Allen Sanderson’s “A multiple-choice question on our worst civic feature” (Commentary, Nov. 16) is just what you would expect from a University of Chicago economist. He argues that the solution to traffic congestion in Chicago is higher tolls and penalties.
Sanderson expresses no anxiety about the regressive nature of these taxes, which are disproportionately burdensome to the poor. Apparently the strategy here is to drive the poor off the public roadways at rush hour so that those who can afford to pay the tolls can get to work more quickly. After all their time is more valuable in monetary terms.
Still I agree that higher tolls might be a sensible strategy if those with fewer means are compensated for their exclusion from these public spaces. But how will those who can’t afford the tolls get to work? Not by spending the extra revenue on public transportation, which Sanderson describes as “grossly inferior” to the private automobile. His solution is car pooling, the costs of which (inefficiency) are borne entirely by private individuals (in this case the poor).
In keeping with the Chicago school philosophy, Sanderson assumes that public transportation is all the same and is never good. But experience proves that some systems are better than others, and that if fares decline and quality improves, ridership will increase. The correct solution to the problem of congestion, then, is to use the increased tax revenue from the tolls to subsidize and expand public transportation.
Despite the best efforts of Sanderson and his colleagues at the University of Chicago, some of us still suffer from the delusion that public goods exist and that markets aren’t always the solution to our problems.
