As Nick Paumgarten's wonderful recent piece on commuting in the New Yorker illustrated, Americans are losing their time, money and sanity to ever longer commutes.

So the solution is to impose new taxes that will force Americans to choose between spending more money to drive or losing more time and sanity by taking public transportation?

Have you ever seen the traffic from the GW Bridge down through the West Side Highway or Cross Bronx in the morning? You think that's faster than NJ Transit into Penn Station for someone working in midtown? In a normal city, transit is quicker, safer, and more relaxing than sitting in your car and inching along towards a bridge or tunnel.

Indeed. A lot of Brooklyn (my home town) politicians are opposing it in NY, unfortunately, but especially given the projected population growth in NYC it is urgently needed.

Could you define what you mean by congestion pricing? I have no idea whether it's a great idea or a terrible one, based on this post.

Here is an description of how the system works in the City of London.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge

losing more time and sanity by taking public transportation

Duvall:

1) Those of us who don't drive to work are already paying taxes to subsidize your drive (unless you think that highway construction and maintenance is free);

2) Anyone who has ever driven in DC or NYC knows that congestion is a real problem, and part of that problem is driven by the fact that drivers (many or most of whom are coming in from Maryland and Virginia) are effectively being subsidized to drive. Add in the environmental, health, and other costs (increased accidents, traffic policing costs, etc.) and it seems quite appropriate to tax drivers;

3) In DC, in particular, as this article notes, such a tax would be more appropriate, since Maryland and Virginia residents are additionally being subsidized to live outside the District by not contributing to the costs incurred by the District in attracting business, protecting it from crime, maintaining roads, etc. If your answer is the sales tax, think again. It doesn't come close to covering costs, and if DC raised it, it would indubitably lose business.

Think before you have your ill-though reflexive anti-tax spasms.

Also, in re your comment on public transportation, it's actually pretty good in DC and Maryland. Additional tax revenues and increased ridership are likely to improve public transportation as well.

If people have to walk a little bit to get to their local bus stop or metro stop, that might also have the added benefit of improving health.

Finally, no one is forcing people who work in DC to live way out in the burbs. If you want to live in Alexandria, and you're too uppity to take the metro, find a job in Alexandria.

I just spent four days in the District on a business trip and didn't once drive or ride in a car. I don't know about the value of congestion pricing to a city like DC, since it's my impression that the worst of the traffic is on the Beltway, in Virginia and Maryland.

FWIW, MARC to BWI could stand some improved frequency of service - next time I'll try the B-30 Express Metro Bus service from Greenbelt.

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