Congestion pricing and change rage


A road sign announcing NYC's Congestion Relief Zone

[Previous: Cars shouldn’t be a necessity for living]

I’ve always believed that all interesting moral problems reduce to the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Briefly summarized, this is a situation where it’s better for each individual to make the selfish choice. But if everyone does that, it guarantees disaster, whereas everyone would have wound up better off if only they’d been able to cooperate.

To be sure, there are other moral problems that don’t fit this framework, like racists or religious fundamentalists who want to force their own beliefs on everyone. Obviously, with the state of things as they are, these people are huge threats – but at the level of pure philosophy, they present no challenge. It doesn’t take any serious consideration to dismiss them.

The real moral dilemmas arise when there’s a true clash of interests: individuals’ selfish desires against the collective good. Who should sacrifice, and under what circumstances? How do we prevent free-riders and ensure that those who contribute are repaid in kind?

Traffic in big cities is a classic Prisoner’s Dilemma problem. Most people see cars as more convenient than buses or trains, since you can drive on your own schedule and go straight to your destination.

But if everyone thinks that way, the system collapses. No matter how many roads you build, it’s impossible to accommodate everyone wanting to drive everywhere all the time. Massive traffic jams snarl every highway and street, and no one can get anywhere. Too many people choosing the selfish solution ensures a worse experience for everyone than if they had just taken mass transit.

Then there are all the other externalities of car culture. There’s noise pollution that disrupts people’s sleep. There’s air pollution that causes asthma and other health problems. There are the injuries and deaths from crashes and pedestrians hit by reckless drivers. There are the huge swaths of valuable space given over to parking – which raises rents and real-estate prices on the space left over for human beings to live.

This is where congestion pricing comes in.

After months of delay by our cowardly governor, New York has finally rolled out its congestion pricing program. It’s a modest $9 toll to drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan during business hours.

Congestion pricing increases the monetary cost of driving to be more in line with the true cost. It doesn’t take away driving as an option for people who need it. But for those who don’t, it’s an extra nudge to consider walking, biking or mass transit. It also benefits people who have to drive – because they’ll enjoy faster, easier commutes with less traffic.

Even in just a few days, there are encouraging signs that congestion pricing is working. It’s caused a dramatic drop in traffic on previously car-choked streets and bridges. The revenue will fund badly-needed improvements to the subway system.

All in all, congestion pricing is a great example of public policy working as intended. So, predictably, New York Republicans flew into a lather of rage over it.

For example, MAGA city councilwoman Vickie Paladino – yes, a sitting elected official – encouraged people to destroy the cameras that read license plates:

City Councilmember Vickie Paladino, a Republican who represents parts of northeast Queens, wrote on X that “a high-powered green laser pointer like the ones you find on eBay for under $30 can destroy a camera sensor.”

“So if you buy one of these lasers, be sure to NOT point them at any cameras, because they could be permanently damaged!” she added.

When another user on the platform asked if the laser pointers could “take care” of the MTA’s congestion pricing toll readers, Paladino replied with multiple thinking-face emojis.

As you’ll notice, there was no appeal to democracy. Paladino didn’t ask New Yorkers to protest, write letters or call their representatives. She went straight to wink-and-nudge calls for vandalism and destruction of government property. If a Muslim imam or an immigrant had done the same, who can doubt it’d be treated as terrorism?

It would be one thing for people like Paladino to acknowledge the tradeoff, but to argue that individual liberty is supreme and no one should ever have to sacrifice for others. That would be the philosophically consistent libertarian position.

But this is something different. It’s an immediate, knee-jerk fury at the mere idea of changing anything or giving up any privilege you have. Paul Krugman calls it “change rage“:

Yet while cars may be special, there’s a broader syndrome — change rage? — in which a significant number of people go wild at any suggestion that they should change their behavior for the common good. The change doesn’t have to involve major cost or inconvenience; seriously, even masking up during the pandemic wasn’t that big a hardship. It’s more the principle of the thing: How dare you tell me how to live my life?

