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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

#381

Post by pclmulqdq »

ghaff wrote: post #365
pclmulqdq wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're the kind of person who throws away plastic bags and doesn't re-use them as trash bags, please have the decency to cut the handles. Do your cotton bags have over 5000 trips to the grocery store over the last decade? If not, you may be carbon negative compared to single-use plastic bags (not counting the re-usability as trash bags).

Meanwhile on this planet, the micron thick Walmart plastic plastic bags are not usefully reused as trashbags; and neither are most of the others. I don't really have a use in general for plastic bags that small and fragile except maybe in the car from time to time. To a first approximation, no one is cutting the handles and, even if they don't just toss them on the road, plenty of them surely end up blowing away out…

A lot of those bags get re-used to line small trash bins and dispose of dog poop (or other gross things like rotten food), despite how thin they are. You may be privileged enough to pay for bin liners and dedicated dog poop bags, but they are an extraneous expense for many people when plastic bags will do.

I agree that nobody is cutting the handles, but the reuse is a lot more prolific than you think. Even so, they are indisputably more environmentally friendly than cotton bags.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#382

Post by pclmulqdq »

wizofaus wrote: post #221
pclmulqdq wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The messaging I saw in NYC when the ban was coming in was all about carbon footprint. Do you think the reason is reducing plastic pollution? Because it went up in Australia after their plastic bag ban, since those plastic bags were replaced by heavier plastic bin liners: https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/plastic-bag-... I think the "bailey" of plastic bag ban proponents is the sea life that gets stuck i…

I wouldn't exactly pay to much attention to news.com.au as a reliable source for whether a pro-environmental policy has been effective. I'm personally skeptical about the likely overall effectiveness of plastic bag bans, but I've seen no evidence that increased use of bin liners has somehow made plastic pollution worse here- and for me it is absolutely the blight of seeing loose bits of plastic ending up in the natur…

It's usually your opponents who hold you accountable for your failures. There are plenty of primary sources available for the claims in that article.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#383

Post by master_crab »

steveBK123 wrote: post #318
steveBK123 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Another great example is the fact that the BQE cantilever is probably going to collapse before anyone can agree on how to replace it and do so. So far we have reduced a lane to minimize wear & tear, reduced max tonnage for trucks going over it, and are installing advanced automated ticketing to ticket big trucks attempting to go over it. That's well and good, but salt water corrosion and bureaucratic inertia are goin…

The city’s density makes it impossible for everyone to own a car. So no, the default step shouldn’t be “let’s ensure all the Moses era car infrastructure is maintained.” Moses’s big mistake was not taking into account the idea that a majority of residents might own a car.

Want a good example of Moses’s lack of foresight. Look at photos from the 40’s. You know why they look so different? It’s not the people or the buildings. It’s that not every inch of the curb in the 40’s was dedicated to parallel parking (and fully used) like it is today.

Source: a guy who lives in BK and sits on the community board of one of the districts that the BQE runs through.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#384

Post by donatj »

toast0 wrote: post #115
dangus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've not driven in NYC. But I've driven in LA, SF, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Milwaukee, maybe a bit in Dallas. Big cities do have horrendous traffic in high density areas. Even if it's free flowing, there are intersections so often and pedestrians everywhere and so speeds are necessarily quite low. You wouldn't drive through there unless you don't have a choice; maybe the ferry lets off downtown and you need t…

Milwaukee is in my experience one of the best driving cities in the US. I've spent a significant amount of time there and very rarely encountered any kind of jam.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#385

Post by cyberax »

seadan83 wrote: post #371
cyberax wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Car owners are already hugely subsidized Around 80% of all commutes in the US are by car. You can't subsidize 80% of the population. Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly.

Only a fraction of the US population work and thus commute. Of those that commute, that 80% do not have equal road usage. Even within that community, there is a subsidy going on. So, yes, there is a ton of subsidization going on (and this is not always bad) > Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly. I think this is the point, notably because those 'indirect' payments are also pay…

> Only a fraction of the US population work and thus commute.

The fraction that doesn't work is either too young to pay taxes anyway, or they had used road commutes before they retired. Everybody else are within the margin of error.

