> Congestion tolls are great -- they encourage better utilization of a scarce resource (the road at a certain point in time).
Congestion tolls are the rich man's way of getting the government to build enough infrastructure for them without having to pay for enough infrastructure for everybody.
If there is congestion it's either because you don't have enough roads or because you don't have good enough mass transit which is dumping the load it should be carrying onto the roads.
For any given amount of infrastructure, proper pricing makes its use more efficient (of course, minus the inefficiency of actually implementing tolls), by shifting demand towards less busy times or encouraging use of mass transit and pooling. In a lot of jurisdictions it's essentially impossible to build enough road so there is zero traffic, because buildings can grow upwards but roads cannot.
Your point about the rich getting infrastructure seems like a non sequitur here. It's voters' job to get their representatives to build enough infrastructure, not just the rich.
I agree that congestion tolls are somewhat regressive, but the solution is to have a progressive tax system, not to avoid efficiency taxes.
> For any given amount of infrastructure, proper pricing makes its use more efficient (of course, minus the inefficiency of actually implementing tolls), by shifting demand towards less busy times or encouraging use of mass transit and pooling.
You also have the inefficiency of destroying demand outright. Some people will just stay home.
It also seems like the presence of congestion would already be diverting traffic to less busy times, because nobody wants to sit in traffic. So there is not a lot of low-hanging fruit there.
And if you want to shift demand to mass transit through pricing, instead of making the roads more expensive, make mass transit less expensive. Then you don't need a toll collection infrastructure for roads and may even be able to eliminate the fare collection infrastructure for mass transit.
> In a lot of jurisdictions it's essentially impossible to build enough road so there is zero traffic, because buildings can grow upwards but roads cannot.
But high density cities are the obvious case for mass transit improvements.
> Your point about the rich getting infrastructure seems like a non sequitur here. It's voters' job to get their representatives to build enough infrastructure, not just the rich.
The point is that congestion pricing benefits the rich over the poor, as compared with alternatives like funding another bus or subway line via taxes, or reducing/eliminating fares. Which voters care about when deciding what to get their representatives to do.
> I agree that congestion tolls are somewhat regressive, but the solution is to have a progressive tax system, not to avoid efficiency taxes.
It's politically a lot easier to not impose regressive fees than to impose them and then try to balance it by transferring more money to low/middle income people who are already paying negative effective tax rates.
I think the strongest argument against congestion pricing is the cost of infrastructure to collect it.
All the other arguments apply equally well to other consumables that are normally priced, like food and energy. Consumption taxes are inherently regressive, and poor people consume more of their income than their rich, but the solution is not to simply price consumables at $0.
IMO, the burden should be to show why roads are such a special good that they should always be free, regardless of externalities.
You're right that mass transit should be a part of the equation. Singapore is a city where this works well -- mass transit is (relatively) cheap, universal, and efficient. Car ownership is ridiculously expensive due to taxes, and congestion pricing is high (around $15 at rush hour) [1]. This prices road travel appropriately, as a luxury good in a dense and crowded metropolis, and pushes all normal transportation needs onto mass transit.
> IMO, the burden should be to show why roads are such a special good that they should always be free, regardless of externalities.
They're special because essentially the entire cost is the construction cost. If you want another loaf of bread then the farmer has to grow more wheat. It has a unit cost.
If you want to drive on the road then either the road capacity already exists or it doesn't and your choice of whether to drive doesn't change that. If you decide to stay home it doesn't save the government money. It's having the ability to drive on the road that costs money, not exercising it once the road is already there.
What congestion pricing does is suppress demand, i.e. to remove the (economic) ability of some people to drive, which can reduce the need for transportation capacity. But we don't want to suppress demand. Demand is good. People going out and participating in the community and the local economy is good. It might be better that people use mass transit than drive cars, but the way to achieve that isn't to make driving worse, it's to make mass transit better -- to stimulate demand rather than suppress it.
The apparent appeal of congestion pricing is that it nominally generates revenue, as opposed to improving or subsidizing mass transit which nominally consumes revenue. But in practice the result is the opposite because suppressing rather than stimulating demand for local transportation would mean there is less activity in the local economy.
Congestion also happens because the market is distorted and decisions have not been made to build quality, affordable, housing near the jobs that workers have. (Which reduces the need for commuting at all.)
> Congestion also happens because the market is distorted and decisions have not been made to build quality, affordable, housing near the jobs that workers have. (Which reduces the need for commuting at all.)
You are entirely correct. Building more housing near where the jobs are is an excellent alternative.
