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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

#611

Post by cyberax »

nayuki wrote: post #526
cyberax wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you trying to say that these people wouldn't already exist without the bus? No. They would be doing other productive things. But right now, they have to spend their productive power on driving buses. This is simply a huge waste of human potential.

And individual people driving themselves is not a waste of human potential?

Nope. Because cars _save_ _time_.

Car commutes are shorter than transit commutes in well-designed cities.

But even otherwise, you don't need a dedicated full-time driver.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#612

Post by cyberax »

mastersummoner wrote: post #560
cyberax wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you trying to say that these people wouldn't already exist without the bus? No. They would be doing other productive things. But right now, they have to spend their productive power on driving buses. This is simply a huge waste of human potential.

Why not plan ~ten years ahead and expect these buses to be self driving then?

Do a mental experiment. Suppose that you have technology that can make buses drive themselves.

First, you want to solve the problem of long bus intervals. It's still not economic to just buy more buses because they require a lot of power to run and do tons of road damage.

But you can make buses smaller! And by making them smaller, you can run them faster without incurring a lot of useless overhead.

Heck, you can just idle, dare I say _park_, these unused small buses when there is no demand. And since it's so easy to manage the fleet this way, you can make personalized buses for every passenger.

Hmm... It really reminds me of something...

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#613

Post by klipt »

cyberax wrote: post #302
klipt wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

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

Is everyone who owns land a "slumlord" now?

It's well studied that transit generates huge economic value, but that value mostly manifests as increased land value near the stations.

So why shouldn't that value - created by transit - be credited to the transit that created it?

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#614

Post by steveBK123 »

closeparen wrote: post #610
philwelch wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d go a little further than that. If you enact a Pigovian tax (i.e. a tax intended to reduce some unwanted behavior), there’s a conflict of interest in relying on that revenue for anything because then there is an incentive to try and keep the tax rates lower in order to protect the revenue source.

Exactly. ”A tax on drivers” as the parent put it is actually a failure scenario here. Everybody gets low-grade immiserated by the tax but congestion is not reduced enough to improve quality of life.

My general concern with the whole thing is it's basically not thinking BIG enough.

We're gonna raise the cost of driving into the city so that we have less people drive into the city and then.... ?! and then.. !?

Presumably that will put more load on transit infrastructure that is under built and 10x reasonable cost to build. We can fund transit but we can't build it.

The MTA has already borrowed 15 years of projected congestion pricing revenue with the revenue as collateral. Great, so what does $15B get us?

If we want less drivers why don't we go HARD - announce one of the Hudson tunnels will now be 100% bus. Or we are going to retrofit it for a new train line. Or a new Brooklyn/Queens North/South line for less Manhattan oriented transit?

Even our most ambitious 20 year plans are like "maybe we can finally finish more of the 2nd ave line / prevent the Hudson tubes from flooding / add one more Hudson tube" and that's basically it for the entire city. If you don't live in NJ or the east side of Manhattan, too bad, no new transit for you.

The scale of transit investment you see in say London or Tokyo should make every NYer embarrassed and radicalize you on permitting/environmental study shenanigans/cost management/everyone having a veto on building anything.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#615

Post by comte7092 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #547
comte7092 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren’t talking about infrastructure in general though, we are talking about a relatively small area in Manhattan.

At least one of the entry points to that relatively small area is a border crossing between NJ and NY, so I think even if the feds don’t own the infrastructure involved (IDK if they do or not), they at least had to sign off on it.

Just because infrastructure crosses a state boundary, doesn’t mean it requires federal sign off.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#616

Post by AmpsterMan »

mikepurvis wrote: post #300
cogman10 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

Honestly though, you see a strong movement, especially on the right, to privatize and have those perks "pay for themselves" all the time. I've been to many state parks that require an entry fee, many city parks that require a parking fee (and are impossible to get to ootherwise). School vouchers are a first step toward full privatization of schooling.

I agree with your sentiment but let's not forget that people have been trying to fence off the commons for ages now.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#617

Post by Spooky23 »

rafram wrote: post #567
Spooky23 wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nobody is driving, why is it congested? New York City is the hub of a region that represents like a quarter of the US population. Like many other regions, you start cutting off the hub and the central business district dies. Commuting is one aspect. Tourism. Business meetings. Medical care. I live in Queens. Getting a family member to MSK for treatment or getting a meeting in the city via public transit is a 4 hou…

> I live in Queens. Getting a family member to MSK for treatment or getting a meeting in the city via public transit is a 4 hour odyssey. I feel like I’m going insane reading this! There is nowhere in Queens that’s more than two hours from midtown Manhattan by public transit, and pretty much everywhere besides Far Rockaway is under an hour. Do you commute by car into Manhattan every single time? Have you ever actuall…

2 + 2 = 4.

Try taking a bus to a train then walking 6-10 blocks with a patient requiring the services of MSK. It’s difficult.

Off-peak, it takes about 20-40 minutes via car.

Commuting to the city for the daily grind is totally different. That’s what everyone thinks about - if you don’t have a conventional schedule or have a need that isn’t daily commute, your needs may be different. There are millions of trips every week like that.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#618

Post by Spooky23 »

Jolter wrote: post #505
Spooky23 wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few ideas: Structure the fares to charge a premium for low volume riders. Work two days a week? Pay for 5. Collect fares. Raise bridge tolls. Drop construction cost drivers. Change liability laws, reduce MWBE requirements, mandated staffing levels, etc. There’s lots of potential areas. Just politically expensive to do.

What problem would you solve by a “drive twice, pay for five” scheme? I think that would incentivize people to drive more, not less.

The same problem that congestion pricing aims to solve - more revenue for the MTA.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#619

Post by Spooky23 »

LeanderK wrote: post #580
Spooky23 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s going to kill the city. It’s just going to push businesses out at a bad time. This doesn’t have anything to do with traffic - it’s a way to try to extract more money for the MTA. Money won’t fix the MTA’s money woes; the unions will just slurp any available cash.

I think it's the other way around. The death of the city is when you see it as dependent on the suburbs, it places transportation and ease of access over quality of life. To see big cities thrive means increasing quality of live so that working remotely and other changes will not mean abandonment, but just an easier life inside the city because it results less traffic and more spaces for people, restaurants, cultural…

Makes sense for Cleveland. NYC is a different animal. It’s really a conglomeration of cities surrounded by suburbs that are bigger than most US cities.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#620

Post by Spooky23 »

nimbleplum40 wrote: post #479
Spooky23 wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nobody is driving, why is it congested? New York City is the hub of a region that represents like a quarter of the US population. Like many other regions, you start cutting off the hub and the central business district dies. Commuting is one aspect. Tourism. Business meetings. Medical care. I live in Queens. Getting a family member to MSK for treatment or getting a meeting in the city via public transit is a 4 hou…

I’m not saying “no one is driving.” Clearly they are or there wouldn’t be such horrible gridlock in lower Manhattan. I’m just very skeptical of the claim that congestion pricing in one of the densest urban environments in the world will “kill the city.” I work in lower manhattan (in a high-income field). I don’t know of a single coworker that drives into work. Most of my friends also work in lower Manhattan. None of…

So you never use cabs or Uber?

My point is, which is definitely not being expressed well by me is that that are millions of exceptions and cost/convenience escalations that are going to impact lots of people and increase the friction and hassle of the place.

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