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New York City will charge drivers going downtown

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661–670 of 700 posts

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As does Nuremberg U3!

One line in Paris, 2 in Toulouse, Lyon, it’s even more funny that it was built in the 1991 without drivers, truely futuristic.

Two lines in Paris, soon to be six.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pros and cons for cotton bags: Pros: Never spills my groceries onto the sidewalk when I'm walking home. Looks nice. Cons: The CO2 emissions of producing... one square yard of cotton cloth. (Btw, how many pairs of pants do you own? Probably more than you need, I bet.) Yeah, looks like I'll be sticking with my cotton bag.

You do you. Just don't try to force people through legislation to adopt your style. Nobody wants to ban your cotton bag.

> Nobody wants to ban your cotton bag.

Really? Well that's good to hear. Because earlier it seemed like you were agitating against cotton bags with remarks about their 10000x CO2 emissions and remarks like "god forbid reusable cotton bags". So you see, I get a little defense of my bags.

I know your anti-cotton remarks are not themselves proposals for legislative bans, but online agitation about an idea is how many such bans start. E.g. the plastic straw bans started as people making a big deal online about turtles getting straws stuck in them. So please understand, when you start using such strong rhetoric against cotton bags, I see fit to defend them.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#663
post #87
post #11

I’m a fan of charging market efficient rates for shared goods. The congestion situation in the Holland Tunnel is awful and bleeds out into various streets of Manhattan as well. The cost of sitting in crawling traffic with aggressive drivers cutting around is probably much more than an extra $20.

> I’m a fan of charging market efficient rates for shared goods. Are you a fan of charging market rates for transit as well?

Sure. Let's make sure we account for all the negative follow-on effects from personal car ownership including wasted space from parking, pollution, etc etc. Also account all the positive effects from transit - less wasted space for parking, less pollution, etc etc.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)…

> Densificatoin causes enshittification spiral.

This is not a real thing. Please refer to factual, verifiable phenomena and not imaginings.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The West Lothian Question is "why can Scots vote on English laws but not vice-versa?", which wasn't true at the time it was asked (1977), and especially isn't true now. Firstly, note that all constituent countries elect MPs to the UK's Westminster parliament, because there are many laws that affect the entire country, and are controlled centrally. Between 1707 and 1997 (20 years _after_ asking the questio…

>The main part of the West Lothian question, which is where there are sometimes laws that _exclusively_ affect England and Wales, why do Scottish MPs get to vote on them?, was handled by the Scottish MPs voluntarily not voting on them. They managed to do this for centuries without any formal process. Did they? Wikipedia says this: > In establishing foundation hospitals and increasing student tuition fees in England,…

While Wikipedia does note that, I'd say those are two pretty rare examples of shenanigans out of several centuries of daily politicking.

In another case of shenanigans, it's an established procedure that if you can't physically turn up to the HoC to give your vote, you find an opponent and pair off with them, they abstain in order to give the equivalent outcome of you turning up to vote. What if they go back on their promise and vote anyway? It happened: https://theconversation.com/pairing-and-why-it-matters-in-th... - has anything been done about it? Not really.

The politics of Westminster are not in the habit of looking at every infraction and locking down process tightly. If Scottish MPs habitually voted on English-only legislation, and if it affected the outcome (which is very rare indeed as there are only 59 Scottish MPs versus 533 English MPs), there would be more concern, but as they generally don't and it generally doesn't, the formal process giving English MPs a veto on English-only legislation only lasted 5 years out of the past 316.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#666
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except those plumbers are not going to get anywhere faster now because there's pedestrians and bikes everywhere but I digress since it's not relevant. Regardless what you're saying completely ignores my actual objection here. Which is paying for infrastructure through something that you just eliminated.

It’s paying for infrastructure through cost reduction.

> Now let's just remove the way people get about to doing all those things because that would save the government money from spending money on transportation.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#667
post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever visited the 155th station? Maybe you should actually try living in the city before talking. Or maybe Penn station which is next to the biggest methadone clinic in the city. If you think that I'm saying the station is literally covered from floor to ceiling with feces and syringes, then no that's not what I'm saying. But maybe you're just so comfortable with the griminess that it doesn't bother you.

I live in New York City, but no, I haven’t spent time in a random local station near Sugar Hill. Not sure why that would invalidate the rest of my experience. Penn Station is fine. Methadone is taken orally (as a drink) to treat addiction and no syringes are involved, so the methadone clinic wouldn’t have anything to do with syringes in the station.

No matter where you live, the subway elevators always pull double duty as restrooms, and I've never stepped into one without feeling that pungent scent of urine. But hey, you're absolutely right, the subway is just peachy.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But it's an absurd claim to make that this multi-billion dollar operation that carries millions of people isn't doing well because trains have one extra person on each train.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#669

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?

It’s a weird point, I don’t get it.

The argument is basically “NYC is flooded with transit money, but they can’t use it. Oh by the way, why are there 2 sub drivers?”

The issue OP is making is much larger than 1x or 2x on each train.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidence from cities around the world shows that congestion taxes actually do reduce traffic massively. Drivers always say "we have no choice, we have to drive!" Then they get charged a small amount for driving and suddenly many more are able to use public transport.

It’s interesting to me in a free country that you also pay vehicle registration (this is supposed to cover your taxes on road use) that taxes like this are a thing.

Congestion pricing does not interfere with drivers going places other than the city center. They can also still drive to the city center if they value it enough. Deterring people from owning cars altogether, or restricting the spaces and routes drivers can use (in the way cyclists and pedestrians are currently restricted, in this "free" country) would be far more aggressive moves.
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