It's time to ban cars from Manhattan? • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by kspacewalk2 » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

DailyHN wrote: post #158

souterrain wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s mind boggling how much affordable parking there is in Manhattan. I was doing some work in Staten Island and had an appointment in Manhattan later in the day, leaving via NJ, so I drove and was able to find parking for less than $50 in the financial district. This should have been impossible, and I should have been forced to leave my car where it was, take a bus to St. George, and get on the ferry.

$50 for parking is affordable?

It's a steal. We're talking about Manhattan, there aren't many corners of the world where rents and land values are higher.

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

#182

Post by CydeWeys » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 1:32 PM UTC

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…

Cars are also a huge safety issue. Cars are killing New Yorkers in record numbers and the average car is less safe for surrounding pedestrians and cyclists with every year (because they're being made bigger and with higher grilles).

There are a huge amount of people organizing here, me included, because cars are outright dangerous, and are driven by asshole drivers who are never held to account by the police. The safest thing to do for everyone is to just start getting rid of the cars, since it doesn't seem like there's any other way to make them safe.

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

#183

Post by Jommi » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 1:32 PM UTC

camillomiller wrote: post #173

izacus wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My home city (capital of the country) did exactly that and it brought a huge amount of life and new businesses to the city center. Not to mention that tourism exploded as well - the city center is now a very pleasant place to go out and grab a coffee next to a river or on a street with no loud and smelly traffic to be seen (picture during summer: https://files.stocky.ai/uploads/2019/01/image-Preseren-squar... ) Of co…

How are they moving furniture, though? No joke, really curious how they coped with the downsides.

You just ban the most common forms of car throughput. Moving vans would be allowed.

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

#184

Post by CydeWeys » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

speedplane wrote: post #66

_delirium wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that kicked off this week's controversy about NYC in particular is a geniune attempt to improve transit by focusing on how to move the most people as fast as possible. What is angering drivers is that the city turned much of 14th St into bus-only lanes, and removed some street parking in the process as well. And, it seems to have worked, at least from early indications! Buses now move much faster! If that h…

> And, it seems to have worked, at least from early indications! Buses now move much faster! The speed of buses is not the appropriate metric by which we should be evaluating policy. Speedy empty buses are not exactly a win. Instead, we should be asking how much time and money does it take to get from point A to B.

The M14 buses are packed though. It's hard to imagine how you could have a speedy bus line in Manhattan that wouldn't be packed. If it's a good option people will definitely take it.

Another metric to optimize for would be safety. Having the occasional bus driven by a rules-abiding, professional driver is much safer than having constant cars whizzing by.

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

#185

Post by maxsilver » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #180

maxsilver wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do people pretend there are situations they can't live without a car, Because 95% of Americans truly can't live without a car. If you banned cars today, I could never get to work, never see my family, my child could never attend school, we could never get groceries, and within two weeks we would all become broke and homeless. This situation described 94% of the people in my city (population around 1 million) >…

> Because 95% of Americans truly can't live without a car. I'm calling bullshit on this. Way more than 5% of Americans are already living without cars. You don't have a great read on how many people actually get around. Most cities of any size have buses, and people actually do take those buses. Also, the median household income in Manhattan is ~$70k/year. I have no idea where you're getting this idea that everyone w…

> You don't have a great read on how many people actually get around.

I'm reading the numbers direct from my local bus authority. I'm sure transit ridership in Manhattan is higher (since they actually have a real subway system and such). But of course, most Americans don't have any access to LRT / subways, so...

> You're making the typical false claim that rich people can afford to not drive and poor people are dependent on cars.

Because it's mostly true? Especially for all the Americans who don't live in Manhattan, the literal wealthiest place in the nation.

I know this is going to sound odd, but most Americans don't live in NYC. Hell, most NY metro residents themselves don't even live in NYC (only about ~43% of them do, according to the census estimates)

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

#186

Post by zaroth » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #180

maxsilver wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do people pretend there are situations they can't live without a car, Because 95% of Americans truly can't live without a car. If you banned cars today, I could never get to work, never see my family, my child could never attend school, we could never get groceries, and within two weeks we would all become broke and homeless. This situation described 94% of the people in my city (population around 1 million) >…

> Because 95% of Americans truly can't live without a car. I'm calling bullshit on this. Way more than 5% of Americans are already living without cars. You don't have a great read on how many people actually get around. Most cities of any size have buses, and people actually do take those buses. Also, the median household income in Manhattan is ~$70k/year. I have no idea where you're getting this idea that everyone w…

Please try not to respond with personal attacks.

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

#187

Post by CydeWeys » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 1:39 PM UTC

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 see plenty of musicians humping their instruments on the subway. It's not that hard to carry a guitar or two, some pedals, a pack of cymbals, etc. The venues are already equipped with the big stuff (pianos/drum kits/PAs) because it would be absurd to expect every band to lug in an entire PA setup or drum kit when they know damn well that most musicians are taking the subway and using roughly the same kinda stuff.

What specific equipment would you be carrying in that the venue wouldn't already be providing?

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

#188

Post by CydeWeys » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #64

Cars work because they solve for the first and last mile (50yards) problem. Public transport is great - but it is coarser than private cars. Even timetabled buses cannot drive down every road The "right" solution is presumably "sharing" car stack (no not Uber style sharing). But boy I am not sure the politics or even economics stack up.

Cars don't really work in Manhattan to solve the last mile problem. There's physically not remotely enough space for everyone to use cars to do so, nor would it even make sense to knock down apartment and office buildings and replace them with the massive number of parking garages that would be required to be able to do so.

Plus there's not enough space on the streets themselves, so the cars just crawl. Anything is better than driving. There's plenty of areas that are so congested during commutes that a brisk walk is faster than driving. Bikes, scooters, etc. are way faster than driving.

Cars might be a good last-mile solution out in Podunk, but they don't work here. The city is too dense for them.

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

#189

Post by zaroth » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 1:43 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #63

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…

The thing that kicked off this week's controversy about NYC in particular is a geniune attempt to improve transit by focusing on how to move the most people as fast as possible. What is angering drivers is that the city turned much of 14th St into bus-only lanes, and removed some street parking in the process as well. And, it seems to have worked, at least from early indications! Buses now move much faster! If that h…

This was discussed yesterday, but I wonder if there is any economic analysis for how much a bus ticket should cost if they are operating on dedicated roads.

Whatever it costs to maintain 14th St between 9th and 3rd Ave, if it’s restricted to mainly buses, bus fares should pay to maintain it, like fuel tax and excise taxes from personal vehicles pay to maintain roads.

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

#190

Post by andybp85 » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 1:48 PM UTC

thawaway1837 wrote: post #55

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.…

“No street would need to be completely cut off from vehicular traffic; emergency services could get through and transport for the disabled, just as they do in places like Ghent, Belgium, where the city center has been car-free since 2017.” Every street is still accessible by car. You simply wouldn’t want to go on the pedestrian streets until you absolutely have to because like in car free European cities today, you’d…

I did read that before I posted that comment, and the explanation isn't what I got from it. Things like productions (catering services come to mind too) fall into a very different category than emergency or humanitarian services. I could support something that allows exceptions for reasonable needs.

I think focusing on the history as justification perhaps results in an incomplete argument. What people care about is how is this going to affect my life, so to really convince people who currently rely on cars to do business and make stuff happen in NYC, one needs to explain the implementation and how it won't make their lives way harder. That being said, I love history, especially the history of the places my life is intertwined with, and I enjoyed the article in that regard.