Poor people are forced by circumstance to live in the busiest areas so they will get the biggest health benefits and many do not own cars and often do not even own a car space, so I would beg to differ.
You can also offset the regressive nature of this taxation (if any) by putting the revenue into subsidizing public infrastructure like rail and bus.
Isn’t it the opposite though? The poor aren’t able to live in the most popular busiest areas, and usually have to live on the fringes of the city. They might train in though. This is mostly going to benefit the rich people who can still afford to live in the city, but with rent control there are still some non-rich people in the city.
It is both. People forget that probably a third of all housing in the congestion zone is rent-controlled or public housing.
Half of households in the congestion zone are living at or below 3x federal poverty level ($70K for a family of three). One in six residents makes $20K or less a year.
Really poor people can’t afford cars in the city, and yes, they can exist in the city because of public housing snd rent control. And it really isn’t the cars that are expensive, or even operating the cars, but the parking.
There are lots of middle class commuters who can’t afford to live in the city: they aren’t lucky enough to win the lottery with a rent controlled unit, and are too rich to live in public housing, but still too poor to live in housing of a standard they can tolerate in the city even if their job is there.
This mostly commuters and tradesmen. You aren’t going to get your tools on the train, snd you are driving into the city from white plains or somewhere similar.
The alternative is the tradesmen can now apply their trade for 30 minutes more each way rather than sit in traffic (probably better overall) That, and apparently they and their kids can breathe easier.
The congestion tax has far more impact on people who live and work above 60th or in the outer boroughs or NJ than it does Manhattanites. Retail, wholesale, trades, small businesses and yes commuters in these areas, which are poorer than Manhattan, suffer disproportionately
The 2.90 is even capped at $34 per week. Then there's the 50% discount for low-income NYC residents who qualify and apply for the Fair Fares NYC program, or for anyone regadless of residence who qualifies for reduced fares through age or a qualifying disability.
Both of these numbers are changing in early January to $3 and $35 respectively, but same idea.
Still, some European countries like Germany offer far cheaper than this, while others like the UK are probably pricer. NYC public transit gives very good value for the US at least.
Many things hurt the poor more, because there are many things that the poor do that have negative externalities that cannot be compensated for by the productivity of the poor. Strict enforcement against violent crime is pretty regressive in that more poor people are incarcerated when this is done. Others are that strict enforcement of traffic laws is pretty regressive; paid parking is regressive; as are fares for buses and trains. Requiring a minimum number of signatures for a ballot proposition is regressive. Allowing more expensive cars to incorporate more advanced safety features is regressive. Requiring grant applications to be carefully written is regressive. As are minimum flying requirements for pilots. DoD medical standards for soldiers are regressive. Officer ASVAB score requirements are regressive. Surgical requirements. Drug approval requirements.
In fact, anything that requires a standard of performance will be regressive. We don't have to subordinate all goals to regression avoidance. In fact, no functioning society does that.
I actually doubt it's very regressive in NYC. Also, you're still only counting the price and not the cost. The benefits are likely tilted towards the poorest residents who absorb the most costs of congestion in terms of both pollution and road safety. That's just an educated guess but it's very plausible.
A charge on the marginal driver looks regressive if you only examine who pays the toll, but not who’s been paying the externalities all along. Once you include the benefits - faster buses, cleaner air, better reliability, and the ability to reinvest revenue into transit - the incidence flips pretty quickly.
We’re basically shifting costs from people who can’t opt out of congestion to people who can. That’s about as progressive as a transport policy gets.
It hurts homeless more, that's a fact (although most,big cold city homeless couchsurf rather than sleep in their car in my experience, but it might be different in the US). But if you take 'poor people' as in the bottom 20% of earners, they probably don't drive, because car are expensive.
Do I understand correctly -- you are saying this NYC congestion price hurts the homeless more? As in, people who are homeless in NYC are regularly driving cars into and back out of lower Manhattan?