This isn’t a new phenomenon, but it took off during COVID. The stage was set by decades of conservative anti-intellectualism, which taught their voters to reject science and scorn expertise whenever it didn’t align with what party elites wanted.

Then, when the pandemic hit, the cult of Trumpist Republicans denied there was a problem, because admitting its existence would be a blot on the competence of their Dear Leader. All the anti-mask and anti-vaccine frenzy grew from this starting point.

This oppositional, defiant, “you can’t tell me what to do” attitude has spread to every issue on conservatives’ radar. They rage over replacing polluting gas stoves with clean electric appliances. They take a concept as simple and appealing as the “15-minute city” – the idea that cities should be designed at human scale, so all the amenities you’d want are no more than 15 minutes’ walk – and twist it into a bizarre conspiracy about imprisoning people in their homes. If drunk driving laws or no-smoking zones were proposed today, in our poisoned political atmosphere, I doubt they’d pass.

Democracy can handle the give-and-take of political sausage-making. What it can’t survive is one faction treating every policy it disagrees with as an existential threat. This isn’t just a hardball bargaining tactic. It’s a wholesale rejection of the social contract that makes us a society in the first place.

Image credit: Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz via Wikimedia Commons; released under CC BY-SA 4.0 license

Comments

  1. Katydid says

    You forgot the frothing hysteria over the very idea of taxing soft drinks above a certain size. Soft drinks provide zero nutrition (like cigarettes) but are complicit in bad health (like cigarettes). I recall that Sarah Effing Palin had a lot to whine about NYC–a place thousands of miles from her home–considering taxing oversized soft drinks.

    My state rolled out a gradual ban of cigarette smoking in restaurants 30-some years ago. The DRAMA, the sheer DRAMA of it all–grown adults couldn’t possibly forgo their addiction for the time it took to eat a burger and fries! The very world was coming to an end! The hatred aimed against people who didn’t want to be hostage to the addicts’ vices! Now nobody even thinks about it.

    Likewise, my state rolled out mandatory seat belt use in personally-owned cars 40-some years ago. The same drama, DRAMA. MAH FREEDUMBS! Now people accept it.

    FWIW, I’m all in favor of congestion pricing in big cities with plenty of public transportation options, Uber, and cabs. The option still exists to drive, it just costs more.

    My son lives in a planned community (not in NY) where he can and does walk to the community center that’s home to six restaurants of varying types and an American diner, a grocery store, UPS store, liquor store, dentist, cheap haircut place, and a bank. His community also has walking trails and sidewalks leading to a community pond with a pavillion, and an elementary school. I would love to have those amenities conveniently nearby.

  2. Katydid says

    Additionally, the conservatives have degenerated over the decades into toddler-level development. Change is scary and anything they don’t like or fear must be destroyed. This mentality is shared by a shocking amount of people.

  3. says

    OK, I am against congestion pricing, and I think my reasons are pretty good.

    First off, it does not actually solve a problem. It simply makes causing the problem a bit more expensive for some people, but what if there are perverse incentives? For example, what if a limo company simply establishes two service rates, one inside the zone, one out. That is exactly what taxis did in some European cities (London, I think, Paris I am sure) – if you want to get a taxi outside of the zone, forget it, unless someone decided to pay a ruinous surcharge and you can catch the returning cab. So, that is a problem, but it’s actually a mask for a deeper problem.

    Namely, congestion pricing favors the wealthy. If you’re a Wall St type using your contracted company car, you don’t give a shit about the fee, whereas some “ordinary person” might see that $9 on top of the ruinous cost of parking in New York as just too much. In that case, you wind up basically throwing the less wealthy out of the zone and your zone is now crawling with limos and sports cars. Congratulations. Well done! I believe there may be some kind of congestion pricing for vehicles in London, but that doesn’t affect the punters in Lamborghinis who cruise around the blocks by Harrods all night. Also, those cars save lots of gas and they may not be the kind of traffic you want. [I spend too much time on instagram watching people wreck lamborghinis, so I can actually recognize that one corner where you make the right into the park and someone always pulls out and gets pranged] Anyhow, congestion pricing should actually work based on the kind of vehicle being operated and how often you enter the zone, as well as possibly, how much you can afford to pay. Someone who can buy a Lambo and thinks cruising in circles in London is fun needs a psychiatrist but they can pay $1000 every time they enter. $10,000. Whatever.

