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Congestion fees are a very capitalist way of solving it. This law basically exists for everyone except rich people (i,e. Those who can afford to pay fees).

All this is based on a false assumption that money has an objective value. But in reality, 1$ means different things for different classes.

[-] Latuga17@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

In NYC in particular though, I have a feeling that very few low income people drive into Manhatten instead of taking transit.

[-] WeUnite@lemm.ee 11 points 1 day ago

According to Wikipedia "Low-income residents receive a 50 percent discount on daytime tolls after their first ten trips into the congestion zone in a calendar month". So to some extent the system does take your concern into account.

[-] Dasus@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago

Well it pretends to but no system like that will equalise it.

Do the same as we do with fines, based on income.

So that the congestion charge for a billionaire is also actually significant. Enough for then to reconsider using a car.

[-] rbesfe@lemmy.ca 1 points 19 hours ago

Billionaires using cars aren't the ones causing congestion though, there just aren't enough of them

[-] Dasus@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

No, but it's tied to your income, so it doesn't matter what you make. Poor people should have it practically for free (but still for a small nominal fee) as they're often completely broke. Someone making an average salary should pay an average sum, a wealthy person should pay more and an ultrawealthy person should pay even more.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/finnish-businessman-hit-with-121000-speeding-fine

That's one of the world's largest speeding fines, and that guy isn't actually even that rich. Like he's barely in double digit millions. That's honestly not that rich on a global scale.

I tried looking for someone with "just" ten times the estimated net worth, so someone worth 100 million. But top 25 richest hollywood actors and #25 is still 170 million. When the fines grow progressively, then those people would pay something like 4-5 million in a fine, probably.

Like when you get a fine of any sorts, unless it's for a very basic infraction, it's going to be day fines. So if you commit an infraction that you don't go to prison for or get probation, you'll have day fines. A day fine is equal to roughly your daily income. You can get 1-120 dayfines for an infraction and if you're getting multiple infractions at the same time it's at most 240 day fines.

The point here is that it would actually be good tax income and it would remove the effect of any regulations being cheaper to break for rich people, which is inherently very unjust.

[-] Zetta@mander.xyz 18 points 1 day ago

Yes but the money goes 100% to public transit so it benefits the lower income public transport commuters too.

[-] TeraByteMarx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 day ago

Directly to which parts of public transport specifically? Are cops a part of that?

[-] mapleseedfall@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Since when cops are public transport?

[-] ubergeek@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago

Since... I dunno but it seems all transit systems have dedicated cops in the US.

[-] coriza@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago

I mean, you are right and the fee should be proportional to wealth, but it is not gonna affect the poor people because they use the public transit. Maybe anywhere else in the US may be true that "even the homeless need/have a car" but NYC would be the exception.

this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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