Congestion toll in Boston?

^ Why are you allowing something you don't understand to boil your blood?

Congestion charges typically are charged once per vehicle per day. An Uber or taxi driver for example would pay it on their first trip of the day into or through the congestion zone but then not incur any additional charge for the rest of the day.


That has been the proposal for every congestion zone that I am aware of in the United States including the Boston proposals. It is how London's has worked successfully.

What I don't get is how more than 50% of the voices here are SURE that they are going to be in the 30% of people who end up not liking congestion charges.
 
DZH22 said:
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.




I agree with this 100% and it boils my blood.
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London's Congestion charge is a max of 1 time a day.
 
I know a fancy money manager who lives right on the Green Line in Brookline but drives to his office in Downtown crossing.

I am not saying he is a bad person or a greedy person. He's a fabulous guy that anyone would like to get to know.

I am saying I would like to change his incentive set, and let him decide whether it is worth $5 to drive faster in less traffic (and the T would spend his $5 on better Transit) or maybe to take the T more often.
 
Arlington said:
^ Why are you allowing something you don't understand to boil your blood?
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It boils my blood that you want me, as a driver who can't afford to live right on mass transit, to pay extra to supplement the mismanagement of the MBTA.

I actually work right near Alewife and I have free parking. After work I often like to drive into the city and park downtown (or all over Cambridge/Somerville/Brookline) for an evening walk. So I am going to have to pay an extra 5 bucks every time I want to take a walk?

What about weekends, are you going to charge me an extra 5 bucks there too? I can drive from Burlington to Boston (and park downtown) within 25-30 minutes. If I were to take the T I either have to drive to Alewife, pay a fortune to park there (it fills up early every weekday morning anyway) then pay an extra 5 bucks round trip, or even worse I need to take a bus from the Burlington Mall to Alewife. By the way the total time to get downtown goes from 25-30 minutes to well over an hour in each direction. Also, no offense, but I hate rubbing elbows with thousands of strangers on a regular basis.

So you're basically saying I need to supplement your choices because I don't have an easy way into the city, is that it? I need to supplement people who already live in better locations? I'm no "fat cat" either so nickle and diming me does hurt me, just not to the extent that I'd rather waste an extra 60-90 minutes every time I want to go the city.

Personally, I think it's sick that you are trying to penalize people who are of lower means than yourself. I don't say this often but Rifleman is right, because it IS the middle class who would be hurt the most by this policy, just like it's hurt the most by nearly every policy from both sides of the aisle. It's easy to ask for more when it's not YOUR money and you aren't the one who would need to make the difficult choices.
 
DHZ22. Please actually study what congestion pricing is before you decide that it has come to destroy your life.

It would be place-specific and time boxed to target places where today's free-for-all results in gridlock.

As noted above, the London plan is weekdays 7a - 6pm

But to get into the city in the evening would either be free or cheap (it might be worth extending the congestion time slightly later on professional sports game days)

A congestion zone would nudge your behavior in a number of ways, but you still choose:
1) if it is about walking before 6pm, maybe start by walking to ride the Red Line in.
2) if it is about driving to go walking, maybe wait til after 6
3) if it can't wait, and you must drivemaybe pay the $5 or maybe drive to another dense walkable place (Assembly? Porter? Comm Ave?)
 
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DZH22 said:
It boils my blood that you want me, as a driver who can't afford to live right on mass transit, to pay extra to supplement the mismanagement of the MBTA.

I actually work right near Alewife and I have free parking. After work I often like to drive into the city and park downtown (or all over Cambridge/Somerville/Brookline) for an evening walk. So I am going to have to pay an extra 5 bucks every time I want to take a walk?
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No, you pay $5 to enter a congested area – where the presence your vehicle has an outsized impact on others. If that causes you to not drive downtown—hey, you're at Alewife, maybe take the T, or maybe take a walk without getting in your car, or drive somewhere else and walk around—then it's freeing up road capacity for others who are willing to spend $5 to reach their goals.

Right now your road usage costs you nothing but costs society more than that (congestion slows emergency vehicles, deliveries, and contributes nasty stuff to the air and roads). That's not fair to everyone else.

