[HN Gopher] NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker
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NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker
Author : gotmedium
Score : 335 points
Date : 2025-01-06 22:22 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.congestion-pricing-tracker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.congestion-pricing-tracker.com)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related:
|
| _NYC Congestion Pricing Set to Take Effect After Years of
| Delays_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42598936
| freditup wrote:
| Note that it was snowy in NYC today, so people were likely
| dissuaded to drive by other factors than congestion pricing as
| well. It'll be interesting to see what impact there is as we get
| further along in the year.
|
| The dashboard is based off of Google Maps travel time data which
| I'm unsure of the exact accuracy. I imagine the city might also
| have other more direct metrics that can be used, such as the
| count of vehicles passing through the tunnels into the congestion
| zone.
| ortusdux wrote:
| https://www.wired.com/story/99-phones-fake-google-maps-traff...
| rtkwe wrote:
| It's a neat little project but people aren't doing that on
| the regular so the data should be pretty good.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I do wonder how google handles edge cases, passengers,
| busses, etc. I've been in rideshares where the driver is
| using 4 phones -
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/business/apps-uber-
| lyft-d...
| rtkwe wrote:
| I think, at least the way I would approach the problem,
| would be to look at the speed or flow rate of the phones
| on a particular road as the primary signal. I believe
| Google has ways of detecting if the device is in a
| car/vehicle vs being carried for example so they could
| filter out "walking" phones. Then looking at the flow of
| devices alleviates the need to calculate the carrying
| capacity of a particular road. The speed/flow tells you
| want you're trying to measure more directly than trying
| to count phones and decide if that means a road is
| congested or not, to do that you'd need to develop a
| heuristic to estimate the capacity of roads which seems
| like you're unnecessarily ignoring the direct signal in
| favor of trying to calculate it from a noisier source.
| theamk wrote:
| Note if you check "unaffected" routes (16 and 18), you'll see
| they had much smaller changes.
|
| Also, while simple metrics are cool, what commuters really care
| is how long it took to get from point A to point B, which is
| what this shows...
| kylebenzle wrote:
| You are correct, steveBK is incorrect.
| MisterTea wrote:
| Snowy? That was a light dusting that I cleaned up with a broom.
| johnkpaul wrote:
| I think it was worse in suburban areas slightly outside of
| the city, at least on the NJ side. In western Bergen county,
| I had a bit over 1 inch and had to break out the shovel for
| the sidewalk.
| MisterTea wrote:
| Still though, an inch or two around here is not a big deal.
| I only really start complaining when I have to break out
| the snow blower.
| dleink wrote:
| I have a flexible commute that sometimes involves driving a
| car into the zone and if I see snow in the forecast I'll be
| less likely to be in the city with a car that day.
|
| I love congestion pricing, I will gladly pay $9 if it lowers
| traffic during peak hours. I also try to plan trips in the
| offpeak hours anyway. If you leave at 11pm you can get from
| shea stadium to Philly in an hour forty-five.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Right this dashboard won't be meaningful until 3/6/12 months
| out when any seasonality / weather related effects all average
| out.
| dgfitz wrote:
| Someone gets shot outside a hotel, but damn it if we won't figure
| out how to charge people more money.
| bsimpson wrote:
| There probably isn't a public street in America that could
| prevent a random assassination.
|
| If the guy got shot visiting relatives in Park City, would you
| suggest that any contemporary public policy in Utah was bad?
| dgfitz wrote:
| I'd suggest not taxing the people of a city if they can't be
| kept safe first.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| New Yorkers, and Manhattanites in particular, live longer
| than most of the world. This is due to mass transit, public
| healthcare and being phenomenally rich.
|
| Would also note that the shooter you're referring to
| crossed into Manhattan with a gun purchased in another
| jurisdiction. This is a problem of other areas' lawlessness
| crossing into New York as much as it's a fantasy about cops
| being expected to thwart an active shooter on the spot.
| bsimpson wrote:
| A particular unknown person getting assassinated is not a
| safety issue. The only reason it happened in NY is because
| business happens in NY. Nobody's going to assassinate you,
| in NY or anywhere else.
|
| It feels like you're being dense on purpose.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Curious how that works ? Does one need an EXPass or is a bill
| sent out ?
|
| I am also wondering if other Cities will adopt this. Eventually I
| can see this or something like it be rolled out nationwide as EVs
| become more popular.
| surbas wrote:
| Both Work, however cheaper if you have an EZ Pass.
| healsdata wrote:
| Yup, it's EZPass. Either with a transponder or plate-by-mail
| matthest wrote:
| Whether it's the government or corporations, big organizations
| are the problem.
|
| We need a small business revolution in this country.
|
| Side note: An economy made up of small businesses was Adam
| Smith's original vision (the godfather of capitalism). He also
| hated the idea of a corporation. What we have today really is
| very far from Adam Smith capitalism.
| boplicity wrote:
| Maybe an interesting question: How can you have a big city
| without a large organization to logistically make it work?
| Especially if it has coherent and well-run transit, and similar
| services, such as garbage/sewer/power/water.
| timewizard wrote:
| > How can you have a big city without a large organization to
| logistically make it work?
|
| Is there a large cohesive logistical operation even present?
| It seems to me the city is divided into boroughs, precincts
| and "special offices" all with their own individual mandates
| and approaches due to the complications inherent in large
| organizations.
|
| > Especially if it has coherent and well-run transit
|
| Well run? Compared to what?
|
| > such as garbage/sewer/power/water.
|
| The municipality does offer these services but you can
| arrange to have them handled privately if you want. They
| still have to follow the law but they're allowed to operate
| in the cities "territory." If the city was such a logistical
| juggernaut then why would these options even be necessary or
| utilized? If the city stopped providing these services and
| turned it over entirely to private business would the city
| stop existing?
| robrenaud wrote:
| Are the market dynamics such that effective small companies
| grow, and ineffective small companies shrink? Is this bad?
| theamk wrote:
| There are plenty of small towns with small governments in the
| US, and most of them are much more affordable then NYC.
|
| I am going to assume that the most people who live in NYC are
| there exactly because they want big city (with correspondingly
| big government).
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| what's that got to do with congestion pricing?
| mlinhares wrote:
| Yeah, Adam Smith, famous libertarian, that didn't believe the
| government hard part to play.
|
| People could try actually reading what he wrote for once.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We need a small business revolution in this country_
|
| New York City is _filled_ with small businesses. When walking
| distance puts you in range of entire towns' populations, that
| becomes much easier. Emphasis, there, on both the distance and
| walking. Someone who drives into New York to go to a
| destination doesn't pass as many small businesses as someone
| who takes transit.
| hammock wrote:
| Surprised that on a forum for _startups_ , this comment is the
| most downvoted. Have we lost all self-awareness?
| lordgrenville wrote:
| The VC-funded startup model is predicated on becoming a large
| business, not staying a small one.
| hammock wrote:
| The storyline as I remember it, was that startups can
| uniquely disrupt the big organizations (private or
| governmental) and unlock growth that was otherwise
| unavailable, and that's what attracted VC money in the
| first place. Innovator's Dilemma and all that. Seems like
| an eon ago.
| maxwellg wrote:
| I'm incredibly hopeful that NYC congestion pricing pays off in a
| big way - and that we start to see it in other cities across
| America. I really, really want congestion pricing in downtown SF.
| During rush hour, cars block the box and slow down busses, with
| cascading effects.
| gkoberger wrote:
| While I agree with disliking the things you mentioned, could it
| be argued that adding barriers to entry for getting into the
| city will just increase WFH and hurt SF more? I can see a lot
| of people choosing to just stay home rather than take a bus -
| not everyone is close to MUNI or BART.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Fewer single-person-vehicles = more desirable ontime Bus/Tram
| throughput = more people who _are_ close to MUNIBART taking
| MUNIBART.
|
| Then use tolls to improve and expand the _mass_ transit
| services instead of only ever catering to the single-person-
| car-commuters.
|
| (ofc it takes more than ontime performance to sell people on
| mass transit, needs to be a safe environment at all hours of
| the day -- even if I can take BART into the city in the
| afternoon, if I don't feel safe taking it back at 10PM then
| I'm just going to drive both ways, to say nothing of the
| choice to stop running trains at midnight)
| ghaff wrote:
| Safety and schedule. I've never had a safety issue with
| taking commuter rail into Boston but taking it home from an
| evening event is basically a non-starter given how seldom
| it runs and how much longer it will take relative to
| driving even if I catch my train.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| I'm very hopeful that Boston commuter rail gets
| electrified with the associated speed and frequency
| improvements soonish. the inner half of the commuter rail
| network is absolutely dense enough to be worth running
| service every 15 minutes on peak and every 30 off peak
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Top speed (mostly) comes from the tracks, not the method
| of motive power.
|
| As it stands they're already maxing out and exceeding
| (when they're late) the max speed for the class of rail
| they have.
|
| Some of the inner stops might get a few seconds faster
| with better acceleration but that's about it.
|
| The grade crossings are also kinda f'd. At full speed you
| can be in the middle of the train and see the arms still
| be in the process of lowering at certain crossings. That
| ain't safe. Faster won't make that better.
| scottbez1 wrote:
| Top speed, sure, but for typical commuter heavy-rail, a
| non-express train isn't running at top speed for all that
| long.
|
| Diesel-electric trains take a LOT longer to accelerate
| compared to a modern EMU, so much so that Caltrain's
| electrification project shaved 23 minutes off the SF to
| San Jose local trip, from 100 to 77 minutes.
|
| Videos [0] [1] make the acceleration improvement pretty
| clear.
|
| [0] https://x.com/Caltrain/status/1804278237486588179
|
| [1] https://x.com/eiioth/status/1822814729079009516
| potato3732842 wrote:
| The MBTA already runs top speed on most of its lines once
| you get outside of roughly I95 depending on the line.
| Getting there faster would help but I don't think it
| would shave as much time off the end to end trip as you
| think. And for the urban stops they already accelerate
| and brake at the limit of what is reasonable for standing
| passengers. They can't push it too much or an old lady is
| gonna bounce off a wall and get a nose bleed and that's a
| bad look. It's not like Acela where a ticket guarantees a
| seat.
|
| There will definitely be _some_ improvement from
| electrification but I don 't think it will affect median
| travel times much and the affect on average will mostly
| be from reliability.
| ghaff wrote:
| The Fitchburg line did do upgrades a few years ago. I
| think they double-tracked sections that weren't. It still
| take a while--hour+--from the outer reaches.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| if there aren't enough seats and they're still running 30
| minute headways, that's incredibly stupid.
| ghaff wrote:
| Not enough seats is mostly pretty close into the city in
| my experience. At least on the line that I sometimes
| take, it's mostly Waltham in which doesn't have a mass
| transit line.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Why ask for 15/30? My schedule right next door for the
| Berlin subway is 3/10. During peak hours, you don't even
| check when the next train runs. And they're all full. I
| do believe Boston has more inhabitants than this small
| city.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The Boston commuter rail network would be equivalent to
| Berlin's S-Bahn network, which is 10/20 minutes, and 30
| on Friday and Saturday nights.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| the subway is at 5/10 or so (it would be very nice if we
| got it down to 3/10), the commuter rail, however is
| mostly hourly at peak and 2 hours to never of peak
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. I'll usually take commuter rail in for the rare
| 9-5ish stuff because it's such a lousy drive. But
| catching one of the very few later trains, especially if
| I have to time it with the subway, just doesn't work and
| it's usually a <1 hour drive anyway at that time of
| night.
|
| I'm also pretty far out and not all the trains run that
| far.
| milch wrote:
| Most transit agencies have this problem of the "vicious
| transit cycle" - people don't take the bus because it's too
| infrequent/unreliable => more cars make the buses more
| unreliable => less money because so few people take it =>
| back to start. It's amazing when you're sitting in a bus
| behind 20 cars backed up over 4 blocks, and you look back
| and there's 50 people on the bus. Really makes you think
| why the 50-person bus doesn't get priority over all of the
| single occupancy vehicles
| cyberax wrote:
| Nah. Most agencies have a problem of people realizing
| that wasting life in buses is not worth it.
|
| Transit can never compete with cars on speed in well-
| designed cities.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I guess by 'well designed cities' you mean 'cities with
| copious amounts of parking'
|
| For certain high frequency routes in Chicago, I never
| minded sitting on the bus to get across town. At least
| once I got off I didn't have to find a parking spot. Now
| wasting life _waiting_ for a bus is another story.
| cyberax wrote:
| > I guess by 'well designed cities' you mean 'cities with
| copious amounts of parking'
|
| Yup. Wide roads, plenty of parking, distributed industry
| and office space, low density.
| saagarjha wrote:
| "Low density" just means that the entire area is covered
| in asphalt. That's not what well designed looks like.
| cyberax wrote:
| Yes, and?
|
| > That's not what well designed looks like.
|
| It is more flexible, people-friendly, enables better
| living. So yeah, "well designed".
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| It's not popular on HN but this is the truth. Cars are
| fast, and they operate on your own schedule, and they
| don't have to make a bunch of stops. There's just no way
| transit can compete on travel time. Unless of course, a
| city decides to purposely underbuild roads relative to
| population (like what is induced with increased density)
| or purposely destroys car infrastructure, as San
| Francisco is doing with absurd speed limits, speed bumps,
| and other "traffic calming" (or more accurately, anti car
| measures).
|
| And that's leaving aside all the issues with our of
| control transit budgets or crime on public transit in
| many cities.
| randoomed wrote:
| Yes and no. Cars are indeed the fastest way to travel, if
| we disregard some aspects like the time needed to park
| and throughput limits. (also disregarding very large
| distances where high speed trains and airplanes out
| compete them)
|
| So for spread out places with lost of space cars will
| usually be the fastest.
|
| However if we look at dense city centres you have a lot
| of people competing for parking and a lot of people
| competing for road throughput.
|
| Say we want to move from A to B, assuming infinite
| throughput the car is fastest. Take the same route, but
| it can handle only 200 cars/hour and 10000 people want to
| take it, we end up with a lot of cars waiting for each
| other. In this case, slower but more efficient modes of
| travel will be faster at getting all these people to
| their destination.
|
| This leads us nicely to the Downs-Thomson paradox. When
| people in the above scenario start to take other modes of
| transport it reduces the load on our bottleneck.
| Eventually reaching an equilibrium where the speed of
| different modes of transport balances out (as people stop
| switching from one mode to the other)
|
| The hate for traffic calming is an interesting point, as
| it assumes cars are the only thing that exists.
| Unfortunately our cars don't exist in a vacuum, but
| interact with other object in the world like buildings,
| and people. The goal of traffic calming is to make it so
| that other things are protected from cars. (mainly by
| lowering speed in places where there is lots of other
| stuff, you wont see traffic calming on a highway)
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > This leads us nicely to the Downs-Thomson paradox. When
| people in the above scenario start to take other modes of
| transport it reduces the load on our bottleneck.
| Eventually reaching an equilibrium where the speed of
| different modes of transport balances out (as people stop
| switching from one mode to the other)
|
| The premise here is that travel time can be the only
| trade off, but suppose we make a different one: Stop
| charging fares for mass transit. Then more people take it
| because it costs less rather than because it's faster and
| it can be _less expensive_ (and only slightly slower)
| even when the roads are minimally congested.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Public transport is already largely cheaper than owning a
| car in many places, yet people drive. One good example to
| study is Germanys 50 EUR Ticket - now 58 EUR. It's a flat
| rate for all of Germanys public transport, including
| regional trains. You can get anywhere in Germany with
| this, and 58 EUR is not even remotely achievable as
| monthly cost for a car. Yet, while it has increased
| ridership, the majority of people drive.
|
| The problem is that transportation system quality matters
| more for a lot of people. The problem ends up as people
| owning a car for the last mile - that is from the rapid
| transit to their porch. And once they own a car, the
| calculus changes - you already incure the cost for the
| car.
|
| So what you need is a reliable way to get door to door -
| and that requires more than slapping down a few light
| rail tracks. It requires connections that cover the last
| bit as well - and they will often run unprofitable. In
| the end, building such a system requires the (political)
| will to regard public transport as a common good
| infrastructure like road that gets paid from taxes and is
| not considered an enterprise that (could potentially)
| make money. In the end, this could also be made free, but
| free alone will not make that happen.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Public transport is already largely cheaper than owning
| a car in many places, yet people drive.
|
| This is not a binary distinction. If you save $0.20 by
| taking public transport but it takes an hour longer, of
| course people drive. If you save $3 by taking public
| transport and it only costs you five minutes, that's
| different math.
|
| > You can get anywhere in Germany with this, and 58 EUR
| is not even remotely achievable as monthly cost for a
| car.
|
| When most people have a car you have to compare it not to
| the amortized cost of owning a car but the marginal cost
| of driving one you already have.
|
| The majority of trips might be suitable for public
| transport but then people have a car because it's such an
| inconvenience to go to Costco and carry back everything
| you buy there on a bus, or they occasionally go somewhere
| the bus doesn't. So they get a car and then the
| insurance, tax, depreciation, etc. are all sunk costs and
| to get them to take the bus instead of driving themselves
| it has to beat the cost of gas.
|
| Which it can, if you make it zero. Which in turn
| increases ridership, allowing you to justify more routes,
| which reduces latency, which causes even more people to
| take mass transit. By making mass transit more attractive
| instead of making driving less attractive.
|
| > It requires connections that cover the last bit as well
| - and they will often run unprofitable.
|
| Or you can just handle 85% of the cases that would have a
| justifiable amount of ridership and then let people drive
| a car or get an Uber in the 15% that would be mostly
| disused, instead of leaving it how it is now where people
| drive the majority of the time.
| Xylakant wrote:
| The problem is that throughput per lane of cars is very
| limited in comparison to everything else. A single car
| line can transport about 2000 persons per hour. A single
| bus lane about 9000, a single bike lane 14000 - if you
| dedicate the space to pedestrians, we're at 19000 and
| light rail goes beyond that at 22000 and more. (See page
| 3, https://www.static.tu.berlin/fileadmin/www/10002265/Ne
| ws/Pre..., German only)
|
| This means that a single bus lane has as much transport
| capacity as 4-5 car lanes. A single light rail track as
| much as 10 or more car lanes. It's just physically
| impossible to fit all the lanes for cars. The correct
| answer to congestion is not to build a second lane. It is
| to add a bike lane and a bus lane, and if the bus lane is
| full - upgrade to tram.
|
| (Corollary: this is also why bike lanes always look
| empty. A full bike line would be equivalent to seven
| lanes of cars. At an equivalent of 3 full lanes of cars,
| the bike lane is half-empty)
| thereisnospork wrote:
| The problem is utilization: you can't get 9000 persons
| per hour via busing in most places, weighting by area.
| Fixed routing scales poorly compared to cars (or bikes
| which have their own drawbacks) trying to match many-to-
| many riders-to-destinations.
| Xylakant wrote:
| What's "most places?" This is a traffic flow that's
| achieved routinely in about every medium size european
| city. And the way population is distributed, most people
| live in comparatively dense population centers, across
| the world.
| cyberax wrote:
| A medium US city has the commute time of 15 minutes. It's
| unachievable with transit in any scenario.
|
| > And the way population is distributed, most people live
| in comparatively dense population centers, across the
| world.
|
| Yeah. And it sucks. The distributed nature of the US
| cities gave people far more economic opportunities than
| in Europe. This resulted in faster economic growth (and
| still does).
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Or just keep density lower and match the car lanes
| capacity.
| Xylakant wrote:
| 2000 people per hour is really not that much. And
| reducing density will not buy you much - density itself
| doesn't mean anything. If you have a suburb with 50 000
| people living there and an office park with 25 000 people
| working there (both not particularly high numbers), you
| get a traffic flow of 25 000 people moving both ways,
| during rush hour. That's grossly simplifying things, but
| you should be able to get the point.
|
| What would buy you much is mixed neighborhoods (aka: the
| 15 minute city - everything you need for your daily life
| is within 15 minutes walking distance), because this will
| eliminate many trips. But mixed neighborhoods work better
| with higher density - because a supermarket in a low
| density place cannot be within 15 minutes walking
| distance.
|
| Also: This is about NYC. How would you even go about
| reducing Manhattens density to a level where no road is
| used by less than 2000 (or 4000) people per hour during
| rush hour?
| cyberax wrote:
| > That's grossly simplifying things, but you should be
| able to get the point.
|
| No, that's called "lying by omission". A person working
| in an office park doesn't live in one particular housing
| area assigned to it. So you get a distributed flow
| instead.
|
| And it's also why transit sucks (sucked, and will always
| suck): it's unlikely that there's a direct fast transit
| route between your house and your job. And each
| connection adds around 10 minutes on average to the
| commute.
|
| > Also: This is about NYC. How would you even go about
| reducing Manhattens density to a level where no road is
| used by less than 2000 (or 4000) people per hour during
| rush hour?
|
| Tax the dense office space like it's an industrial
| pollution.
| cyberax wrote:
| > The problem is that throughput per lane of cars is very
| limited in comparison to everything else
|
| Bullshit. You are a victim of propaganda.
|
| In reality, a car lane can carry 2000 people per hour
| with an average car load. With mild car-pooling, it's
| easy to increase it to 6000 people per hour.
|
| A bus in the US has an average load of just 18 people. So
| with 10 buses per hour, you get just 180 people per lane
| per hour. Even at peak loads (200 people per bus) and a
| bus every 2 minutes, you get 6000 people per lane per
| hour.
|
| Transit sucks and will always suck. It's pure math.
| Transit slowly consumes lives and increases misery. All
| it's good for is to move people to "misery centrals"
| (downtowns) where pretty much nobody really wants/can
| live in comfort.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| San Francisco currently has ~54% of its eligible
| population having cars registered to them. There are a
| lot of one-car families as well as e-bike families who
| don't want a car.
|
| If that increased to 100%, you wouldn't be able to park
| anywhere without paying a lot, and getting anywhere would
| be super slow.
|
| It might make sense on a per-individual or per-trip basis
| to say that you prefer using a car, but if everyone makes
| that choice (old used cars are fairly cheap), it's a
| problem.
| nayuki wrote:
| > It might make sense on a per-individual or per-trip
| basis to say that you prefer using a car, but if everyone
| makes that choice (old used cars are fairly cheap), it's
| a problem.
|
| A classic case of the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma .
| DrBrock wrote:
| We appear to have very different definitions of "well-
| designed cities".
|
| Cars are the least efficient form of mass transit yet
| devised. They take up inordinate amounts of space to move
| very few people. This creates unavoidable congestion
| problems at very realistic levels of urban density,
| problems which are only solvable by enabling people to
| use viable alternatives.
|
| This is why the subway and buses in Manhattan move 5x and
| 2x more people respectively per day than cars.
| (https://new.mta.info/agency/new-york-city-
| transit/subway-bus...)
| (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/manhattan-drivers-
| face-9-fe...)
|
| Speaking of "wasting life in buses", did you know that
| the average LA / Chicago / NYC driver spends 85 to 100
| hours a year just sitting in traffic? Food for thought
| (https://inrix.com/scorecard/)
| cyberax wrote:
| > We appear to have very different definitions of "well-
| designed cities".
|
| No comparable European city is even close to Houston in
| average commute time. Go on, fact check me.
|
| > This is why the subway and buses in Manhattan move 5x
| and 2x more people respectively per day than cars.
|
| Manhattan is a hellscape that needs to be de-densified
| (with some neighborhoods preserved as museums of human
| folly).