    Fairness in congestion pricing would require needs-based, means-tested, and frequency tracked. The principle (which is horrid!) is “we don’t care if you make your living going to this particular place, pay up!” I don’t even think it can be done fairly – it just turns out to a predatory game of “screw the tourists” which the taxi drivers will eat up as soon as they hit upon the idea of not crossing into and out of the zone more than once a day – they’ll surcharge every tourist for it and pocket it 43 times.

    The better answer is more pedestrians only streets. Keep every vehicle off them except for deliveries (max speed 5mph) between 3am and 5am. Don’t make the city more expensive to get into, put big cheap parking lots on the outside with nice fast light rail service that ties into the subway. Of course, the taxis will scream about that.

    • says

      First, even if congestion pricing is not 100% fair, it can still do more good than harm. Any plan that makes people pay more for anything will, almost inevitably, hit those with less income hardest. And is there really any alternative pricing or taxing scheme that would be fairer while being effective?

      And second, why choose only one policy as “THE better answer?” Why not have congestion pricing AND better public transit (both inside and outside congestion zones) AND big cheap car-parks on the outside with easy access to bus or tube lines AND base car taxes on miles driven AND more pedestrianized streets?

    • says

      It’s true that congestion pricing favors the wealthy, in the sense that wealthy people can easily afford to pay.

      But from the research I’ve seen, the people who choose to drive into Manhattan are overwhelmingly wealthy themselves. Mostly, they’re car commuters who live in the rich suburbs in Westchester, Long Island and New Jersey. A large majority of poor and working-class people take trains or buses to work, so they aren’t affected. In that sense, this policy is well targeted.

  4. Katydid says

    @3, did you miss the whole point about fewer cars being safer for pedestrians and other vehicles like bicycles, results in cleaner air, and provides much-needed funds for the improvement of an already-extensive public transportation system? I’ll also add that it demonstrates to the metaphorically blind and oblivious that there are multiple ways to get around in a city. In many cities around the world it makes no sense to keep a car because the public transit options are so good. If people do have vehicles, they’re not the ridiculously bloated behemoths that suburban and rural people insist they can’t live without for their weekly trip to Walmart.

    There’s a reason people in cities tend to be healthier than rural or suburban people; they often take public transportation and walk a block or two to their final destination. Science is showing that people who get regular exercise live better lives than those who loll about in cars.

  5. Dunc says

    I can’t speak for every congestion charging scheme, but in the case of the London one, you only pay once per day, not every time you cross the boundary.

  6. says

    I guess I am just lucky because what is selfish to me is good for everyone. I live near Seattle. Seattle has no congestion pricing but it is a hassle to drive into the city. Less of a hassle, I am sure, than driving in Manhattan but a hassle nonetheless.

    I very happily take public transit – bus/light rail – every single time I go. As a senior I use a transit pass (Orca) and pay a round-trip total of $3 for each trip. It is a great deal. No hassle, no expensive drive and park, I get to read while I travel. It is all good.

    • says

      I think pedestrian-only zones are better for the economy, atmosphere, and the less wealthy.
      It’s probably my fault for spending so much time in beautiful, walkable, European towns.

      My attitude is also probably tilted by being part of the problem in the 90s – it seemed like everyone had the account info for a car company and would call a town car twice a day. The crowds of Lincolns around Wall St were a madhouse. My last business trip (2019!) was to Seattle and it seemed like the crowds of Lincolns had turned into Ubers. Personally, I would like to see “Wall St Types” getting taxed into the ground. I used to work with one penny stock trader who bought a land rover to get to work one week when snow was disrupting the car service.

  7. Katydid says

    Does it really not occur to you that with fewer cars on the road, areas are far more walkable?