DZH22 said:
What about weekends, are you going to charge me an extra 5 bucks there too? I can drive from Burlington to Boston (and park downtown) within 25-30 minutes. If I were to take the T I either have to drive to Alewife, pay a fortune to park there (it fills up early every weekday morning anyway) then pay an extra 5 bucks round trip, or even worse I need to take a bus from the Burlington Mall to Alewife.
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Sure, maybe, if your unpaid costs to society are still high on the weekends. Otherwise maybe we'll make it weekdays only. Let's talk about it—and see how it works in other places.

DZH22 said:
By the way the total time to get downtown goes from 25-30 minutes to well over an hour in each direction. Also, no offense, but I hate rubbing elbows with thousands of strangers on a regular basis.
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Sounds like you'd be willing to pay $5 to drive—so go ahead! You'll finally be covering some of the costs of your choice to drive that you used to make others pay (lost time in traffic, worse health due to smog/oil).

DZH22 said:
So you're basically saying I need to supplement your choices because I don't have an easy way into the city, is that it? I need to supplement people who already live in better locations? I'm no "fat cat" either so nickle and diming me does hurt me, just not to the extent that I'd rather waste an extra 60-90 minutes every time I want to go the city.
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You DO have an easy way into the city—you literally choose to drive from Alewife (T station) to downtown. Right now we're paying for your choices. It's time you owned up to your choices and start paying for the effects you have on the rest of us.

DZH22 said:
Personally, I think it's sick that you are trying to penalize people who are of lower means than yourself. I don't say this often but Rifleman is right, because it IS the middle class who would be hurt the most by this policy, just like it's hurt the most by nearly every policy from both sides of the aisle. It's easy to ask for more when it's not YOUR money and you aren't the one who would need to make the difficult choices.
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Show us some numbers about how lower income people will be worse off with this. Far more wealthy people drive into the city than poor people. Smithsonian suggests congestion fees impact the wealthy much more than the poor:

What about equity? Only 4 percent of people who commute into New York City travel by car, and of those, only 5,000 could be classified as working poor. Increased funding from congestion fees would allow more investment in mass transit, making life easier for the majority of New Yorkers who commute by public transit.

Unlike other taxes that can be easily dismissed as imposing costs and killing jobs, congestion pricing improves market efficiencies because it forces people to think about their travel and leads to a more rational use of our public roads.
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Driving has costs. Right now society has been subsidizing those costs, tilting the choice in favor of driving. Congestion fees cover those costs better, or nudge you to reconsider the price you're willing to pay to drive by yourself.
 
The people whom we are not asking to change are the poorest: those who can only ride transit because they are too poor (or disabled) to own a car.

For them, there is no choice set to nudge. Both today and after a congestion zone is implemented, They go by transit or do not go at all.

A congestion charge only makes life better for our lowest income workers: their bus comes more often and moves faster in uncongested traffic.
 
34f34f said:
No, you pay $5 to enter a congested area – where the presence your vehicle has an outsized impact on others. If that causes you to not drive downtown—hey, you're at Alewife, maybe take the T, or maybe take a walk without getting in your car, or drive somewhere else and walk around—then it's freeing up road capacity for others who are willing to spend $5 to reach their goals.
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I'm near Alewife, but it's still about half a mile away through a barren wasteland. Even then, if I walked all the way over there, I'd still have to pay 5 bucks for a round trip on the T.

34f34f said:
Right now your road usage costs you nothing.....
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This assertion is RIDICULOUS. First of all, it costs me over $1000 a year just to insure my vehicle! Then I am paying close to 3 bucks a gallon, which includes plenty of tax to the state. I also have to pay for oil changes, other maintenance, yearly inspections, etc. It isn't FREE by a long shot. I also have to pay massive amounts of taxes every few years when I need to purchase another vehicle. So no, it's not FREE. If anybody is getting this stuff for free, it's the bikers who get their own lanes without paying for the costs of the roads (but that's another argument for another thread).

