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

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

#321

Post by JDiculous » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 11:07 PM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #195

JDiculous wrote: post #44

No, just do what countries like Singapore, Japan, and Korea have done.

What do they do? Of the countries you listed I’ve only been to japan. Besides great public transit street parking is mostly prohibited and many streets naturally aren’t well suited for cars at all, turning them into something very similar to German pedestrian zones.

Yes Japan and Korea have fantastic public transportation, and walkable streets that aren't dominated by cars like those pedestrian zones you're referring to.

Singapore restricts the number of cars.

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

#322

Post by speedplane » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 2:21 AM UTC

lukas099 wrote: post #128

speedplane wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would I need to own a car if public transit served my every need and I could take a zipcar/car2go/taxi for those rare, rare cases when I needed my own vehicle? Many kids growing up in NYC rarely get to leave the city. They don't get to go upstate, see real nature and open spaces, go camping, hike a big mountain, swim in a natural lake, or experience the things that a large city cannot offer. Many never get a dr…

Isn't the other alternative for those families to own a car? That's surely more expensive than renting one to go camping.

> Isn't the other alternative for those families to own a car? That's surely more expensive than renting one to go camping.

No. In many places, you can own and maintain a used car for as little as $200/month. In NYC, renting a car leaving friday at 5PM and coming back Sunday at 10PM will cost you about $400.

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

#323

Post by speedplane » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 7:58 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #133

speedplane wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would I need to own a car if public transit served my every need and I could take a zipcar/car2go/taxi for those rare, rare cases when I needed my own vehicle? Many kids growing up in NYC rarely get to leave the city. They don't get to go upstate, see real nature and open spaces, go camping, hike a big mountain, swim in a natural lake, or experience the things that a large city cannot offer. Many never get a dr…

Can't you take Metro-North for a bit and then rent a car outside NYC (and its surcharges and taxes)? Is it really faster to drive a rental car from NYC than to take a train out, especially on a Friday evening? Also, one reasonable approach to this particular problem is to permit cars on West Side Highway and FDR Drive but not otherwise in Manhattan. You can go around the city core but not through it.

> Can't you take Metro-North for a bit and then rent a car outside NYC

It's a bit amazing, but the rental car companies have already taken this into account. If it costs $120 to rent a car in NYC, and $30 to take metro north upstate, rental car companies upstate charge around $90. It rarely makes sense.

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

#324

Post by speedplane » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 8:00 AM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #202

geofft wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you take Metro-North for a bit and then rent a car outside NYC (and its surcharges and taxes)? Is it really faster to drive a rental car from NYC than to take a train out, especially on a Friday evening? Also, one reasonable approach to this particular problem is to permit cars on West Side Highway and FDR Drive but not otherwise in Manhattan. You can go around the city core but not through it.

Ideally, the West Hide Highway and FDR would be torn up, buried, etc. They're ruining almost the entire waterfront for most of Lower Manhattan.

> Ideally, the West Hide Highway and FDR would be torn up, buried

If you lived the thrill of driving down either of those highways, with their amazing views, tightly packed cars, so close to the water, you may disagree.

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

#325

Post by speedplane » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 8:03 AM UTC

megablast wrote: post #102

speedplane wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Do you think there are less people on those buses than there was before the ban?

> Do you think there are less people on those buses than there was before the ban?

There probably are more people on buses, but that's the incorrect question to ask. You should be asking whether the additional people on buses is greater than the decreased people on cars. If before the policy, there were 3,000 bus riders and 10,000 car drivers, and after the policy there were 10,000 bus riders and 0 car drivers, that's still a net loss.