    My life has allowed me to live in places like Japan, Taiwan, Germany, Holland, London (three different times) and to visit places like NYC, Washington DC, and San Francisco. Public transit in those places is very available and convenient–and often cheaper than owning a car. As you pointed out, idiots will buy cars anyway–and not little city-commuter cars, but the monstrous oversized ones they’re brainwashed into buying. Congestion pricing discourages them from driving their oversized ego-machines around the city, thereby making the city cleaner and safer for everyone else.

  8. says

    Congestion pricing discourages them from driving their oversized ego-machines around the city, thereby making the city cleaner and safer for everyone else.

    Now that would be a good AI application: something you point at a car and it identifies its measured mileage per gallon. Then the zone pricing is based on a log scale derived from that.

    “OOo, I have never seen a V12 engine with a blower before, this is gonna cost you….. 12 million dollars!” (Dr Evil gesture)

  9. Dunc says

    Now that would be a good AI application: something you point at a car and it identifies its measured mileage per gallon.

    Given the amount of instrumentation in modern cars, and their propensity for calling home, I find it hard to believe that real-time fuel consumption data isn’t already being collected by the manufacturers. You just need to force them to share it.

  10. Katydid says

    I’m getting the feeling that Marcus Ranum doesn’t have a solid argument so he’s lashing out. Notice I never said anything about MPG, I was discussing the physical size of the vehicle that blocks other cars’ sightlines and even keeps the driver from seeing pedestrians.

    Or maybe he drives a ridiculously oversized vehicle himself and is feeling some kinda way about it.

  11. Katydid says

    Congestion pricing is quite the success so far. Per https://www.railpassengers.org/site/assets/files/47872/hotline_1380.pdf:

    The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA)’s early numbers show 43,000 fewer drivers heading into Manhattan each workday, with drivers traveling from the Queens Midtown Tunnel and the Queensboro Bridge experiencing commute times lessened by 35% and 43% respectively.

    The MTA, announced a profound increase in public transportation ridership since the implementation of congestion pricing. The New York City subway experienced a significant increase in ridership. The figure was 3.18 million passengers on Jan. 9, 2025, registering an increase of at least 300,000 more people than on the same day in 2024. The Long Island Railroad trains went from 170,149 passengers on Jan. 5 to 194,574 on Jan. 9, and when compared to last year’s figures, it turns out that there is an increase of at least 20,000 more commuters. The Metro-North Commuter Railroad Company, commonly known as Metro-North, a suburban commuter rail service between Manhattan and northern communities around New York City and into Connecticut within 4 days also saw increased ridership by 30,000 more commuters: 139,885 on Jan. 5, 2025, to 167,983 on Jan. 9. Compared with the 2024 numbers, there are nearly 15,000 more tickets sold.

    Meanwhile, the MTA said that more improvements are on the way to public transportation, including work on the Second Avenue Subway Phase 2, modern signals for the A train in Brooklyn, and another “big package” of ADA-accessible train stations.

  12. Katydid says

    Remember during the pandemic, when so few people were driving that the skies cleared up and wildlife started re-appearing in places they’d fled from decades before?

    The study is indeed good news. More people are using mass transportation, which means a much-needed cash infusion. NYC already has great availability (hours and location) of public transportation, and now people are seeing that they don’t need to drive their Canyoneros from the suburbs and rural areas.

  13. Katydid says

    Paul Krugman https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-to-new-york-drop-dead:

    Overall, there’s no reason to believe that significantly fewer people are entering lower Manhattan; they’re just getting there in ways that hurt others less.

    The congestion charge is also proving increasingly popular among those actually experiencing its consequences . . . [emphasis in original]
    (snip)
    But maybe the biggest reason for Trump’s desire to kill the congestion charge is a phenomenon I identified the last time I wrote about this: the rage some Americans obviously feel at any suggestion that people should change their behavior for the common good. What we’re seeing with regard to the congestion charge is that some Americans feel that rage even when they themselves aren’t being asked to make changes.

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