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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

#81

Post by thx-2718 »

raldi wrote: post #78
thx-2718 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fewer miles people drive, the more money the government has available for other things. Yes if everything else is kept the same. People's income. Business profits. Etc. However you're overlooking the point spending on transportation infrastructure which is to get resources from one location to another. People drive to work where their income is taxed. Businesses have things delivered to them to sell and have wa…

> Now let's just remove the way people get about to doing all those things No, congestion pricing removes the obstacles slowing people down from doing all those things. Take for instance a plumber who still has to drive around. Yes, they have to pay the congestion charge, but they also spend way less time stuck in traffic and can probably bill an extra job or two that day. Same for UPS drivers, etc. > No one is going…

Except those plumbers are not going to get anywhere faster now because there's pedestrians and bikes everywhere but I digress since it's not relevant.

Regardless what you're saying completely ignores my actual objection here. Which is paying for infrastructure through something that you just eliminated.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#82

Post by raldi »

thx-2718 wrote: post #81
raldi wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now let's just remove the way people get about to doing all those things No, congestion pricing removes the obstacles slowing people down from doing all those things. Take for instance a plumber who still has to drive around. Yes, they have to pay the congestion charge, but they also spend way less time stuck in traffic and can probably bill an extra job or two that day. Same for UPS drivers, etc. > No one is going…

Except those plumbers are not going to get anywhere faster now because there's pedestrians and bikes everywhere but I digress since it's not relevant. Regardless what you're saying completely ignores my actual objection here. Which is paying for infrastructure through something that you just eliminated.

It’s paying for infrastructure through cost reduction.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#83

Post by shrubble »

elijaht wrote: post #50
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.

Have you been to New York? The subway is the mode of transportation for nearly everyone and it works great. I wouldn’t say cars are the successful mode of transportation in New York at all

In terms of paying enough taxes to sustain further use, is how I should have phrased it. Why can't the subway fund its own improvements?

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#84

Post by wussboy »

analognoise wrote: post #80
mc32 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was poor, I took the bus to college and work (there were times I'd have to add 30 minutes where I knew I'd have to leg it). It was an hour and a half with transfers. It's doable --you get used to it, just like tech workers get used to driving in from the East Bay into the Peninsula. It's no biggie. On the way home, sometimes you get off at a different stop to pick up groceries and then you're the one walking home w…

Hour and a half is no biggie? Is that one way? That sucks more than having a car does by far. Even the last part about "your arms ache but you get used to it" - how is that for disabled people? How is it for the elderly? An extra hour and a half - what about if you have kids at home? Honestly that... Blows? If the options are to destroy the environment or to have to take an extra three hours daily to commute, I choos…

3 hours commutes or destroying the environment aren't the only two options. By changing the way we build cities, and by retrofitting the ones we've already built, we can make places where the walked/biked commute is less than a half hour and the environmental impact is slashed dramatically.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#85

Post by wussboy »

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.

Cars don't and can't scale and we waste staggering amounts of space and infrastructure on what would be better utilized and more profitably spent on walkability.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#86

Post by bobthepanda »

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.

London has it relatively easy; the only layer of government above it is the national one.

Cities in the US are creatures of their respective states, and the swing votes in states are usually the suburban voters who would be most impacted by a charge like this.

—-

It also helps that TfL has a track record of delivering many miles of projects and a future expansion plan. MTA is planning on using this to keep the lights on for another five years, at which point a new source of money has to be found to pay for capital investment. (The plan is currently to bond out the future congestion revenue to pay for today’s capital investments.)

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#87

Post by cyberax »

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’m a fan of charging market efficient rates for shared goods.

Are you a fan of charging market rates for transit as well?

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#88

Post by nimbleplum40 »

Tinyyy wrote: post #62
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Yea you’re exactly right, there’s a tragedy of the commons situation right now. You could either decrease the demand or increase the supply to fix this problem, and it seems pretty impossible to increase the supply (build a bridge across the Hudson? That’s crazy). So here we are.

Another bridge wouldn’t do much to fix supply since you’re still dumping cars into one of the most dense urban environments in the world.

The only sustainable way to increase the supply of trips into lower manhattan is increased public transit.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#89

Post by cronix »

bobthepanda wrote: post #86
jmclnx wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

London has it relatively easy; the only layer of government above it is the national one. Cities in the US are creatures of their respective states, and the swing votes in states are usually the suburban voters who would be most impacted by a charge like this. —- It also helps that TfL has a track record of delivering many miles of projects and a future expansion plan. MTA is planning on using this to keep the lights…

There's also the county government layer that cities must adhere to in addition to state/national.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#90

Post by cyberax »

dangus wrote: post #23
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…

This anecdote is basically another way of saying the incentives of urban design align and become self-fulfilling prophecies. Suburban dwellers stuck in the automobile mindset automatically assume that big cities must have the most horrendous traffic. It's seems like a logical conclusion: if traffic in my 50,000 person suburb is horrendous, it must be downright horrific in the big city. But that's not really how it wo…

> Suburban dwellers stuck in the automobile mindset automatically assume that big cities must have the most horrendous traffic.

Have you driven in Manhattan?

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