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New York City will charge drivers going downtown

cnn.com

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Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#31

Post by fellowmartian »

bequanna wrote: post #20
fellowmartian wrote: post #14

When I moved to NYC from Kyiv, I was actually surprised by how chill the traffic in New York is. Obviously it can get annoying around bridges and tunnels, but outside those areas it’s pretty easy to get around, and I live on the west side of FiDi. Not against this legislation, I think it’s a good idea, but I personally spent more time in traffic on Long Island, and upper Manhattan. I don’t own a car though, I just re…

I guess I always thought the two challenges in the city were entering/leaving and parking. There doesn’t seem to consistently be TOO much traffic when you’re just trying to get around Manhattan.

Yes, that’s been my experience as well.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#32

Post by giraffe_lady »

metalforever wrote: post #8
DirectorKrennic wrote: post #2

[flagged]

What about people with disabilities.

What about them? Many of them can't drive, how are you working to address the inequalities caused by that? Because of regressive asset cap laws many of them can't own a personal vehicle that suits their needs without losing access to their critical health care.

Disabled people have lots of current issues with the current system. It's possible you're already working to address those but if not this doesn't seem like an honest concern.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#34

Post by jmclnx »

robin_reala wrote: post #18
metalforever wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about people with disabilities.

Put an exemption in place: see https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge/discounts...

I do not know about London (UK), but there is a lot of corruption here in the US with handicap plates. So I can see a lot of people (like politicians and maybe police/fire) families getting this special exemption.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#35

Post by raldi »

thx-2718 wrote: post #5
DirectorKrennic wrote: post #2

[flagged]

" At the same time, cities should develop bike stations and tramways for people to move around quickly in car-free areas, paid for by gas taxes, which should be raised, and road tolls, which should also be raised." Huh? If no one is driving who is paying gas taxes? Road tolls everywhere?

If no one is driving, we can take the unbelievable amount of public spending currently going into subsidizing automobile traffic and redirect it to fund public transit.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#36

Post by lom »

shrubble wrote: post #13

So despite the massive ridership of the subway and the fully paid infrastructure and rights of way from 100 years ago, it can't throw off enough cash for modernization of its systems? And instead politicians decide to tax the successful mode of transportation, which is cars. Note that given the density and NY gas taxes, it is a certainty that cars in this area generate surplus cash.

I’m sorry what? Cars are the most subsidized thing in America today, you can’t speak of success when they get billions of blank checks handed to them in many different ways. See here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180092...

Meanwhile public transit: https://www.apta.com/research-technical-resources/research-r...

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#37

Post by ZoomerCretin »

thx-2718 wrote: post #5
DirectorKrennic wrote: post #2

[flagged]

" At the same time, cities should develop bike stations and tramways for people to move around quickly in car-free areas, paid for by gas taxes, which should be raised, and road tolls, which should also be raised." Huh? If no one is driving who is paying gas taxes? Road tolls everywhere?

People will still drive, just not in downtown areas.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#38

Post by stefan_ »

jmclnx wrote: post #25
cj wrote: post #12

See also: London congestion charge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge Singapore Electronic Road Pricing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Road_Pricing Stockholm congestion tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_congestion_tax

When I saw London doing that, I expected cities in the US to start that. I am surprised it took so long. I expected this because of the push of toll roads to make people use EZPASS. Depending upon the City, I think this makes sense. But, in the US, I wonder if this will cause another mass migration of people out to the suburbs ? In the US, people are more addicted to their SUVs than heron addicts are to their drug.

Migration to cities is whats causing this. When it was just black people homes you had to bulldoze to build your freeway straight to downtown there was obviously no concern. Now that people living downtown are rich and powerful they are starting to wonder why a huge chunk of prime space is reserved for storage of suburbian commuter metal boxes.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#39

Post by kodah »

nkrisc wrote: post #7
elmerfud wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I agree let's fundamentally eliminate the right of free travel from place to place through the public thoroughfares on the conveyance of your choice. Because it's that pesky fundamental concept that we have of freely moving about through cities through county borders through state borders without being stopped and harassed that's actually the fundamental problem of it all. So instead of just pissing around and ba…

But you’re still free to travel there as often as you like, for however long you like, any reason you like, and you don’t have to tell anyone about it. I’m not allowed to drive my car on sidewalks or bike paths, but that doesn’t mean we live in some dystopian nightmare where the right to free travel is restricted and I have to show papers everywhere I go.

> The first step to rid ourselves of our, dare I say, enslavement to our car-centric way of life is to make car ownership as expensive and inconvenient as possible. I hope more cities follow. Start closing off entire areas to cars.

I'm pretty sure GP is responding to this, which while I appreciate the transparency, is atrocious. Creating negative incentives just makes people angry, and generally surfaces a lot of inequality.

I just went on a long haul train ride with my dad who is heavily disabled. The people on the train were nice but trains are very clearly built around the concept of able bodied people. There's a single bathroom for disabled people and it's inside one of the sleeper rooms. He basically had to sequester himself in his room for 24 hours. Meanwhile, my dad can drive a car.

Maybe before we go making hyperbolic statements that are sure to encourage decision making that results in gross inequality we should think about the basics of a problem first.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#40

Post by zeroonetwothree »

DaveExeter wrote: post #17
Tinyyy wrote: post #11

I’m a fan of charging market efficient rates for shared goods. The congestion situation in the Holland Tunnel is awful and bleeds out into various streets of Manhattan as well. The cost of sitting in crawling traffic with aggressive drivers cutting around is probably much more than an extra $20.

I agree! Let's get the poors off the roads. The peasant class belongs on public transport, not on taxpayer-funded roads.

Having more money lets you buy more of everything. Yet you are only concerned about roads (which aren’t even used by the poorest segment since they can’t afford a car)? Why not focus on making something more fundamental to existence free, like food or shelter?

Oh right it’s because it creates poor incentives and overuse (tragedy of the commons) exactly like we see with roads (and parking). If car drivers had to pay the full cost of the resources they use it would reduce wasteful driving substantially. And we could use money collected in that way to pay for transit (or just give it as a tax rebate to low income people if you prefer).

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