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43K fewer drivers on Manhattan roads after congestion pricing turned on

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Re: 43K fewer drivers on Manhattan roads after congestion pricing turned on

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are reduced rates people can apply for. Agreed though, I think tolls, traffic tickets, and parking tickets should all be baselined against the KBB value of the car.

With these fancy AI systems, they could read the license plate and see the registered value and go from there. My beef is with gas taxes, for which the $100k electric car owner pays none of and which are highly regressive to poorer ICE car owners. I suggest they should be abolished.

If that AI system looked too close at my car, I'd be worried it would feel obligated to pay me.

Re: 43K fewer drivers on Manhattan roads after congestion pricing turned on

#92
post #47
post #8

When I see things like: > Bus speeds also increased after the tolls were turned on. The Manhattan-bound B39 bus, which crosses the Williamsburg Bridge, ran 28% faster compared to a similar January week last year. Other buses like the SIM24 and and the M50 saw increases in speeds, as well. I wonder how much cherry picking there is. Did they give the B39 because it's the most improved? Or for some other reason (especia…

Not sure if NYC would do the same stunt, but London saw an amazing improvement in traffic flow after congestion charge was introduced. Turned out for several months prior to it they'd been slowly shifting the timing of lights to make things less optimal, and then reverted the day congestion charge went live.

This wouldn’t work in NYC even if they did try because the congestion pricing start date has been moved around a lot, including days before it was supposed to start the last time.

But even more relevant is the fact that people have seen Manhattan gridlock for decades. If they were planning a move like that they would have had to start it in the 1980s at least.

Re: 43K fewer drivers on Manhattan roads after congestion pricing turned on

#93
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god. Didn't they try to do something like this in Mexico City and it resulted in no change? Clever policy is always rife with unintended consequences; prices are good.

This is how China and most Europe does it for their big cities. Identical effectiveness minus the regressivity for the poor. If the city wants to buy more buses they can always send higher tax bills to their residents

Not true. The rich just get extra car with different plates.

Re: 43K fewer drivers on Manhattan roads after congestion pricing turned on

#94

Some numbers don’t make sense here… They’re saying a 7% reduction is 43k cars, which infers 550k daily trips into the city. But they think they can make $500M/year. At $9 per trip, that’s only 150k tolls daily. (500M / 365 / $9). In any case, I’m glad it seems to be working. Congestion pricing has the potential to do a lot of good in this country.

$9 is for personal vehicles.

Cabs get charged per trip with no limit.

Delivery trucks get charged a higher amount and I don’t believe (I’m not sure on this) they have a daily cap, so they can also be charged multiple times.

Re: 43K fewer drivers on Manhattan roads after congestion pricing turned on

#95

Roads in cities are such a waste of space. A long time ago I did a quick survey of SF and found something like 20% of the land was dedicated to cars. Some articles from people here that talk about this [1] [2] [3]. That is the most subsidized land on the planet but people don't think of it that way. They think roads are free so any tax to use them is wrong. That space could be helping out the city in so many ways but…

You’re not incorrect per se, but it’s important to note that deliveries into downtown would be important for it to be a thriving destination for shopping, residential or business. Not to mention space for heavy equipment to come in to do repairs and construction. Minimal maintenance corridors may not be enough. You also need public transit options into it as well as transportation solutions for “out of towners” who d…

>but it’s important to note that deliveries into downtown would be important for it to be a thriving destination for shopping, residential or business. Not to mention space for heavy equipment to come in to do repairs and construction. Minimal maintenance corridors may not be enough.

I used to work at a warehouse, the whole street of warehouses had a street width of at most 10m (30ft) wall-to-wall. People vastly overestimate how much throughput is needed purely for shipping, due to all the passenger cars on the road.

Heavy equipment is also less of an issue than you'd think, because it tends to expand to fit the space it's permitted - like all engineering projects.

Re: 43K fewer drivers on Manhattan roads after congestion pricing turned on

#97
post #63

Roads in cities are such a waste of space. A long time ago I did a quick survey of SF and found something like 20% of the land was dedicated to cars. Some articles from people here that talk about this [1] [2] [3]. That is the most subsidized land on the planet but people don't think of it that way. They think roads are free so any tax to use them is wrong. That space could be helping out the city in so many ways but…

How do you propose we handle logistics or emergency vehicles? I’m all for more walkable cities but rip them all up and replace them with what? Rails which are more expensive and less flexible? Pneumatic tube? Even if you switched to single person cargo bikes you would still want dedicated areas for vehicles versus pedestrians.

This problem has been solved by equipment designed for narrower roads. It is not a hard problem to solve and cities like this have been around a very long time.

There are literally solutions to every issue you bring up that are already on the market.

Re: 43K fewer drivers on Manhattan roads after congestion pricing turned on

#99
post #63

Roads in cities are such a waste of space. A long time ago I did a quick survey of SF and found something like 20% of the land was dedicated to cars. Some articles from people here that talk about this [1] [2] [3]. That is the most subsidized land on the planet but people don't think of it that way. They think roads are free so any tax to use them is wrong. That space could be helping out the city in so many ways but…

How do you propose we handle logistics or emergency vehicles? I’m all for more walkable cities but rip them all up and replace them with what? Rails which are more expensive and less flexible? Pneumatic tube? Even if you switched to single person cargo bikes you would still want dedicated areas for vehicles versus pedestrians.

See pedestrian first roads in the NL. There are bigger and more complicated cities that have done these things and became the better for it.
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