Arlington said:
But to get into the city in the evening would either be free or cheap (it might be worth extending the congestion time slightly later on professional sports game days)

A congestion zone would nudge your behavior in a number of ways, but you still choose:
1) if it is about walking before 6pm, maybe start by walking to ride the Red Line in.
2) if it is about driving to go walking, maybe wait til after 6
3) if it can't wait, and you must drivemaybe pay the $5 or maybe drive to another dense walkable place (Assembly? Porter? Comm Ave?)
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I can avoid it until after 6. However, if you extend it for the sports events, once again you are further penalizing people who can't afford to live right on public transit. Most people who drive to a Bruins or Celtics game are already getting creamed for like $40 for parking alone. You are saying that a person who wants to make it to a game on time should have to pay extra, and once again that's not fair.

At the end of the day, you are showing favoritism for people who are able to live right near convenient transit. I used to live in Davis from 2006-2011 and since then the prices have basically doubled. So I got priced out of my old area, and then I have people saying I should have to pay a penalty because of that. Does nobody else see the hypocrisy of this?

Also I have been to London a couple of times and their subway system is unbelievably comprehensive and far ahead of ours. The city itself is also substantially larger, where a town like Burlington would still be right on the subway. We are a different city and the solution for London is not necessarily the solution for Boston.
 
Fenway and North Station sit on top of huge transit hubs. Consider (weekday) Park and Ride just got $5 more attractive.
 
DZH22 said:
And how much extra would you be paying with congestion tolling? It's very easy to tell somebody else to pay if it doesn't affect your bottom line.

Here's a lady who I'm sure agrees with you. She probably wants to make congestion tolling $20/day.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion...s-make-free/vJpKVu6Rft2C4Esi50mB5M/story.html
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DZ, the roads are a shared resource.

The transit lines are also a shared resource.

No one is saying, let's make the roads expensive and the T free.

What people are saying is that the only way in hell we are going to get everyone in and out of the city is to use transit in addition to roads. And since the capacity potential of transit w/ improvements is greater than the capacity potential of roads (even considering all possible road improvements), it makes sense to adjust policy slightly to tip the usage toward transit.

Everyone is being asked to contribute.
 
I'm all for taxing the public for good causes but lets get real here----Under these circumstances-- Lets just have a financial AUDIT for the entire Federal Govt, State Govt & Agencies along with MBTA agencies

Cut Govt/State/Local Pensions--- convert to 401K like the private sector
Cut Govt/State/Local Healthcare---convert to private healthcare sector/or Obamacare
All Govt/State Local leaders---Subject to term limits.
All Govt/State Local leaders--Balance budgets

After that is done--Then start creating more taxes to help the so called public to tackle environment/congestion tax.

Govt spending is a real problem. The corruption is insane. Creating more taxes is not going to solve the real problem on what is going on in our state and nation.

You can't give the corporations millions in tax incentives to build on prime property only to tax the working class to actually visit or pass through the area.
 
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DZH22 said:
This assertion is RIDICULOUS. First of all, it costs me over $1000 a year just to insure my vehicle! Then I am paying close to 3 bucks a gallon, which includes plenty of tax to the state. I also have to pay for oil changes, other maintenance, yearly inspections, etc. It isn't FREE by a long shot. I also have to pay massive amounts of taxes every few years when I need to purchase another vehicle. So no, it's not FREE. If anybody is getting this stuff for free, it's the bikers who get their own lanes without paying for the costs of the roads (but that's another argument for another thread).
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Those are costs of having a car, or of using a car. Those are not costs for using public resources (the roads) or making society deal with your transportation choices (pollution, congestion). Right now you're (we're all) getting those for free, which causes overuse (see: tragedy of the commons).
 
DZH22 said:
It boils my blood that you want me, as a driver who can't afford to live right on mass transit, to pay extra to supplement the mismanagement of the MBTA.

I actually work right near Alewife and I have free parking. After work I often like to drive into the city and park downtown (or all over Cambridge/Somerville/Brookline) for an evening walk. So I am going to have to pay an extra 5 bucks every time I want to take a walk?

What about weekends, are you going to charge me an extra 5 bucks there too? I can drive from Burlington to Boston (and park downtown) within 25-30 minutes. If I were to take the T I either have to drive to Alewife, pay a fortune to park there (it fills up early every weekday morning anyway) then pay an extra 5 bucks round trip, or even worse I need to take a bus from the Burlington Mall to Alewife. By the way the total time to get downtown goes from 25-30 minutes to well over an hour in each direction. Also, no offense, but I hate rubbing elbows with thousands of strangers on a regular basis.

