Congestion Pricing FTW!

Post #323,589 by Another Scott 3/27/10 4:19:40 PM Reply	Congestion Pricing FTW! http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=2298 The big obstacle to passing a new, comprehensive transportation bill is the lack of agreement over a source of financing. The traditional source of funding for federal transportation programs is the gas tax, which, as we all know, hasnÂt been increased since 1993, which means its real value has fallen considerably. And, it seems to be taken as given that any new increase is unthinkable, although IÂm not sure why. Of course, there are other potential funding sources out there, like, say, tolling. But: [...] He's right. Congestion pricing (AKA tolls with varying prices per time of day, etc.) make a lot of sense. They would force changes in behavior, reduce congestion, and raise revenue that would help people who don't have (or don't use) cars. (via Yglesias) Cheers, Scott.
Post #323,596 by pwhysall 3/27/10 9:25:44 PM Reply	AKA movement tax It's evil. And they don't reduce congestion. At all. Because people who drive in city centres generally aren't doing it for shitzngigglez. >points at London< I don't like it when people go, like government equivalents of people who just got their iPhone, "Hey, we've got a tax for that". The right thing to do is to invest in the public transport infrastructure to make it cheaper and more convenient than driving. Don't listen to them when they say they'll use the money raised from congesting charging to do this. They're lying.
Post #323,597 by Another Scott 3/27/10 11:51:08 PM Reply	Yeahbut... Toll roads are one of the few ways of raising transportation revenue that seem to be able to get through legislatures these days. E.g. http://www.virginiahotlanes.com/ In 1980 Republican presidential candidate John Anderson had a proposal to increase the US gasoline tax by $0.10 per gallon for 5 years. Though I voted for him, he didn't win. ;-) The "trust fund" that supposedly funds work on the Interstate highways regularly runs low on cash these days. Apparently the last time that there was talk of raising the federal gasoline taxes was 2005 - http://en.wikipedia....8United_States%29 . As the original link points out, funding for transportation infrastructure has been strangled in the US for a long time. In the last few years bridges have collapsed, people have been killed in subway train collisions, and there's the increasing problem of gridlocked traffic. Just last week I had the pleasure of sitting in traffic for 35 minutes in a stretch of road that should only take about 2 minutes.... :-( There's no longer going to be enough lanes for everyone who wants to drive into DC or London or LA to get to work by 9:00 to do so in a reasonable amount of time. Toll roads and/or congestion pricing is a good way to force employees and employers to find ways to avoid the tax, or pay the tax and in the process support necessary infrastructure. Reading the Wikipedia article, it's clear that the London Congestion Charge hasn't been a funding windfall for transportation. But it does seem to have substantially reduced traffic and that's a good thing. http://en.wikipedia....congestion_charge Yeah, taxes suck. But it's the price of living in a functioning society. I would have no problem paying a DC congestion tax, myself. Cheers, Scott.
Post #323,599 by pwhysall 3/28/10 4:17:20 AM Reply	Don't believe the hype Maybe it's different over there. Toll roads here are a washout. The M6 Toll is substandard and losing money fast. It'll lose a lot more a lot faster when it comes time to renew the surface and upgrade the technology on it. It's also gone up in price; a fiver to drive 26 miles is taking the mickey, quite frankly. Read the numbers carefully. A reduction of 60,000 vehicles in six months sounds like a lot. It's not; it's a diddly 330-ish vehicles a day. In practical terms, it's made piss-all difference to driving in central London. Everyone who was there had to be there anyway; the difference is that now TfL make a lot of money out of running the CC scheme, and the buses are still shit. TfL are very, very good at using extrapolations to "prove" that the CC is doing good. A simple drive across central London would tell you different.
Post #323,606 by Another Scott 3/28/10 8:02:23 AM Reply	Thanks. What seems to be a comparable toll road here is the "Dulles Greenway". It's 22km (14 mi) and the maximum car toll is $4.75 at present. You're getting a bargain. ;-) But until recently there were many tolls on the east coast that were $0.35 or so for fairly long distances - some tiny amount that probably hasn't been raised in 50 years. E.g. $9.05 max for a car to cover the 113 mile length of the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey ($0.08 per mile) - http://www.state.nj....=Start+Calculator In general, we in the US don't pay enough to keep up our transportation infrastructure. (Yes, it would suck to have to pay $20 in tolls every day. But if someone is driving 225 miles a day, they're spending at least that much in gas if they've got an average car - presumably their job makes up for it...) http://dullesgreenwa...information.shtml http://www.macquarie...lles-greenway.htm (I haven't paid much attention to the HOT lanes on the Beltway yet because they're not operational.) Cheers, Scott.
Post #323,608 by scoenye 3/28/10 9:53:08 AM Reply	And the other outcome of the CC The number plate recognition cameras have flown the coop. There are now some 10000 spread through the countryside used for general surveillance, collecting 14M license plates a day. The data is fed to a private organization set up by the cops. http://www.theregist...2/03/police_anpr/
Post #323,609 by scoenye 3/28/10 10:20:09 AM Reply	A lot of that is up to the states I don't think changing the federal part of the gas tax is going to change much: FHWA coughs up 80% of the cost of highway construction projects, the states need to pony up the matching 20%. At the start of the fiscal year, the 20% is in the transportation budget. Later on, that pot proves too tempting and the money is used to plug hole in the general fund budgets. The Feds then rescind their 80% and the roads deteriorate further. Boosting the fed contribution to 100% will most likely set up "leakage" that will make Medicare fraud look like pocket change because there will no longer be any local incentive that the project is done right.

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