[dlp211]

> Car congestion fees are touted but they are rarely effective

Citation needed. All studies I have seen suggest that congestion pricing achieves its desired outcomes of reducing car traffic and is the most effective way of doing so.

[seoulmetro]

Nope. Draining the pool and filling it with more water is not an effective way of cleaning the pool. The pool ends up clean though so you can lead any study you want.

It's not effective. It's just prohibitive. Prohibiting people stops things, who would have guessed.

[bruce511]

I'm not sure I understand your point here. If the goal is less traffic then steps that lead to less traffic are effective.

Presumably to get less traffic you need to make the choice (to drive a car into the city) less attractive. Making it cost more would seem to do that.

Of course $15 is not enough, because while that will act on the "unattractive" side, there will then be less traffic, which will the increase the "attractive" side. The toll will need to increase to find the balance where it dwarfs the no-traffic convenience.

This is how I played out in London for example. Traffic has been reduced, but the connection charge is quite high.

Which is fine, those who want the convenience, and feel it offers good value for money can use it. And public transport (busses) is faster.

[seoulmetro]

Yeah you don't understand the point. Effective means it works well at the problem. Would you say chopping off an arm that is broken is an effective way of fixing a broken arm? It definitely eliminates the problem. It doesn't solve the problem effectively.

To get less traffic you need to make sure the roads are good enough to hold the amount of cars that come, or are designed in such a way that those cars don't go far or don't stop (hard). Public transport is a great way at reducing cars which may reduce traffic.

Putting a price on travel does not effectively manage traffic. It just chops traffic off. If we put a price on a bunch of stuff and stopped people enjoying the benefits of things that way, we'd also see sharp declines in whatever we wanted.... never because it is effective though.

Claiming a chopped off arm is good healthcare is a great falsehood to run with since it's easy, but it's not right. Instead of pushing that propaganda, let's actually mend the broken arm.

[mlyle]

> Putting a price on travel does not effectively manage traffic. It just chops traffic off.

There's already a price on travel-- the opportunity cost of waiting in traffic.

Putting a congestion charge in place may reduce the total price on travel for the people who need it the most.

Not to mention the externalities of vehicle traffic, which strengthen the case for a charge even more.

[mlyle]

Non-toll roadways are a common-pool resource with significant externalities. They invite overuse and push most of the harms of overuse on others (locals, pedestrians, etc).

Congestion charges or tolls are a good way to put a price on the resource and make market mechanisms work.

Then the resources can be used for whatever produces the greatest benefit (and thus is willing to pay the most for use of the resource), and the tolls obtained can pay to address the externalities.

[seoulmetro]

Tolls are there to pay for the new roadwork(s) (and in some cases, line private company profits). Nothing more. Anything else is not effective, it's just prohibitive.

[mlyle]

It's good to have any scarce common resource be bid for, rather than giving it to whomever shows up first, is willing to wait longest, etc.

If 150k people want to go, it's usually better that the 100k people who value the road the most get through quickly, instead of having a random 110k get through after a large traffic jam.

[seoulmetro]

150k people wanting to go and being able to go is better than a quarter being forced to stay home, a quarter being forced to not go and another half being allowed to go.

You seem to misunderstand the problem.

[mlyle]

I understand basic economics just fine; but what you say seems to be orthogonal/not understanding what the common pool problem is.

Market mechanisms allocate resources better than "whomever is willing to endure the worst conditions" does.