Ban cars from Manhattan?
Yes, provided you have peripheral routes (the circle around Manhattan), improve the medieval-like subway conditions, and have a good (preferably electric) bus system that's still allowed.
It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?
231–240 of 325 posts
Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work in Manhattan and live in Brooklyn, and my office overlooks the Holland Tunnel (connection to New Jersey). Roads are a backlogged mess every evening, where "evening" on Friday seems to start at noon. Traffic cops are in a half-dozen intersections around the Holland Tunnel entrance manually restricting flow and more importantly rerouting cars to keep all the possible entrance routes roughly balanced. The vast ma…
We need a lot more subways. And they need to extend into NJ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension
What’s wrong with NJ Transit? Besides everything of course, but at least most of NJ is connected to NYC through Secaucus. I can’t even imagine what people did before that station.
Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Manhattan is different in that it connects New Jersey and Brooklyn into a super region, they are dependent on each other to thrive. Banning cars would be an absurd nightmare at least in this situation.
I work in Manhattan and live in Brooklyn, and my office overlooks the Holland Tunnel (connection to New Jersey). Roads are a backlogged mess every evening, where "evening" on Friday seems to start at noon. Traffic cops are in a half-dozen intersections around the Holland Tunnel entrance manually restricting flow and more importantly rerouting cars to keep all the possible entrance routes roughly balanced. The vast ma…
Lots of Holland tunnel traffic comes from Long Islanders avoiding the hefty toll on the Verrazano. It is also backed up because of poor traffic controls on the New Jersey side and ongoing construction projects.
Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 depen…
You were talking about all Americans, and now you're talking about just your one city. Your one city isn't representative of all of America.
How are you defining wealthiest place in the nation? There are many cities with much higher median incomes than Manhattan. The median income of Palo Alto, for example, is $137,000/yr, which is about double Manhattan's. And there's plenty more cities like Palo Alto across the country with high congregations of wealth. And Manhattan, of course, isn't a city in its own right; the median income across all of NYC is only $50k/yr. Manhattan is much more diverse class-wise than you seem to realize. I think you're conflating all of Manhattan with just a few of the most tony neighborhoods. Here's another source; no county in NYC comes close to the list of top-earning counties in the country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_countie...
Please, show some figures supporting your claims about Manhattan.
And it's literally not true that rich people tend to drive the most and poor people the least. Here's a source (one of many) on that: https://nhts.ornl.gov/briefs/PovertyBrief.pdf Here's a quote from the abstract: "Households in poverty are limited to a shorter radius of travel compared to higher income households. They have the lowest rates of single occupancy vehicle use and the highest usage of less costly travel modes: carpool, transit, bike and walk. Households in poverty have lower vehicle ownership rates, which has led to an increased use of alternative modes of transportation and higher vehicle occupancy rates."
Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
We need a lot more subways. And they need to extend into NJ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension
And more of them should be accessible by wheelchair. Currently it's only around one in five stations.
Sounds fine too me. I’m not saying there should be no wheelchair accessible stations, but seeing that they are a miniscule minority, I don’t think that my tax dollars be paying to make everything accessible to them. It’s not possible, anyways, without incurring massive costs. Imagine what would happen to rents if the government mandated that all apartments and houses to be wheelchair accessible. It would be a total disaster.
Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, you definitely don't have exceptions for taxis. Why are you saying that we wouldn't survive without taxis?? I almost never take them except to the airport, and I'm easily willing to give that up if it means I don't have to tangle with horrible congested car traffic on a daily basis. Do you live in Manhattan? What makes you so sure we couldn't survive without taxis, given that we have the densest subway network in…
> I almost never take them except to the airport... And you probably have functioning limbs, respiratory system, eyes, etc. > ...the densest subway network in the United States... Manhattan is not very accessible. The stations do not have elevators in most cases. The platforms are narrow and often dangerously crowded at peak hours. As an experiment, I suggest you push a bad of flour around in a stroller for a week or…
Most people have functioning limbs, respiratory systems, etc. We shouldn't design a system that allows everyone to drive just because a much smaller minority has a harder time taking alternatives. We already have paratransit for the elderly and handicapped in NYC. My 97-year-old great aunt uses it. And those people will benefit from getting rid of most of the rest of the vehicles, as it will reduce congestion (and thus travel times) for them, and increase the availability of curb-side pickup/dropoff, which is currently severely choked by private cars parked everywhere, typically for free!
