Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New York City will charge drivers going downtown

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 700 posts

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#391

Post by nemo44x »

samstave wrote: post #372
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

Re: Singapore - Have you ever been to Singapore -- _ ALL _ their public transport/flow control systems are #1 in the world IMO ; * The roads are pristine * The take city planning to the next level (anecdote at end) * Vehicles cost a boatload - but thats because all other transport is amazing -- Singapore is a hot a humid climate - a small city-state with lateral constraints. But they new that they were going to doubl…

Singapore is the model system but it’s a hard sell here. The delusion that the modern Western way is the best is very deeply engrained here. People have completely internalized the rottenness of it and have deluded themselves into believing it’s a virtue.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#392

Post by cyberax »

jrockway wrote: post #336
cyberax wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Let's be honest, it's far from factual that dense housing is problematic in any way. It's just your opinion, and you're mad about it because you stand to lose the most in a world where you have to pay cash for your externalities. The sewer and water system to your house is subsidized. Snow removal from your cul-de-sac is subsidized. Most people couldn't afford the suburbs if someone else wasn't paying for those thing…

> Let's be honest, it's far from factual that dense housing is problematic in any way

Densificatoin causes enshittification spiral. Each successive generation lives in worse conditions. This is an inherent property of densification.

> The sewer and water system to your house is subsidized.

It isn't. I'm paying for it from my taxes (that's why in Seattle my water is more costly than in the middle of a freaking desert).

> Snow removal from your cul-de-sac is subsidized.

It isn't. I'm responsible for keeping it clean, and I was once fined when I failed to do that.

> Many people enjoy living in a dense environment

The vast majority of people want to live in single family houses (90% or so - https://www.redfin.com/news/millennial-homebuyers-prefer-sin... ). They simply can't afford that. And of course, the psychological defense mechanism is: "I never wanted it anyway".

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#393

Post by joshuaissac »

cyberax wrote: post #385
seadan83 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 book…

> 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.

To the contrary, those in the highest income brackets are the ones most likely to walk to work,[1] and also the most likely to be paying more in taxes.

1. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0739456X18796652 page 9, figure 'Work Trip Walking by Income and Density'

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#394

Post by jen20 »

dataviz1000 wrote: post #158
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.

Mass migration to Statin Island, Brooklyn, and Flushing. I've been interested in cities with rail trails and the like. For example, San Antonio with the many mile extension of the Riverwalk along the San Antonio river and Atlanta with the Belt Line have created non motorized vehicle corridors through the respective cities which have spurred incredible amounts of mixed use development for miles on each side of the wal…

“Statin Island” is funnier than perhaps you realize!

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#395

Post by ryandrake »

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 are planning to spend something like $3B/mile to expand a single train line a few stops further north.

> The MTA estimates they can put in platform doors like other developed world cities in only 1/3 of stations, at an average cost of $50M/station.

> We spent something close to $10B building an entire new terminal for LIRR

I'd love to see the itemized bills that add up to these values. We all know this isn't what labor and materials cost. Defenders will say "oh, it pays for environmental studies, and lawyers, and consultants..." OK, itemize those too. Let everyone see the numbers for everything and that it adds up to $10B without $7B mysteriously disappearing, un-accounted for.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#396

Post by welshwelsh »

brailsafe wrote: post #175
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #167

Hopefully this money goes to policing the subway too, people have a lot of valid safety concerns leading them to take their car or a cab. In India, you have to pass through a metal detector to ride the metro. It seems like in US, we are trending towards needing to do the same thing.

I would assume you're right in NYC, but I feel like this claim is made A LOT to sort of excuse car driving in many cities with different degrees of transit availability and threat risk. I feel like most of the time it's more accurate to say "people fear for their safety" rather than that their concerns are actually valid. Fear can be driven by only a few extreme examples that get a lot of coverage, meanwhile a lot of…

Violent crime might be rare, but unpleasant interactions with strangers are common.

Panhandling, for example, can make people feel unsafe. You can never be sure how a person will react if you say no. It's illegal to panhandle on the subway, but still happens all the time.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#397

Post by master_crab »

steveBK123 wrote: post #388
master_crab wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Asking for truck-only transit routes does not necessitate a 6-lane BQE.

But that’s a good first step. Lot’s of other Moses era boondoggles also need to be re-imagined

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#398

Post by steveBK123 »

markdown wrote: post #370
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 have subway lines & trains wired up for 1 man operation but run them staffed with 2 due to union work rules. It's a city of 8M people. What's the difference between 1 and 2 here, really?

The inability to find efficiencies is what leads to ever spiraling costs.

And further we have worst of both worlds. We paid for tech infrastructure costs to support lower staffing but are still paying for all the full staffing.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#399

Post by nimbleplum40 »

cyberax wrote: post #387
nimbleplum40 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s what a subsidy is my dude. The money obviously has to come from _somewhere_.

Are you saying that if taxes pay for transit then transit isn’t subsidized?

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#400

Post by woodruffw »

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…

> 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.

Nixing the Staten Island tunnel is a pretty bad one[1]: you could argue, not unrealistically, that Staten Island would be a far denser and better integrated borough with mass transit access had that project gone through.

As a native UWSer, I'd also argue that the Henry Hudson Parkway was a pretty bad call on his part: it was an "obvious" highway to build, but it more or less permanently froze the expansion of a major rail line underneath it (the West Side Line) and means that one of the most beautiful parks in the city is semi-separated from the neighborhoods that are closest to it.

Moses' legacy can also be measured in part by the graveyard of projects that were too obscene even for his own time: his desire to build a bridge and highway over Battery Park, for example, or to divide Washington Square Park with an expressway.

Edit: I didn't even mention the CBE; Moses is arguably directly responsible for the generations of economic and environmental blight that accompanied that particular highway.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/nyregion/staten-island-su...

Post reply on HN