cars as status symbols, hence many try to obtain them. Making private vehicle ownership more expensive does help to reduce the amount of cars polluting the air we all have to breathe.
I agree.
And the wealthy will still choose to drive cars, because those are seen as a status symbol.
Ah, yes. Congestion pricing. Here in Ontario we have highway 407 which is a toll road north of Toronto and running parallel to Canada’s busiest highway, the 401. It’s a short highway (138 km) meant to decongest the greater Toronto area and it uses plate reading technology and transponders. It scans you on and off the road and you pay according to the distance travelled. The Mr. V and I use it whenever we go east,
but it isn’t cheap. Unfortunately the toll-free 401 is incredibly busy, has near constant construction and an over abundance of big trucks and is just generally unpleasant. It once took us almost 5 hours to get from one side of Toronto to the other, a trip we can make in about an hour if we pay the toll. It’s a luxury we budget for.
I’m all for taxing luxuries and fancy stuff. A social safety net costs money and the middle class and the poor help support it so why shouldn’t the wealthy. They reap most of the same benefits (health care, infrastructure, police and fire) and proportionally their tax burden is not as much of a burden as mine is. Those who can afford luxuries can afford the tax on luxuries. People who can’t afford luxuries sometimes can’t afford the tax on a simple pair of shoes.
Also, now I want to see that hotel room. And the silver gummy bears. Don’t forget them!
They have a congestion charge in London that is aimed at lowering air pollution as much as at congestion, different charges depending on the on road emissions down to free for electric vehicles (at least it was initially). London does have an extensive public transport system trains, the tube, trams and buses. I think that more UK cities will go this way, particularly as it’s the only way to even start to tackle the serious air pollution in our cities that is killing people and damaging childrens lung development. There have been some fairly high profile cases relating deaths of asthmatics to air pollution levels, one family is trying to get their daughter’s death certificate amended to death from air pollution; she was eight and had a history of hospital admissions that were directly related to high air pollution episodes as was her last admission. That kind of story, your kids lungs being damaged along side the huge increase in childhood asthma is what may change attitudes.
A good site discussing many of the same issues:
https://www.strongtowns.org/
It took a few weeks of scanning the posts and reading the few I found interesting but over time I’ve come to value the way they come at things. How some approaches reliably fail to achieve the stated goals even as we have created rules that try to force us to use them.
What we are doing in the UK,
https://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/blog/cleaning-capital%E2%80%99s-air-london%E2%80%99s-new-ultra-low-emission-zone
It’s more about air pollution than about congestion now, though it started off as a congestion charge.
Amsterdam seems to be taking a different approach to cars in the centre-ville.
I don’t see that it will seriously affect taxis nor those who have chauffeurs but it looks like it could reduce some of the pressures such as Ieva is talking about.
Combine this with a few tow-trucks …. I am a great believer in tow-trucks if they are used properly.
https://www.neatorama.com/2019/04/01/Urban-Decluttering-Amsterdam-s-Plan-To-Remove-11-000-Parking-Spaces/