Additionally, if you are not using a car for commute, you're likely to be in the lower tax brackets and thus not paying (much) in taxes anyway. I had a paper looking at exact numbers bookmarked, but I lost it somehow.

So in practice, car owners don't get substantially subsidized by transit users. While the inverse is overwhelmingly true, transit users are massively subsidized by car users.

> This means any two lengths of similar roads will have about the same upkeep cost

This is simply incorrect. Vehicles cause stresses in the concrete, allowing fractures to accumulate, and they also directly wear down the pavement. The weather then amplifies the damage, especially in areas that experience frequent zero crossings.

If you want to learn more, feel free to check: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law and click the links about pavement engineering.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#386

Post by cyberax »

acdha wrote: post #342
cyberax wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Car owners are already hugely subsidized Around 80% of all commutes in the US are by car. You can't subsidize 80% of the population. Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly.

You certainly can subsidize large populations because taxes cover all income but are being used specifically to encourage just one more of transportation. If driving wasn’t so heavily subsidized, people would use other options because the true cost is much higher than what people see directly – it’s not just roads but also things like below market rate storage, zoning rules requiring owners to build more car storage…

> You certainly can subsidize large populations because taxes cover all income but are being used specifically to encourage just one more of transportation.

It can be argued that rich people subsidize poor, since they pay more taxes. However, that's pretty much it.

Transit users in the US overwhelmingly do NOT subsidize car users. While the inverse is true, transit users on average don't pay even half of the true cost of transit. The rest is born by everyone.

> If driving wasn’t so heavily subsidized

BY WHOM?

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#387

Post by cyberax »

nimbleplum40 wrote: post #339
cyberax wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 an…

There are also no unsubsidized fire departments, police departments, public schools, public parks, etc. Analyzing only the first order costs/benefits is really not a good way of analyzing any infrastructure project.

> There are also no unsubsidized fire departments, police departments, public schools, public parks, etc.

My fire department, police, and parks are certainly not subsidized. I pay for them from my taxes.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#388

Post by steveBK123 »

master_crab wrote: post #383
steveBK123 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another great example is the fact that the BQE cantilever is probably going to collapse before anyone can agree on how to replace it and do so. So far we have reduced a lane to minimize wear & tear, reduced max tonnage for trucks going over it, and are installing advanced automated ticketing to ticket big trucks attempting to go over it. That's well and good, but salt water corrosion and bureaucratic inertia are goin…

The city’s density makes it impossible for everyone to own a car. So no, the default step shouldn’t be “let’s ensure all the Moses era car infrastructure is maintained.” Moses’s big mistake was not taking into account the idea that a majority of residents might own a car. Want a good example of Moses’s lack of foresight. Look at photos from the 40’s. You know why they look so different? It’s not the people or the bui…

The city should abolish or extremely tax all on street parking. Then you could have sensible loading zones for deliveries and garbage containerizing.

That said… given how many trucks bring goods into the city, I don’t see how abolishing the BQE is remotely tenable.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#389

Post by mdorazio »

cyberax wrote: post #308
pessimizer wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> It's not misleading.

It's very misleading because you're starting from the supposition of EVs rather than the actual mix of personal cars. If you choose EVs for the cars, why not choose ZEV buses that are starting to enter the market as well?

> And drivers are POLLUTING AS HELL.

What? I genuinely don't understand what you're trying to say here.

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

It doesn't destroy affordable housing, though, it shifts it to other areas while increasing density near stations. You need to show why that's a bad thing. Most urban planners and economists would say that increased density is a good thing and that Tokyo is an excellent example of a city done right.

You seem to have a personal bone to pick with high-density cities that's just not shared by most other people.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#390

Post by cyberax »

ryukafalz wrote: post #340
cyberax wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Car owners are already hugely subsidized Around 80% of all commutes in the US are by car. You can't subsidize 80% of the population. Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly.

> Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly. Taxes that are also paid by those who don't drive, yes?

> Taxes that are also paid by those who don't drive, yes?

If you want to be strictly true then yes.

In practice, if you are using transit in the US, then you are likely not paying much in taxes. There are exceptions (NYC, SF, DC), of course.

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