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Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

nytimes.com

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Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#91

Post by megaremote »

electric_muse wrote: post #14
rubyboss wrote: post #5

I don't understand this anti-car sentiment from the city liberals. It's already happened here in London and it's getting worse. From 20mph speed limits to blocking roads for bus-only traffic to ultra-low emission zones and congestion charges. It's becoming pretty clear that they don't want people to own their own cars. I'm struggling to see how this is progress.

Walkable cities sounds great until you have luggage to carry or groceries to lug. It’s all about the collective good over that of the individual.

You get that billions of people already live without a car. Millions in the USA alone.

Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#92

Post by jimktrains2 »

jcranmer wrote: post #53
electric_muse wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walkable cities sounds great until you have luggage to carry or groceries to lug. It’s all about the collective good over that of the individual.

I have had absolutely no problem lugging my luggage to the airport or carrying my groceries on foot or by mixed foot/train/bus. It might require some modifications to your trip (e.g., going more frequently, or purchasing some personal shopping carts to carry stuff around in), but it's not that hard.

Depending on area of course, but usually a grocer or supermarket is much closer, meaning that more frequent and smaller trips aren't an issue and mean you often have fresher produce to work with.

Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#93

Post by jrockway »

Scoundreller wrote: post #80
mgleason_3 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vancouver took their 2-lane each way (4 total) roads and dedicated the outer lane to bikes. They protected that lane from car with planters. So, it can definitely be done. That said, IDK if it’s a resounding success. There may be measures by which it is, I’m just not aware. For example, I found it difficult as a pedestrian and saw a few collisions and lots of near misses between bikes and pedestrians. The planters cr…

> Vancouver took their 2-lane each way (4 total) roads and dedicated the outer lane to bikes. They protected that lane from car with planters. So, it can definitely be done. Makes snowplowing a mess. NYC can’t just shutdown like Vancouver does every time it snows :)

It is street parking that ruins winter for bikes. The snow plows can't get to the edge of the road, so the bike lane which marks the parking/plowable road area suffers.

I don't think it's a big deal because we don't really get a lot of snow in NYC. A plan to improve the 50 weeks a year without snow on the ground is better than not doing the plan because a couple weeks in February will be miserable.

Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#94

Post by Tiktaalik »

The tech industry is floating all these complex technological ideas so solve traffic congestion, from apps that track traffic, to ride hailing to autonomous cars, but the reality is that traffic congestion is not a tech problem but rather a simple physics problem (and political problem).

The core issue is simply that cars physically take up too much space on the road, and move too few passengers.

This simple physics problem can be solved solved with 19th century solutions as NYC has here. Make exclusive room for buses, which are dramatically more space efficient than cars. Problem solved.

Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#95

Post by mapgrep »

This conclusion of “a phenomenal success” is based on “a span of several days.” Again, several days.

I want this to be true. I support this policy decision. I don’t own a car, live in NY, and want to see the streets reclaimed from drivers. Love it.

But if someone declared this experiment a terrible failure after /several days/ I would laugh and say, “please wait a bit so we can examine some real data.”

Please, urbanists, consider waiting a bit before calling this “a phenomenal success.” Let’s have some evidentiary standards.

Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#96

Post by xhgdvjky »

megaremote wrote: post #79
catalogia wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If driving into Manhattan were not an option, I would expect demand for housing in Manhattan would go up[0]. Of course, housing in Manhattan is already incredibly expensive... I'm sure Manhattan would become very pleasant for those who could still afford to live there. [0] (Suppose for the sake of argument my preference for commuting was driving,walking,transit (in that order.) With the option of driving eliminated m…

> If driving into Manhattan were not an option, I would expect demand for housing in Manhattan would go up[0]. Of course, housing in Manhattan is already incredibly expensive... Why? And we recover all that wasted space on roads to build parks and a lot more housing.

it would be a very slow re allocation

Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#97

Post by buss »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #94

The tech industry is floating all these complex technological ideas so solve traffic congestion, from apps that track traffic, to ride hailing to autonomous cars, but the reality is that traffic congestion is not a tech problem but rather a simple physics problem (and political problem). The core issue is simply that cars physically take up too much space on the road, and move too few passengers. This simple physics…

This is exactly right. Most of the problems in cities aren't due to technology, they're due to bad governance. Our solutions need to be political, not just technological.

Re: Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success

#99

Post by humanrebar »

adjkant wrote: post #85
humanrebar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People go in and out of Manhattan a lot. I'm saying you can't isolate the problem like that except for the people privileged enough to afford Manhattan rent.

What demo exactly are you targeting? Rent isn't as expensive on the outskirts but parking always is if you're talking a commute route, so it doesn't seem like we're talking low income working class people generally. So are we talking people driving in from Jersey/Long Island? What's stopping them from leaving a car just off the island and using public transit on it? There's also the option of keeping things like FDR…

All that might be possible. Maybe, but it will take more time.

> What's stopping them from leaving a car just off the island and using public transit on it?

You end up with the expenses of a car commute with the reliability, cost, and flexibility of a train commute. It probably has the costs of both commutes put together.

Actually having dependable bus routes in outer burroughs would help. My vote would be for chartering private bus routes, but I'm not sure how politically viable that would be.

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