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Manhattan is such a strange place to live. People are
| locked into something far off the normal ways of living,
| and they forget those other ways of life and look down on
| them (smaller less dense cities, suburbs, rural areas).
| Living in closets in high rises and moving around
| underground isn't life. Having room for living, being
| able to get around quickly with private owned vehicles,
| and walking on grass instead of concrete is a better way
| of life. Somehow masses of people, especially younger
| people, have convinced themselves that an unhealthy way
| of life is healthy.
| boroboro4 wrote:
| Manhattan/NYC also provides you with truly diverse crowd
| of people around, cultural events and experiences,
| different food and many more.
|
| NYC in general also have plenty of different
| neighborhoods with very different lifestyles and vibes.
| lotsoweiners wrote:
| None of that crap you mentioned has anything to do with
| the previous post. I live in as suburban of a
| neighborhood as you can imagine and within 10-15 minutes
| could walk to a Vietnamese restaurant, 2 sushi
| restaurants, Thai, NY style pizza, 2 bars, several shitty
| Mexican restaurants, and just about every fast food
| chain. I'll trade this ease of living over "vibes" any
| day.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Several million people disagree with you.
| boroboro4 wrote:
| London average commute time is 38 minutes, quite
| comparable to 31 minute in Houston. I would argue you get
| much more _spare_ time while using public transportation
| too, as well as so much needed walk time.
| cyberax wrote:
| > London average commute time is 38 minutes, quite
| comparable to 31 minute in Houston.
|
| Houston is 28 minutes. So an average Houston citizen gets
| 20 more minutes every day. In reality, it's even more
| because Houston is way better designed for daily chores:
| buying groceries, getting kids to chess clubs, etc.
|
| It can work out to a whole _hour_ a day of extra time
| compared to London.
|
| And they will live in FAR FAR FAR better conditions. In
| their own house, with plenty of space.
|
| So yep, dense cities are a folly and need to be
| refactored (by demolishing).
| Niksko wrote:
| And if you look to places like Meixco City and Bogota,
| their bus rapid transit is very fast and efficient. But
| good luck taking away a single lane of traffic for
| dedicated bus services anywhere in the US.
| fragmede wrote:
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/MrLLq1V4acKnG3RVA
|
| This road right here in a west coast US city used to be
| four lanes of car traffic (two in each direction), but
| _two_ (one in each direction) were taken out and
| dedicated for bus service.
| what wrote:
| Yet there's now 6 lanes? So they didn't take out two
| lanes for bus traffic?
| nayuki wrote:
| According to Google street view, the road had 3 general
| car lanes per direction up to and including Nov 2016.
|
| Shortly after, the middle lane of each direction became a
| bus-only lane, but this was implemented with temporary
| road modifications. (So each direction has 1 bus lane and
| 2 car lanes.) The middle part of the road was rebuilt
| from 2019 to 2020, making this feature permanent.
| coldpie wrote:
| > Really makes you think why the 50-person bus doesn't
| get priority over all of the single occupancy vehicles
|
| They're building up more and more Bus-Only lanes here in
| the Twin Cities, and as a daily bus commuter, the change
| has been fantastic. Really makes a big difference in
| speed & reliable bus timings when the bus gets its own
| space to operate.
| maxwellg wrote:
| For a concrete example of carrot and stick - check out
| ridership numbers for the 49 after the Van Ness BRT project
| finished. 49 ridership is more than completely recovered at
| 140% of pre-pandemic numbers. In comparison, the 38 and 38R
| didn't get their dedicated bus lane out in the Richmond and
| ridership numbers are still nowhere near pre-pandemic. Make
| the bus fast and frequent and people will take it.
|
| https://www.sfmta.com/reports/average-daily-muni-
| boardings-r...
| tlogan wrote:
| By the way, the head of SFMTA resigned this week, and there
| are rumors of a full audit on the horizon.
| mperham wrote:
| Or it could be argued that more people want to take the bus
| but it's too slow to be practical due to car gridlock.
| paxys wrote:
| Reducing the number of daily commuters isn't going to "hurt"
| the city. Quite the opposite in fact. Actual residents make
| the city what it is, and reducing
| traffic/congestion/honking/pollution is going to make it a
| much more attractive place to live.
| ars wrote:
| What I'm curious about is if business in the Manhattan will be
| lessened as a result of less people there. I know the goal is
| less cars, rather than less people, but I want to see if that's
| actually what will happen.
|
| As someone who doesn't live in Manhattan I wish there was a
| better way to go basically anywhere in New York without
| entering Manhattan. Every single road, bus, and subway goes
| through this super dense area.
|
| Like why do I need to go through Manhattan to get from Newark
| Airport to Flatbush? (Unless I have a car, then I can go over
| the Verazzano, but in a bus/subway/train? It's all via
| Manhattan.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I've thought about the same thing and concluded this
| basically reduces to "why do economies organize around dense
| urban cores"? pretty much any business that can afford to
| will want to rent space in the barycenter of a metro area.
| that's what manhattan is to the NYC metro.
|
| when the vast majority of daily trips are into and out of
| that dense core, that defines the most economic routes for
| building transit. beltways/bypasses exist to relieve the
| already saturated surface roads of the core. you don't see
| the same thing with trains because it's not necessary. it
| sucks for the passenger to transfer between three or four
| different trains to get from EWR to flatbush, but the rail
| infrastructure has plenty of capacity to accommodate a few
| extra pax on that route.
|
| I think it would be a lot nicer to have urban life/transit
| built around many smaller cores with everyone living much
| closer to work. but in aggregate, businesses want the largest
| hiring base, and people want the best jobs they can get in
| the area.
| ars wrote:
| The downside is it creates a conflict between the city and
| the rest. The city is like "we want transit, everyone else
| go away". The rest are like "we want to give you business
| but your policies drive us away", and "we want transit, but
| we are forced to get a car because transit is only in the
| center".
|
| It's an unnecessary conflict - just add some transit that
| doesn't revolve around the city center. This reduces the
| number of people just passing through the center and
| creating unnecessary stress, and it make transit possible
| for more people.
|
| Manhattan is like a black hole - it sucks in every single
| transit from as far away as Massachusetts. Try to travel by
| public transportation from virtually anywhere nearby
| without going through Manhattan. You can't and it's
| unnecessary traffic.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >I think it would be a lot nicer to have urban life/transit
| built around many smaller cores with everyone living much
| closer to work. but in aggregate, businesses want the
| largest hiring base, and people want the best jobs they can
| get in the area.
|
| I think that this is prevented in large part by local
| capture of state politics by leading cities. NYC money
| basically owns NY politics so NY will never neglect let
| alone screw NYC to the benefit of Buffalo and Albany and
| whatnot. Repeat for other states that have one or two big
| urban economic wells that run everything.
| izacus wrote:
| Car people did the same hand wringing when my nations capital
| outright banned cars in the city center. After a few years it
| turned out, that the business grew because the place became
| more pleasant for folks to go to.
| ars wrote:
| The issue is that Manhattan is not just a destination, it's
| also a transit - people often just want to go through
| Manhattan, and not into it.
|
| If you removed all the through traffic, leaving just people
| who want to stop there, that change alone, would improve
| things dramatically.
| taatof wrote:
| How do we get around? To get downtown I have to take two busses
| and then bart (or two busses but it takes longer because there
| are a lot more stops).
|
| The kicker: I'm not even in a suburb, I live in SF!
|
| All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never make
| public transit better. At least NYC has a plenty good enough
| train system.
|
| I end up WFH anyway, largely because it's annoying to get to an
| office downtown every day.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| > All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never
| make public transit better.
|
| Same happening here in my smallish (~300k peeople) capital of
| a small eu country...
|
| Too many cars? More expensive parking! Less parking! More
| expensive parking! Less parking! More pedestrian-only
| streets, and even more cars around that...
|
| And the buses? They suck. The city is roughly star-shaped..
| want to go from one leg to another? Well, you have to cross
| the city center. Sunday? Half of the buses don't drive then.
| Something happening in the city center? Good luck with
| getting on the last bus after the event is over, and no extra
| buses added. Dog? Not during "rush hours" (6.30-9:30 and
| 13-17h). AC? Barely any. Two buses needed? No time
| sinchronization at all. Train-bus time sychronization? haha
| good luck. Need to go just a stop or two? It's expensive.
| Need to go across the whole town? It's slow, even with empty
| streets.
|
| But hey, parking will be made even more expensive!
|
| edit: also, a student? You get cheaper transport! Here's a
| line for you to wait to get the transport card:
| https://www.zurnal24.si/slovenija/pred-okenci-prevoznikov-
| pr...
| taatof wrote:
| Sounds right. Here in SF, instead of police pulling over
| people who speed and run stop signs, we're getting rid of
| parking spots within 20ft of intersections so people
| speeding and running stop signs can see if they're about to
| kill a pedestrian.
|
| Could raise a fortune for public transit if we enforced
| traffic laws and used that money.
| milch wrote:
| Because police can't physically be in every intersection
| at once, and there's research that shows that removing
| parking around intersections reduces pedestrian
| fatalities. They could add cameras, but I bet you that
| people would fight tooth and nail against that as well...
| not being able to park within 20ft of an intersection
| doesn't cause any privacy issues, or funnel money into
| the city councilman's cousin's company that just so
| happens to be in the business of installing red light and
| stop sign photo enforcement cameras, or need ongoing
| maintenance to keep working
| cyberax wrote:
| > Because police can't physically be in every
| intersection at once
|
| They don't have to be everywhere. They have to be at
| least _somewhere_ and start visible enforcing. People
| need to know that they might get away with running a red
| light a couple of times, but they WILL be caught
| eventually, and there WILL be consequences.
|
| > and there's research that shows that removing parking
| around intersections reduces pedestrian fatalities.
|
| I read a lot of the urbanist propaganda research, and
| most of it is pure crap. Bad statistical methods, poor
| significance, P-hacking, biased tests, you name it.
| taatof wrote:
| > Because police can't physically be in every
| intersection at once
|
| Can we compromise at some number greater than 0? I've
| lived here for more than a decade and don't remember
| seeing anyone getting pulled over by SFPD.
| fragmede wrote:
| SF put in 33 speed cameras in known locations, and are
| aiming to install 900 more by the end of this year. As a
| bonus to speeders, speeds in excess of 100 mph will incur
| a $500 speeding ticket, though that may have unintended
| consequences.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| what unintended consequences?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| $500 is just dinner for some people in SF.
|
| Or maybe people will drive at 99 mph to get the best
| value.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| is this different than the existing law? like they're not
| lowering the penalty
| oefrha wrote:
| Speeding also carries point penalties. Get caught a few
| times and your license is suspended. You can't just pay
| to speed indefinitely (unless you also buy something like
| a get out of jail free card from the police union).
| fragmede wrote:
| A normal person sees that $500 fine as a incentive to not
| go that fast. But there's a certain kind of person for
| whom $500 is nothing compared to being able to tell the
| story of that time the city sold them a picture of them,
| complete with certificate that says they broke 100mph
| somewhere in the city limits, a trophy to frame and
| display openly in the garage next to said vehicle.
| fragmede wrote:
| Really gotta wonder if the people that downvoted disagree
| that people would do such a thing, don't want to give
| people ideas and thus buried it, or are people who would
| do such a thing. Or some other thing.
| JackFr wrote:
| The real unintended consequence is that cities ultimately
| don't like to run them. They're effective, and thus the
| revenue the city is expecting disappears. In they end
| they become costs rather than revenue sources.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| The root problem is voters tolerating a government that
| sees law enforcement as a profit center.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| that hasn't been true in any city i've lived in that had
| speed cameras (shockingly few actually). dc makes money
| on their cameras
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Nothing special. Slight increases in minor accidents and
| near misses, some minority of which will involve
| pedestrians or road rage violence Basically the same
| downsides as anything else that changes the speed via
| rule or enforcement rather than changing the conditions
| of the road (e.g. "traffic calming").
| whimsicalism wrote:
| i fail to see how adding cameras and an additional
| penalty will lead to any of those things
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Because it only affects some drivers leading to higher
| variance in speed leading to more friction among traffic.
| Same reason everyone with a brain suggests traffic
| calming over changing the numbers on the signs.
|
| This is transit 101 level stuff.
| bushbaba wrote:
| There's a cost of policing, and a significant amount of
| ticket revenue goes to court fees. Not everyone pays
| their ticket.
|
| Likely it'd not raise a fortune and the ticketing revenue
| would mostly offset the cost of enforcement.
| mh- wrote:
| That's.. fine? It'd drive behavior modification if there
| was even a small risk of getting a citation. Today, there
| really isn't.
| rafram wrote:
| > we're getting rid of parking spots within 20ft of
| intersections
|
| This is called daylighting, and it's a _very_ good idea.
| The rest of your comment was just snark, and I assume you
| know that road improvements don't have anything to do
| with law enforcement, but I just want to emphasize that
| daylighting is going to be a huge positive for the city.
| what wrote:
| You must not be a pedestrian if you don't like the red
| zones at intersections. You can't see the oncoming
| traffic without stepping into the intersection.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Could raise a fortune for public transit if we enforced
| traffic laws and used that money.
|
| If you consistently enforce the law then the fine revenue
| falls below even its current level because consistent
| enforcement reduces violations, meanwhile costs go up
| because the additional enforcement has to be paid for.
|
| The existing system is the one cultivated to maximize
| revenue by setting speed limits below the median traffic
| speed so that cops can "efficiently" issue citations one
| after another as long as there isn't enough enforcement
| to induce widespread compliance. This is, of course,
| dumb, but the alternatives generate less net profit for
| the government.
| maxwellg wrote:
| > All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never
| make public transit better.
|
| In the last half decade we've seen the opening of the
| Salesforce transit center, the Chinatown subway station, the
| Van Ness BRT, the Caltrain Electrification Project, BART
| expansion to Berryessa, 800 new BART cars, and hundreds of
| smaller projects.
|
| You can see a full list of SFMTA projects at
| https://www.sfmta.com/sfmta-projects
| taatof wrote:
| While I'm obviously exaggerating by saying "never", the
| list is much smaller than it needs to be, and you have some
| misleading things on that list.
|
| Chinatown subway station is great. Better connects SF
| residents and it's exactly what I want to see more of in
| SF.
|
| - Van Ness BRT? That project started in 2003. It took 20
| years to complete. Not exactly the poster child of solid
| transit improvements in SF, except if you ignore how it got
| there.
|
| - The Caltrain electrification project is great for the
| environment, but doesn't help SF much as far as improving
| transit availability. It's slightly faster, at least.
|
| - BART expansion to Berryessa is a bit separate from SF
| transit improvements, which is what I'm talking about.
|
| - Salesforce transit center is fine and has good vision,
| like expanding caltrain downtown. But doesn't add a massive
| amount of transit availability that wasn't already nearby
| (yet).
| maxwellg wrote:
| I provided a list of the biggest ticket items from the
| past few years. If you want to only look at projects that
| increase transit availability, reliability, or speed
| within SF County, check out the Muni Forward projects.
| Usually half a dozen lines are prioritized each year.
| https://www.sfmta.com/projects/muni-forward
|
| I live in the Richmond, so I've been positively affected
| by the improvements to the 38/38R (although I still would
| strongly prefer a BRT system) and the new-ish-but-not-
| really 1X. In the next year I can expect transit
| improvements to the 1 and the 5/5R. Pretty much every bus
| I take on a weekly basis has seen transit improvements
| since I've first moved here.
| what wrote:
| What actually improved about the 38? They moved the stops
| to the other side of the intersection, which saves maybe
| 1 minute along the entire route.
| maxwellg wrote:
| - Stops moved to be after the light, so bus isn't stuck
| waiting after people board
|
| - Stops moving after the light mean Transit Signal
| Priority works better. GPS on the bus can "hold" the
| green light for longer -
| https://www.sfmta.com/blog/green-lights-muni
|
| - Red painted lanes decrease private car use in bus lane,
| so bus can go faster
|
| - Speeding fell by 80%, so fewer accidents mean transit
| is more reliable
|
| There have been a few different projects on different
| sections of Geary over the years. The bus now runs 10-20%
| faster depending on direction and variability decreased
| by 25-40%.
|
| Check out pages 15-19 of
| https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-
| docume...
| asdff wrote:
| Doesn't the bus just stop before people board now? Seems
| to me the issue is the bus isn't capable of preempting
| green lights not where it stops and hits the red light on
| its route. When the police want to get to lunch quicker
| they are allowed to preempt the lights with the tooling
| they are given.
| ardit33 wrote:
| Geary BRT is still not complete. 25 years in the making,
| and it is just a half assed solution. SF is very
| inefficient into completing mass transit infrastructure.
| tuukkah wrote:
| Better Caltrain means less road congestion in SF so
| benefits everyone.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| it's too bad SF did not build an underground railway system
| covering the city in the short window when the labor to do
| so was affordable
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| 1851?
| master_crab wrote:
| 1850-1950s. But just as importantly this time frame also
| happened to be before the NIMBYists stepped in (which is
| arguably more consequential).
| alephnerd wrote:
| Much of SF didn't even exist until the 1930s-50s. For
| example, most of Sunset and Richmond is tract housing
| built during that era - before then it was sand dunes and
| chicken farms.
|
| People underestimate how new much of the Western US is.
| For example, Dallas only began expanding in 1891 after
| the railways were built, LA was a small town until the
| 1910s-30s era expansion, modern San Jose only formed in
| the 1960s-70s after absorbing dozens of farming towns
| like Alviso and Berryessa, Seattle was mostly sand dunes
| until they were leveled in the 1900s-30s).
|
| Because of how new it was, most of the cities are planned
| primarily with cars in mind - especially after the 1930s
| era Dust Bowl Migration and the 1940s-60s era economic
| migration. Same thing in much of Canada and Australia as
| well, which saw a similar postwar expansion.
|
| > before the NIMBYists stepped in
|
| NIMBYism in SF only really began in the 1970s onwards.
|
| While NIMBYism is now elitist, it initially started out
| as part of the civil rights movement ("urban
| redevelopment" was often a guise for razing historically
| Black, Hispanic, and Asian neighborhoods in that era -
| for example much of Japantown/Fillmore) as well as the
| early environmental movement (eg. Sierra Movement,
| Greenpeace), which was opposed to profit motive compared
| to modern YIMBY+Greentech model.
| master_crab wrote:
| While that's true of the outer communities (San Jose,
| etc) I took the OP's message as referring to SF
| core/downtown which was already pretty developed by the
| 1950s. Unlike LA, SF was a major city far earlier.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Much of SF's core/downtown was rebuilt after the 1906
| fire and earthquake, plus there was massive "urban
| redevelopment" that made the core much more car friendly.
| asdff wrote:
| People are forgetting about pasadena. That was the bigger
| socal city than la for a long time and maybe even bigger
| than sf (certainly is geographically).
| asdff wrote:
| No in the 70s when they built bart but intended it to be
| a suburban commuter network
| mazugrin2 wrote:
| What do you mean by "the short window when the labor to
| do so was affordable"? Other cities in the world seem to
| be able to build underground railways just fine and they
| have similar labor costs as the US. See Paris or Sydney
| for cities that have created new underground railways
| recently.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Labor costs in Paris for building rail are considerably
| cheaper https://archive.is/Ojs0k
|
| But my comment was a bit tongue in cheek - it is mostly
| political dysfunction. Of course the US could find people
| willing to work for less than $400/hr or whatever, but
| there is an incentive disalignment.
| raldi wrote:
| And before that: https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comm
| ents/8df1z7/after_...
| mazugrin2 wrote:
| How would you imagine one could make driving better, aside
| from making public transit better? The best thing you could
| hope for if you feel like you need to drive within SF is to
| have as few other people feeling the need to drive within
| SF.
|
| But wait, I have to ask: why do you live in SF?
|
| Practically anywhere else in the US is cheaper and better
| for people who want to drive.
|
| Very few other US cities are better for people who want to
| get around by other means.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Congestion pricing makes driving better, not worse.
| cj wrote:
| Of course it does, if you remove price from the equation!
| tshaddox wrote:
| Sure, but that's a dismissive interpretation.
|
| It's a bit like saying "sure, a cinema that refuses to
| sell more tickets than it has seats leads to a better
| cinema viewing experience, but only if you remove price
| from the equation!"