So if you truly care about helping the disabled, then it definitely makes sense to get rid of most of the rest of the vehicles off the road.
As for kids, yeah, lots of people without cars in NYC have them. Given how rare/expensive parking is, it's definitely more hassle to try to use a car for those trips than to not use one.
Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?
#237Banning 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…
> NYC politicians should be focused on how to move the most amount of people, the safest and quickest way, for the cheapest cost.
This is a great example of "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Expending vast resources to move people quickly is really something we should avoid. We should be working to locate people within easy walking distance of everything they want, minimizing the number of miles they have to travel using any vehicle.
Ultimately, maximizing the distance traveled on foot might be a good goal (since humans are pretty picky and will actively work to minimize this number.) Also, for most people failing to minimize this number has health benefits, while failing to minimize vehicle travel has health costs.
Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?
#238Earlier 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.
The area can still be accessed with vehicles that have permits and a remote that opens it. Those are mostly:
1.) Delivery vehicles early in the morning (~6am) and late at night (~1am+) can come through to supply businesses in the closed area. They have a remote that opens the street blockages.
2.) If an oversized personal delivery needs to be made to a resident, it's possible to get a onetime permit that allows a truck to access the area.
3.) For people who have trouble walking the city has provided a few free electric powered golf carts/taxis that you can call and they come pick you up and deliver you to a destination (picture: https://www.visitljubljana.com/assets/Ljubljana-in-regija/Ka...). Since they're small and quiet they don't bother pedestrian traffic. I wonder if Uber/Lyft could provide such service in US - they're already doing electric scooters, so why not electric transport for car-free areas?
Note that this is strictly old town center which has relatively small amount of residents but it's mostly dominated by businesses, hotels and airbnbs these days. The area is small enough to walk across in ~15minutes by foot. Near the edges there are underground parking garages so you can reach it via car (since public transport in the city isn't that great).
Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?
#239NYC needs to dump a lot of work into their rail system, and not slack off in the good times. They keep flipping from having one of the best systems in the US to being plagued by terrible issues, every decade. Chicago hasn't expanded in a while, but they maintain their tracks, buy new stock and renovate stations. I don't think people appreciate how incredibly important all that maintenance is to the city. I hope Chica…
Do not mix subway with rail. NYC has a subway system, it more or less functions independent from NYC's rail network. NYC's rail network covers 4 boroughs and goes all the way to the end of Long Island. They are spending $100 million just this year alone building additional freight transfer points in Brooklyn & Queens and adding more marine barge terminals explicitly to remove more trucks entering NYC. NYC's subway ne…
Significant sections of train lines are selectively closed at night and modified on weekends all the time for maintenance and improvements.
Re: It's time to ban cars from Manhattan?
#240This 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.…
Amusingly, I'm a bassist, and the subject of transporting a double bass in NYC emerges on the web forums from time to time. One thing I've learned is that jazz is performed at much lower volume levels in NYC. For instance, many NYC bassists insist that a bassist shouldn't ever need an amplifier. I wonder if the hassle of hauling gear has simply caused a shift towards less gear-intensive music.
In contrast, out here in the midwest, it's easy to throw a mountain of gear into a minivan, and parking is abundant. Venues also have more square footage and are designed to be louder -- big rooms with high ceilings and no materials to absorb sound.
I have a hunch that volume levels are killing live music.
Overall I'd give up my car and hump my bass on the subway, in return for a more pleasant performing environment.