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New York City will charge drivers going downtown

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Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#301

Post by [deleted] »

cogman10 wrote: post #283
ericmay wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea it also ignores that if everybody stopped riding the $100 train then you’d never actually be able to drive into the city, let alone park anywhere for under $100. Also, this is a deliberate choice. They can improve train services and lower costs. Idk why people who ostensibly are market oriented are so fixated on current prices and assuming they can’t change or be improved upon. Germany is an example $49 for a tic…

Yeah, everyone also ignores that public transport can be supported through taxes and operated at a loss. In the US, we have a weird obsession with all public goods/services paying for themselves. We should ditch that, operate at a loss, and pull the difference out of progressive taxes. There's no reason your CEO or office shouldn't foot part of the bill to transport you into work. Heck, were I king I'd fund public tr…

[deleted]

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#302

Post by cyberax »

klipt wrote: post #230
cyberax wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for it! It would suck for transit, though: 1. It has a higher CO2 footprint than small/medium EVs. 2. Transit forces people into smaller and denser housing, resulting in suboptimal living conditions. 3. Buses in particular result in excessive road wear&tear. It's really amazing that people say things like "car owners should not get subsidized" (by whom?), while talking about transit that is literally infeasib…

Transit is completely feasible without subsidies if the transit company owns the land near the stations, which generate generous rents. Of course if the land is owned by other people, the increase in value provided by transit should be recaptured through a Land Value Tax which is then used to fund the transit.

> Transit is completely feasible without subsidies if the transit company owns the land near the stations, which generate generous rents.

So basically, you want to subsidize transit by making the transport authority be a slumlord. Got it.

There are no unsubsidized urban transit services in the US. Even operating costs are not paid from fares. And new transit construction is COMPLETELY subsidized.

I live in Seattle and I will have paid around $20k in car tab fees alone by the time the choo-choo subway train expansion here is done. It won't go anywhere near me and it will make my life worse, by inducing even more traffic.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#303

Post by steveBK123 »

Hikikomori wrote: post #291
steveBK123 wrote: post #282

My main concern as NYer is the governments inability to build transit, and not for lack of money. NY will find it relatively easy to institute a new tax on drivers, but will the billions collected actually make transit better in any tangible way? NYC is also hamstrung by having its streets controlled locally by our DOT, but our transit & bridges controlled by a state agency. We just caved (again) entirely to the tran…

>We basically need a modern era Robert Moses to consolidate NYC DOT/MTA/Port Authority and whatever other agencies and bring us into the modern era. Idk about that, maybe a less racist one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Broker https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...

Yeah, he was a terrible guy and all.

But stuff got built.

The current inability to build anything is almost a direct result. They delegated decision making to an alphabet soup of agencies at different levels of jurisdiction so it's impossible to get anything done.

Because there are so many agencies, you can't for example easily put in a busway because you need NYC DOT, MTA, NYS DOT, city council and mayor to all be on board.

Too many people have veto, so nothing gets done.

Living in NYC for long, it quickly becomes apparently the vast majority of our built infrastructure was built from 1930-1960 and has frozen in time since.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#304

Post by Wowfunhappy »

nonethewiser wrote: post #287
lotsofpulp wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This “poor people will be affected more” is a tired refrain. That is always obviously true, given the consequences of being poor. Not every solution can or has to solve the wealth/income gap. Solve congestion with one solution, solve wealth redistribution with another.

It’s obviously true though, isnt it? Poor people cant afford the ~$20 toll like a rich person can.

If you're poor, you probably aren't driving in Manhattan in the first place.

And in all honesty, if you are driving in Manhattan, you should probably stop doing that.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#305

Post by agotterer »

steveBK123 wrote: post #282

My main concern as NYer is the governments inability to build transit, and not for lack of money. NY will find it relatively easy to institute a new tax on drivers, but will the billions collected actually make transit better in any tangible way? NYC is also hamstrung by having its streets controlled locally by our DOT, but our transit & bridges controlled by a state agency. We just caved (again) entirely to the tran…

Quite a few of our transit problems today are actually because of the choices Robert Moses made. However, he certainly is responsible for the rapid growth of the transit system and did a great job consolidating power and getting stuff done.

* He had the chance to buy the land and put transit along many highways in queens and Long Island but said that people would prefer to drive so he passed on the opportunity. Acquiring those rights today would be unaffordable and likely impossible.