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| There are two ways to not sell more tickets than you have
| seats. One is to jack up the price of seats, the other is
| to add more seats.
|
| The latter in this context would be to e.g. build higher
| density housing so more people can feasibly take mass
| transit, as opposed to congestion pricing which is just a
| tax on people who can't afford the artificially scarce
| housing in the areas where mass transit use is feasible
| already.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| It boggles my mind (by which I mean "you should feel
| dirty for employing a dishonest rhetorical trick like
| that") that you can call his take dismissive when you
| simply ignored the area that is regressing (cost) in
| order to facilitate the tradeoff.
|
| Cost is explicitly being traded away here to facilitate
| improvement in other areas. That's the whole point of
| implementing the toll/tax!!!!!
| tshaddox wrote:
| Phrases like "toll" and "congestion pricing" clearly
| imply that there will be a cost to driving, so I don't
| think it's reasonable to say anyone in the conversation
| is ignoring cost.
|
| But again, dismissing the improvements because costs go
| up is like dismissing the reduction of water pollution
| because "now only people who can afford chemical disposal
| can operate a tannery next to the river."
| close04 wrote:
| Wouldn't the price of the car, fuel, insurance,
| maintenance, etc. dwarf the congestion tax? So the car
| itself is the worst part about the driving experience?
| bluGill wrote:
| Maybe. Used vs new cars have vastly different costs.
| Generally tolls are far more than fuel cost where they
| exist. Insurance is - in the us - charged per year with
| unlimited use.
|
| there are some who the charge would be significant (long
| paid off reliable used car) while others who it is a drop
| compared to the othes costs (new luxury car)
| close04 wrote:
| True, there's a lot of room to optimize costs. For
| example the congestion tax costs can be reduced to 0 by
| avoiding areas it targets. And that's not even tongue in
| cheek, one could commute to the edge of the city and take
| public transport for example.
| bluGill wrote:
| That is the goal of course. The open question (though we
| will know in a year) is will they. Or will they just
| reduce something else from their budget to pay these
| tolls? If only a handful of people change their behavior
| this failed (though the extra money to transit may result
| in useful service expansions for someone else who isn't
| driving now). If thousands change their behavior it was a
| success.
| tlogan wrote:
| The goal is straightforward: make driving more pleasant for
| wealthy people. Rich Democrats will claim it's beneficial for
| the environment, while rich Republicans will call it
| capitalism at work. In the end, improving public transit
| isn't really on their radar. And they rule the world.
| leetcrew wrote:
| buses and cars compete for the same right of way. improving
| one mode necessarily comes at the cost of the other, but
| many more people can be moved with a bus.
|
| trains would be even better, but people don't like to see
| the price tag.
|
| almost not worth discussing honestly. this has become yet
| another factionalized holy war over the last decade.
| tlogan wrote:
| One challenge with your 100% logical reasoning is that it
| assumes wealthy and powerful people share the same
| priorities you do. Unfortunately, this is rarely true,
| and it often takes time to realize just how different
| those priorities can be.
|
| I'm all for public transit myself, but after 25 years in
| San Francisco, I've only seen it decline. That sentiment
| isn't just mine--many longtime SF residents share this
| cynicism.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I don't live in SF, so could definitely be some local
| nuances I'm missing. in NYC, there is a pretty clear
| partisan split on the new congestion tax. the
| (relatively) red leaning areas are the loudest opponents.
| I guess having so many high earners already taking public
| transit might change the discussion.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Those areas are the poor areas. The rich areas in NYC are
| the most democratic.
| nine_k wrote:
| Oh, SF, the home of both some of the most powerful NIMBYs
| and the most outlandish "social justice" experiments. I
| feel for this once wonderful, poor city.
|
| As a consolation, I must say that e.g. NYC was also
| handled miserably, say, in 1980s. Despite that, it rose
| from the filth, and is now fine, even outright enjoyable
| here and there.
|
| I think that SF will also shake off its current insanity,
| and will turn back into a flourishing, living, and thus
| changing city.
|
| It takes time, thoughtful voting (of many, many people),
| and likely a bit of luck.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > Despite that, it rose from the filth, and is now fine
|
| Well, except for the people being pushing in front of
| subways to their death, or lit on fire in stations. The
| subways stations are getting dangerous enough, even in
| "not bad" areas, that people are avoiding them.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| What are they doing instead? Driving on the roads?
| Staying home?
| ufmace wrote:
| Out of about 3.5 million riders a day. Meanwhile, nobody
| pays any attention to the roughly 250 people who die in
| car crashes every single year in the NYC metro area. If
| you're so worried about safety, we should ban cars
| entirely instead of just taxing them a little.
| nine_k wrote:
| If you look at basically any subway station now, and
| compare it to 1980, it's a huge improvement. If you want
| a reminder, visit Chambers St station (it's heavily
| affected by leaks from the buildings above it).
| nine_k wrote:
| I wish we had more trains where it's still possible to
| route them in shallow tunnels that are cheap to build by
| excavations, say, in many parts of Brooklyn. (The 2nd
| Avenue extension had to pierce rock at rather serious
| depths.)
| bluGill wrote:
| The problem is political not technical. People don'tewant
| thair streets block by construction for a couple years
| and so make up reasons against it. New york is easy as
| nothing archeolorical evists to worry about (north
| america generally lacks minerals to make things of
| interest from they used things that decayed long ago.
| asdff wrote:
| I thought that was only possibly because in there wasn't
| so much in the way of buried utilities back then
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > buses and cars compete for the same right of way.
| improving one mode necessarily comes at the cost of the
| other
|
| This is not true at all. Some ways of increasing
| throughput for both: Build higher density housing which
| allows more people to take the bus/train and reduces
| congestion even for the people who still have to drive,
| add more lanes that either can use (e.g. by building
| parking garages and then converting street parking to
| travel lanes), make streets one-way on alternating blocks
| (reduces congestion at intersections), build pedestrian
| catwalks above busy intersections to reduce pedestrian-
| induced congestion and keep pedestrians safer, etc.
|
| > but many more people can be moved with a bus.
|
| The "can" is really the problem. If you do the numbers
| for a full bus the bus seems very attractive, but then to
| run buses to everywhere that everyone travels in cars
| without an impractical amount of latency, many of the
| buses would end up having only one or two passengers --
| and sometimes none -- while still requiring three times
| the space and fuel of a car and on top of that requiring
| a separate driver at significant expense.
|
| So instead there is no bus that goes to those places at
| those times. And since you can't get those people on a
| bus, they're reasonably going to demand a solution that
| doesn't make their life miserable when they have to drive
| a car.
|
| > trains would be even better, but people don't like to
| see the price tag.
|
| Trains (especially subways) work great in the areas with
| the population density to justify them. But now you're
| back to needing higher density housing.
| resters wrote:
| Suppose a non-rich person needs to use the highways for
| work and can make twice as many stops during the day
| because of congestion pricing.
|
| Imagine a group of non-rich people who decide to carpool
| because of congestion pricing and end up spending half the
| time in traffic every day and as a result get more leisure
| time.
|
| Considering that a parking spot in Mahnattan costs close to
| $1K per month, most of the cars are driven by people who
| are not poor.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Free/cheap street parking exists in Manhattan. A lot of
| it.
| Lammy wrote:
| > The goal is straightforward: make driving more pleasant
| for wealthy people.
|
| And spy on everyone, all the time, because now it """has
| to""" track every vehicle's every move -- Total Information
| Awareness
| whimsicalism wrote:
| for a bus-centric system like SF, congestion pricing
| intrinsically makes public transit better
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Here in San Francisco? On my insured Stromers, with my
| family, that I bought for less than the cost of a year of
| auto insurance. Door to door, I am everywhere I want to be in
| about 10m. My longest typical journey is 45m across Golden
| Gate Bridge from the Mission, which is faster than any car,
| simply because I park my bike at the door of my destinations.
|
| The better question is, have you ever seen a kid crying in
| the back of a bike?
| CalRobert wrote:
| Hear hear! Though I admit my own kid has cried once or
| twice in the front of an urban arrow, toddler rage is a
| powerful thing....
| CalRobert wrote:
| For what it's worth a folding bike and BART is a great combo
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| > how do we get around
|
| By moving out of crappy overpriced cities?
| walthamstow wrote:
| If it was so crap, it wouldn't be overpriced.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| How do you explain Comcast?
| walthamstow wrote:
| It's difficult because I've never had Comcast (I pay my
| PS10/month BBC fee that hasn't gone up in years with
| pleasure) but I'd probably start by saying that Comcast
| is not a scarce good.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| If it wasn't scarce then it would be cheaper. The problem
| is that it is scarce, artificially, as a result of
| regulatory capture etc.
|
| Which is the same reason housing in places like SF is so
| expensive. Artificial scarcity as a result of zoning
| rules that make construction prohibitively expensive or
| otherwise inhibit it from increasing the housing supply.
|
| Houston metro has more people than SF metro, so why does
| housing cost more in SF? Because there is less of it.
| walthamstow wrote:
| To bring us back onto the topic, Manhattan is a scarce
| resource, and there's nothing artificial about that fact.
| fragmede wrote:
| There's plenty more space in the up and down direction.
| Bridges and tunnels could be used to add car or other
| vehicle capacity.
| walthamstow wrote:
| This thread is about transportation, not office or resi
| space.
|
| Edit - I see you've changed your message. How does a
| bridge over water add road capacity to a peninsula?
| fragmede wrote:
| It doesn't. There may be a other materials that bridges
| can go over, however.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Your solution to road congestion on a densely-populated
| peninsula is more roads. Got it.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| It's not _just_ more roads, although more roads are one
| of the things it is possible to create.
|
| You can also create more housing, so people are closer to
| their jobs and have to travel fewer miles. Manhattan has
| higher density than most places, but it also has more
| people, and would you be surprised to learn that the
| zoning in most of NYC no longer allows the buildings that
| are currently in Manhattan to be built almost anywhere?
| So as a result you can't create more of them and people
| who might like to live in Manhattan instead live in the
| suburbs around the city and drive into the city in a car.
|
| You can also create things that aren't roads, like
| subways, which then allow you to remove cars and buses
| (and bus lanes) from the roads when it becomes viable for
| more people to take the subway, which reduces road
| congestion.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yeah that's the key. Not disincentivising cars but to make
| public transport the obvious answer by making it really good.
|
| They do that really well here in Barcelona. 21EUR a month and
| you can use all the transport you want in the city, all
| modes. Why would i want a car what's expensive to own, park
| and maintain and I can only just it when I've not been
| drinking?
|
| Problem is, making transport good costs money and a lot of
| effort. Taxing cars is easy and brings money in.
| whakim wrote:
| > All we do in SF is make car driving worse, we almost never
| make public transit better. At least NYC has a plenty good
| enough train system.
|
| Except that SF public transit is actually pretty good. East-
| West transit works extremely well via buses and MUNI
| depending on whether you live in the northern or southern
| part of the city. Bay Wheels is extremely affordable and
| makes a lot of sense for short trips in a city of SF's size.
| BART has its limitations but it also generally pretty good.
| Sure, SF public transit could be better, but I'd actually
| argue the problem is that driving in SF isn't hard _enough_ -
| many people have great public transit options but refuse to
| use them because we haven't forced them to reprogram their
| car-brains.
| paxys wrote:
| SF is already half way there with its bridge tolls (which,
| funny enough, are _higher_ than NYC 's congestion charge, yet
| there is zero fuss about them). The rest of the city is too
| spread out and has no natural choke points, so I don't see how
| this kind of congestion charging will be possible.
| vinay427 wrote:
| > which, funny enough, are higher than NYC's congestion
| charge, yet there is zero fuss about them
|
| That may be because NY/NJ have bridge tolls into the city
| that are often much higher than those in SF.
|
| https://www.panynj.gov/bridges-tunnels/en/tolls.html
| kmlx wrote:
| > During rush hour, cars block the box
|
| i got a fine in London for doing this by mistake. i didn't even
| block traffic, i just went into the intersection without the
| cars in front moving. bam, fine. lesson learned.
| hammock wrote:
| What you did is the definition of blocking the box - stopping
| in the intersection (even if your light is green). Blocking
| traffic would be if your light was red.
|
| It's better this way that the law penalizes what you can
| control (your own vehicle movement) as opposed to what you
| can't (the cars in front of you)
| kmlx wrote:
| yup, agree. the fine was just. the point is there are
| solutions to blocking intersections. namely cameras and
| fines.
| xyst wrote:
| As with "plastic bag bans", and any other progressive program
| like "congestion pricing" aimed at reducing our collective
| dependency on O&G, plastic junk, and general waste. The
| incoming administration, auto industry, and O&G industry are
| very likely to send their army of lawyers and paid off
| politicians to fight this from going nationwide.
|
| Got to make sure the multibillion dollar oil companies,
| executives, and shareholders get their fucking nut.
| bubblethink wrote:
| >I really, really want congestion pricing in downtown SF.
|
| But SF doesn't have public transport. This just makes driving
| expensive, without any real benefit. We already do this on 101.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| SF has public transport. Here's the map:
|
| https://www.iliveinthebayarea.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2012/12...
| bubblethink wrote:
| Yes, obviously every city has public transport. It is not a
| usable system like NYC. The recent central subway debacle
| stands as a testament to that.
| saagarjha wrote:
| SF public transportation is plenty usable. I hardly ever
| take my car to the city anymore; it's just not worth it.
| Sure, it's no NYC, but it's definitely the best public
| transit in California and probably top-quartile in the
| US.
| cyberax wrote:
| > During rush hour, cars block the box and slow down busses,
| with cascading effects.
|
| Then stop digging deeper and improve the car infrastructure
| instead of sabotaging it.
| saagarjha wrote:
| So they can block more busses?
| blitzar wrote:
| Gotta double all the road widths then. Doesn't leave room for
| any buildings in Manhattan, but will ease the congestion.
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| I think it's highly unlikely to result in positive effects. I
| would be hoping that it _only_ harms NYC economic condition "a
| little", as the best case outcome.
|
| This falls solidly in the "it sounds good but causes
| significant negative unintended consequences" bucket of
| regulation, like the rest of NYC's many regulations that led up
| to this point.
| scarab92 wrote:
| Why do you think that?
|
| Congestion pricing is a way to price an externality, which is
| usually a good thing compared to externalities being free.
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| The externality is already "priced in" to the traffic.
| People who can wait in traffic or can't afford not to wait
| in traffic do so, and people who want to skip out can as
| well.
|
| Congestion pricing, like many fees and regulations, is a
| regressive tax, because the overhead seeps into all goods
| and services and it impacts the poor most of all and the
| rich not at all.
| tptacek wrote:
| In the absence of pricing, people who do not want to wait
| cannot opt out of traffic, so the rebuttal here seems
| imperfect.
| vinay427 wrote:
| The median income of a household with a car in the city
| is more than double that of households without cars [1].
| In a city where public transport is a viable and
| relatively cheap alternative, it doesn't seem obvious
| that it disproportionately impacts the poor, unlike for
| instance a flat sales tax on essential goods.
|
| [1] https://blog.tstc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/how-
| car-fre...
| bushbaba wrote:
| It disproportionately impacts the working lower classes.
| Poor in NYC likely means homeless. Dual income McDonalds
| working family is above the CarLess HHI median wage in
| the reports you linked. That same worker is heavily
| impacted by congestion pricing vs say a Quant trader
|
| 17$/hr * 50hrs/week * 52weeks/year * 2 earners =
| 88.5k/year
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| The dual income McDonalds worker was never driving into
| Manhattan. Though the fixation on "poor people" is fake.
| 100 studies could come out explaining that congestion
| pricing is better for poor people and the opponents
| aren't going to change their view on it. It's a fake
| argument used to launder more selfish opinions.
| lolinder wrote:
| If they only taxed passenger vehicles you'd have a point,
| but the cost for trucks is actually higher (up to more
| than double), which means that in the end it _is_ a tax
| on essential goods, because those goods have to make it
| into the city somehow and businesses have to pass that
| cost on to customers. It 's reasonable to be afraid that
| poor customers will see the largest change as a percent
| of their budget as prices go up to pay for the tax
| (though obviously we haven't had time to measure whether
| that to see for sure).
| zip1234 wrote:
| The externality of noise and smog for people living there
| is not priced in wait time for drivers.
| paulgb wrote:
| > ... the overhead seeps into all goods and services...
|
| We have always paid a congestion tax on goods and
| services, it's just been in the form of paying workers to
| sit in traffic.
| zzzeek wrote:
| traffic is a crappy externality that harms everyone,
| drivers, non-drivers. non-drivers are harmed by
| pollution, slower buses and cabs, noise, slower emergency
| response times. drivers are harmed by all those things as
| well plus the stress and inconvenience of extreme
| traffic. the point of congestion pricing is to reduce the
| so-called "traffic tax" that everyone pays into one that
| is just a toll, that only drivers pay. reducing traffic
| is a direct goal of the toll.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| There is only one singular goal written into the enabling
| law for this Congestion Tax, renenue for the NYC MTA
| transit system's capital plan. They have to raise one
| billion dollars per year. Any reducing congestion or any
| altering of pollution were only part of getting Federal
| approval. Now the only purpose is to raise money with 5
| years of hikes already scheduled. This is going to uave
| drastic unintended consequences. I predict a theatre and
| retail recession. And more office divestment if this
| regressive tax isn't repealed or forced to focus on
| emissions or some non revenue goal.
| atoav wrote:
| Sure it is going to have consequences, but so does not
| doing anything as well.
|
| Not to be that guy, but from a European standpoint the
| clear answer is: If you make driving _cars_ into the big
| city expensive, if you still wanna get people there you
| need to give them other, cheap, more space-efficient ways
| of getting there. Public transport, bus lines, trains,
| stuff that Asian megacities do as well.
|
| Or you can build even more lanes and parking lots,
| because that worked out great and was without any
| consequences so far /s
|
| I am not saying I trust in the success of NY congestion
| pricing, but that has nothing to do with the measure (it
| is fine) and everything to do with how how half-assed it
| might be implemented. But elsewhere similar concepts work
| just fine. But hey, so does healthcare..
| djrobstep wrote:
| What are you talking about? It will have overwhelmingly
| strongly positive effects, while also raising revenue to fund
| stuff like more transit. Congestion charging is great and
| every city should do it!
| lolinder wrote:
| You're both just asserting your positions as facts without
| even providing an argument, much less evidence.
| Twirrim wrote:
| It has been highly successful in London. Less congestion,
| better air quality, incentivises the most disruptive things
| like heavy good vehicles to deliver out of rush hour reducing
| impact on other traffic etc.
| deanc wrote:
| My ancedotal experience of driving around London once or
| twice a year for the last ten years is there hasn't been a
| huge change. I don't trust TFL data on this as the
| authorities are incentivised to report figures to support
| the gathering of the additional revenue stream.
|
| At least this study [1] suggests a mild improvement but
| interestingly replacing one pollutant with another (due to
| diesel exemptions).
|
| In my opinion, we should primary focus on improving the
| standards of public transport. Safety, cleanliness,
| punctuality and price. I'm a car owner living 15mins drive
| from downtown of a European capital city, and I refuse to
| drive near the city because the parking is expensive,
| there's always roadworks but primarily the public transport
| is excellent and comfortable.
|
| [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S
| 01660...
| Symbiote wrote:
| Why would there be a change in London within the last 10
| years? Congestion charging was introduced in 2003.
| deanc wrote:
| ULEZ was introduced for a start.
| Symbiote wrote:
| That affects pollution, but very few vehicles were not
| compliant so it would have minimal effect on congestion.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| You have to go back ~20 years to when congestion pricing
| was introduced. To my eyes, the change has been dramatic.
|
| https://content.tfl.gov.uk/technical-note-02-what-are-
| the-ma...
| mattlondon wrote:
| On the wiki page for the London charge they suggest that
| ten years after the introduction of the congestion charge,
| traffic levels have been reduced by 10% (ten).
|
| So yes technically less traffic, but not really enough to
| make any meaningful difference IMO. It is still noisy, it
| is still congested, it is still polluted, it is still hard
| to cross roads, it is still hard to get anywhere on a bus
| in a predictable time, it is still very frightening to be a
| cyclist (and indeed it is still common for cyclists to get
| killed or badly injured), and it is still better to get the
| tube.
|
| I view it more as a toll now really, rather than an attempt
| to dissuade people from driving in. If they were really
| serious about trying to stop people driving in, the price
| would not be PS15/day but it would be PS500/day or more.