So you're basically saying I need to supplement your choices because I don't have an easy way into the city, is that it? I need to supplement people who already live in better locations? I'm no "fat cat" either so nickle and diming me does hurt me, just not to the extent that I'd rather waste an extra 60-90 minutes every time I want to go the city.

Personally, I think it's sick that you are trying to penalize people who are of lower means than yourself. I don't say this often but Rifleman is right, because it IS the middle class who would be hurt the most by this policy, just like it's hurt the most by nearly every policy from both sides of the aisle. It's easy to ask for more when it's not YOUR money and you aren't the one who would need to make the difficult choices.
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Alternative lede: the rest of us subsidize your car based lifestyle, why are you angry to pay your share?
 
34f34f said:
Those are costs of having a car, or of using a car. Those are not costs for using public resources (the roads) or making society deal with your transportation choices (pollution, congestion). Right now you're (we're all) getting those for free, which causes overuse (see: tragedy of the commons).
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The gas tax is 24 cents per gallon. On average, that's over 2 bucks going towards the roads every time you see somebody filling up at a gas station. So yes, that is paying for the roads.

On the other hand, the MBTA is mostly forcing you to pay for either their out of control pensions, or the Big Dig debt they were (unfairly) saddled with. The fares go up without the commensurate improvements necessary to keep people choosing public transit over their own vehicles.

When I regularly rode the T, parking at Alewife was 4 bucks a day and the cost of a trip was about $2.50 round trip. Now it's up to 9 bucks just to park, and it fills up early in the morning! So basically the cost has more than doubled and the capacity isn't enough to satisfy the demand. Then, of course, there are the stops down the line where people can't even get onto the trains because they are so full. The problem in Boston isn't the drivers, it's that the public transit is below par for the needs of the people who live here!
 
HenryAlan said:
Alternative lede: the rest of us subsidize your car based lifestyle, why are you angry to pay your share?
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Again, how are you subsidizing me? Blanket statements are inadmissible in a debate. I pay the gas tax, excise tax, tax when I purchase a vehicle, tax on all maintenance, and a never-ending parade of yearly fees.

If you want to talk about subsidizing, how about the rest of the state is forced to subsidize the MBTA, even when it doesn't reach all of those towns? How about drivers are subsidizing bikers to be on the roads that are paid through the above taxes?

It's easy to frame an argument to suit your agenda. If you can afford to live right on the T, then you can afford to pay more and not make the people who can't afford to live there in the first place subsidize YOUR lifestyle.

At the end of the day, if you are making the argument that certain people should pay more, and you're not one of those people, then you can take a hike.
 
DZ, want to get specific and avoid blanket statements?

Other than gas tax...
DZH22 said:
...excise tax...
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^Goes into individual towns' budgets for their operation, NOT the MBTA

DZH22 said:
...tax when I purchase a vehicle, tax on all maintenance...
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^Goes into the state's general operating budget, like ALL sales taxes.

DZH22 said:
...a never-ending parade of yearly fees...
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^Goes to the infrastructure and operation of the vehicle licensing, registration, and inspection system: directly used by motorists, and not anyone else.

The only $ you spend that goes toward transit is part of your 24cents per gallon, which, assuming your car gets, say 20+ MPG, results in substantially lower contribution than imposed on those riding the T.

Again, ad nauseam, no one is asking for the T to be free...
This is about sharing resources, both road resources and transit resources.

I think we can agree that:
a) The T needs to be better managed financially (but, so far, kudos to Baker for working on that).
and, b) the service quality of the T needs to improve to meet the peoples' needs

And,
DZH22 said:
If you want to talk about subsidizing, how about the rest of the state is forced to subsidize the MBTA, even when it doesn't reach all of those towns? How about drivers are subsidizing bikers to be on the roads that are paid through the above taxes?
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Dude, avoiding that unfairness is the ENTIRE point of congestion charging: so-and-so out in Athol doesn't need to pay it. The ONLY people who pay are people trying to drive into a SPECIFIC ZONE during a SPECIFIC TIME.
 
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