Congestion toll in Boston?

Re: General MBTA Discussion Thread

kmp1284 said:
How much does one have to earn to be considered a fat cat?
Click to expand...
Don't worry, kmp, you won't lose your status as fat cat.

But I would include:
Any big law firm attorney (associate to partner)
Any VC/money manager (associate to partner)
Any Physician/Practitioner

That's a huge share of Boston Tall Building Employment. Probably 20,000 ish.
 
Re: General MBTA Discussion Thread

Arlington said:
Don't worry, kmp, you won't lose your status as fat cat.

But I would include:
Any big law firm attorney (associate to partner)
Any VC/money manager (associate to partner)
Any Physician/Practitioner

That's a huge share of Boston Tall Building Employment. Probably 10,000 ish.
Click to expand...

I think kmp's question is relevant. Any discussion of the effects of a policy on the "wealthy" versus the "less than wealthy" needs to have a clear definition of what, exactly, separates those two groups.

If your "fat cat" cutoff is "big law attorney/VC/money manager" then practically 100% of auto commuters are not fat cats. (Also, physicians / practitioners at Boston hospitals (which are mostly academic medical centers) by and large make salaries comparable to, say, tech workers. Think $100 - $200k for an established attending physician in their 30s to 50s at MGH/BWH/BIDMC/BCH. Good money in the big picture but nothing close to what big law or VC partners make. The docs who make the big bucks are surgeons and/or work in private practice or at non-teaching hospitals.)
 
Equilibria said:
After how many decades of taxes?
Click to expand...
Transit service improvements generally start happening before the toll gantries are turned on.

You start by issuing a bond ($1B?) to be repaid by the future congestion $ ($100M/yr) and you start by spending on buses (and yards) that can be rapidly deployed.

You also count on all the buses you already have moving faster (more round trips per shift) because traffic is moving more freely.

And run more trips on the trains you already have.

Every city that's done this has made sure that the benefits are there on Day 0.
 
Re: General MBTA Discussion Thread

Arlington said:
Don't worry, kmp, you won't lose your status as fat cat.

But I would include:
Any big law firm attorney (associate to partner)
Any VC/money manager (associate to partner)
Any Physician/Practitioner

That's a huge share of Boston Tall Building Employment. Probably 20,000 ish.
Click to expand...

I was asking for his definition and a dollar figure.
 
Let me pose a direct question to the free-market-solves-everything-justly people in the context of this thread:

Should we not take action to improve a situation where a society-essential / lower-than-median-paid employee who is not quite cut out for 4-year college, yet who works their ass off and is good at what they do...is faced with (let's simplify this) accepting either of two options that violates their basic values...a) having a 1hr+ commute that minimizes the amount of time they can spend with family, or b) forces them to place their child in a school system that does not meet their child's need (see here)?

Could we not make a values-based decision as a society that a 1hr+ commute is unreasonable? Or that a basic threshold of goodness for public schools should apply?

And that selective taxation (e.g.,a congestion charge...or other similarly structured thing) could help solve a values-based problem?

Hint: you can be OK with market-based mechanisms (I certainly am) and also be OK with certain values-based-must-haves (democratically-derived) that society agrees on (e.g., the fact that we have a minimum wage, or that you can't work a 5-year-old in a factory).

Policy design is hard. But this basic concept of capitalism-tempered-by-values is not hard.
 
I believe I'm proposing a justly-designed market.

None of this is a libertarian's free market: leaving scarce things...road space...priced at 0 isn't free market.

In my market:
1) People who are congesting the road (by wanting to use it at peak times) should pay for the price they impose on everyone. So I'm definitely penalizing anti-social behavior

2) Transit is showered on everyone, including people who would've made no trips at all. But the goal is social justice. People who feel priced out of driving should feel they have a better (life improving) choice in taking transit

3) If you like, we can also means-test transit fares (as Sec Pollack proposes) which I love, but don't explicitly need to make congestion pricing socially beneficial.
 
Re: General MBTA Discussion Thread

For Rifleman & KMP:
Is it communism to charge people a price for scarce things they take & use?
 
Arlington said:
...but don't explicitly need to make congestion pricing socially beneficial.
Click to expand...