|
| As it stands at the moment, even on the weekend (yes, it
| runs on the weekend even though there is not much
| congestion e.g. on a sunday afternoon) if I want to go to
| central London with the family I will drive. It costs PS15,
| but the price of a return tube ticket is PS6, so x2 for me
| and the wife and it is already PS12, then add in PS1.75 for
| the bus tickets to-and-from the tube station (so PS3.50 per
| adult return = PS7), and you are already at PS19 to use
| public transport, vs PS15 for the congestion charge.
|
| So it is approx 20% cheaper to drive, AND it is more
| convenient, AND it is quicker, AND it is more comfortable.
|
| Like I said, if they were serious about it being a
| deterrent they'd price it way, way higher than PS15. But
| actually they want to make cheap enough so that people pay
| it, and they get money for me using my own private
| transport and fuel to travel around, and don't have to pay
| for the running costs of more tubes/buses etc.
| viccis wrote:
| It works well in NYC because it's hard to justify driving
| anyway. The transit system is just so extensive.
|
| But somewhere like Atlanta, Dallas, etc.? Absolutely not. It's
| just a vice tax levied on poor people who are already not happy
| about having to commute long drives into the city center to
| find work. They have no alternative. They can't spend 3 hours
| each way on buses. They can't afford to live in the the handful
| of walkable blocks in the city with $3k+ rent that effectively
| serve as a little Disneyland for affluent residents who want to
| larp like they live in Brooklyn.
|
| Build the public transit BEFORE you hit the poors with a giant
| stick. Because I guarantee you that hitting them with that
| stick is not going to effect change in any way, as these people
| have next to no influence on policymakers already.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Why can't we have dedicated bus lanes. Seems like a more
| amicable solution.
|
| Personally I find it weird that SF's public transit is so under
| water it needs bail outs from car drivers. Yet it also doesn't
| serve the car drivers with any compelling equivalent.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| SF does have dedicated bus lanes
| pixelatedindex wrote:
| Look at the carpool lanes in the Bay Area. It's as much as $9
| for a couple of miles around the Palo Alto / Atherton area and
| there's no lack of cars. Then there's like another $5 or
| something between that area and Santa Clara.
|
| Maybe it will work in NYC, but in the Bay Area I can't help but
| feel like it's a regressive tax because people who already have
| the money will continue their ways and pay but people who are
| on a budget now have to wait longer to get anywhere in the
| peninsula.
|
| SF has a ton of folk coming from quite a ways away and it can
| easily take 2x the time if using public transit. Outside of
| rush hour Caltrain can take 1.5-2h, and Bart from Berryessa
| isn't quick (plus contending with BART delays).
| donmcronald wrote:
| > I can't help but feel like it's a regressive tax
|
| That's exactly what it is. The richer you are, the better it
| is. Now people on a budget will pay taxes to subsidize
| infrastructure that's only accessible to the wealthy. It's a
| massive scam perpetrated by the rich for the rich.
|
| Why stop with roads? Why not have congestion pricing for
| schools or hospitals or access to water? That way we only
| have to build enough infrastructure to serve the wealthiest
| half of society.
| afavour wrote:
| In NYC it's nothing new. A parking spot is already
| completely unaffordable for the average worker so they
| don't drive in anyway. The vast majority of folks affected
| by the congestion charge are wealthy, or businesses the
| serve the wealthy (who will pass on the cost).
| Analemma_ wrote:
| > Now people on a budget will pay taxes to subsidize
| infrastructure that's only accessible to the wealthy. It's
| a massive scam perpetrated by the rich for the rich.
|
| Huh? The revenue from congestion pricing is used to pay for
| public transit. The rich people pay extra to subsidize
| transit for everyone else, which is exactly how things
| _should_ work.
| paulgb wrote:
| There's a progressive aspect to drivers (higher income on
| average) subsidizing transit, but I worry that framing
| leads to drivers feeling they are paying for something
| that _other_ people use.
|
| I prefer the framing that drivers should fund transit
| because drivers _do_ use transit: NYC would be complete
| gridlock if transit went into a death spiral and
| straphangers switched to cars. Even if they never set
| foot on the MTA, drivers see a lot of the benefit of it
| existing.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| The drivers are paying for something they use: less-
| congested roads. In theory, if this is priced correctly,
| everyone is getting what they want: the drivers pay to
| not have to sit in traffic, everyone else benefits from
| that revenue to have better mass transit.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Anything that costs money is 'regressive' if you use your
| definition.
|
| Sure, we could means test every toll and fee, but there's a
| different solution for that already - taxation.
|
| There's a secret third option to congestion, which is you
| disallow some number of people at a time from using the
| facility, and people _really_ don 't like that one.
|
| Dig deeper and you find it's a housing problem anyway. People
| can't afford to house themselves/their families in the cities
| they toil in. Build housing near jobs and there's less need
| to commute in from Tracy.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| Correct. You're acting like your statement refutes the
| point, though. Charging for things which are publicly
| shared is regressive.
| walthamstow wrote:
| If you're looking for non-regressive ways to share scarce
| resources, you're going to struggle. In Tehran, for
| example, only license plates ending with an odd number
| can drive on Mondays, even numbers on Tuesdays.
| em500 wrote:
| I've seen such policies in other countries. What
| typically happens is that the well off buy 2 cars, one
| with odd and one with even license number.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > If you're looking for non-regressive ways to share
| scarce resources, you're going to struggle.
|
| It's not actually that hard. You fund them through
| general taxes rather than fares. Then how much you pay is
| proportional to how much money you make -- even a flat
| tax does at least that -- as opposed to the largely fixed
| amount that corresponds to the amount the average person
| has to move around in order to live an ordinary life,
| which is approximately a head tax.
| walthamstow wrote:
| That's how to pay for it, sure. But I said share the
| resource. Not everyone who wants to drive at a given time
| can do so, there simply isn't enough space. How does your
| plan help _share_ the resource? Who gets to use the roads
| at 8am when everyone wants to?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Not everyone who wants to drive at a given time can do
| so, there simply isn't enough space.
|
| There isn't space _in the current design_. That 's the
| thing you spend money to fix. Build subways in high
| traffic areas -- the ones where there is currently
| congestion -- and make them completely free to encourage
| people to use them (and eliminate the administrative cost
| of fare collection to both riders and government). Build
| more dense housing near the subway stops so people are
| traveling fewer miles, removing traffic from the roads --
| this one doesn't even cost money, just stop prohibiting
| people from doing it with zoning. Build pedestrian
| catwalks or tunnels in high traffic areas to prevent
| crossings from congesting the roads and road traffic from
| killing the pedestrians. And yes, you can even add more
| travel lanes -- it's not always the thing you need but it
| sometimes is.
|
| You don't have to rate limit the resource when you
| actually build enough of it to satisfy the demand. There
| exist roads that aren't congested, the demand for them
| isn't infinite.
| up2isomorphism wrote:
| Paying additional tax to save an incompetent public funded
| infrastructure (MTA in this case) never works well.
|
| At minimum, all MTA executives should be payed off before any
| such measures can be considered.
| oliwarner wrote:
| Every penny has to go back into affordable, subsidised
| alternatives or you're just fencing off Manhattan for the super
| rich.
| walterbell wrote:
| There should be a daily quota on rideshare cars operating in
| Manhattan. They are a significant percentage of traffic,
| often with zero passengers.
| oliwarner wrote:
| Taxies in general. I know medallions already limit their
| numbers but if you've ever been locked in traffic
| surrounded by yellow cabs, count the passengers. Each one
| --mostly empty IME-- is 120sqft of road. Cars trolling
| around for patrons is a bad system.
|
| The Subway, buses, trams, etc, etc are all way better for
| passenger density.
| walterbell wrote:
| Like airports already do, the city could provide
| rideshare "waiting area" parking lots in different zones.
| That would retain rapid response to on-demand pickup,
| without random trolling on city streets as defacto
| parking lots. Rideshare averages only 50% utilization of
| taxis, despite having the advantage of automated
| scheduling.
|
| Instead the city added a per-ride fee, which will be
| covered by Uber/Lyft, making it useless as an incentive
| for ride reduction, https://archive.is/MtRgo
|
| _> Riding in a taxi, green cab or black car will now
| cost passengers an extra 75 cents in the congestion
| zone... The surcharge for an Uber or Lyft will be $1.50
| per trip... cars for services like Uber and Lyft make
| fewer trips and are more likely to idle in the zone. In
| 2023, taxis made an average of 12 daily trips, while
| ride-hail vehicles made an average of six._
| stewx wrote:
| Only the super rich can afford to pay $9? I.e., roughly the
| price of a sandwich in 2025?
| oliwarner wrote:
| Do you think that's what the average American pays for
| their sandwich? Including bringing lunch from home.
|
| If you don't understand working poverty, you won't
| understand how devastating _only_ $3kpa really looks like
| on a low wage. Lot 's of people right now can't afford
| that, so cost-neutral alternatives have to exist or you
| price people out.
| asdff wrote:
| You buy a $9 sandwich for lunch everyday then you probably
| aren't in the middle class
| jjav wrote:
| > congestion pricing pays off in a big way
|
| Define "pays off". Who benefits, who suffers?
| paulgb wrote:
| As a New Yorker, a few things made me a proponent of
| congestion pricing:
|
| - watching people have to squeeze between stopped (mostly
| single-occupant) cars blocking sidewalks on Broome or Canal
| on their own pedestrian light at rush hour, and realizing
| that it would be impossible for someone with a stroller or
| mobility aid.
|
| - seeing packed busses miss light cycles because the
| intersection is blocked
|
| - seeing ambulances or fire trucks with sirens blaring stuck
| in gridlock
|
| "Pays off" to me means that transit users and pedestrians are
| no longer regularly inconvenienced by the fact that more
| people choose to drive than there is frankly room for.
| tomp wrote:
| All these issues have better solutions than congestion
| pricing.
|
| Cars blocking intersections and/or sidewalks can easily be
| solved with automated traffic fines - that's how Zurich and
| London does it (the former without any congestion pricing!)
|
| Many cities also have special lanes only useable by some
| classes of vehicles - e.g. busses (or sometimes taxis as
| well) - I guess ambulances could also use those.
|
| In fact, congestion pricing doesn't solve _any_ of those
| problems, it 's just an irrelevant (as in, it doesn't solve
| _any_ specific problem directly) regressive tax to "drive
| less".
| paulgb wrote:
| > Cars blocking intersections and/or sidewalks can easily
| be solved with automated traffic fines
|
| Rush hour traffic is so gridlocked that cars often can't
| know if they will clear a light cycle, so fining would
| effectively just reduce to a stochastic congestion tax.
|
| NYC does have some dedicated bus lanes, but adding more
| means reallocating more space from cars which is a
| political no-go without reducing the number of cars
| first. That's what congestion pricing aims to do.
| tomp wrote:
| You're wrong on both counts.
|
| Fining for blocking intersection isn't stochastic. You
| simply don't _enter_ the intersection if you 're not sure
| you'll be able to _exit_ it. You wait at green light.
| Simple. That 's how people in London and Zurich drive.
|
| Congestion _automatically_ reduces the number of cars
| (because they literally can 't get into the city!),
| without congestion _pricing_. If you reduce 3 lanes to 2,
| then... 2 lanes will be blocked, instead of 3, so there
| will be complete gridlock & congestion - _for cars_. But
| not for busses! So _public_ transport will work, even
| thought _private_ is gridlocked. Combine this with (1) -
| empty intersections - and busses can drive very well!
| paulgb wrote:
| My point with adding bus lanes is that it's a _political_
| no go, not that it wouldn't work to speed up buses.
| mjmsmith wrote:
| People who oppose congestion pricing in NYC also oppose
| dedicated bus lanes and bike lanes because they "cause
| congestion".
| psychlops wrote:
| $9 per day isn't going to make anybody change their route. A
| round trip on the subway costs $5.80.
|
| IMHO, they would need to push higher than $50 to get drivers to
| blink.
| cosmic_quanta wrote:
| The thing about congestion is that reducing the number of
| drivers slightly (e.g. 10-20%) could eliminate congestion by
| 100%! This is the same way it works for electrical
| congestion.
|
| So you need pricing which will make a few people reconsider
| driving, who were on the edge of using public transit anyway.
| psychlops wrote:
| Interesting point, I'd believe it. I suspect the
| demographic that is driving instead of using public transit
| is quite small.
|
| Driving for a commute isn't really possible in Manhattan
| unless the company provides parking. And those parking
| spots are reserved for executives. This group of people are
| price insensitive.
|
| Passing through Manhattan can frequently save an hour of
| time in traffic elsewhere, those commuters will just see
| the fee as a higher toll.
|
| All three major airports never tied directly to a subway,
| opting instead for airtran systems which create complexity
| and cost time. I suspect this causes a base level of
| traffic.
| zzzeek wrote:
| ha, I drive / train into Manhattan from outside a lot so
| I'm by nature on the "edge", and this change if it reduces
| traffic makes me _more_ likely to drive :)
| joejohnson wrote:
| NY is probably the only city where this could work because it's
| the only proper American city that has a real metro system.
| Every other city will require major upgrades to have modern
| public transportation, and the density isn't there in most
| American cities that were designed around the car.
| nullstyle wrote:
| Please explain proper for us used to bart/muni/caltrain.
| dibujaron wrote:
| NYC Subway, Metro North, and LIRR have much broader and
| more frequent coverage to a lot more places outside the
| urban core than the bay area's network does. Iirc muni
| metro has passable coverage inside San Francisco, and Bart
| and Caltrain service a few linear corridors outside San
| Francisco pretty well, but a whole lot of the bay area is
| very far from transit. This means that bay area commuters
| could not as easily switch away from cars. Though SF is
| still probably the second best candidate for congestion
| pricing after NYC.
| tacticalturtle wrote:
| Chicago and DC? Their ridership numbers aren't trivial
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_rapid_.
| ..
|
| I live in Boston and I could see it working here, now that
| the T is on a path to reliability.
|
| While it would be great if money wasn't a concern, you don't
| need to plaster the city in a grid of metro lines. Careful
| usage of bus only lanes has really made a difference in some
| areas of Boston that I frequent.
|
| Edit: The link above is only for heavy rail - Boston's
| numbers are better if you also include light rail, which is a
| significant part of the system:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_light_.
| ..
| Hilift wrote:
| Arlington, VA has had this for years. The I-66 10-mile segment
| to DC is dynamic pricing with no limit. I've seen it over $40.
| And they can pick and choose who it applies to. That was in
| part due to a lawsuit. The federal and state governments made
| hollow promises to Arlington to get I-66 built, then did little
| about the resulting traffic mess and noise for decades.
|
| "The issue arises from a 1977 agreement between then-U.S.
| Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman Jr. and the
| state of Virginia. In the so-called Coleman Decision, Arlington
| agreed to drop its opposition to the construction of I-66 in
| exchange for certain promises, including a four-lane limit,
| sound barriers, and truck and car-pool restrictions."
|
| https://www.arlingtontransportationpartners.com/services/i-6...
|
| https://www.arlingtonmagazine.com/i-66-construction-protests...
|
| A Long Road Bitter Fight Against I-66 Now History
| https://archive.is/oo06a
|
| Arlington Board United In Opposing Wider I-66
| https://archive.is/NMhbH
| saltminer wrote:
| > During rush hour, cars block the box
|
| There's an easy solution to this: have ticket writers waiting
| at intersections to paper all the cars who do it. It's not like
| they can drive away. NYC used to be really good about
| enforcement, and it worked extremely well.
|
| It doesn't solve traffic, but it does help stave off gridlock
| and keep intersections free for bus lanes to operate normally.
| asdff wrote:
| Thats the thing with socal traffic especially. Absolutely
| zero enforcement by the police. What do they do with their
| resources instead? There was a man with a knife caught in a
| burglary last week and the police sent like 40 suvs some
| unmarked with the blue and red lights through the windscreen,
| a swat team, and a helicopter. Probably in the millions spent
| for that operation alone for this guy with a kitchen knife. I
| wonder how little you could get a man with a knife disarmed
| for in some midwestern suburb in comparison. Oh and keep in
| mind they didn't actually go in after the guy they just did a
| standoff till 2am when he surrendered on his own.
|
| Meanwhile everyone blocks the box and there are cars without
| even plates on them.
| saltminer wrote:
| That's hardly a SoCal phenomenon, sadly. In all the places
| I've lived, "protect and serve" seems to be abbreviated -
| "protect and serve our desk jobs and pensions" would be
| more accurate. If the TSA is security theater, the police
| are a circus, and the occasional show of force is them
| coming to town.
|
| It's like those pictures of Luigi Mangione being perp
| walked in Manhattan with 20 cops and FBI agents behind him.
| Imagine if those officers were on the beat or enforcing
| traffic laws instead. That would make more of a difference
| in our communities than a photo op ever will.
| asdff wrote:
| No in the midwest they actually police for traffic. The
| cops will have the highway DOT actually pave little
| asphault pads when they resurface where they like to sit
| and take radar. They will get you for out of date
| registration. They will get you for traffic violations
| and they do actually send out police to monitor
| intersections for bad behavior when its bad.
|
| They just don't do anything like that in socal. I've not
| once seen a cop take radar in socal. Not once. I can't
| even remember the last time I've seen someone pulled over
| in socal but it happens probably three times in my view
| whenever I go elsewhere to visit.
| timewizard wrote:
| Well, if you make the road a luxury, less people will be /able/
| to use it. It's nice to see someone is measuring just how much
| luxury is being created here although I don't think these metrics
| are particularly useful outside of that goal.
| mlinhares wrote:
| Driving and parking in NYC is already a luxury, there's no poor
| person driving and parking there.
| brettgriffin wrote:
| There are like 400 housing developments in NYC for lower
| income folks. Saying that lower income folks don't drive in
| NYC is bananas.
| woodruffw wrote:
| The GP is incorrect, but using the absolute number of
| housing developments in NYC is also misleading (since NYC
| has lots of middle-income housing developments too).
|
| On average, personal drivers on NYC roads skew towards
| wealthier and suburban, whereas _city dwellers of all
| demographics_ broadly ride the subway and other mass
| transit. Congestion pricing will certainly represent a cost
| for poorer New Yorkers, but it will _disproportionately_ be
| shouldered by wealthier demographics that are often on the
| road by choice (e.g. choosing to commute by car from Long
| Island because the city has inadvertently subsidized doing
| so with free parking.)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _There are like 400 housing developments in NYC for lower
| income folks. Saying that lower income folks don 't drive
| in NYC is bananas._
|
| They're not paying this.
| brettgriffin wrote:
| On the contrary, they are! ~30% of people entering
| Manhattan a day are lower income!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _~30% of people entering Manhattan a day are lower
| income_
|
| In a private car? Where they aren't eligible for the low-
| income discounts?
| brettgriffin wrote:
| They are eligible for discounts after their 10th trip
| each month.
|
| I think people misinterpreted the point. Saying 'there
| are no poor people driving and parking in NYC' in an
| asinine statement when the data clear show that 30% of
| the drivers into congestion zone are lower income.
| Whether or not they should, are shouldering more or less
| of burden, and all of this other nonsense is extraneous.
| scienceman wrote:
| Yes, living in NYC = driving in NYC
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _400 housing developments in NYC for lower income folks.
| Saying that lower income folks don 't drive in NYC is
| bananas_
|
| The only people in the projects who have a car work in the
| trades. They're largely not paying this charge and/or
| adding it as a line item to their customers' bills. A car
| in Manhattan is an absolute luxury.
| rangestransform wrote:
| Giving NYCHA residents free parking spots was bananas
| paxys wrote:
| NYC != Manhattan congestion zone. Plenty of people in lower
| income groups (literally over a million) live and drive in
| NYC. A negligible number of them drive into Manhattan for
| work every day.
| brettgriffin wrote:
| > A negligible number of them drive into Manhattan for
| work every day.
|
| I think you're just making that up. Do you have a source?
| alkonaut wrote:
| How does "housing" relate to "cars"? They seem like
| completely separate things?
| brettgriffin wrote:
| People in houses can have cars. In fact, ~30% of people
| entering Manhattan a day are lower income.
|
| More specifically, lower income housing is often very far
| from subway stops. Often in outer boroughs!
| timewizard wrote:
| So just exclude them from your civic thinking because you
| can't imagine them existing? You do realize there are special
| exemptions for this exact program for low income drivers?
| Perhaps you feel these shouldn't exist since it's already a
| luxury beyond them?
| shipscode wrote:
| The "anything I don't know doesn't exist" crowd is very
| strong when it comes to congestion pricing arguments. It's
| weird specifically that many of it's loudest proponents
| come from transit thinktanks from out west, etc. Very
| little actual support amongst New Yorkers for obvious
| reasons.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| It's not literally zero poor people, but it's very few: htt
| ps://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/1d9sj6p/data_on_the_sh..
| .
| tshaddox wrote:
| I don't know if it's fair to call this "making the road a
| luxury." Congestion is a _failure mode_ of a road system, not
| just more people getting to enjoy the road.
| comprambler wrote:
| Congestion pricing can work to dissuade individuals from living
| in the burbs, only if there is controls on real estate to deal
| with the influx of people moving inward. The other benefit is an
| increase of mass transit usage, which is a plus?
|
| I personally took a cab from Newark to Laguardia at MIDNIGHT and
| it took 40 min to cross into Manhattan to get to the Queens-
| Midtown tunnel. Just a new level of traffic. Was fun going in the
| MIB tunnel.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Living in the suburbs is perfectly fine; I think a perfectly
| virtuous outcome here would be that people keep living in the
| suburbs if they wish, but have adequately funded suburban rail
| and bus transit into the city.
