[lbo-talk] The Planet is Fine

[Gar Lipow]

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 5:27 AM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Dec 21, 2011, at 1:58 AM, Gar Lipow wrote:
>
>> My point is not that carbon taxes do nothing, but that public
>> investment and regulation are at least as important
>
> In NYC, we have a pretty good public transit infrastructure, but people still drive heavily. Bloomberg's congestion pricing scheme, which would have charged people to drive into Manhattan, aroused howls of pseudo-populist outrage, but he had a point: it's not enough to have the infrastructure, you have to price things so that they use it.
>
And NYC drivers drive less and have a lower rate of car ownership than
the rest of the U.S.  I will note that even in Germany which has a far
superior transit system to Manhattan and an extremely high gas tax
there is still too much driving.
Why we need all three things, regulation, public investment and a
carbon price. And the parking subsidies I mentioned are very much in
place in New York. People there complain about parking costs, but
street parking is still priced way below cost, let alone market rates
- especially if you include competing uses rather than just reserving
them for autos.   Market rates for parking would have most of the
effects of congestion pricing. Don't know if the politics is better or
worse than congestion pricing.


> Doug
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