* Moses didn’t want black people going to Jones Beach (his pride and joy). To prevent them from visiting he built the overpasses on the highways that go to the beach lower so that buses from the city couldn’t fit.

I highly recommend the book The Power Broker which is a deep dive on the history of Robert Moses. The book is very long and can be a bit dry at times. But I learned a lot about the history of New York and why some things that we enjoy and suffer through today are the way they are.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#306

Post by pclmulqdq »

estebank wrote: post #246
pclmulqdq wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do you. Just don't try to force people through legislation to adopt your style. Nobody wants to ban your cotton bag.

In a lot of places, the push for alternatives to single use plastic bags go beyond their carbon footprint at manufacture. Disposable bags end up littering cities, which can block drains and cause other issues. Is banning them heavy handed? Maybe. Does it work? I'd say so.

If only that sort of littering weren't already illegal...

How about we enforce that law?

Where I live now, plastic bags are very common at the grocery store, and yet none of them end up on the street. I have also seen police pull someone over for throwing trash out their car window. When I lived in New York City, even the cops threw their trash onto the street, and practically nobody gets a ticket for littering. That is why there is so much litter. It's not the bags.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#307

Post by Reason077 »

whack wrote: post #208
mortenjorck wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge part of of why London could pull it off is the exceptional state of the Underground. It’s not hard to wean off cars when the alternative is a clean, fast, modern train a short walk away. NYC is going to have an uphill battle getting the MTA to anywhere near that level, and the MTA itself is already leagues ahead of any other transit system in the US. I would love to see London-tier transit in the United States…

I've taken both the Underground and the MTA and you're overstating the difference. Aesthetically, the Underground is far better, no question. But most commuters are focused on functionality. And functionally the MTA is just as good, if not better. The trains run extremely frequently - every few minutes during the day on weekdays. The parallel local-express tracks give the MTA a big speed advantage. And the inside of…

> ”MTA trains are extremely spacious compared to the Underground”

Depends what line you’re talking about. Deep tube lines are indeed pretty small due to the narrow tubes they run in. But the sub-surface lines (District, Circle, Metropolitan, etc) are comparable to NYC subway dimensions.

And have you tried our new 200m long Elizabeth line trains?

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#308

Post by cyberax »

pessimizer wrote: post #150
cyberax wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for it! It would suck for transit, though: 1. It has a higher CO2 footprint than small/medium EVs. 2. Transit forces people into smaller and denser housing, resulting in suboptimal living conditions. 3. Buses in particular result in excessive road wear&tear. It's really amazing that people say things like "car owners should not get subsidized" (by whom?), while talking about transit that is literally infeasib…

> 1. It has a higher CO2 footprint than small/medium EVs. This is too misleading to be unintentional. I don't know if you're comparing buses to small/medium EVs 1:1, but even if you aren't, the environmental footprint of replacing all bus services with EVs would be extraordinary. > 2. Transit forces people into smaller and denser housing, resulting in suboptimal living conditions. Transit doesn't force people into ho…

> This is too misleading to be unintentional.

It's not misleading. On average, buses in the US carry around 15 people. A car carries around 1.5, so the raw multiplier is just 10.

But wait, there's more!

ALL buses have an incredibly polluting component that is fundamental to their functionality: the driver. You need around 3 drivers to cover the useful service time (from 5am to midnight). And drivers are POLLUTING AS HELL.

> I don't know if you're comparing buses to small/medium EVs 1:1

Yes, I do. Here ya go: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint

> Transit doesn't force people into housing.

It does, via market forces.

> It creates new housing options that previously were not tenable.

No. It _destroys_ affordable housing to pack people into smaller and smaller footprints. Tokyo is a _great_ example of that.

> In proportion to human-miles, or is this a 1:1 comparison?

In proportion to passenger-miles. Road wear scales approximately as the 4-th power of the axle weight, and under-loaded buses still have to haul around their massive bulks even if there's just one passenger inside.

Honestly, it's amazing how bad public transit turns out to be when you actually start looking at its negative sides.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#309

Post by giantg2 »

insanitybit wrote: post #271
giantg2 wrote: post #242

Nobody really wants to drive or park in that sort of congestion. If they would just make public transit better, then there would be less congestion naturally.

How could it be better?

Cheaper, cleaner, on-time, expanded service (times and locations), and better safety (either real or precieved).
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