|
| An important piece of context is that NYC has some of the US's
| best suburban transit, including three different suburban rail
| systems (NJT, MNRR, LIRR) and one non-subway interurban rapid
| transit system (PATH).
| nfRfqX5n wrote:
| Problem is, none of the money from congestion pricing is
| shared with NJ transit/infra
| woodruffw wrote:
| That's because they turned it down[1]. New Jersey has
| decided that their strategy is going to be to dig their
| heels in and hope for a supportive administration, rather
| than plan for the next century of growth in the economic
| region that powers their state.
|
| [1]: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2024/12/18/nj-refusing-
| generous-...
| gotoeleven wrote:
| Sweet lord have you ever tasted a peach grown in new
| jersey? What the hell is going on in that state.
| Moomoomoo309 wrote:
| Most superfund sites of any state, decades of chemical
| industry and now pharma, and also peaches not really
| liking how north NJ is, mostly. Jersey's a wacky place,
| for sure, but believe me, the politics in New Jersey get
| even crazier than this due to boroughitis.
| rangestransform wrote:
| NYS offered, NJ sued NYS, NJ lost
|
| It would be a completely ok thing for NYS to tell NJ $0 get
| bent, NJ coulda spent turnpike widening money on transit
| instead of begging from NYS
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| NJ needs to stop its commuter residents paying NY income
| tax, particularly those doing WFH more than half the year.
| They can boost NJT with that pile of money.
| woodruffw wrote:
| How do you propose they do that? NJ doesn't levy NY's
| taxes, NY does.
|
| (To my understanding, NJ gives every resident an
| equivalent income tax credit for the taxes they pay in
| NY. Given that they can't stop NY from taxing its own
| employees, this would mean they'd effectively need to
| double income taxes for NJ residents.)
| afavour wrote:
| > They can boost NJT with that pile of money.
|
| NJ has had many opportunities to do so over the years and
| consistently chooses not to.
| insaneirish wrote:
| > I personally took a cab from Newark to Laguardia
|
| I don't understand why anyone would ever attempt to do this.
| Was it truly _the only_ option?
| comprambler wrote:
| Flight got rebooked with a couple hours notice, stayed at LGA
| checkin till it opened, had the first flight out. Fare was
| more than 100$
| alamortsubite wrote:
| I did JFK-EWR coming back from HND one time. Not the only
| option but probably the best, all things considered. That's
| life in the fast-paced, slam-bang, laugh-in-the-face-of-death
| world of non-revving.
| jmyeet wrote:
| I happened to be living in London when congestion pricing was
| brought in and the difference on day 1 in the West End was like
| night and day. I believe it's never gone back to the pre-
| congestion pricing levels. I fully expect similar in Manhattan.
|
| The social media response has been particularly interesting.
| Predictably, there are a lot of non-NYCers who simply object to
| the slightest inconvenience to driving in any form. These can be
| ignored.
|
| What's more interesting are how many native (or at least
| resident) New Yorkers who are against this. They tend to dress up
| the reasons for this (as people do) because it basically comes
| down to "I like to drive from Queens/Brooklyn into Manhattan".
| There's almost no reason for anyone to have to drive into
| Manhattan. It's almost all pure convenience.
|
| The funniest argument against this is "safety", the idea that the
| Subway is particularly unsafe. You know what's unsafe? Driving.
|
| Another complaint: drivers are paying for the roads. This is
| untrue anywhere in the US. Drivers only partially subsidize roads
| everywhere.
|
| And if we're going to talk about subsidies, how about free street
| parking... in Manhattan. Each parking space is like $500k-$1M on
| real estate. In a just world, a street parking pass would cost
| $500/month.
|
| The second interesting aspect is how long it takes to bring in
| something like this. In the modern form, it's been on the cards
| for what? A decade? Longer? Court challenges? A complicit
| governor blocking implementation? That resistance only ever goes
| in one direction.
|
| My only complaint is that the MTA should be free. Replace the $20
| billion (or whatever it is) in fares with $20 billion in taxes on
| those earning $100k+ and on airport taxes. Save the cost of
| ticketing and enforcement. Stop spending $100M on deploying the
| National Guard (to recover $100k in fares).
|
| Public transit fares (that are going up to $3 this year) are a
| regressive tax on the people that the city cannot run without.
| tripper_27 wrote:
| Several EU cities have experimented with making public
| transport free, and people seem to really enjoy it.
|
| Also, as you so eloquently put it, it isn't clear that the cost
| for issuing and checking tickets is covered by the income from
| the tickets, and there are reasons why MTA tickets cannot be
| priced at the actual cost to cover the ticket compliance
| infrastructure -- with a nice analogy to the cost of parking vs
| value of parking real estate. What justifies the subsidy for
| on-street parking?
| returningfory2 wrote:
| Some internet searching suggests fares account for between 25
| and 33 percent of the MTA's revenue. There's no way the
| infrastructure for collecting fares costs that much.
|
| This is one of the main criticisms of free fares: in reality
| the revenue stream from fares is never actually fully
| replaced, so it just results in the transit agency becoming
| underfunded. This makes transit worse for existing users who
| are already paying. The new users you get because of free
| fares are mostly casual users like tourists who have
| alternate options, so serving them isn't that useful and not
| worth the negative impact on existing users.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| >Another complaint: drivers are paying for the roads. This is
| untrue anywhere in the US. Drivers only partially subsidize
| roads everywhere.
|
| I agree with pretty much everything else you wrote, but this it
| needs to be noted that most road damage is done by weather and
| heavyweight vehicles like semis/trash/buses/delivery vehicles
| etc., not regular passenger vehicles.
|
| Semis et al. definitely do not pay taxes proportionate with the
| damage they cause to the roads, but then again we all need them
| even if we don't drive.
| woodruffw wrote:
| This is true, but it's also changing in interesting ways: the
| rise of both light-truck SUVs and EVs as a whole means that
| passenger cars are, on average, heaver than they've ever been
| before.
|
| This is still a small portion of overall road damage, but it
| matters in places like NYC. In particular it matters on our
| bridges and cantilevered highways, where passenger traffic
| can't be easily filtered away from weight-sensitive areas
| like commercial traffic can.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >Semis et al. definitely do not pay taxes proportionate with
| the damage they cause to the roads, but then again we all
| need them even if we don't drive.
|
| I don't think there would be much point. At the end of the
| day we'd all pay it because we all consume the goods they
| deliver or transport during intermediary steps in the supply
| chain.
|
| I guess you could argue that the status quo is somewhat of a
| tax incentive that favors local manufacturing (i.e they use
| the roads for every step of the chain vs imported goods which
| only use it for delivery). I don't take much issue with that.
| ignormies wrote:
| Note that diesel is taxed nearly 40% higher than gasoline per
| gallon in the US. And shipping trucks use a lot more gallons
| of gas (total and per mile).
|
| Should the rate be higher? Perhaps. But it's already a bit
| slanted towards vehicle weight based on fuel type and
| consumption.
|
| Electric vehicles, and especially electric shipping trucks,
| are going to require finding new taxation sources.
| occz wrote:
| I agree that semis are subsidized to a ridiculous degree, but
| I don't agree that we necessarily _need_ them. What we need
| is a way to transport things, and in a non-subsidized world,
| we'd probably come up with a different way which could be
| just as good or better.
| jhatax wrote:
| Why is the answer to offset MTA ticket revenue an additional
| tax on those making $100K+ or those traveling through the city
| (airport taxes) who don't use the service? In a city with super
| high cost of living and almost no auditable way to connect
| taxes collected with service delivered, this sounds like a
| penalty to anyone making six figures or connecting through the
| airport.
|
| There has to be another, more sustainable way for a rich city
| like NYC to make a service truly accessible and free without
| another tax. It's like how the Bay Area bridge tolls have
| increased by $1 this year to fund the BART system => we still
| don't know what was done with the last increase in tolls, yet
| we have to pony up the extra cash this year.
|
| Smarter folks than me on HN might have an idea other than,
| "let's tax folks who make more than an arbitrary dollar amount
| annually" that has worked in other large metropolitan areas.
| juped wrote:
| The subway fare is _insanely_ cheap and it's also uniform,
| which is important because short intra-Manhattan riders like me
| subsidize outer borough commuters. What a bizarre thing to
| complain about.
| screye wrote:
| All studies show that free public transit is a bad idea. There
| is a reason no country provides it. People mis-treat free
| things. When you ask them to pay for it, it enforces civic
| contracts. With contactless terminals in place, a free MTA
| benefits no one. It's also difficult to get additional funding
| to improve something that's free.
|
| An MTA monthly pass is 130$. That's the price of a single uber
| round-trip to JFK. NYC also allows employers to provide
| commuter benefits tax-free.
|
| It's cheap enough.
| axelfontaine wrote:
| Luxembourg has free public transit.
| codewench wrote:
| > There is a reason no country provides it.
|
| While small, Luxembourg is still considered a country. And
| their public transit is both free, and fantastic
| randomopining wrote:
| What does free transit do? People need to earn some money and
| then use that money. It's a healthy psyche. $3 for a ride
| anywhere in the city is pretty cheap
| coldpie wrote:
| Figuring out how, and how much, to pay, and then fumbling
| with cash and change or whatever, during the fairly stressful
| experience of boarding, is something of a barrier to using
| transit. So removing the fare payment entirely removes that
| barrier. But, that's gotten a lot easier with support for
| paying fares in apps, so I think it's a lot less of an issue
| now than it was ten years ago. I used to be in favor of free
| fares, mostly because it'd make using transit less
| intimidating for newbies. But I'm on the fence now.
| easton wrote:
| As you say, it has gotten a lot easier, and nyc is the
| easiest out of the systems I've used recently. You tap your
| phone, any credit card or a card you get with cash
| (replacement for metrocard), and the gate opens while they
| take your money. 12 taps and you're not charged anymore for
| the week.
| paxys wrote:
| While I'm sure congestion pricing will have a positive impact on
| traffic, I'd wait a little while longer to draw any conclusions,
| considering (1) the data is from a single day (2) lots of people
| aren't back from holiday travel and (3) there's a winter storm
| across the country and a decent amount of snow fell in Jersey/New
| York today, discouraging driving.
| occz wrote:
| You can already extrapolate from the results from other cities
| who have implemented the policy, where it has been wildly
| successful at reducing congestion.
| coding123 wrote:
| ... for rich people.
| occz wrote:
| Nope, it's been great for poorer people who take transit at
| higher rates than others, and congestion pricing funds
| useful transit expansions for them.
| polon wrote:
| So far, none of the data provided by the linked site would
| suggest Manhattan will see a reduction in transportation
| times. This is with the Monday snow however, which I'd
| imagine caused delays by itself.
|
| I will say, being in Manhattan, their seems to be less
| traffic on the road. I wonder if Google Maps traffic data is
| using a rolling average of ~7 days or something
| asdff wrote:
| Google maps traffic data is live
| yt-sdb wrote:
| Are you sure? Compare before/after for the main affected
| regions (Holland Tunnel, Queensboro) versus the unaffected
| regions. We definitely need more data, but I think there's
| an immediate reduction in the obvious places.
| blehn wrote:
| According to this data, traffic is reduced on the bridges
| and tunnels but not within Manhattan itself, e.g., going
| from Hell's Kitchen to Midtown East or Greenwich Village
| to Alphabet City.
| freejazz wrote:
| I thought London's traffic returned to the same levels as
| prior to their congestion pricing?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Note that a gimped version of congestion pricing was actually
| implemented, putting it closer to being an annoyance more than an
| actual deterrence.
|
| Originally it was meant to be $15, but was ultimately lowered to
| $9.
| paxys wrote:
| Going from no congestion pricing to some congestion pricing is
| the biggest barrier, and that was overcome. Increasing it from
| here is going to be a lot easier, especially if residents
| realize the positive effects.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| It wasn't gimped, it was a PR play so the governor could claim
| to be saving citizens costs by 'lowering' it. Like when people
| buy things they otherwise wouldn't have because it was 'on
| sale' so they're really saving money if you think about it.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > It wasn't gimped, it was a PR play so the governor could
| claim to be saving citizens costs by 'lowering' it.
|
| That doesn't make sense, because $15 was already the lower
| price that she fought for.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Originally it was meant to be $15, but was ultimately lowered
| to $9.
|
| It was originally supposed to be $27. $15 _was_ the lower price
| that Hochul fought for and issued a press release boasting that
| it was the correct price.
|
| Then she just unilaterally decided to cancel the entire program
| before bringing it back at $9.
| yobid20 wrote:
| Bad timing on the charts before and after. Coming back off
| holidays, delayed flights, and in the middle of massive
| snowstorms. The constant data is flawed and results irrelavant.
| You need to wait until the spring/summer and compare windows of
| time to previous years.
| matt3210 wrote:
| I like congestion pricing because it keeps poor people off the
| road so the middle can commute faster
|
| /sarcasm
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it keeps poor people off the road so the middle can commute
| faster_
|
| Poor people aren't commuting into lower Manhattan by car.
| Qwertious wrote:
| Poor people commute by bus/train, which is far higher capacity
| per lane and is also cheaper.
|
| Congestion pricing is a luxury tax. The only downside is
| tradies who need to move their heavy equipment around the city,
| except this might be a net-benefit for them because getting
| stuck in traffic costs them more money in the form of longer
| turnaround times.
| kkkqkqkqkqlqlql wrote:
| Regarding the tradies, could the cost of congestion pricing
| be tax-deductible or something like that?
| supernova87a wrote:
| What I am interested to know but cannot find is:
|
| Are there are cameras inside the zone tracking cars to bill them
| if you are already _in_ the zone, or if cameras only track
| _entry_ to the zone? (i.e. cameras only on the border). If
| someone happens to evade the cameras, do they catch them
| eventually just by traveling within the zone? I believe London
| for example has internal zone cameras.
|
| The purpose being, first of all, to ensure that people do not
| somehow evade paying just by operating solely within the zone,
| defeating the purpose of reducing traffic. And secondly, to stop
| people from engaging in loophole seeking behavior.
|
| I hope that loopholes and people defrauding the system (license
| plate obscuration, etc) are quickly caught and penalized. You
| would hope that if a car enters or is detected with invalid
| plates, it triggers an automatic report to police nearby to
| follow up. Otherwise, like so many things (it seems now) we just
| throw our hands up at people who evade the rules and charge those
| who follow them. (my comment spurred by an NYT article about how
| people might scam the system)
| stereo wrote:
| The cameras are only at the entrance.
| rtkwe wrote:
| The number of people who entirely live and work and drive
| inside the zone is going to be vanishingly small in comparison
| to the people who transit the zone border so I'm not sure it's
| going to be that big of a deal.
| supernova87a wrote:
| I just wonder why they choose not to enforce this aspect of
| it when it can be a significant population (in a statistical
| sense) of the car traffic as well as revenue. Manhattan
| inside the highways is a big place.
|
| Maybe it's the cost of the cameras to be installed.
| rtkwe wrote:
| I wager they did a study to weigh the costs and came up
| with the inevitable answer that chasing down the tenth of a
| percent (a wild guess but I think it's at worst an order of
| magnitude off from the actual number) of cars that exist
| only within the congestion zone and never leave would cost
| more than you'd gain both in fees and second order effects.
| Especially the population of cars most likely to never or
| rarely leave are being charged on a per ride basis, cabs
| and rideshare vehicles like Uber etc.
|
| It's like all the efforts to drug test people on welfare,
| they cost vastly more than they save/recover.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > I just wonder why they choose not to enforce this aspect
| of it when it can be a significant population (in a
| statistical sense) of the car traffic as well as revenue.
|
| It's not. 85% of Manhattan households don't own a car at
| all. The number is even higher inside the Congestion and
| Relief Zone. Almost all car traffic within the zone is from
| people who do not live within the zone.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Plus of that 15% that do own a car how many actually only
| use the car within the Congestion Zone a significant
| portion of the time? My guess is the number is well below
| 1% of car traffic could possibly dodge a significant
| portion of the toll.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Plus of that 15% that do own a car how many actually
| only use the car within the Congestion Zone a significant
| portion of the time? My guess is the number is well below
| 1% of car traffic could possibly dodge a significant
| portion of the toll.
|
| There's no real way to get reliable numbers on this, but
| I would estimate that >70% of people who live in the
| Congestion Relief Zone _and_ own a car use it primarily
| as a way to access their second home in the Hudson
| Valley.
|
| I would have said that in 2019, but the testimony from
| congestion pricing opponents during the multiple rounds
| of public hearings that we've had since then only further
| corroborate that impression.
| gosub100 wrote:
| I don't see what good it would do to have a car that can only
| travel in lower Manhattan. Yeah the few people who live there,
| own a car, and are lazy or use it for going to get groceries 2x
| a week might slip through, but that's nothing significant in my
| book.
|
| What would worry me is if it leads to more license plate theft.
| Criminals get to ride for free, while legally registered owners
| have to fight the fines and clear their name in NYCs byzantine
| government.
| The-Bus wrote:
| Where are you driving your own car to get groceries easily in
| lower Manhattan... twice a week?
| gosub100 wrote:
| If you had a friend or SO, one could drop off the other,
| then circle around a while and pick them up later. But that
| further reinforces my point that there's little to gain
| from "cheating" this way.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| There's a lot of interest in forcing people to use public transit
| but relatively little interest in making transit something people
| want to use. If people think they're going to be stabbed or
| assaulted they're not going to want to use it. Other countries
| don't have this problem and until the transit types realize this
| normal people are going to reject transit alltogether.
| supernova87a wrote:
| The USA needs to work on:
|
| -- making the cost of employing a good staffing level of police
| more affordable (so that we can have more, everyday police
| doing a job as a neighborhood force and seen as a reliable
| presence against crime)
|
| -- more certain prosecution and penalties for quality of life
| crimes that we all pay for in seeing petty but significantly
| confidence-decreasing incidents that reduce our willingness to
| take public transport
|
| -- reducing the cost / increasing the frequency and usefulness
| of public transport services where you regard it equally as
| convenient as private vehicles
|
| You go to some other countries (less rich ones particularly)
| and buses have 2 crew, trains have multiple staff, taking
| fares, making sure rules are obeyed. Giving people confidence
| that this is something they want to ride on. Not a system where
| it looks like the station is half abandoned, was last cleaned
| about 2 years ago, and if you were mugged or even just reported
| a crazy ranting homeless person, they would shrug and tell you
| to phone it in.
| rangestransform wrote:
| Subways in nyc have 2 crew by union decree and I don't think
| it's helped public safety
| pjc50 wrote:
| New York has an extraordinary level of police already.
| They're just bad at dealing with the actual problems.
| Including murdering a bystander in a totally unnecessary
| subway shooting.
| vvern wrote:
| I don't think in NYC it's fair to argue that there's relatively
| little interest in making transit something people want to use.
| We can debate about whether the efforts are effective, and
| certainly many aren't. However there are vast sums invested in
| the MTA and a great many folks at the MTA who try to make it
| pleasant and safe. Additionally there have been added police
| and military presence in subway stations around the city for
| months (again, no comment on efficacy). All I'll say is that
| there is a ton of interest from leadership on down in making
| the subway and buses work well for normal people and far more
| money then congestion pricing cost to implement or will bring
| in.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The police just walked past the lady set on fire. It's on
| video.
|
| Why is it that where I live all the tech companies built
| their own transit system just for their employees? Because
| they can control the experience and prevent the problems that
| turn people away from public transit. Either public transit
| is for the quiet people who are just trying to get somewhere
| or it can be for the nuisance types. They're incompatible.
| paxys wrote:
| Close to _5 million_ people ride MTA trains and buses every
| day. And that number gets much higher if you include commuter
| rail, NJ Transit, PATH, ferries etc. operating in the city.
| Over 70% of daily commuters in NYC already use some form of
| public transit, and _90%_ of those commuting into Manhattan use
| public transit.
|
| All the "the subways are too crime ridden to use" shouts are
| pure propaganda. If millions of New Yorkers can survive, so can
| you.
| RhysU wrote:
| Calling it "pure propaganda" is itself pure propaganda.
|
| Counterpoint, this poor soul who was literally burned to
| death: https://nypost.com/2024/12/31/us-news/mystery-woman-
| torched-...
|
| The subway is worse than it was pre-Covid. Congestion pricing
| will not address that.
|
| "Suck it up cowards" is hardly good public policy.
| paxys wrote:
| Okay now let's similarly post about every single one of the
| hundreds of people who were killed in traffic accidents
| last year in the city (including plenty who burned to death
| in their cars). That should be enough to convince you that
| no one should drive here right? Or is safety suddenly not a
| concern anymore?
