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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

#351

Post by mgbmtl »

nonethewiser wrote: post #297
mgbmtl wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also rich and poor people using the subway. Improving it will improve the situation for everyone. I'm (sincerely) curious though, who are the poor people affected? Parking downtown is crazy expensive, and there are already expensive tolls around Manhattan. There are easy solutions though: charge by the weight/size of the car (the weight should already be on the car registration).

> There are also rich and poor people using the subway. Improving it will improve the situation for everyone. Exactly. Just like more parking would improve it for everyone.

Parking doesn't scale well. It would just improve the situation for a few people, temporarily.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#352

Post by wan23 »

steveBK123 wrote: post #334
agotterer wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Acqui…

I'm well aware of his history, and it's always interesting to me how few bad things people can point to that he actually did.. when weighed against all the transit/bridges/tunnels/highways build under his watch. I mean the first thing is a crime of omission, made in basically every other city of the country - where have we seen land be purchased along highways to build transit done anywhere in this country? Even new…

The linked Bloomberg article actually says that buses served Jacob Riis Park (not Jones Beach) at its opening, and that it is in fact true that the Southern State Parkway has lower clearances along the route to Jones Beach than other similar roads around the region from that time.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#353

Post by bradleyjg »

agotterer wrote: post #305
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. Acqui…

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.

This is a true and interesting factoid, but I don’t see how it ties back to any transit issues. Unless you think buses having access to the northern and southern state would meaningfully improve regional transit?

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#354

Post by bobthepanda »

bradleyjg wrote: post #353
agotterer wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Acqui…

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. This is a true and interesting factoid, but I don’t see how it ties back to any transit issues. Unless you think buses having access to the northern and southern state would meaningfully improve regional tran…

They are some of the fastest roads around.

There are commuter express buses, but often they are restricted to the Interstate (there is one for the entirety of Long Island’s millions of people) or the arterial roads with traffic lights

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#355

Post by SllX »

Spooky23 wrote: post #237
SllX wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, depends a lot on the State. You can generally make two generalizations about local governments in the United States: they are local governments and you can’t make any other generalizations about them because everything depends on the State and sometimes a locality’s specific circumstances. In California, municipalities do not adhere to the counties they are in, the county is a legal subdivision of the State whic…

NYC can only do it if granted the home rule authority by the state legislature - which it has. In general, counties are pretty weak in New York.

You see, this kind of thing is why I led with this:

"You can generally make two generalizations about local governments in the United States: they are local governments and you can’t make any other generalizations about them because everything depends on the State and sometimes a locality’s specific circumstances."

That is good intel though. I thought NY was a home rule state, but is that only for municipalities which have had home rule enabled by legislation? This table doesn't really go into that many specifics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_rule_in_the_United_States

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#356

Post by bobthepanda »

steveBK123 wrote: post #334
agotterer wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Acqui…

I'm well aware of his history, and it's always interesting to me how few bad things people can point to that he actually did.. when weighed against all the transit/bridges/tunnels/highways build under his watch. I mean the first thing is a crime of omission, made in basically every other city of the country - where have we seen land be purchased along highways to build transit done anywhere in this country? Even new…

Chicago and DC notably built a lot of median subways during the 50s and 60s.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#357

Post by bradleyjg »

bobthepanda wrote: post #354
bradleyjg wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. This is a true and interesting factoid, but I don’t see how it ties back to any transit issues. Unless you think buses having access to the northern and southern state would meaningfully improve regional tran…

They are some of the fastest roads around. There are commuter express buses, but often they are restricted to the Interstate (there is one for the entirety of Long Island’s millions of people) or the arterial roads with traffic lights

Long Island bus has been privatized and never carried many people to begin with. They were never going to be competitive for east/west transit against the LIRR.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#358

Post by bradleyjg »

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...

[flagged]

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#359

Post by bradleyjg »

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.

You’d first need a strong governor to jam the necessary enabling legislation through Albany and DC. They only strong governor we’ve had in decades was too insecure to allow an independent personality anywhere around and forced out Andy Byford instead of promoting him.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#360

Post by bobthepanda »

bradleyjg wrote: post #357
bobthepanda wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are some of the fastest roads around. There are commuter express buses, but often they are restricted to the Interstate (there is one for the entirety of Long Island’s millions of people) or the arterial roads with traffic lights

Long Island bus has been privatized and never carried many people to begin with. They were never going to be competitive for east/west transit against the LIRR.

I mean, there are also commuter buses in NYC, where the parkways make up most highway mileage.

And why shouldn’t private buses be able to use the parkways either? Plenty benefit the public, like the Chinatown buses.

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