In another comment thread I was talking about New York City in particular.
This comment thread is talking about the general dynamics of commutes.
Unlimited free or near-free road consumption is the norm across the entire US. NYC in particular has always been ahead of the curve in mitigating this. The bridge tolls are obviously not priced anywhere close to the value of crossing the bridge, or else land values would be the same on both sides of the bridge.
I suspect this isn't actually hard to follow and you're just getting irritated for some reason.
> Unlimited free or near-free road consumption is the norm across the entire US
Roads are funded with taxes. How does that make them free? The main source of road funding in the US are property taxes and gas taxes, followed by things like license plate tabs (mine were ~$2500 last year).
> The bridge tolls are obviously not priced anywhere close to the value of crossing the bridge, or else land values would be the same on both sides of the bridge
Nothing about that is obvious, nor does your explanation make any sense. We should only invest in infrastructure if the costs to utilize it are equivalent to its benefits? That's not what we do with anything. Why build a bridge that provides no positive benefit to the people using it?
> Roads are funded with taxes. How does that make them free?
Road creation and maintenance are funded by taxes. Road consumption is generally free or near-free. These are distinct concepts.
> Nothing about that is obvious, nor does your explanation make any sense.
A simple case of disequilibrium doesn't make sense to you? The two sides are clearly of unequal value. If the act of crossing them costed as much as that difference, then the two sides would equalize.
> We should only invest in infrastructure if the costs to utilize it are equivalent to its benefits? That's not what we do with anything. Why build a bridge that provides no positive benefit to the people using it?
Nope! Not sure how you got from a description of how prices work and clear empirical evidence of price imbalances to a normative argument about what we should do. As I've stated explicitly elsewhere in the thread, the goal is not to completely eliminate the imbalance. I'm saying the existence of price differences and the arbitrage between the two sides of the bridges are clear evidence there is an imbalance.
This comment thread is talking about the general dynamics of commutes.
Unlimited free or near-free road consumption is the norm across the entire US. NYC in particular has always been ahead of the curve in mitigating this. The bridge tolls are obviously not priced anywhere close to the value of crossing the bridge, or else land values would be the same on both sides of the bridge.
I suspect this isn't actually hard to follow and you're just getting irritated for some reason.