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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

#401

Post by nimbleplum40 »

cyberax wrote: post #373
nimbleplum40 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have citations for those numbers? They don’t match what I’ve heard in the past so I’m curious to learn more. Also, everything about density in relation to quality of life is pretty subjective. Luckily, we have cities for both! You’re free to live in Houston while those of us that prefer dense urban environments can live in New York and take transit.

> Do you have citations for those numbers? Road wear scales as 4-th power of axle weight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law The average loads: https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/mobility/perso... The CO2 impact by transport mode: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint Nothing I'm saying is controversial. Heck, even urbanists admit that, they just try to avoid talking about it. > Al…

Thanks for the links, I’ll read through them when I get a chance.

And feel free to argue about keeping Seattle the way it is. I have no interest in changing Seattle. Just leave my Manhattan out of it :)

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#403

Post by brewdad »

ryandrake wrote: post #395
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 wha…

As a public agency, are these numbers not available? If not, why?

I wouldn’t expect them to buy a special section in The NY Times to publish them to the world but surely the numbers are available to someone willing to put in a little work to find them.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#405

Post by wldcordeiro »

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 just caved (again) entirely to the transit unions in the last contract negotiation. We have subway lines & trains wired up for 1 man operation but run them staffed with 2 due to union work rules.

I don't think this is a good point to make when we've literally had several disastrous derailments thanks to poor regulations and rules around safety and train companies attacking unions. The transit unions are absolutely right to demand 2 workers for fail safes, "efficiency" isn't the be-all-end-all goal especially when you're talking about trains full of people who could die in an accident.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#406

Post by woodruffw »

brewdad wrote: post #403
ryandrake wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wha…

As a public agency, are these numbers not available? If not, why? I wouldn’t expect them to buy a special section in The NY Times to publish them to the world but surely the numbers are available to someone willing to put in a little work to find them.

The MTA is a state (not city) authority, not an agency. It's effectively a quasi-private corporation[1] with board members who are appointed by elected officials, with special carveouts that allow them to be less transparent than an equivalent agency would be.

The use of authorities in NY law is pretty old, but Robert Moses was the one responsible for really widely encouraging their use; it wouldn't be unreasonable to argue that the MTA's culture of secrecy and opacity is largely a product of Moses' own power plays.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_state_public-benefit_...

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#407

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jrockway wrote: post #313
mikepurvis wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The weirdness of the obsession is even stranger when you compare it to basically any other public service. Like, are schools supposed to pay for themselves? Airports? City infrastructure like streets, parks, and rec centers? The military? No, of course not. All of these things are essentials for the which the benefits are felt across the economy, but those benefits are far too diffuse to be individually tallied up an…

I've heard an argument that schools are supposed to pay for themselves. The idea is that people who go to school end up in a higher tax bracket, so it's an investment, not merely public good. Similar arguments are made for parks and recreation; more open space, less noise, so less stress-induced heart attacks, which means more years being a taxpayer. I think this is a toxic way of thinking of things, but I guess it a…

But then you can make the same argument about transit. It facilitates people coming into the city to engage in taxable activities.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#408

Post by USB5 »

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…

[dead]

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#409

Post by USB5 »

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…

Moses' career only existed to serve specific class interests. If Moses had pursued imroving public transit, he would have been out of a job.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#410

Post by steveBK123 »

wldcordeiro wrote: post #405
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 just caved (again) entirely to the transit unions in the last contract negotiation. We have subway lines & trains wired up for 1 man operation but run them staffed with 2 due to union work rules. I don't think this is a good point to make when we've literally had several disastrous derailments thanks to poor regulations and rules around safety and train companies attacking unions. The transit unions are absolute…

They are not redundant and fail safe. One sits at the front & controls the driving. The other sits in the middle of train, 5 cars back & controls doors.

Nothing about having the two of them creates redundancy.

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