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| People seek agency and don't consider traffic deaths to
| be the same as random assaults. It's for the same reason
| most people think they'd do well in a fight. They value
| their agency and assume they would be able to prevent it.
| paxys wrote:
| Are you implying everyone who gets in a traffic accident
| has full agency over the situation? Because that is
| laughably far from reality. It is infinitely easier to
| consciously avoid danger on the subway than in a car.
| RhysU wrote:
| I have some agency. I can drive faster or slower, more or
| less aggressively, choose a vehicle based on safety, not
| drive in bad weather or when the bars let out, drive more
| or less frequently.
|
| I can't control if some batshit crazy tries to set me on
| fire, aside from riding the subway less.
|
| I do ride the subway, BTW. But I definitely do not
| habitually walk as close to the platform edge as I used
| to given how public safety has slide the last handful of
| years. I blame, of course, de Blasio.
| boroboro4 wrote:
| You have way more control over batshit crazies than
| riding the subway less. You can change the subway car,
| fight, ask for help, engage the police. And let's face it
| - you never gonna be this person who got burnt.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Are you implying everyone who gets in a traffic
| accident has full agency over the situation? Because that
| is laughably far from reality. It is infinitely easier to
| consciously avoid danger on the subway than in a car.
|
| I would note that people can falsely believe things about
| how much agency they really have, and that this seems to
| be the case with cars vs. public transit.
| bluesnews wrote:
| Pedestrians outside of cars don't have agency to prevent
| injury to themselves from cars.
| palmfacehn wrote:
| Situational awareness shouldn't be discounted.
| ben_w wrote:
| I was hit by a car once, due to the driver's lack of
| situational awareness.
|
| I was turning from a major road into a minor road, a car
| _was stopped at the exit to that minor road_ , but they
| failed to look in my direction, and pulled out into me.
|
| My bike was a write-off, fortunately I was uninjured --
| they had started from stationary, so probably less than
| 10 mph when they hit me, and I always wear a helmet.
| RhysU wrote:
| Well, hell, let's think about everyone who choked to
| death in New York. Krazy Kat should levy a masticulation
| tax below 60th street. It'll be easier to get a table!
| Think of all the environmental benefits of not eating
| fancy foods!
| Qwertious wrote:
| >The peer who called out agency makes the right point. I
| choose to drive and I accept the baseline danger of
| driving.
|
| Pedestrians get killed by car crashes all the time, and
| they never accepted that baseline danger of driving.
| RhysU wrote:
| Apologies. I revised my comment after you replied. I did
| not notice the reply.
| blitzar wrote:
| 100% off all home invasions occur in peoples residences and
| can be a terrifying and often deadly experience. It is
| recommended that if you want to avoid these crimes you stay
| away from homes.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| If it's so good then why do they need measures like this one?
| jgil wrote:
| It would be interesting to see the effect on average noise
| levels. Anecdotally, I have heard fewer honks from single unit
| trucks today.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Actually, I bet noise levels would be a really good proxy to
| measure the effect itself.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Will companies compensate workers for having to pay congestion
| pricing just to get to work??
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Why? Do they pay you back for living two hours away, or driving
| an expensive gas guzzler that gets 5 mpg?
| deadbabe wrote:
| In a way, yes since a local employee will get higher salary
| than a remote worker. It could cost some people $40 a day
| just to get into and out of work. What will happen if you
| don't compensate is people come to the office late and leave
| early to avoid the pricing, resulting in a loss of
| productivity.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > In a way, yes since a local employee will get higher
| salary than a remote worker.
|
| But you're asking for the local employees to have their
| entirely variable commute costs covered. That's very
| different. If I want to helicopter to work for $2k a day,
| should work cover it? If not, why is wanting to drive in a
| city with robust public transit options any different?
|
| People leaving work early is a fixable discipline issue.
| freen wrote:
| The harsh law of hacker news: For any topic outside of strict
| software development, the strength, viciousness and certitude of
| opinions expressed is inversely proportional to the level of
| knowledge about the subject.
|
| https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/3/3/the-fundamental...
| screye wrote:
| Whiplash, every time.
|
| HN's takes on cars are shockingly bad. For a community as
| thoughtful as HN, their responses are (to use an insult
| provocatively) car brained.
|
| It's as if cities don't exist outside the US. The US is decades
| behind on urban infrastructure and governance. This means their
| policy debates in 2025 have been globally settled issues for
| decades with outcomes to back it up. Conjecture can't be an
| effective rebuttal to evidence.
| coldpie wrote:
| > HN's takes on cars are shockingly bad. For a community as
| thoughtful as HN, their responses are (to use an insult
| provocatively) car brained.
|
| Hm, as a big public-transit advocate coming here 5 hours
| after your comment, I actually thought the discussion is in
| pretty good shape. There's a handful of "cars only!" nuts,
| but they're a small minority. It seems the vibes around this
| topic are fairly positive, with lots of support for funding
| better public transit.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| It was shocking to read The Power Broker last year and learn
| that since 1940s at least, urban planners have been aware of
| induced demand. Caro even brings up congestion pricing as a
| proposal that was rejected not because it wouldn't solve then
| problem but because the entire urban planning infrastructure
| was built to deny that there was a problem.
| asdff wrote:
| And this is why we have traffic today per that theory. Demand
| were induced and in a lot of cases cities didn't end up
| building key reliever routes. So those initiall routes were
| overcapacity potentially from day one in the city.
|
| It is also important to note that induced demand is not
| infinite. There is a point when there aren't more drivers to
| actually get on the roads. We see this in some midwestern
| cities that had their full freeway plans built and didn't
| experience significant growth after those plans were made.
| Those are "20 miles in 20 minutes" places any time of day for
| the most part.
| shipscode wrote:
| Congestion pricing should really be referred to as a "lower
| manhattan driving tax" or similar. It's a misnomer to claim it to
| be "solving" congestion outside of rush hours like 7-10 and 3-7.
| BobAliceInATree wrote:
| It's not a tax.
| asdff wrote:
| It is if your drive is obligatory
| neilv wrote:
| This seems to be selling use of the public roads to rich people
| (who can more easily afford the tolls).
|
| Isn't this a step backwards for social justice?
| alexchamberlain wrote:
| An alternative take is that people who can only afford mass
| transit options (without even adding congestion pricing) are
| now on a level playing field with most commuters, and should
| experience a better commute less affected by traffic.
|
| (This assumes that the mass transit options are invested in,
| rather than overrun by people switching.)
| WillDaSilva wrote:
| Not at all, since those who aren't rich primarily use public
| transit to get around this area, which benefits massively from
| reduced car traffic.
| nayuki wrote:
| Do you know what it means to be rich? Serious question.
|
| It's not "having a lot of money". It's actually "having a lot
| of options".
|
| By definition, rich people will have more ways to get around
| than poor people. The rich can hire a limo, hop in a
| helicopter, and even take a trip to space.
|
| Is it a social injustice that not everyone can afford a limo,
| helicopter, or spaceship?
|
| I do not think it's bad to take steps to make driving an
| activity for richer people, to make it a luxury that it
| initially was when cars were invented.
|
| On the flip side of things, look at what the dream of mass-
| market affordable cars, free highways, and free parking have
| done to society: Swathes of land wasted for parking, low
| density cities that kill walking/cycling/transit, millions of
| people dying in car crashes, endless congestion and lane-
| widening.
| neilv wrote:
| > _Do you know what it means to be rich? Serious question._
|
| A serious question that you immediately proceed to answer,
| with rhetoric that it's preferable for there to be only the
| relative few rich elite, who implicitly should enjoy all the
| luxuries possible in the world, but there should not be these
| luxuries for the lesser people, since our experiments in
| permitting the peasants to enjoy small amounts of society's
| wealth has been a disaster, encroaching upon the enjoyment of
| the rich, and making the poors uppity?
| peterbonney wrote:
| That might be the case in other cities, but in NYC the
| socioeconomic dynamics are less clear. It's mostly affluent-to-
| rich suburbanites that drive to work from outside the city,
| with rich and poor city residents primarily taking public
| transit (and to a lesser extent using taxis and car services).
| Almost no city residents - rich, poor or in between - drive to
| and from a 9-5 job in Manhattan.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Poor people don't drive, they're on the bus. This makes transit
| better for people who don't drive.
| hnpolicestate wrote:
| Their religion is punishing to middle class.
| habosa wrote:
| The branding of congestion pricing has been so disastrous.
|
| It could have been separated into two very normal things: tolls
| and parking fees. Every city has those. NYC could have played
| with those knobs until they got mostly the same effect but there
| would have never been any nonsense about it being illegal or
| unconstitutional or whatever car advocates are saying.
|
| Even if this works, it will always be hated and fought by a large
| minority.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Meh, car proponents fight against any concession. You're
| proposal is no different. Consider how in these comments people
| are even mad about being unable to park their SUV in a
| crosswalk (new daylighting policy in SF).
|
| Just rip the bandage off already.
| freejazz wrote:
| Yes, unlike congestion pricing, New Yorkers love increased
| tolls and paying even more for parking than they did last year.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| They don't indicate what the "average" data before Jan. 5
| represents. January and February after week 1 have lighter
| traffic than the rest of the year. If the pre-congestion data
| extends beyond the winter season, including week 52 and week 1,
| it can't be meaningfully compared until more data is collected.
| kittikitti wrote:
| Good, I was hit by a car in NYC while on a bike and it caused a
| fracture. If this reduces congestion, then I support it because I
| could have easily died. However, this was accompanied by hikes in
| public transit pricing. I don't think transit officials are
| acting in good faith when it comes to their moral arguments and
| just want to justify raising taxes for the poor.
| mr_00ff00 wrote:
| The people paying the congestion fees are the rich that live in
| the suburbs and drive into the city.
| stemlord wrote:
| It is expected that fees will also be passed down to non-
| wealthy locals by services whose vehicles need to utilize
| these roads as well-- they will raise their prices
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > However, this was accompanied by hikes in public transit
| pricing.
|
| It was not. Public transit pricing is completely independent
| and did not change with the implementation of congestion
| pricing.
|
| > I don't think transit officials are acting in good faith when
| it comes to their moral arguments and just want to justify
| raising taxes for the poor.
|
| The only person who has acted in bad faith is Kathy Hochul, who
| bent over backwards to water down the policy by having poorer
| people subsidize wealthy car commuters.
| dralley wrote:
| Fantastic. That's step one, now fix the public transit, and make
| it safer and cleaner, so that people actually enjoy using it
| consistently rather than just needing to do so.
|
| Do that and NYC will be a much, much nicer city to live in.
| fuzzylightbulb wrote:
| That is literally what the money is for
| CSMastermind wrote:
| When I lived in NYC I paid huge amounts of money in taxes and
| as far as I can tell got very little for my money.
|
| Until they can start using their enormous existing budget
| wisely I don't see any reason they should be given more
| money.
| CPLX wrote:
| > as far as I can tell got very little for my money
|
| You literally lived in the greatest city in the history of
| world civilization.
|
| Sorry it didn't work out for you.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Tokyo is pretty nice
| Aspos wrote:
| You seriously think NYC is the greatest city in the
| history of world civilization? Or is it sarcasm? I am
| asking this as NYC resident.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| As my sister says (lives around Prospect Park with kids)
| -- if you don't gaslight yourself that it's the best city
| in the world while paying such premiums to live here,
| you'll get depressed in a second.
|
| But I agree, I'm scratching my head whenever I hear that
| statement. It's definitely the best city in USA though,
| as there are about 3 real cities in the country.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| If your definition of greatest is "total GDP" then it is
| the greatest in the world. That said, I would agree that
| Tokyo and maybe even London are much finer examples of
| cities.
| CPLX wrote:
| Of course I do. Ask any person living in New York,
| they'll tell you the same thing.
| nothrabannosir wrote:
| Where else have you lived?
|
| I live in nyc today and whenever I hear people say that ,
| it turns out they mean "New York City is the greatest
| city in the world of New York City and Waterloo,
| Wisconsin."
|
| And even then , I've seen photos of Waterloo... looks
| like the air is nice and breathable there. And apparently
| you can afford to rent a place on a normal salary.
|
| You don't have to agree but at least try and get out of
| your bubble. You don't even know enough different people
| in New York City itself to support that claim,
| apparently.
| CPLX wrote:
| I mean it's not hard to figure out.
|
| Here's an easy test. Think of the city you currently live
| in. Ask people where you live if they think this city
| you're living in is better than New York. They'll have a
| lot to say about it.
|
| If you ask people in New York if the place you live is
| better than New York they'll say "Huh, where is that?"
| nothrabannosir wrote:
| I mean... yeah; I think we agree there. That's kinda my
| point: people here whom I know to claim New York City is
| the greatest city in the world don't actually know a lot
| about the world.
| CPLX wrote:
| I've literally been to 80+ countries and have spent time
| in every U.S. city of significant size. If you can't look
| at the world and figure out the obvious fact that New
| York is the greatest and most significant city that has
| existed since we climbed down out of the trees I'm not
| sure what's going to convince you.
| asdff wrote:
| Ehh not the best weather and they haven't invented the
| trash can or dumpster yet. You can get good food
| everywhere these days. And as the years go by I am less
| and less interested in drinking till 4:30 am especially
| at todays bar prices.
| dleink wrote:
| how do you reconcile this theory with the existence of
| the Mets?
| CPLX wrote:
| The quality of bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast
| sandwiches is sufficiently high to offset the Mets.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| The odds of you calling yourself "native new yorker" and
| having never actually lived anywhere else are virtually
| 100%
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I can just ask everyone I know in New Orleans around me
| who moved from New York.
| Aspos wrote:
| Such metric would just indicate that respondents are
| unaware of other cities, no? Majority of new yorkers
| never lived in good cities. I guess many just repeat 100
| years old notion that NYC is the best city in the world
| and just never doubt it.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Unless you happen to ask the large fraction of people who
| knowingly moved there to make big bucks for some number
| of years before getting out. They will all tell you it
| sucks, the government sucks, you suck for not realizing
| that and that they're masterminding their exit to the
| suburbs of Phoenix or Miami or whatever. These people
| make up a sizable minority of the NYC population at any
| given time.
| CPLX wrote:
| Well yeah sure, but obviously people who fail at living
| in New York don't count.
| nothrabannosir wrote:
| I regret to say: I've lived here long enough to believe
| you genuinely mean it when you say that.
| CPLX wrote:
| Is there a song called "Cleveland, Cleveland" that says
| if you can make it in Cleveland you can make it anywhere?
| Aspos wrote:
| Oh, you mean the half-century old song New York New York
| by Frank Sinatra? One written for a musical depicting
| golden days of 1945? Nice one, I love it.
| materielle wrote:
| Most of the things people like about NYC were either:
|
| 1) Built at least 100 years ago. De-facto relics of a
| government and society that no longer exists.
|
| 2) Things built by the _people_ in spite, not because, of
| its public policy and government.
|
| If anything, what interests me about NYC is "why isn't
| worse?". There is something amazing about NYC: how a city
| and civilization can be so successful in the face of
| government incompetence and public policy failures at
| every level.
| durumu wrote:
| I agree NYC is not wisely spending its $100 billion per
| year, but I think the congestion tax makes sense as a way
| of pricing in externalities. As a non-car-owner in lower
| Manhattan I dislike passenger cars -- they make it much
| less safe for me to bike around, and less pleasant for me
| to walk around. I think most people here benefit if we have
| way fewer large vehicles in the city, so the limited spots
| should be reserved for people who get immense economic
| value from them, like truckers or movers, not random people
| from the suburbs who want to have dinner in the city.
| kethinov wrote:
| Would be nice if they made transit better first instead of
| making driving worse first.
| izacus wrote:
| And will the drivers be prepared to fund this via another
| channel?
| lotsoweiners wrote:
| They already fund it via gas tax, registration fees,
| regular taxes. Let the public transit takers fund their
| own improvements.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| Driving in New York has been terrible for a century. The
| only way to make it better is to disincentivize people from
| doing it by making it more costly and making public transit
| better. Urban planners have known this is the case since at
| least the 40s.
|
| Congestion pricing isn't some kind of new punishment. It's
| a bill, long overdue, finally getting paid (and only
| partially).
| gcbirzan wrote:
| Robert Moses knew it, but that didn't stop him.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| I'm not sure Robert Moses knew that. He wasn't an urban
| planner. He was an urban doer. He made it his life's
| mission to not learn the actual impact of his work on
| people's lives. I suspect he took that willful ignorance
| to his grave.
| gcbirzan wrote:
| Oh, no, he knew.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| I didn't mean it in a way that absolves him of
| responsibility. I mean that he purposefully shut out any
| information that undermined his self-image as a "great
| man." That's a form of evil. It's worth differentiating
| that from other kinds of evil, as I believe it may be the
| most common.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| The problem is it's just not that much money against the
| inflated costs of NYC transit construction. It's budgeted to
| produce $1B/year, though that was before Hochul unilaterally
| cut the toll by 40%. $1B is like a 2000ft of subway tunnel or
| half a station these days.
| snake42 wrote:
| The fact that its a recurring revenue scheme allows them to
| get bonds based on that income. I think I saw that they
| were planning to secure $18B for a project when it was $15
| for the toll.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Yes though I'd imagine its harder to secure bonds now
| that Hochul has shown the governor can unilaterally
| change the fee on a whim, plus new Federal government is
| antagonistic to the whole program.
|
| Hochul won NY by a fairly narrow margin historically for
| the state against a pretty MAGA GOP guy. It's entirely
| possible some more normal blue state GOP type runs
| against her, wins and reduces the fee further.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| You're gonna need a lot more money than that when ~40% of MTA
| total spending goes to pay pensions and healthcare for people
| that don't even work anymore by ~2040.
|
| You need ~35% just to keep the system running functioning
| (which does not include operations - like the actual
| drivers).
|
| That's only going to leave you ~25% leftover for everything
| else - and a non-trivial percentage of that comes from the
| Federal Government - which may not be there in the future
| (when all of their money is going to pensions and
| healthcare).
| asdff wrote:
| It will never be "safe" or "clean" enough for the people who
| think it is unsafe today. Because for some people they see one
| homeless person and it ruins their day. They fail to realize
| that hey, transit is the means of transport one might take when
| you have no money at all, and you are always going to have
| homeless people on it and its not a big deal either.
| rendang wrote:
| Homeless people are not inherently unsafe. Unstable people
| who threaten & assault those around them are.
| Beefin wrote:
| congestion pricing doesn't work. its simply a shrug for the
| wealthy, and reduces money for lower income.
| oldnetguy wrote:
| This doesn't show the number of cars and traffic within the area.
| The real test will be the amount of traffic within the zone
| Lanolderen wrote:
| I wish people would focus more on scooters and motorcycles than
| moving people in busses. Coming from a place with decent and
| cheap public transport, no one likes it. It'll never be as fast,
| you'll always be closed in a bacteria greenhouse with strangers,
| there will always be crazies, it'll never have the exact path you
| need, you don't have as much control over it.. For the past year
| I've been commuting on a motorcycle with no car and even with
| snow it's surprisingly fine. Maintenance is cheap since it's much
| more DIY friendly, I get back from work up to 65-70% faster than
| cars, usually 35-40% (rush hour), I average 5,8-6,1 l/100 without
| trying to save fuel.. It's very comfy if you're not in a location
| where winters are particularly harsh. But at that point freezing
| your ass off at a bus station waiting to get in the bacteria
| greenhouse isn't great either.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| You're way overplaying the dangers of "crazies" and "the
| bacteria greenhouse" with respect to travel by motorcycle or
| scooter (or even automobile). I agree with your point that we
| should encourage these modes of transportation over cars, but
| I'd add it will be electric bikes that finally turn the tide on
| traffic congestion in cities (and all the other great benefits
| that come with doing that). Just don't tell the electric bike
| people that they're essentially riding motorcycles.
| Lanolderen wrote:
| I mean, I'm definitely biased but I've been sick once since
| ~2015 and that was Covid I caught at a large anniversary
| celebration. Before that I was <18 and would get sick every
| winter in my opinion due to people caughing all around me on
| the bus for 45 minutes per direction.
|
| With crazies it's not that bad. I remember the bus getting
| pulled over once by a car with people with pipes/bats who
| beat a grandpa for getting in an argument with one of the
| guys prior. That was the only actually violent occurance over
| thousands of rides, however I still have yet to feel as
| threatened with a personal vehicle. With a car I could have
| rammed the fuck out of them or ran them over, with a bike I
| could have been gone in a second, when the bus driver stops
| and opens the front door you're just stuck. Again,
| realistically it's mostly crazy homeless people who pose no
| threat but I prefer to have some control at least.
|
| My issue with electric bicycles is:
|
| If limited they don't fit with pedestrians or cars so you
| need to complicate infrastructure. Good for going to the post
| office but not as a daily since they're just not fast enough.
| Lovely for old people and to an extent kids.
|
| If not limited they are less tested motorcycles with usually
| shitty tires and brakes, no ABS, TC, etc with pedals to
| fulful some potentially existing legal loophole since there's
| no way you're doing anything close to the motor output
| manually yet since you feel inclined to pedal gear becomes
| problematic.
|
| I still have yet to try an electric motorcycle but I'd guess
| the little electric scooters would be great for commuting.
| I'm guessing an electric scooter that can do 100-140kmh would
| be the utility sweet spot. You'd be able to go everywhere and
| charge for pennies with minimal maintenance. You'd also get
| the scooter benefits of improved road muck/weather protection
| and actual underseat storage.
| durumu wrote:
| In Manhattan ebike access is excellent -- there are tons of
| bike lanes and bikeshare stations. They are typically as
| fast as Ubers for getting around the city since traffic is
| so bad here, and much cheaper. The main issue is that it's
| not very safe. Probably this does not generalize to most
| other US cities.
| CoffeeOnWrite wrote:
| Unfortunately the citi bikes are expensive enough that
| they may be more expensive than sharing an uber with one
| other person.
|
| Anecdote, paid $15 x 2 to take two citi bikes across
| Brooklyn to avoid a two-leg l-shaped subway ride. Coming
| home took a $25 uber. The bike trip was ~30% faster. It
| sucked having to navigate around all the delivery trucks
| and random private cars parked in the bike lane.
|
| $15 seems too much to me for the citi bike for a 25
| minute ride. But I'd do it again to save 10 minutes
| sitting in traffic in an uber.
