Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

ny.curbed.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 325 posts

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#41

Post by chroma »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #30
chroma wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of which are things I've encountered while driving. I bet if you ran the stats, you would be far more likely to be a victim of crime on bart than while driving in the bay area. There's a reason all of the women at my workplace drive instead of taking bart. They've tried bart and found it incredibly unsafe. The only disadvantages of driving are traffic and parking. Edit: You've edited your comment to add links, a…

I bet if you ran the stats, you would be far more likely to be a victim of crime on bart than while driving in the bay area. Then run the numbers instead of wildly waving your hands. If you'd like anecdotes I've never been robbed at gunpoint on BART, nor have I ever had anyone threaten to stab me on BART. The only disadvantages of driving are traffic and parking. And air pollution, risk of a crash or injury, cost of…

It's very frustrating to discuss this topic with you because you keep editing your comments after I've replied to them. This makes it appear as though I've ignored points you made, when in fact they simply weren't in the version of the comment that I read.

Of all the links you added, most are criminals shooting each other or cops shooting criminals. Neither of those are likely to affect me, as I don't rob places or brandish firearms. Also, you had to go back 5 years to find some of those results. In that same time BART had thousands of thefts, around a thousand robberies, hundreds of violent assaults, and around a half dozen homicides. Considering how much lower the ridership of BART is compared to all commuters in the bay area, those aren't great odds.

Again, this is obvious to anyone who rides BART and isn't a fit male. If you're old, or a woman, or just a small/weak guy, people on BART will fuck with you. The problem has gotten much worse in the past few years.[1] It's caused ridership and approval ratings to decrease.[2]

1. https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Violent-crime-on-B...

2. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-s-approval-...

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#42

Post by rocqua »

Pfhreak wrote: post #7
HenryKissinger wrote: post #2

Unfortunately, New York City was built at a time when people rode horses, and its streets reflect that. And you can't just widen a street, certainly not in a city like NYC. You would have to destroy every building on one side of a street, and build new buildings, all for a gain of a few feet. Large megapolises like NYC need to start exploring the concept of 3D streets. Instead of having a single street level, on the…

When has building more roads for cars ever resulted in fixing traffic. The solution isn't to try and make the city more car friendly, it's to remove the cars entirely. Move to streetcars, subways, trains, busses, anything that moves crowds of people rather than 1-5 people. Cars are such an incredibly inefficient model for moving people around in dense areas -- every person gets their own engine, several chairs, stora…

Induced demand means that more roads won't fix traffic. It will however, mean more people get to travel.

There is real value in that.

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#43

Post by godzillabrennus »

andybp85 wrote: post #38

This sounds like it would suck big time for musicians and the like who have to transport gear to bars and whatnot, which I've done plenty of times since high school (I live just outside the city in NJ). Having to carry all my gear like 10 NYC blocks (or more) after having to pay tens of dollars to park in a garage (what would availability even be?) would definitely make me think twice about trying to get gigs there.…

I lug around about 6/7 bags of video equipment around from time to time for interviews I do. I could never manage it on the subway. It would otherwise be awesome to have less cars on the roads.

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#46

Post by [deleted] »

andybp85 wrote: post #38

This sounds like it would suck big time for musicians and the like who have to transport gear to bars and whatnot, which I've done plenty of times since high school (I live just outside the city in NJ). Having to carry all my gear like 10 NYC blocks (or more) after having to pay tens of dollars to park in a garage (what would availability even be?) would definitely make me think twice about trying to get gigs there.…

[deleted]

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#47

Post by erik_seaberg »

rocqua wrote: post #42
Pfhreak wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When has building more roads for cars ever resulted in fixing traffic. The solution isn't to try and make the city more car friendly, it's to remove the cars entirely. Move to streetcars, subways, trains, busses, anything that moves crowds of people rather than 1-5 people. Cars are such an incredibly inefficient model for moving people around in dense areas -- every person gets their own engine, several chairs, stora…

Induced demand means that more roads won't fix traffic. It will however, mean more people get to travel. There is real value in that.

Latent demand does exist (not "induced", it was always there!) but it isn't infinite. There's a point where you could actually have enough supply. They just don't want to spend that much money and knock down that many buildings (give up Manhattan's density), so they say it wouldn't work.

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#48

Post by speedplane »

Banning cars, congestion pricing, Uber and taxi surchages, taxing parking spots and rental cars ... under the current NYC political consensus, personal motor vehicles are in the cross-hairs.

I actually would support this if it was part of an honest effort to improve transportation and livability in the city, but most of these proposals make it harder to live here, not easier. I suspect the real motivation is a mix of environmentalism (cars contribute to global warming) and classicism (only the rich drive cars in NYC).

NYC politicians should be focused on how to move the most amount of people, the safest and quickest way, for the cheapest cost. If they want to ban cars due to effects on the environment, they should say that maybe promote electric vehicles. If they want to tax the rich, they can simply impose a more progressive income tax structure.

The current muddled response is actually making transportation in the city more expensive, often causes more emissions due to longer rides, and has an insignificant effect on the rich while hitting the pocket-books of everyone else much harder.

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#49

Post by gmueckl »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #43
andybp85 wrote: post #38

This sounds like it would suck big time for musicians and the like who have to transport gear to bars and whatnot, which I've done plenty of times since high school (I live just outside the city in NJ). Having to carry all my gear like 10 NYC blocks (or more) after having to pay tens of dollars to park in a garage (what would availability even be?) would definitely make me think twice about trying to get gigs there.…

I lug around about 6/7 bags of video equipment around from time to time for interviews I do. I could never manage it on the subway. It would otherwise be awesome to have less cars on the roads.

Pedestrian zones in German cities habe exceptions for transportation to or from locations inside them. Otherwise, stores in these areas couldn't get their wares etc. This just prevents regular car traffic and creates a safe space for walking. I don't know if the concept can scale tonan area the size of Manhattan. Just the necessary level of traffic would probably add up to to a lot of vehicles entering and leaving.

I would assume that the solution would be to ban traffic on most steets, but leave a coarse grid of open roads for passing traffic. This should still cut down on commuter car traffic on these.

Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?

#50

Post by maelito »

speedplane wrote: post #48

Banning cars, congestion pricing, Uber and taxi surchages, taxing parking spots and rental cars ... under the current NYC political consensus, personal motor vehicles are in the cross-hairs. I actually would support this if it was part of an honest effort to improve transportation and livability in the city, but most of these proposals make it harder to live here, not easier. I suspect the real motivation is a mix of…

> If they want to ban cars due to effects on the environment, they should say that maybe promote electric vehicles.

Electric vehicules are usually better than thermal ones, but they're still a big carbon emitter. Except if they're shared. No individual vehicule heavier than 50kg can be considered good in terms of climate impact.

Post reply on HN