Quote:
Originally Posted by OrdoSeclorum
Why do you say that? Higher prices reduce the usage of every other product I can think of, unless it's something humans can not do without. 94 has more traffic than the toll road. Cigarette sales drop as prices increase, despite the presence of nicotine.
More importantly, other cities have instituted congestion pricing--or banned cars from portions of the cities--and now have fewer or no cars.
Generally, it makes sense to tax the things you don't want.
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I say that because, despite all of the myriad transit options that DO exist to get to and from the Loop area (use the same general downtown Chicago guidelines as earlier in this thread), lots of people who work in the area don't have easy transit access at all because of the general hub and spoke system and poor street networks for buses. In other words, people STILL have to get to work, and I don't see congestion pricing really changing that dynamic to really reduce the numbers of cars on the road. If anything, it's just going to encourage even more shared ride service vehicles driving around as opposed to people going into a garage, working, then leaving.
Additionally, I really feel that congestion pricing hurts the service/restaurant/retail workers even more than anyone else, because they can't take another tax hit upon their already low income levels. Yet they still have to get to work, so perhaps that means they'll be forced to work elsewhere. I can see this making it difficult for many types of positions in the Loop area to be filled if people can no longer get to their workplace in a reasonable time frame and at a reasonable cost. (no matter what kind of transportation they use)
Especially for the southern extent of this zone (ie: Roosevelt), many of those big box center garages are used by employees because the garages are reasonably priced for daily use. Tack on a big congestion fee, all of the sudden workers essentially can no longer afford to work at these locations.
Just saying I don't really think a congestion pricing scheme in the Loop area is all that great of an idea. It's not like people aren't already using transit, but with the number of jobs continuing to flow into the Loop area, transit can't keep up, therefore people still need to drive/use rideshares to get there. Not sure it makes sense to punish people for getting to and from work, that's all.
And yes, I would want to make sure the money is used for improved transportation infrastructure only in the Loop/downtown area. Otherwise it's just a flat-out money grab.
Aaron (Glowrock)