I for the most part agree with your post, but (see mine above), the way around viewing policy in terms of how social benefit is allocated (a well meaning, but very difficult thing to do in a manner where everyone feels it is just)...
...is to instead agree on a system of underlying values (e.g., the baseline set of universal / minimum-viable expectations for society).
 
bigpicture7 said:
Let me pose a direct question to the free-market-solves-everything-justly people in the context of this thread:

Should we not take action to improve a situation where a society-essential / lower-than-median-paid employee who is not quite cut out for 4-year college, yet who works their ass off and is good at what they do...is faced with (let's simplify this) accepting either of two options that violates their basic values...a) having a 1hr+ commute that minimizes the amount of time they can spend with family, or b) forces them to place their child in a school system that does not meet their child's need (see here)?

Could we not make a values-based decision as a society that a 1hr+ commute is unreasonable? Or that a basic threshold of goodness for public schools should apply?

And that selective taxation (e.g.,a congestion charge...or other similarly structured thing) could help solve a values-based problem?

Hint: you can be OK with market-based mechanisms (I certainly am) and also be OK with certain values-based-must-haves (democratically-derived) that society agrees on (e.g., the fact that we have a minimum wage, or that you can't work a 5-year-old in a factory).

Policy design is hard. But this basic concept of capitalism-tempered-by-values is not hard.
Click to expand...

There is no such thing as the Free Market solves everything that is lunacy to suggest.

But creating more taxes without actually creating visions or solutions to solve the overall problems.
Affordable Housing and Traffic are the main problems that plague Boston common population.

*MBTA is a solution for both of these problems and also gives the Population to choose the MBTA or to sit in traffic or pay for expensive housing or live outside the city.

Creating more & more taxes only creates income inequality for everybody.
$5.00 to a fat cut is more of a luxury to drive on the road with less people
$5.00 to a family that lives paycheck to paycheck continues to get squeezed. That it actually makes more sense for them to drive in to Boston because they need to be certain places for their children. its called the value of TIME.

The problem in investing billions of dollars in MBTA or allow these corrupt hacks to control is they continue to get to greedy and nobody gets arrested for the greed and the corruption. Just look at the pension problem this country faces. They have to destroyed the working class currency to pay it off.
 
Re: General MBTA Discussion Thread

Arlington said:
For Rifleman & KMP:
Is it communism to charge people a price for scarce things they take & use?
Click to expand...

Arlington, I'm with you, but you don't even have to go here...

...instead, try:

Is it communism for everyone to pay for the fire department to come put out fires in other people's houses, even when their own house never catches on fire because they are more careful than other people in avoiding fire hazards?
 
Re: General MBTA Discussion Thread

Arlington said:
For Rifleman & KMP:
Is it communism to charge people a price for scarce things they take & use?
Click to expand...

Wtf? Of course not. I support congestion tolling and I'd support other measures like market rate metered street parking where appropriate.
 
The benefits are easily visible and tangible. That's why when I get into arguments like this I ask about the costs and to ensure costs are minimized to ensure the good outweighs the bad

Any congestion implementation is guaranteed generate benefit. It's easy to see less traffic. It's easy to see new revenues for budgets.

It's not so easy to figure out the impacts. The kind of trips get canceled. The happiness level for people who switch taking the train actually happier. The fact that in the end, on a long enough timeline, will inevitable just get used to it - even if commutes are longer and/or more expensive than without the alternative timeline, once in that timeline, most can really miss what they don't see.


My view of the congestion charge is it should be a tool used a "last resort". When Singapore implemented their congestion charge, they have one of the best mass transit system in the world. When London implemented their congestion charge, they have one of the most extensive.

Meanwhile Boston have long declined from that world class level and have multiple holes in the network. If you perform a thought experiment of imagining a Boston with a congestion charge, what do you really imagine life would be like? For me, it way too easy to imagine that that hypothetical Boston is a Boston with way less traffic, but who still drive now paying more a day (and btw, I would best most traffic you see are not "fatcats", any VC, Big Law attorney, CEO, or high end surgeon are the ones most happy with a congestion charge and don't dgaf what they pay a day). Meanwhile those who are priced out will be taking the MBTA - with our current incarnation of issues including how people at Sullivan Station literally cannot get on the train during rush hour.

Come back again when the Red and Orange line get new trains (theorectially elimination so many train breakdown, winter delays, and more capacity), the new ATO that last I heard was in procurement is actually implemented (eliminating "signal problems), upgrade to the power system (eliminating delays by blackouts), and GLX completed. Ideally, Type 10 implemented, the urban ring exiting, and Red-Blue connector done, BLX built, and a real Indigo Line.

