There are reasons people like driving beyond just thinking it's fastest. You're sitting in a comfortable seat, choosing for yourself whether you want it to be warmer or cooler, not sitting next to the dude with the body odor or the lady putting on nail polish, listening to your choice of music or nothing at all... there are a lot of ways that driving can be a more pleasant experience than walking/biking/taking transit.

Maybe so, but I think they're outweighed by all the ways that driving (especially in cities and suburbs) can be a much less pleasant experience. Antisocial people may not be able to reach you with their odors or sounds, but they certainly can make things unpleasant. I was going to go through all the ways, but another blogger has already enumerated them. I would only add the following, which I wrote a couple weeks ago:

I don't know about you, but ever since I saw someone get killed by a motorist's impatience and momentary inattention, driving has rarely been a relaxing or pleasant experience. I'm human, and prone to impatience and inattention. I'd much rather deal with the hassles of taking kids on the subway than worry about the very real possibility that I might kill someone.

I see firsthand how cheap people with money are. They will shortchange on a tip just so they can round off the bill amount. God forbid that they give a service person (who is making maybe 20k a year) an extra five or ten bucks.

Bring on the congestion pricing, I say, but my cynical heart fears that it'll never happen.

A) Obviously on a weekday afternoon driving through midtown it's going to be a hassle and take a long time to get anywhere. You're considering an extreme case, though - there are days and times when driving those 40 blocks could take you less than ten minutes.

B) There are reasons people like driving beyond just thinking it's fastest. You're sitting in a comfortable seat, choosing for yourself whether you want it to be warmer or cooler, not sitting next to the dude with the body odor or the lady putting on nail polish, listening to your choice of music or nothing at all... there are a lot of ways that driving can be a more pleasant experience than walking/biking/taking transit.

The sooner advocates of other modes of transportation get real about this being the case, the better we'll be at effectively convincing people that driving isn't necessarily the best choice.

The thing that everyone on this board seems to forget is that for the individual, driving is generally a better, faster, more comfortable mode of transport.

I don't "forget" it because it's not true. I accept that a lot of people believe that, but I don't. Driving is a humongous hassle, especially here in New York. The reason it's so popular in other places is that they made walking and taking the bus an even bigger hassle.

You're right, Jonathan. I was thinking of the scenario (described under the original plan) of drivers that don't have e-zpass (what a spelling!), but most of them will. Even so, when they drive across the zone border they will know they're being charged. They will curse the horrible government that is taking away $8 of the riches they EARNED. All that stuff.

And as taxis enter the non-gray market of credit card payment kicking and screaming, they too feel less immediately expensive. I won't argue for taking away convenience, but I don't think it dampens the effect significantly. Grown-ups know when they slide the mastercard or drive through the e-zpass reader that they're paying real money for a trip.

My parents have a home movie of my mom walking me to my first day in kindergarten -- this was in 1962, in the NJ suburb where I grew up. By the end of that school year, I was making the walk both ways by myself, and continued doing so through my last year in high school. Most of my classmates did the same. There were flocks of us on the sidewalks ever morning and afternoon. The only hazardous point was the crossing of a four-lane highway near the school -- but the town wisely placed a crossing guard there before and after school hours.

http://www.BehindtheApprovalMatrix.com

http://www.IGotUGGs.com

A better solution for these parents is to remove the resident exemption on the NYC parking tax (also included in the Congestion Commission proposal), for which the extra fees will go to the DOT lockbox for streetscape improvements/Quinn's ferries. It won't get their Escalades off the street, but at least the extra money they will pay each month will go to a good cause.

How can someone with a "dranny," a $25,000 SUV, $400/month for parking, monthly insurance costs, and enough to pay for gas every week complain about an occasional $20 cab ride?

Easy. Costs that are paid per month are psychologically written off as the cost of doing business. Out-of-pocket costs incurred for a particular purchase are weighed much much more heavily, probably more than they should be.

This is why people obsess about transit fares, gasoline prices and bridge tolls, but barely think about the much greater cost (measured annually) of automobile depreciation.

Folks, this is why pricing will be such a deterrent to traffic. Eight dollars, when you make a particular trip. Not an unchanging charge once a month.

This very article has an example of a rich person changing behavior because of a few (twenty) dollars. Since she has already blown a ton of cash on a glitzy vehicle, insurance, and maintenance, the $20 of a cab ride is another reason to use the SUV for "free." These people are reminded of the costs of driving a only couple of times a month: paying the auto note (if there is one), insurance, maintenance, parking, driver's salary, and filling up with gas. That's it. Congestion pricing introduces a per-trip, or at least daily, charge and alters the equation completely. Yeah, $8 is less that $20. It is 40% of $20. It also stands in mentally for all the less frequently assessed automobile costs. It will not go unnoticed, nor the hassle of paying it, by people of any income and to claim otherwise is counterproductive class bitterness.

To explain what Jen was saying, people like this are poster children for why the populist argument against congestion pricing (it will hurt poor people!) doesn't hold water. The people profiled in this article could easily afford $8/day, but right now are using city streets for free. (Since these people rarely leave Manhattan during the week, they'd be charged the full $8 and not have any money deducted for bridge or tunnel tolls.)

And, no, congestion pricing will not get people like this to change their behavior, but my feeling is that the rich will NEVER be adversely affected by fee-based changes to daily activities. That doesn't mean we shouldn't charge them. Even though congestion pricing might not change their behavior -- I highly doubt anyone with this kind of money will stop driving because of CP -- the city might as well charge them for the privilege of driving on city streets. CP is, on the one hand, about reducing congestion, but it is also about eliminating the free ride that people like this get on OUR streets.

All in good time. This is a pilot project. It should be fast, and cheap.

On aspect of the proposal ought to concern cyclists and pedestrians. The CP charge would basically take the place of tolls on the free bridges (other than 60th Street). But no CP money will be used to maintain those bridges, unlike the TBTA tolls. The city has borrowed big time to repair those bridges and needs to maintain them. Bikers and peds use those bridges too.

That's why I think the bridges, the debts, AND the CP money should be turned over to the MTA.

B) This is why congestion pricing should include intra-zone trips.