|
| Oh and the next day we did the same journey via l-shaped
| subway ride. It took about 10 minutes more than the bike
| ride, and included an awkward street-level and overpass
| transition between the two subway lines. Much much
| cheaper than uber or bike.
|
| My take is there are a variety of crappy options to get
| around Brooklyn.
| saalweachter wrote:
| > however I still have yet to feel as threatened with a
| personal vehicle.
|
| There's an old saying that if you can't spot the sucker at
| the poker table, you're the sucker.
|
| If you've never felt threatened while driving a personal
| vehicle by all the road-raging, speeding, tailgating
| assholes--
| 3ple_alpha wrote:
| I've driven electric motorbike for 7 years and it's
| absolutely great for everyday commute. Lighter ones tend to
| have removable batteries so they work even when you don't
| have a garage with electric outlet. Some heavier ones you
| can even take on an occasional long trip, though that's not
| super convenient - it's commuting (combined with joy of
| riding) that makes them useful.
|
| One does need to know where one is going to service it,
| though, because they can sometimes have stupid electrical
| issues which are objectively easy to fix but hard for you
| to fix on your own cause you don't know which wire goes
| where.
| bradlys wrote:
| In NYC, I disagree. I get sick very frequently whenever I
| take the subway. It is absolutely disgusting.
|
| The amount of crazy people on there is a lot too. Every
| friend has some story of some person assaulting or nearly
| assaulting them on the subway. No one truly feels safe on it.
| dml2135 wrote:
| I truly feels safe on the NYC subway.
|
| You know what's more dangerous than riding the subway?
| Driving in a car.
| rendang wrote:
| Driving in a car is pretty dangerous when you're in some
| Texas suburb with 50mph arterial streets. Going 20mph
| through lower Manhattan with an intersection every few
| hundred feet, not so much
| dml2135 wrote:
| Some quick googling gives me the following figures:
|
| https://www.chopranocerino.com/blog/new-york-accident-
| statis....
|
| > There were 5,809 crashes on the busy streets of
| Manhattan in 2023. The borough reported 34 deaths (19
| pedestrians, 11 motorists, and 4 cyclists). In total,
| there were _7,253_ injuries.
|
| https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/how-rare-is-crime-
| on-t...
|
| > ...there were _1,120_ violent index crimes reported as
| occurring on the subway in 2023, compared to 935 in 2019
|
| Even comparing just Manhattan to the subway system as a
| whole, driving is more likely to result in an injury by a
| factor of 7x.
| khafra wrote:
| Coming to a place with decent and cheap public transport six
| months ago: 1. It's faster than commuting by car during rush
| hour, and otherwise 10%-20% longer within the city limits. 2.
| There's no crazies. I haven't seen so much as someone rocking
| and muttering, let alone bothering other passengers. 3. Yeah,
| it's a petri dish--I've been sick enough to miss days of work
| twice in the last six months, which is more than in the two
| years before moving here.
|
| I'm not sure how well 1 and 2 could generalize from Germany to
| America. You'd need Harberger Taxes or liberal use of Eminent
| Domain to put rail networks into a city. You'd need competent
| and well-funded law enforcement to curtail the crazies.
|
| #3 we could fix in either area with UVC and filtered air
| circulation; or I could just get comfortable with being the
| weirdo wearing an N95 mask every day
|
| I have also commuted by motorcycle for around 30k miles. It
| does save a lot of money, but it's not much faster than cars if
| you're strictly following the law in the 49 states where lane
| splitting isn't fully legal. You also have 90 times the risk of
| death per mile travelled, compared to a car, which balances the
| increased disease risk on a train.
| blehn wrote:
| No one likes decent and cheap public transport? I find that
| hard to believe. It's basically the common denominator for the
| best modern cities.
|
| Motorcycles are definitely not the solution. Motorcycle usage
| in NYC has skyrocketed since 2020 and as a result the streets
| are far noisier, more chaotic, and more dangerous, especially
| for pedestrians and cyclists.
| Lanolderen wrote:
| I mean it in the sense that I've literally never met a person
| who prefers travelling by public transport to a personal
| motorized vehicle outside of long trips. The usage I've seen
| of it is from people who are too much of a mess financially
| to afford a car/license or people who are terrified of
| driving. Incentives just don't fix the issue of having no
| control and being in a pod with a hundred people you don't
| know and who have not been screened for insanity, excessive
| odor, sickness and general obnoxiousness.
|
| And there are scooters and commuter bikes which are tamer,
| even electric ones. I'm not saying everyone should get sports
| bikes with 16 Rs in the name and a straight pipe or a Harley
| Tractor.
|
| Out of curiosity, are motorcycles actually more dangerous for
| pedestrians and cyclists than cars? Couldn't find anything
| quick enough.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Hi, nice to meet you! I prefer public transit because when
| I ride it I don't have to drive or find a parking spot! And
| I believe it to be safer on balance.
| asdff wrote:
| Chiming in to say I also prefer public transit. Why focus
| on the ride at all when I can just read a book and
| teleport?
|
| And the real danger of motorcycles is to yourself. You
| could end up living with a feeding tube slipping in a
| shower let alone a minor scuff at 25mph.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| You don't have to be the one driving...
| asdff wrote:
| Sure I could pay for a $40 uber one way at todays rates
| without vc subsidy. Or I can take a little longer riding
| the bus and only pay like $2.
| delecti wrote:
| Agreed. I love public transit. To get to work I can
| either take ~45 minutes by bus (during which time I
| read), or 25 minutes by car (during which time I can only
| loathe that I'm stuck contributing to traffic). That 20
| minutes "lost" to drastically improve the other 25
| minutes is well worth it.
| coldpie wrote:
| I take the bus in to work every day even though I have a
| car and the ability to WFH. I love the bus. I get to spend
| some time outside, walking to and from stops. Most days I
| just read a book or browse my phone for 40 minutes, and
| then magically I'm at work. Sometimes I get to chat with
| people on the bus or at the bus stop, though that's pretty
| rare, most people keep to themselves. I never have road
| rage. I never worry about parking. I never worry about
| people damaging my $XX,000 object. I almost never have to
| care about road construction, the bus just handles it for
| me. It's pretty neat!
|
| > being in a pod with a hundred people you don't know and
| who have not been screened for insanity, excessive odor,
| sickness and general obnoxiousness.
|
| These events do happen, but they're pretty rare. For the
| most part, people on the bus are just people, who happen to
| be on a bus. Just like there are crazy drivers, there are
| sometimes crazy bus passengers. At least the crazy bus
| passengers aren't piloting 4000 lbs of steel :)
| code_for_monkey wrote:
| I prefer public transit! No parking, I dont feel nearly the
| same frustration, I dont have to make decisions, and at the
| end of the day I can be a little high on the train. Its
| bliss.
| freejazz wrote:
| Have you even been to NYC?
| dml2135 wrote:
| Well yea, two major advantages of public transit over
| driving is that it is safer and less expensive. So if you
| are going to discount people with those opinions, of course
| the people remaining are more likely to align with you.
| mkehrt wrote:
| Sounds like you don't live in New York, then? Most people
| here don't own a car and don't want to.
| tolciho wrote:
| Motorcyclists generally have some compassion for cyclists
| in that both share trouble with cars, and both have
| problems with staying upright. Multiple car drivers have
| tried to kill me in America; no such thing happened in 10
| years in Pakistan, and I've had zero direct problems from
| motorcycles anywhere. Collision dangers aside--there's
| probably stats for that somewhere, probably poorly trained,
| drunk, or road raging folks sitting in cars are by far the
| main risk--the main problem of motorcycles would be the
| noise and air pollution from the engines, especially when
| there are too many of them in too small an area, versus
| having somewhere you can actually walk, think, and play
| (these differ not) without all that horrid noise and
| stench. In America, this is mostly limited to a few tourist
| island towns where there is only an ambulance and a service
| truck or two, and the cyclists on vacation are all like
| "wow, this is so nice! I don't get the Threat Of Death(tm)
| I usually do from the American stroad".
|
| "Stroad" is a term invented, I believe, by those crazy
| folks over at "Strong Towns", who probably also have things
| to say about congestion pricing, and why it's taken so very
| bloody long to implement it in a supposedly modern and
| advanced nation.
|
| I favor public transit, or ideally walking (problematic) or
| bicycling (even more problematic). Bicycling can be very
| problematic in America, to the point that a tourist from
| Florida in downtown Seattle once remarked "wow, the cars
| here aren't trying to kill me!" as we sat at some stinky
| car-strewn intersection. Basically you're a second class
| citizen if you walk or bicycle. Folks in cars will yell at
| you or throw things sometimes, and I have the correct skin
| color and sex, so it's strictly worse for others.
|
| Buses? Sure, you can find the spicy runs with all the
| homeless (why are there so many homeless in America? Money
| out the ass and yet a nation so poor ...), but I've had a
| lot more and a lot worse direct problems with folks who sit
| in cars, not counting indirect problems such as the noise,
| air, and real estate pollution (sometimes called "the high
| cost of free parking"). Usually the bus crazy will do
| something evil like offer you a joint, or wacky
| conversation, and will not do something upstanding like to
| change into the lane that you are bicycling in, forcing you
| off the road.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| I drove for years and was very happy to rid myself of my
| car and rely solely on SF's public transit and Uber/Lyft
| for when I need to go somewhere that isn't as readily
| accessible. Scooters and EBikes can't get me across the bay
| bridge anyway.
|
| And SF's public transit is worse (both less useful and less
| comfortable) compared to NYC, many European cities, and any
| Japanese or Chinese megacity. I still find it perfectly
| fine, and preferable to dealing with a car.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >I wish people would focus more on scooters and motorcycles
| than moving people in busses
|
| Will never happen. Too 3rd worldy for many of the demographics
| that tend to drive policy on transit matters.
| CoffeeOnWrite wrote:
| E-bikes though?
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I think the biggest thing CP is going to do in NYC is end toll
| shopping. There were previously some pretty obvious arbs
| available to people trying to get off LI.
|
| The biggest policy failure of CP though to me is that they left
| taxi/uber relatively unscathed. Often the majority of traffic is
| taxi/uber, so make the surcharge on them a fraction of what
| individual drivers pay is kind of nonsensical.
|
| Are we trying to minimize traffic (so tax call cars) or parking
| (so tax taxi/uber less since they don't have to park in
| Manhattan?). It smells of lobbying mostly.
| gregshap wrote:
| The uber/taxi fee is charged per ride, whereas private
| passenger cars pay once per day. Seems like a reasonable
| tradeoff.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| if the passenger car pays once a day, it's only generating
| one unit of congestion.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| And further, if I am already paying $50 fare to take an
| Uber, a $1.50 toll is not deterring me or reducing my usage
| at all. It is less than the rounding error on the tip I
| give the driver. I probably won't even notice it amongst
| the 5 line items of fees, taxes, surcharges, etc on the
| digital receipt.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| This is where the dogma gets in the way of reality. Uber
| and cabs are the glue that fills the gaps that public
| transit has left unfilled for decades.
|
| The policy goal is to reduce congestion by discouraging
| personal vehicles in the zone and generate revenue for
| transportation as a whole, not to turn the city into a
| pedestrian park. The state took an approach that does
| that without nuking the city.
|
| Based on the fact that nobody seems to be giddy about
| this, I'd say they did a decent job at that. If the crazy
| transit nuts are happy and the angry Jersey people are
| happy, something went wrong.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| The congestion relief zone is probably one of the single
| densest transit zones on the planet. Rideshares and cabs
| are definitely useful for filling in the gaps in the
| boroughs, but you basically never need one in downtown
| Manhattan.
| tekla wrote:
| You're forgetting that the transit zones themselves are
| not only affected, the main BRIDGES are also affected. So
| even if you're not driving in downtown Manhattan, you
| will still pay the cost to enter the city through the
| normal entrances
|
| ```
|
| Manhattan's Congestion Relief Zone starts at 60th Street
| and heads south to include the Lincoln, Holland and Hugh
| L. Carey tunnels on the Hudson River side, and the
| Queensboro Bridge, Queens Midtown Tunnel, Williamsburg
| Bridge, Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge on the East
| Side.
|
| Drivers will be charged when they enter the Congestion
| Relief Zone using the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queensboro or
| Williamsburg Bridges, or the Holland, Hugh L. Carey,
| Lincoln or Queens-Midtown tunnels.
|
| Drivers coming from the Bronx or Upper Manhattan will be
| charged once they reach 60th Street.
|
| ```
| chockablock wrote:
| > even if you're not driving in downtown Manhattan, you
| will still pay the cost to enter the city through the
| normal entrances
|
| Incorrect--if you take one of those bridges/tunnels below
| 60th street, then stay on FDR or West Side Highway to
| travel to a different part of NYC (i.e. you never enter
| the interior surface streets below 60th), then you don't
| pay the congestion fee.
|
| "The Congestion Relief Zone includes local streets and
| avenues in Manhattan south of and including 60 Street,
| _excluding_ the FDR Drive, West Side Highway /Route 9A,
| and the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel connections to West Street."
|
| https://congestionreliefzone.mta.info/tolling
| dleink wrote:
| One of the gaps is accessibility, rideshares are useful
| for people who have trouble getting around.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I live in Manhattan and I am _decidedly_ anti-car. If I
| had my way private vehicles would be banned (with
| exceptions for e.g. people with relevant disabilities).
|
| But cabs are important! This past august, I bought a new
| desktop PC (I did not want to build it myself for various
| reasons). I took it home in an Uber. Trying to walk to
| the subway with that giant box would have been virtually
| impossible.
| timr wrote:
| Moreover, the parent misses the forest for the trees:
| yeah, the congestion fee is lower than the fare, but _the
| fare is vastly more expensive than driving a car_.
|
| The current pricing model encourages resource sharing
| (this was true before congestion pricing as well), and
| the choice of whether or not you take a car or a cab is a
| function of the amortized cost of use per unit time. So
| yeah, _just in terms of congestion fee_ it 's a little
| bit cheaper to take an Uber for a single trip, but if you
| ride around in an Uber all day long, it's way, way less
| cost efficient than driving your own car.
| connicpu wrote:
| The car takes up space in the city the entire time it's
| there, even if the congestion impact is less while it's
| parked.
| aqme28 wrote:
| The lengths this city goes to keep free parking...
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Private passenger car driver is paying 12x Taxi toll / 6x
| Uber toll. Taxi/Uber toll is passed directly onto he rider.
|
| Why should it be cheaper to be chauffeured?
|
| Also your average Taxi may not even cross into the CPZ 12x
| per day, so unclear we are making it up on volume either.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Small correction, every ride that starts and/or ends in the
| zone incurs the fee so a taxi that enters, does 12 trips,
| then leaves pays the same amount as a private car even
| though they only entered the zone once.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| That's great, but it's still too cheap
| timr wrote:
| > Why should it be cheaper to be chauffeured?
|
| It isn't. It's vastly more expensive to ride in a taxi
| _when you include the fare_.
| recursive wrote:
| Because there are fewer cars in the system for each
| chauffeured ride vs private vehicle.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Fewer cars "in the system" but same (or possibly more)
| cars on the road actively moving. Take a look at some of
| the dwell times for ride hail vehicles in NYC. Can easily
| approach 20-35%.
|
| Plus the apps are kicking drivers out at various quiet
| periods of the day in order to avoid paying them minimum
| wage. So true empty time is higher.
|
| Again I'm not arguing for better treatment for personal
| vehicles. I'm arguing all the fees are too low, and the
| ride hail fee egregiously so.
| recursive wrote:
| I don't know any of the science or research, but it still
| seems like it could possibly be a benefit. The increase
| in cars moving seems like it could be more than offset by
| the reduction in parking requirements. Those people
| taking private vehicles have to park them somewhere. More
| taxis means we can use some of that space for something
| useful instead.
| xvedejas wrote:
| > Taxi/Uber toll is passed directly onto he rider.
|
| Only partially right? Tax incidence depends on the price
| elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply.
| KevinGlass wrote:
| It should be cheaper. No circling the block looking for
| parking, no space needed at all for that matter. That alone
| is worth giving taxis/ubers at least a different pricing
| structure.
| radicality wrote:
| I don't know about cheaper - this is already on top of the
| $2.75 per-ride NY State congestion fee. So now, if you take
| an Uber ride in NYC that's even just a few blocks or few
| minutes long, it will be $2.75+$1.5 = $4.25 of just
| congestion fees for every ride.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > The uber/taxi fee is charged per ride, whereas private
| passenger cars pay once per day. Seems like a reasonable
| tradeoff.
|
| The fee for cabs was actually set by dividing the regular fee
| for private cars by the average number of trips cabs make
| into the Congestion Relief Zone per day (because the fee is
| only paid once per day for private cars, but per trip for
| cabs)
| CPLX wrote:
| How do you figure that? The amount of the surcharge for the
| average taxi/uber driver per day will be many many multiples of
| the cost for a regular driver.
|
| In the case of a regular driver you you have someone paying $9
| to bring a car into the congested area, probably serving one
| trip by one person.
|
| In the case of a TLC driver you'll have them paying probably
| well over $100 a day (assuming the $2.75 charge x 4-5 trips an
| hour give or take) and aiding in the transport of probably
| dozens of people to their destination.
|
| It seems completely obvious why this is a better approach to
| relieving congestion while still preserving the ability of
| people to get around.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I have a car and live in Brooklyn. I usually take an Uber
| anyway because parking is a pain and/or expensive.
|
| So I was previously comparing: $0 car toll + $20-50 parking
| vs $0 car toll + $50 Taxi/Uber fare
|
| Now I am comparing: $9 car toll + $20-50 parking vs $1.50
| Uber toll + $50 Uber fare
|
| That is - the fee is being passed onto riders anyway, so why
| should I pay a lower toll sitting in the back of an Uber than
| when driving myself across the bridge?
|
| This is where some of the concerns about classism come into
| play. I'm already paying more to be driven around in an Uber
| vs drive myself. Why should I be given a toll discount?
| np- wrote:
| Think of the congestion charge as a charge on the vehicle,
| rather than on the person, as the stated policy goal is to
| reduce the number of vehicles in the CBD, not the number of
| people overall. The Uber is very likely going to continue
| to be used to service other passengers after dropping you
| off within the same calendar day, so one potential "fair"
| solution is to split the congestion charge among the many
| passengers using that one vehicle. That is your reduced
| Uber toll charge. But even in this case, it's not really an
| even split, taxis are going to generate a much higher
| congestion charge revenue than a single passenger car.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| The rideshare toll is _already_ a charge on the vehicle
| and not the riders. If you share an Uber with two other
| people, the per-person congestion fee for the trip drops
| to $0.50.
| lolinder wrote:
| > This is where some of the concerns about classism come
| into play. I'm already paying more to be driven around in
| an Uber vs drive myself. Why should I be given a toll
| discount?
|
| It's not obvious that Uber is exclusively the higher-class
| option. Someone could easily make the same calculation you
| just did and decide that for them _even owning a car_
| wouldn 't be worth it, they'll just do Uber every time they
| need to. You can afford to own a car and do Uber anyway,
| others can only afford to Uber occasionally when needed.
|
| I don't have data to back it up, but I would actually be
| surprised if the average Uber customer in NYC owns a car at
| all.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > You can afford to own a car and do Uber anyway, others
| can only afford to Uber occasionally when needed.
|
| This isn't really a different class.
|
| The other class is the people who can't afford a car or
| Uber and can barely afford the MTA.
| lolinder wrote:
| Agreed, I'm just using the terminology that OP was. The
| actual class lower than this doesn't pay the toll at all,
| whether the Uber toll or private car toll.
| CPLX wrote:
| Once the Uber drops you off, it's available to take someone
| else somewhere they need to go. Car services are an
| essential part of a total system that enables people not to
| have to drive. Personal cars are the opposite of that.
|
| It's one of those things about the way Americans think
| about transit that makes me insane, they try to assess the
| ROI of every single individual leg of a transit system
| rather than assess the system as a whole.
|
| For example they'll cancel late night bus service because
| very few people use it. Except that the people who do, are
| people who occasionally are forced to stay late at their
| job and rely on the bus running late. Once it's cancelled
| they have to drive to work _every single day_ since they
| 're not sure they won't be stranded. The 3-4 bus rides a
| month they used to take are exchanged for 22 private car
| trips because you cut back service.
|
| That's just one example. Here's another more suited to your
| example. What if you generally switch to taking transit
| into the city, and only take an uber when it's raining or
| you have something heavy to carry?
|
| If I allow there to be a robust market for Ubers in the
| city then that's possible. If I aggressively charge Ubers
| then you can't do that, and you're back to driving every
| day.
|
| There's plenty of examples. But in short it's clear that
| private cars are _by a mile_ the worst and most inefficient
| thing occupying the roads. That 's what we want to have the
| strongest incentives against.
| gruez wrote:
| >For example they'll cancel late night bus service
| because very few people use it. Except that the people
| who do, are people who occasionally are forced to stay
| late at their job and rely on the bus running late. Once
| it's cancelled they have to drive to work every single
| day since they're not sure they won't be stranded. The
| 3-4 bus rides a month they used to take are exchanged for
| 22 private car trips because you cut back service.
|
| That's a cute anecdote but is there any empirical
| evidence behind this? I'd imagine the people who commute
| downtown, stay late often enough that this is a concern,
| is willing to take the bus even though they have a car
| and can otherwise afford daily commute downtown
| (gas/parking), but at the same time can't pay for an uber
| on those late nights, is approximately zero.
