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this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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Is this what Hexbear has become? What a shitshow. You seem really angry about this but I'm making like a really simple point and you are going on and on about New York, and transit as if I'm an idiot. Please read anything that's not about NYC. Theory, would be great. Read something about organizing read something about the reality of work today. Read about health care workers and service workers. Read about factory work or PSWs.
I'm not wrong that making driving more expensive is burden that harms workers. Sure, maybe NYC is special - but get over yourself. There are other, better ways that money could be raised for supporting transit infrastructure. I recognize that NYC has better transit than anywhere you've been - it's fine. It's nice that many people walk and bike. I'm glad to hear that the toll will go to support better transit. That seems like a good thing. My point is that in general market solutions price out the poorest. Cars are needed by many to get to their jobs. Increasing the price means that it costs people who don't have the option of taking a taxi, for example, or spending the hours on transit a day to go from borough to borough to their jobs.
Anyway.
But we're talking about transit in New York City. About implementing congestion pricing in New York City. Yes, congestion pricing in most places in the Untied States is a regressive tax on the poorest. That is not the case in New York City.
Here I found something that has some actual numbers in it too:
https://socialistrevolution.org/mobilize-labor-to-fight-nycs-congestion-tolls/
About NYC
This doesn't have any numbers! Yes, 300k workers commute to Manhattan by car. Who are those workers? Where are they from? How much do they make? Overwhelming they're vastly richer than those that take transit, and mostly from outside the city entirely. As we've tried to explain, the overwhelming majority of the working class in NYC does not own a car at all, and their daily lives will be made far better by a lessened presence of cars in the place where they work. The working class of NYC may not all live in Manhattan, but a good very many do commute to Manhattan and walk around during the week. Implementing a congestion charge reduces pollution and pedestrian deaths, both of which affect way more workers than the small amount of who may happen to drive into Manhattan.
EDIT: Of course you're linking to a Trotskyist rag that doesn't use any numbers outside of just telling me that 300k workers (again, that number is mostly wealthy people who can afford to park in Manhattan; parking alone is like $20 an hour, this has been shown by various different studies that the working class by and large does not drive into Manhattan) commute to Manhattan without examining what workers.
Fair, thanks for at least listening. I may have been off topic with the non-NYC angle. It just seems like nobody was even entertaining the concept that car taxes are bad for workers.
Hey you know that really annoying bullshit redditors always do where they ignore the entire point of a commenters thread, seemingly on purpose?
Stop doing that
I find it shocking that you're defending the idea that making driving more expensive is good in general from a worker perspective.
For the environment? Sure! Reducing congestion? Ok! But in almost every situation, looking at the car-centric world were in - those gains are paid for predominantly by the working class.
Yes, I'm not responding to stats about who owns cars in NYC. Maybe there is an argument and this will be carried out properly. Maybe it's even a good idea. It just looks to me that the labor groups and socialist groups are opposing this and we should listen to them.
The people who live on NYC are the ones who will get the gains of better air and reduced traffic, but it is the commuters who will pay. And I don't know if you've seen the numbers of how many working class folks drive into Manhattan daily. The last number I saw was 300,000.
Percentages don't tell the full story. These people are the ones who will be paying the tax. For example https://socialistrevolution.org/mobilize-labor-to-fight-nycs-congestion-tolls/
Anyway I've put multiple, good, socialist and labor opinions on why these kinds of taxes are bad in general.
I appreciate the good information about this particular case that really makes it look not that bad, but I also am listening to socialist and labor groups who oppose this tax in NYC as a burden on workers. I don't want to use the L word, but it seems like everyone here supports these taxes as free-market solutions and ignores the on the ground story. Liberalism. On my Hexbear.
Ironic