61–70 of 113 posts
It’s sad but the US peaked sometime in the last 30-40 years. NY is the only semi-functioning metro system in the whole country and it will likely crumble in the next few decades unless something on the order of the New Deal is enacted.
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Nonsense. People don’t want people driving into their cities and making noise/ taking up a bunch of space with their cars. We have zero problems with people taking transit in. Suburban residents want to treat the city as both a low density car friendly space and a place filled with culture/concerts/plays/restaurants, not realizing that the two are opposites.
Except that taking transit in, especially for an evening event, is often not a reasonable option. I'll happily take commuter rail in if I have to go into our urban office for the day but it's utterly unworkable for an evening event given how few trains there are and how long they take. And this is a city (Boston/Cambridge) with relatively good transit options. If driving in for the evening became any more difficult t…
Of course we won't get that until the 2050s at best...
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Which way would that be?
One priority would have to be getting the NY state government out of the city’s public transportation organizations. Right now, everything is subject to state politics because the state controls the MTA. Another would be making motorized individual methods of transit more and more painful and expanding bicycle/pedestrian infrastructure (this is often two birds with one stone). This will get the public to support poli…
But we're installing elevators everywhere and making all stations accessible, and that, plus the ridiculous running of trains overnight, are priorities.
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Voters don't seem to vote in ways that are consistent with improving subway building functionality.
The problem is that NYC doesn't control the MTA: it was taken under state control back in 1968. And the governor has too many other issues on his/her plate to care enough to give the agency the top-to-bottom revamp it desperately needs. No one gets elected governor of the whole state of NY by campaigning on 'I'll fix NYC's subways' as a message, and indeed some of the more recent governors (Pataki, A. Cuomo) seemed t…
New York voters are increasingly anti development. The only thing that protects it from going San Francisco is (a) Manhattan is joint to the other boroughs and (b) developers existing as a voting and lobbying constituency to counterbalance NIMBY homeowners and misguided tenants. Much of e.g. the Second Avenue subway’s delays were due to community roadblocks, not Albany.
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Indeed, parts of East Side Access cost $1 million per foot. https://www.ocregister.com/2015/11/04/tunnel-to-grand-centra...
… and it’s made commutes worse for almost everyone. Imagine spending that much money and that many years and ending up with a net negative.
How?
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Nonsense. People don’t want people driving into their cities and making noise/ taking up a bunch of space with their cars. We have zero problems with people taking transit in. Suburban residents want to treat the city as both a low density car friendly space and a place filled with culture/concerts/plays/restaurants, not realizing that the two are opposites.
Except that taking transit in, especially for an evening event, is often not a reasonable option. I'll happily take commuter rail in if I have to go into our urban office for the day but it's utterly unworkable for an evening event given how few trains there are and how long they take. And this is a city (Boston/Cambridge) with relatively good transit options. If driving in for the evening became any more difficult t…
If it’s that much of a hassle, for most entertainment one commutes into Manhattan for, you are fine paying the toll on an Uber. People driving themselves in and sensitive to the toll are, by definition, not adding much to the local economy.
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We just need another Robert Moses /s
We need another Giuliani (90s Giuliani, not what he's become).
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Except that taking transit in, especially for an evening event, is often not a reasonable option. I'll happily take commuter rail in if I have to go into our urban office for the day but it's utterly unworkable for an evening event given how few trains there are and how long they take. And this is a city (Boston/Cambridge) with relatively good transit options. If driving in for the evening became any more difficult t…
> taking transit in, especially for an evening event, is often not a reasonable option If it’s that much of a hassle, for most entertainment one commutes into Manhattan for, you are fine paying the toll on an Uber. People driving themselves in and sensitive to the toll are, by definition, not adding much to the local economy.
(And I'm not sure from a driving in perspective what's actually been gained relative to me taking my own car in and parking in a garage which is what I usually do.)
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Tourists don't drive in Manhattan and businesses there don't rely on vehicle traffic. And delivery vehicles are not charged as far as I am aware in the current proposal. The people who will suffer the most are people who drive in for work and suburban families that drive in for weekend day trips. The latter can afford to pay for the privilege. The former tends to be people under-served by transit, which is unfortunat…
> The people who will suffer the most are people who drive in for work and suburban families that drive in for weekend day trips. The latter can afford to pay for the privilege. The former tends to be people under-served by transit It's even less of a problem than you think. The people who drive in for work are rich executives and lawyers etc. who can afford to park in Manhattan. Not maids or baristas. They're not un…