Bloomberg is Making Sense

So Brad DeLong quotes Andrew Samwick, who supports Bloomberg's congestion tax idea. The short version is that drivers entering lower Manhattan during business hours would pay a fee. Ideally, this would cut down on traffic, leading to more use of mass transit and lower commute times.

My objection is that I'm not sure the mass transit is ready to take up the slack. During commuting hours the trains are basically packed. You could pack a few more in, but by and large the trains are running full. Unless you can dial up the size or frequency of trains, I don't know how many more people they can accomodate.

Of course, there are alternatives to the subway. You could run more buses. People will be more likely to carpool. A few might even walk. I'm inclined to support the mayor's plan, but I'm not hugely optimistic. On the other hand, if driving into Manhattan responds inelastically to price, then it's probably a good target for taxation anyway (I don't buy the argument that it hurts poor people, because if you are driving into Manhattan you're not very poor).