| CPLX wrote:
| My empirical evidence is going to Europe and looking
| around.
|
| I'm being somewhat argumentative on purpose but the
| concept I'm explaining actually is important. There's
| something similar to a _phase change_ when a city /area
| becomes sufficiently well connected so that transit can
| basically solve every problem.
|
| You go to somewhere like Switzerland and it just jumps
| out at you. There's a fundamental approach that
| everywhere someone wants to go should be accessible by
| transit in a way that's workable. There's also a
| fundamental decision that being able to bring a car
| somewhere isn't necessarily something that has to be
| supported.
|
| It's just a different way of looking at things.
|
| Can you envision an American town that literally does not
| allow cars anywhere near the actual town, like at all?
|
| If that seems utterly impossible to visualize then you're
| starting to see what I mean. Now try to visualize a Swiss
| town that literally has no ability to connect to the
| broader transit system.
| 1propionyl wrote:
| Service industry workers tend to get off between 2:30 and
| 4:00AM. If you get off at 2:30, great, you can take the
| bus or train back home. If you're held late to clean or
| do prep for the next day? You'll be waiting until transit
| service resumes in the morning (as late as 6AM).
|
| So what do you do? You drive to work every day and pay
| the parking costs, because it's preferable to ending up
| stuck downtown with everything closed for several hours
| while you're exhausted from working a double.
|
| This problem with public transit is the single biggest
| reason people who work at restaurants have to always
| drive to work. It's exactly as the comment you're
| replying to put it.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I guess to me it just seems like you want to deter end
| users picking taxis/ubers over trains a bit more, and
| $1-2 is not going to do that when they are already paying
| 5-10x subway fare for their ride.
|
| I can see by your example how over the course of the day
| the taxi/uber collects a lot of CPZ fees for the city, I
| just don't see the fee reducing anyone at the margin from
| using taxi/uber.
|
| At the end of the day I'd love to see transit improve,
| and if all this does is reduce traffic for the well
| heeled who already are taking taxi/ubers.. I mean I win
| there too, but it doesn't feel great.
|
| For the record when I commute it's always by transit, the
| problem is weekend/night service has degraded to the
| point that I feel forced to take taxi/uber quite often.
| I've lived in NYC nearly 20 years and have found, if
| anything, night/weekend service to be less predictable
| and more perplexing. This again harms the less well off
| even more, as they are more likely to be doing shift work
| / non-traditional workdays than your M-F 9-5er.
|
| Just this weekend, yet again, I was trying to get around
| midtown and Apple kept telling me what should be a 6min
| trip would take 30min by train even though I was 5
| seconds from subway entrance. I couldn't understand why,
| and went to MTA website and saw no alerts for the 6th ave
| line. Then I went to the live train time page and
| realized the problem - the 6th Ave line was running at
| 15min headways, so Apple had me walking 2 blocks to 8th
| Ave then to wait 15min for the train (possibly 30min if
| its a B/D and I needed an F/M). This was Saturday around
| dinner time. Just awful service.
| pama wrote:
| Agree that service in NYC these days is worse than it was
| about 15-20 years ago. At the time I didnt know that the
| MTA was the center of a political power play between city
| and state, depending on whimsical politicians in two
| centers to cooperate to get anything done. The main
| improvement in the last 20 years have been the time
| tables and the linkage to maps on the phone, which at
| least make the pain predictable at most times, even if
| not always explainable. I hope service can improve soon
| and more trains thrown at peak times. The current
| situation is borderline dangerous at crowded stations
| during my commute peak hours and if more people yet use
| the subways without improved service things will turns
| worse yet.
| chockablock wrote:
| Alternatively, day parking rates drop enough (due to market
| forces) to compensate for the cost of the toll.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > In the case of a TLC driver you'll have them paying
| probably well over $100 a day (assuming the $2.75 charge x
| 4-5 trips an hour give or take) and aiding in the transport
| of probably dozens of people to their destination.
|
| This is completely wrong.
|
| First, the fee for cabs is different from the fee for private
| cars, and in fact, it was set at the value which is the
| private car fee divided by the average number of trips into
| the Congestion Relief Zone that cabs make each day.
|
| Second, passengers are the ones paying the fee, not cab
| drivers. It's one of the fees tacked on to your receipt.
|
| Third, this fee _has already been charged_ on cab fares since
| 2019. The only difference is it 's now being applied to all
| vehicles _except_ taxis /FHVs. For cab drivers, there's no
| difference - it was the one part of the program that has
| already been in effect for years!
| MisterTea wrote:
| > I think the biggest thing CP is going to do in NYC is end
| toll shopping.
|
| Or toll beating. An old trick is taking a tractor trailer (or
| any big truck with more than a few axles) from LI to mainland
| without paying tolls: take the 59th st bridge, left onto 2nd,
| left onto 59th, left onto 1st and strait up to Willis bridge
| which leads strait into the Deegan.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| Fwiw, we have other mechanisms for limiting taxis and Uber. We
| can actually put a hard limit on the number allowed to operate.
|
| This ends up being a little awkward since Uber charges market
| prices, so what happens when the number of Uber drivers is
| capped is _Uber_ pockets the congestion fee instead of the
| city. But the taxi lobby is strong and we can't fix everything
| at once
| n144q wrote:
| I just love how everyone suddenly becomes transportation experts
| in this thread and pour out their opinions that are purely based
| on their anecdotes and beliefs but nothing else.
| echoangle wrote:
| That's what happens with every single internet discussion to be
| fair.
| kitd wrote:
| _I just love how everyone suddenly becomes
| <insert_controversial_topic> experts
| <everywhere_on_social_media> and pour out their opinions that
| are purely based on their anecdotes and beliefs but nothing
| else._
|
| FIFY. It's all the rage, you know ...
|
| Tbh, most so-called "rational thinkers" are as emotional as
| "mouth breathers" if prodded sufficiently.
| CPLX wrote:
| Is there some other way to participate in online discussion
| forums besides sharing ones own anecdotes and beliefs?
| jdlyga wrote:
| Taking the bus from Weehawken into midtown is super smooth now.
| It's a super cold Tuesday, but normally it's a honking mess.
| awkward wrote:
| The subway was insane. Could be the snow, though.
| wnolens wrote:
| Yea, not sure if it was a post-holiday thing or weather
| thing, but shit the trains have been rammed.
| gradschool wrote:
| Congestion charging started in London in 2003. I'm skeptical
| about the justification that it's intended to disincentivize
| unnecessary driving because people who drive frequently get a
| bulk discount rather than a surcharge as one might expect if that
| were the actual intention. A bulk discount is more indicative of
| a policy intended to maximize revenue. I'm also skeptical about
| the justification that it's intended to reduce pollution because
| the discount for electric cars is ending this year. I have a
| moral issue with it as well because the roads are financed by
| everyone's taxes. Around the time the charge was starting it was
| easy to find supporters for it on tv chat shows but I never met
| one in real life. I assume there are some but that they support
| it in a naive attempt to keep anyone poorer than them off the
| road. Otherwise, the supporter's problem of too much congestion
| would be easily solved by not driving. The charge has tripled
| since its introduction so maybe there's an element of poetic
| justice in it for some of them.
| gruez wrote:
| >I have a moral issue with it as well because the roads are
| financed by everyone's taxes
|
| Mind elaborating on how this is a "moral issue"? Public transit
| is funded by "everyone's taxes" as well, but you still have to
| pay a fare to use it. Do you get similarly aggrieved?
|
| >Around the time the charge was starting it was easy to find
| supporters for it on tv chat shows but I never met one in real
| life.
|
| It's trivial to find polls that show a non-negligible level of
| support for the charge. eg.
| https://www.theguardian.com/politics/gla/page/0,9067,897312,...
| or https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/how-london-and-
| stockho.... Just because your small circle of friends don't
| support it, doesn't mean they don't exist.
| gradschool wrote:
| Your points are well taken. I wasn't aware of the Guardian
| poll and I stand corrected about my implication that the
| charge lacks public support. With regard to the moral issue,
| I have less of a problem with tickets that are paying for
| something like running a train, or for that matter a bridge
| toll paying off the bonds that enabled the bridge to be
| built. I have more of a problem with someone demanding money
| for nothing. I haven't heard it claimed even by its
| supporters that road maintenance depends on the congestion
| charge. To my knowledge the main justification has always
| been that the charge funds the payer's behavior modification.
| Is it for the payer's own good? Is it for the greater good?
| You may well differ, but something about that doesn't sit
| right with me however noble, especially when it pertains to
| law abiding citizens acting within their rights.
| gruez wrote:
| >I have less of a problem with tickets that are paying for
| something like running a train, or for that matter a bridge
| toll paying off the bonds that enabled the bridge to be
| built.
|
| What about on-street parking or municipal parking lots?
| Given how cheap they are to construct it's questionable to
| claim that the fees collected are needed to fund their
| construction.
|
| >I have more of a problem with someone demanding money for
| nothing. [...] To my knowledge the main justification has
| always been that the charge funds the payer's behavior
| modification. Is it for the payer's own good? Is it for the
| greater good? You may well differ, but something about that
| doesn't sit right with me however noble, especially when it
| pertains to law abiding citizens acting within their
| rights.
|
| How do you think most other taxes (eg. income tax, VAT,
| corporation tax) work? If you argument is that congestion
| charge is bad because "demanding money for nothing" and
| "something about that doesn't sit right with me however
| noble", then you should be rallying even harder against
| those sort of taxes. At least with congestion charge you
| can argue it's in exchange for the ability to drive, and
| unlike income tax, most can agree congestion is a bad
| thing, unlike people getting a salary (income) or
| businesses making/selling stuff (VAT). What is the
| government providing in exchange you paying income tax? Not
| getting a visit from the tax collectors? If it's something
| vague like "roads and schools", why can't the same
| justification be used for congestion charge?
| settrans wrote:
| Although marginally better traffic might be a side effect of
| congestion pricing, its primary effect is a wealth transfer from
| lower- and middle-class residents of Manhattan, who must buy
| goods locally at higher prices, to MTA contractors and their
| labor unions, who already make construction on the New York
| subway far and away the most expensive in the world.
|
| Where is the congestion pricing tracker that measures the higher
| cost of groceries to working-class lower Manhattan residents?
| tmvphil wrote:
| Why would groceries be more expensive? Do you think a $25 fee
| makes any difference to a delivery truck loaded with $10k of
| products?
| settrans wrote:
| Not only are delivery vehicles levied an additional toll of
| up to $32.40 under congestion pricing, but every employee,
| service provider and vendor who travels by car is also
| assessed the fee.
| dml2135 wrote:
| I don't even understand the scenario you're talking about
| now -- are you referring to a delivery driver that would be
| driving their personal vehicle to work in the congestion
| zone? And then getting on a delivery truck, which would
| then need to exit the congestion zone and re-enter in order
| to itself be charged a fee?
|
| How many people do you think the scenario above applies to,
| in the real world?
| tonymet wrote:
| in a short amount of time , commute times will recover to
| baselines, or worse, the city will waste the additional revenue ,
| the residents will be poorer , and leaders will pat themselves on
| be back.
|
| Expresslanes made commute times worse . Little of the revenue
| went to the roads . Few of the roads were fixed .
| elahd wrote:
| This is great, but I'd be more interested in seeing how
| congestion pricing impacts travel times for buses, specifically,
| (within and around the congestion zone, including express routes
| from the outer boroughs), as well as overall transit ridership.
|
| @gotmedium, would you consider integrating:
|
| 1. MTA's Bus Time feed:
| https://bustime.mta.info/wiki/Developers/Index and 2. MTA
| bus/MNRR/LIRR/Access-A-Ride ridership feed:
| https://data.ny.gov/Transportation/MTA-Daily-Ridership-Data-...
| 3. Equivalent feeds for city-connected NJ transit services.
| blehn wrote:
| 1. The data is obviously flawed, but if there's anything to
| speculate from it, it's that the actual congestion in lower
| Manhattan isn't affected that much.
|
| 2. So the success of this policy really depends on how much
| additional revenue it's bringing in for the city and the MTA. The
| $9 increase needs to significantly offset the loss in toll
| revenue from the decrease in drivers.
|
| 3. There are so many other simple policies that would benefit
| quality of life in NYC:
|
| - Daylighting -- Don't allow cars and trucks to park at the
| corners of intersections. Huge safety benefits.
|
| - Metered parking everywhere. Why is NYC giving away the most
| valuable real estate in the world for free? Would be a huge
| revenue stream while discouraging car ownership in Manhattan.
|
| - Close more streets to car traffic. This is already true on 14th
| street and it's fantastic. Close Houston, 34th, 42nd, 59th,
| 125th. This would make buses much more efficient and further
| discourage passenger car usage
| ihuman wrote:
| > So the success of this policy really depends on how much
| additional revenue it's bringing in for the city and the MTA.
|
| I thought the point of the policy is to get people to use the
| train instead of cars, freeing up the roads for people that
| actually need it?
| bluGill wrote:
| There are several points. Some want it to get people to not
| drive, but work from home or drive elsewhere instead is fine
| with them. Some want it to get more people on transit. Some
| want it to fund transit expansion. You can belong to more
| than one of the above groups. Nobody belongs to them all.
| barnabee wrote:
| > Nobody belongs to them all.
|
| Why not?
|
| IMO, ideally:
|
| - Some people work from home or drive elsewhere
|
| - Others take transit instead of driving
|
| - The remainder pay a fee that they didn't previously,
| which can fund more transit
| bluGill wrote:
| I didn't give anywhere close to all the different
| interests here.
| jacobgkau wrote:
| The first sentence they said was:
|
| > 1. The data is obviously flawed, but if there's anything to
| speculate from it, it's that the actual congestion in lower
| Manhattan isn't affected that much.
|
| I'm not saying that's correct or incorrect, but the person
| you replied to already considered what you brought up and
| responded to it. The primary "point" seems not to have
| worked, so the in-practice reason to keep the policy becomes
| other benefits, which for the city would include revenue
| being raised. (I guess you can argue it's not a "success" if
| the main point wasn't achieved, but good luck convincing the
| city to give up the additional revenue.)
| CPLX wrote:
| > Metered parking everywhere. Why is NYC giving away the most
| valuable real estate in the world for free? Would be a huge
| revenue stream while discouraging car ownership in Manhattan.
|
| There isn't all that much free parking left in Manhattan south
| of 60th street.
|
| Not saying it doesn't exist, there still are alternate side
| streets for sure, but it's a rapidly dwindling thing.
|
| Agree that it should be almost nonexistent though for the most
| part.
|
| Also the cost of metered parking in most of the city these days
| is similar to garage parking pricing.
| varelaseb wrote:
| This is the most econ-brained response possible. Why would the
| success of a public policy be exclusively defined by revenue
| generated?
| ses1984 wrote:
| Because it's based on the assumption that congestion didn't
| actually go down, see number 1 posted by op.
|
| If you want congestion to go down, keep raising the price. It
| will eventually go down and revenue could go up a lot.
| bluGill wrote:
| Or you get voted out of office and your charges reversed
| down to zero - or perhaps negative as the people are so mad
| they take it out on the transit this was supposed to fund.
|
| Politics is tricky, don't take so much you make people
| affected mad enough to undo what you wanted.
| ses1984 wrote:
| Both parties like money so one party may be voted out if
| people are angry, but it's unlikely to result in the
| charge going away.
|
| It's also nyc primarily in charge of it and nyc
| constituents probably are in favor of less congestion and
| more money.
| bluGill wrote:
| Politicians like votes more than money. If this is seen
| as the standard change of hands that happens once in a
| while in a good democracy then the charge will stay
| because $$$. However if this is seen as a rejection of
| the charges they will go away to prove your vote for the
| new people wasn't wasted. Seen is the key here - while
| surveys and such influence this, there is emotion there
| as well. Note too that it only needs a small vocal
| percentage in some cases to change perception.
| Rastonbury wrote:
| Big econ brained is thinking about whether the congestion
| pricing is approximately captures the negative externalities
| of traffic
| blehn wrote:
| First, it's not exclusively defined by revenue (which is what
| my first point was alluding to). Second, the underlying
| assumption of revenue generated is that it's going to the MTA
| and used to improve public transit and therefore quality of
| life in the city, which would be a success.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > The $9 increase needs to significantly offset the loss in
| toll revenue from the decrease in drivers.
|
| Many of the entries in question are not tolled: the
| Brooklyn/Manhattan/Williamsburg/QBB are all toll-free, but are
| included in congestion pricing. Similarly, the street-level
| entries to the congestion zone were never tolled. I think the
| state's calculations probably conclude that these more than
| offset the drop in toll revenue.
|
| (Or, more nuanced: much of the previous toll revenue went to
| PANYNJ, whereas congestion pricing funds go directly to the
| MTA/NYCT.)
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _Metered parking everywhere._
|
| Please no. Just tax me at the end of the year if you really
| need more money. Stop paywalling everything.
| jacobgkau wrote:
| The point wasn't supposed to be to raise more money, it was
| to decrease the amount of people using the roads. Taxing more
| would, if anything, incentivize people to use those parking
| spots to "get their money's worth." More realistically, it
| would not add a barrier to actually parking on a day-to-day
| basis. Making you think about and reconsider it every time
| you go to do it with the paywall is what they want (and what
| is arguably necessary in order to fix the underlying problem,
| unless those tax dollars are going to go towards multi-level
| parking garages that add spaces and not just the existing
| roads).
| fnfjfk wrote:
| Why should everyone pay equally, rather than people that
| currently store their private property for free on public
| land in some of the most expensive real estate in the
| country?
| asoneth wrote:
| Others have mentioned the unfairness of asking taxpayers to
| subsidize drivers. This is particularly egregious in Midtown
| Manhattan where many taxpayers are not drivers and many
| drivers are not (local) taxpayers.
|
| But even as a driver I prefer when cities place an efficient
| price on parking. Otherwise, if parking is too cheap compared
| to demand it costs time and stress circling the block to find
| a place to park. Market pricing, where the city sets whatever
| prices are necessary to maintain an empty spot or two on each
| block, seems more fair, efficient, and pleasant.
| dleink wrote:
| Any examples of cities that have done a good job on this?
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's kind of how I feel about rent too. Instead of paywalling
| this $7k/mo apartment maybe just tax everyone a fair amount?
| spamizbad wrote:
| You also have to factor in any reduction (or increase) in
| traffic fatalities and injuries. 34 traffic deaths and roughly
| 7500 injuries occurred in Manhattan in one of the nation's
| highest GDP-per-capita area, so the loss of economic output
| from these fatalities and injuries is likely fairly high.
| adamc wrote:
| Not to mention the costs of treating them.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Advocates did worry that reducing it from $15 to $9 would
| create a sort of "no-mans land" -- not quite high enough to
| deter traffic but high enough to annoy people. I'm not sure how
| to reconcile the significant drop in the bridge and tunnel
| commute times with the apparent non-effect on commute times
| within the congestion relief zone.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| Most of the bridges and tunnels have their own tolls, with a
| few exceptions like the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. One
| possible explanation is that the advocates were right and the
| combined bridge/tunnel + congestion toll is enough to
| dissuade driving into the zone entirely for people arriving
| via bridge/tunnel, but the lower congestion toll on its own
| isn't as much of a deterrent if you have access to a free
| crossing into Manhattan from other boros or were already in
| Manhattan (outsize of the zone) to begin with.
| blehn wrote:
| > I'm not sure how to reconcile the significant drop in the
| bridge and tunnel commute times with the apparent non-effect
| on commute times within the congestion relief zone.
|
| Yeah, I'm not sure what to make of that either but it'll be
| interesting to see when more/better data comes available.
| Maybe car traffic getting to Manhattan is reduced but those
| people are using more taxis and Ubers to get around once
| they're in
| user3939382 wrote:
| If NYC subways weren't freezing/boiling, filthy, moldy, infested
| with rats and mice, and dangerous, maybe you wouldn't have to
| brow beat people into using them.
| pimlottc wrote:
| The name is rather confusing. I thought this "Pricing Tracker"
| was going to be tracking the pricing of the congestion toll
| (implying that it changes dynamically throughout the day), but
| what it's actually tracking is commute time.
|
| Something like "Congestion Pricing Impact Tracker" would be
| clearer.
| magic_smoke_ee wrote:
| 1. The graph doesn't work on desktop. It keeps endlessly
| animating in the data values flyover at a given point.
|
| 2. Congestion pricing, more generally, is ivory tower social
| engineering (economic discrimination like toll lanes) and a
| disproportionate tax on the working poor. It would be fairer if
| it were progressively taxed based on income.
| scrose wrote:
| Where is this mythical "working poor" that drives into midtown
| Manhattan everyday for work? Do you have any stats whatsoever
| on the number of people who would be impacted? Maybe even a
| salary range you consider to be "working poor"?
| tamaharbor wrote:
| I think it would be interesting to include the George Washington
| and Verrazano Bridges as they would be alternative routes.
| skeeks wrote:
| Mouse-over over the chart is broken (scrollbar shown and hidden
| again and again). I believe you dont need to set x-overflow-auto
| on the div where the scrollbars appear.
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| I did a bike ride on Saturday and passed the Port Authority
| terminal on my way home and it was very packed. When I rode by
| yesterday afternoon I noticed it was significantly less crowded.
|
| I think its attributed to the fact that it was a weekday and the
| weather was worse, however I would like to think the pricing had
| some effect.
|
| Time will tell!
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