And you better not say the congestion charge can be used to make that upgrades happen. We have a political problem, not a budget problem. Many of the items are already on queue and we have a problem about time rather than funds. And with that makes it unable to tell if the transit were going to come already versus an actually benefit of the congestion charge. Not to mention even if it is, than we are talking years down the line when it suppose to be about an immediate benefit. And this post have went way long then I originally intended so I'm just gonna stop here.
 
So, practical question, where do we define the limits of where the charge would come into effect? At the city limits or closer to the core business areas of the city?
 
Congestion zone charges are ALWAYS implemented in specific congested ZONES because the science, the economics, and the politics rely on relieving road congestion and visibly speeding commutes.

There's no $ and no political win tolling any place that isn't CURRENTLY choked with traffic.(London has a high charge core and lower charge donut around it, IIRC, but most of most cities is untolled)

The specific recommendation that kicked off this thread identified: Downtown, Back Bay, Seaport, & Longwood.

I would add Cambridge hot spots: Harvard Square, Mass-Main, & MIT-Kendall-Lechmere-MOS.
 
Arlington said:
Congestion zone charges are ALWAYS implemented in specific congested ZONES because the science, the economics, and the politics rely on relieving road congestion and visibly speeding commutes.

There's no $ and no political win tolling any place that isn't CURRENTLY choked with traffic.(London has a high charge core and lower charge donut around it, IIRC, but most of most cities is untolled)

The specific recommendation that kicked off this thread identified: Downtown, Back Bay, Seaport, & Longwood.

I would add Cambridge hot spots: Harvard Square, Mass-Main, & MIT-Kendall-Lechmere-MOS.
Click to expand...

Not even worth arguing about this. 0.0% chance this will happen in the next 20 years. No shot. I'd love to see them try to enforce this at every entrance to those areas. This is actually one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. I hope noone on this commission is getting paid. Does charging $5 mean these cars don't go on the road? No, of course they will. What are we even preventing here?
 
Enforcement is easy and effective. London pioneered "plate pass" enforcement (plate reading cameras) such as are now as used all over New England (Masspike, Tobin, & airport tunnels). I

If your car is seen entering, leaving, or crossing an internal boundary, they put the day on your monthly bill.

Cameras are post or gantry mounted, a lot like red light, speed, or toll cameras. Proven in London.

The goal is to nudge trips out of the core or out of the car. Only about 10% of trips need to be moved off the road to make a complete change (similar to how easy traffic is in Boston during July vacation)
 
Last edited:
If the city even cared about traffic congestion.
Why did our leaders give all these tax incentives to build in the seaport and other parts of Boston to centralize the wealth in 1 area.
Now claim we need a $5.00 fee each time driving in and out of the city.
INCOME INEQUALITY at its best. You give unlimited amounts of tax breaks to certain groups, Then create a tax on the overall population to keep them out.

The thinking of this group is insane.

Why not try to solve real issues.
What would solve the traffic and housing issue.
MBTA Commuter rail upgrade that can reach New Bedford, Springfield, Lowell, Gloucester, Cape Cod,
In and out of the city in 15-20 Mins (Very Reliable) Energy Efficient
High Speed rail cars that fly into North/South Station. ELON MUSK type vision.

Audit the MBTA and get out the corruption then get some real visionaries for Boston and push us through 21st century.
 
There are a lot of smart people who post here, and the amount of brain cells being put to waste in this discussion is truly a shame.
 
Arlington said:
Congestion zone charges are ALWAYS implemented in specific congested ZONES because the science, the economics, and the politics rely on relieving road congestion and visibly speeding commutes.
Click to expand...

I don't really understand this. Would people be paying $5 for every congestion zone they go through, or would it somehow be limited to $5 per day? It seems like this could add up fast, particularly if you are dinging people on both ends of their commutes. Even if it's just the $5/day, that's an extra $1000 a year coming out of the NET pay of the average person (assuming 200 commutes/year).

Most housing that is right on the subway lines is expensive as is, so basically you're telling people who are priced out of easy transit access to pay more on top of that. It doesn't sit well with me, at all.


Equilibria said:
Lots of people on this thread that know how to run other peoples' lives.
Click to expand...

I agree with this 100% and it boils my blood.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top