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

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

#301

Post by megablast » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 3:33 AM UTC

point78 wrote: post #13

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…

This makes no sense whatsoever and probably one of the worst ideas I ever read on HN. Banning cars works very well along with pedestrian streets and public transport in Europe.

Of course, I forgot NY has no public transport.

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

#302

Post by L_Rahman » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 4:02 AM UTC

reustle wrote: post #36

L_Rahman wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. The plan is to ban private vehicles and through traffic within the cross town streets (East-West direction, numbered roads) in Manhattan. Larger cross-town streets like 14th, 23rd and 42nd would remain open to all traffic. The smaller streets is where the ban would go into a place making them a single grade mixing zone for pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles. Service vehicles (delivery, garbage, taxis) can…

> Larger cross-town streets like 14th, 23rd and 42nd would remain open to all traffic. Wasn't 14th just closed to cars starting this week? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/nyregion/car-ban-14th-str...

Yes, but that’s to manage L train shut down problems.

There’s a meaningful difference between a stop gap plan to address immediate problems and larger change in how we think about transportation within New York

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

#303

Post by tamaharbor » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 4:23 AM UTC

Great idea, let’s go back to the Stone Age.

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

#304

Post by inferiorhuman » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 5:18 AM UTC

chroma wrote: post #41

inferiorhuman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

So how many people were killed on BART today?

https://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/One-Dead-Two-Hur...

https://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/All-Sb-Lanes-Of-...

And, yes, BART serves both San Francisco and Millbrae.

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

#305

Post by humanrebar » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 8:09 AM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #295

humanrebar wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...a much smaller minority has a harder time taking alternatives At any given time it's a minority. But everyone is a baby, has a baby, or is elderly at some point.

You keep insisting that it's essentially impossible to raise a kid without having a car. This is flat out untrue, especially in New York City or any other place with good mass transit. Many, many people who don't own cars raise kids.

I didn't say it was completely impossible. I am insisting removing access to cars makes a hardship even worse in general and, yes, impossible in some cases. Keep in mind that some people get special license plates because doctors do not believe they are capable of walking across parking lots to get to their destinations.

At any rate, people with babies and mobility problems don't take elevators to the subway platforms because generally they don't exist or they double as outhouses.

In Manhattan, these people spend a lot of money on delivery services or rent for walkable neighborhoods (because the subway won't cut it, as I explained). It is a luxury to live this way. People with these concerns generally move out of places like this.

In outer borroughs, there is bus service, but one doesn't wait 10-30 minutes each way (not an exaggeration) in freezing weather for a bus with a baby or a heart condition. And the bus stop that probably wasn't accessible to stroller or walker due to unshoveled sidewalks and berms of trash-pepoered ice.

I am not saying it's impossible to live this way. People somehow do it, though I suspect they are shut in for large portions of the winter. I am saying it takes various forms or privilege or hardship to make it work. It's flippant for able bodied and financially well off people to hand wave about how walkable New York is without trying it out with their own canes and wallets.

It's a bit like saying, "let them eat cake" to be honest. It's just lacking a sense of experience and practicality.

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

#306

Post by ekianjo » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #132

ekianjo wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you go to the US you will see that apart from very dense city centers there are a lot of people living pretty far away from the next town with nothing in between. There is no practical way, right now, to live without a car if you are in such a situation.

That doesn't excuse doing nothing in the cities.

Sure, but it will not solve the problem that most people will need cars to get around.

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

#307

Post by brownbat » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 12:06 PM UTC

mruts wrote: post #235

brownbat wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

The "miniscule minority" served by ramps includes pregnant women, the elderly, anyone with so much as a twisted ankle or pushing a stroller.

I'm raising this in the context of the elimination of cars. The current infrastructure pushes a lot of people into taxis. So if you eliminate cars you either have to expand accommodations or just declare the island inhospitable to anyone that doesn't pass a fitness test.

You can support effectively restricting the wealthiest hub of our largest city to just people who are like you and in your life situation, but it's not going to be a widely held position.

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

#308

Post by whatever_dude » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 12:34 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #189

_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…

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.

The idea that bus/subway fares should pay for X crumbles in the face of facts. They're not luxury, they're not useless, they being people to work and remove cars from the streets. The better and faster they are, the easier it is for a city to thrive. In fact, plenty of studies suggest that public transportation in big cities should be _free_, because when we'll managed, the benefits they bring far outweigh their cost.

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

#309

Post by msla » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

jogjayr wrote: post #258

msla wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're going to allow people to run delivery services in busses? Because how else can you deliver to the housebound? Bikes are out: They're not allowed on pedestrian areas, and you can't haul much on one anyway. Electric scooters are out for the same reasons, as are "mobility" scooters. I suppose there's no law saying you have to allow the housebound to live in a region.

> you can't haul much on [a bike] anyway. I'm gonna have to disagree with you there. Here's someone moving a fridge (!) on a bike trailer.[1] And that's on a regular bike, not an e-bike. 1. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/06/23/how-to-carry-majo...

Why would we allow trailers in a pedestrian area?

We wouldn't. We wouldn't even allow bikes in a pedestrian area.

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

#310

Post by koheripbal » Mon, Oct 07, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

apaprocki wrote: post #250

Merrill wrote: post #143

This seems to ignore freight. First, since there are no freight railroads into Manhattan; everything consumed by the residents and the much larger daytime population has to arrive by truck. Most freight into Manhattan comes via the Hudson River bridges and tunnels since the container port is in New Jersey and the rail yards are also there. There is little barge traffic, although I think that garbage is barged out via…

Worth mentioning that the NYPD does absolutely nothing (in my view) to enforce existing laws. 53’ trucks routinely barrel down non-truck routes at the same time as my kids’ school bus. They routinely attempt to turn down the same street and get stuck, blocking traffic for 15-30 minutes, and no one cares. POV from someone that lives here: Leave an exception for electric trucks no bigger than a Sprinter between the hou…

We have this simplistic idea that if we put a huge roadblock in front of small businesses that they'll innovate around the problem, when in reality they'll just go out of business, and it will take the market a year or more to figure out how to deal with the problem - all the while, more small businesses shut down because they cannot stock their shelves.

I agree with the motivation, but the execution cannot be "simply" banning how these businesses operate.

These aren't high margin businesses that can handle disruptions like this. Small business owners have mortgages to pay, and they'll just close-up shop or "simply" choose to service a different area.