All costs are considered.
Margins remain mostly fixed, so additional expenses are passed on to the consumer.

In my experience, businesses usually set prices to reflect local norms, not the actual cost of the service or materials provided.

Felix, I recommend that my clients list “Congestion Pricing” by name, passing along the entire fee, per visit, when servicing the zone. Some said they wouldn’t highlight the additional charge, but all agree that they would add it onto the bottom line.

Do you also recommend that right now they start listing “Congestion Cost” by name, passing on the total in wages and/or opportunity cost for the time that they and any drivers they have spend stuck in traffic?

Then you’d prefer a much less efficient system.
Isn’t that the way NYC operated in the early 1900s?

Oh yes, because something we did in the past could never be more efficient than something we’re doing now.

Then you’d prefer a much less efficient system.
Isn’t that the way NYC operated in the early 1900s?

Even if there was no reduction in traffic, are we talking real money in terms of price increases? Would my Manhattan doctor have to charge me an extra 30 cents for the a visit to make up for the $8 cost of driving in – assuming he saw 25-30 patients that day (a wild guess on my part)? Or what about the beer I had in a Manhattan bar recently? Would a two-cent increase in the price of a pint cover the charge ($40?) for a truckload of kegs?

Goods and services purchased in the CBD generally aren’t cheap. I can’t imagine congestion charges would have a noticeable upward effect on prices, unless traffic reduction caused Manhattan’s real estate market to surge.

Sounds more like an <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_ridicule>”Appeal to Ridicule”</a> than Reductio ad absurdum.

becomes

Sounds more like an “Appeal to Ridicule” than Reductio ad absurdum.

A delivery vehicle is a method for the bulk movement of goods just like mass transit is a method for the bulk movement of people.

I’d prefer to see a system with a lot more rail, transferred to small trucks and pushcarts at transfer stations and distribution centers.

There is some (illegal) commercial cargo movement on mass transit, actually, and it’s a disaster. Have you seen those annoying door-to-door chochke salesmen that always block the subway doors with their huge cardboard boxes on wheelie carts?

By the way, what form of text markup language is used for comments?

You can use some HTML. In this case, blockquote:

<blockquote>By the way, what form of text markup language is used for comments?</blockquote>

It is clearly not a question of stop congestion pricing and the system will automatically become great. Congestion pricing is a proposal to raise funds and decongest the streets. Even after it goes down the funds still have to be raised to accomplish the MTA capital plan as it is. Then all the other funding plans have to stand up and take their turn. Hopefully, someone will stand up for increasing fuel taxes, someone else will take control of street space for mass transit from the single occupancy vehicles and maybe there will be lots of funds raised by policing bad driver behavior.

I’m not holding my breath. I think the forces against congestion pricing will also array against these other alternatives. Only they will then have been empowered by their victory, probably electing a new Mayor Weiner by then and the new urbanist street people will be forced to retreat and realign.

Weiner is a smart guy and his position on this has evolved as the debate has raged maybe it will continue to. Maybe he will be able to work Albany to increase the gas tax, reclaim street space, increase ferry traffic and police driver behavior. Still, I’m not holding my breath.

Not impossible… Cost prohibitive.

What price do you think the city needs to charge to discourage this behavior?
My point is that the proposed tax is FAR to low to effect congestion and pollution… Especially if bridge/tunnel tolls are deducted.
Even if some do change their mode of transport, as roads become easier to travel, they become more attractive to drive on…
I believe the answer is to improve the mass-transit experience enough to ensure it is the most attractive option. We need more carrot, and less stick from our government!

Glenn, if you were shipping tons of bread or some other product from borough to borough “by mass transit,” exactly how would you go about it? I sure wouldn’t want that job!

In case it’s not clear, GlennQ does not think it’s possible to ship tons of bread by mass transit. It’s a reductio ad absurdum.