[bhupy]

> Other cities, cities where you can't live without a car without making massive sacrifices should not be implementing toll lanes and congestion pricing. Kicking the poors off the system so that people rich enough to justify the daily tolls can have a good experience. If the well off don't want to deal with gridlock on the streets and packed train cars below the streets during rush hour and aren't willing to travel early/late then then they should be willing to do what is necessary to improve the system as a whole.

FTA:

> Where there are few other choices, like reliable bus routes, congestion pricing risks burdening poorer drivers in particular. But that is a problem we’ve thought about before, too, Mr. Manville said, if we’re now willing to treat roads as we do other infrastructure. He pointed to “lifeline” utility services: subsidized rates for electricity and gas offered to users with fewer resources.

> “Fortunately, congestion pricing comes with its own built-in solution,” he said, “which is that it raises a ton of money.”

Congestion pricing policies can (and should) also include bonds to fund immediate construction of public transportation infrastructure, be it via bus or rail.

[0x5f3759df-i]

Even if congestion pricing included funding for the construction of public transportation, are you just proposing the poor wait 10 years for the construction of usable public transportation after they are priced out of using the roads?

[bhupy]

Unless you're making the argument that it takes 10 years to roll out a bus system, such a policy can be written to phase in the congestion charge only when the public infrastructure is ready (NYC's congestion tax only kicks in 2021 AFAIK).

In any case, we're no longer arguing about the merits of congestion pricing, but are arguing about the implementation details, and that's a good place for the debate to be.