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New York becomes first US city with congestion charge
(www.bbc.com)
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this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2025
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How is it a tax, other than as an attempt to drum up opposition from the poorly-informed? This charge is very clearly a user-fee, as in, you have a choice of whether to pay it or not, and the amount you pay is directly tied to what you use. It's even implemented through the EZ Pass system, like any other road toll!
A tax, on the other hand, is compulsory, and levied on people whether they drive in lower Manhattan or not. The reason that New Jersey had standing to file its ridiculous lawsuit in first place is that some of the affected roadway is U.S. highway. If that's sufficient, then I want a say, because I'm forced to help pay for that highway, too, and I've never even been to lower Manhattan, so how's that fair?
You do not have the choice to pay it. Anyone driving through for the first time will have no idea what this is or how to avoid it.
Same with no-stop toll roads. The first time I encountered one, I could not refuse to pay. I could not refuse to go through, and I could not turn around. I was also poor.
I am all for reducing car and truck traffic, but we have to acknowledge that this way steals money from some of the most vulnerable who don't get to choose.
Was that Florida? It sounds like something Florida would do.
In any case, that sounds like a stretch, since this congestion toll has garnered nationwide media coverage, and NYC has posted plenty of advance notice in the form of road signs (pictures of which have accompanied many of those news reports). Google Maps warned me about the congestion toll when I pulled up my driving route to Manhattan. But even if one were to just hit the road without any foreknowledge of the route, the existence of toll roads is well-known, so the possibility of encountering one is part of the decision to drive.
Consider a tax on sandwiches (which New York actually has). I have a choice of whether to pay it or not; I could buy a different food. The amount I pay is directly tied to what I use; it's a sales tax. Would you say that it's wrong to call this a sandwich tax and that it should be called a sandwich user fee?
You don't mention this, but I think that the main difference between a toll and a sales tax is that the toll is for the use of something provided by the government whereas the sales tax is a fee that the government imposes on transactions between two other parties. However, tolls are generally for the use of something specific (for example, the Midtown Tunnel ). The New York City income tax isn't a toll despite the fact that it could be described as the fee that the government charges for living in NYC.
Ultimately the line between the two terms is a matter of opinion, but in my opinion driving in Manhattan south of 60th Street is too general for the fee charged for it to be called a toll. It's more like living in New York City than it is like driving through the Midtown Tunnel.
Who exactly the fuck do you think provides the streets, if not the government?
Half-baked nonsense like this is why people think Libertarians have zero credibility.
Is a car required to live in NYC?
No, and the majority of New Yorkers don't own cars. Which is why it's been mind-boggling to have the majority subsidize the minority and out-of-towners when they want to drive in an store their 3-tonne vehicles in public space, often for free.
No (and neither are sandwiches). Even being in NYC at all isn't required to live.
Yes, you are correct, I did mean to imply the use of something provided by the government in the definition of a user fee charged by the government. That's what makes the tax on the sale of a sandwich a tax; the government is a third party, not otherwise involved in the transaction.
I have to say that I reckon the congestion toll as quite specific. One does not need to pay it to enter lower Manhattan. It is immediately spatially and temporally connected with driving on certain city-provided streets, just like the other $54.28 in tolls that I found I'd have to pay to other governments to drive to NYC on their roads. In any case, tax or user fee, I think it's more justified and fair than the taxes used to construct those streets.
I don't think we disagree about anything that isn't a matter of opinion.
(But if making drivers pay for the streets is fair, wouldn't making the people who use mass transit pay for it also be fair? The MTA spends three or four times as much as it collects in fares.)
I'm not a big fan of those other tolls either, especially since there isn't any way to get across the Hudson River in a car without paying a toll unless you drive 160 miles each way to Albany. (In practice you would only need to drive 80 miles each way to pay a very low toll.) I'm currently considering some jobs in New Jersey and having to pay about $50 every time I visit my relative in NYC is definitely something I need to account for. It all makes me wish I was still living in New Hampshire.
Indeed, it's fun to talk things over even if we don't disagree. My username is an old, nautical version of shooting the breeze, chewing the fat, etc. The tendency to see every interaction as verbal combat was slowly driving me off the red site even before the API fiasco, and Lemmy has been refreshing that way.
You'd pay about $12 on mass transit ($2.90 PATH and $2.90 MTA in each direction), and the reasons for the government to incentivize one versus the other are numerous, not the least of which are safety, noise, air quality, and efficiency.