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

gothamist.com

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

#131

Post by tacticus »

vlovich123 wrote: post #56
jmward01 wrote: post #38

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…

> It can be an easier and more politically popular idea to just use streets to solve this problem at the individual level even if less efficient rather than requiring efficient central management planning by the government.

So how many 40 lane roads are you going to build instead of single train lines?

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

#132

Post by wongarsu »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #122
wongarsu wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In any city that isn't hopelessly car-dependent there is some kind of rail to bring in commuters. A subway, tram, light rail, passenger rail, often a combination of all of them. Once you have a stable system to bring in commuters, adding a couple parking lots to stops on the outskirts for "out of towners" is pretty easy. The rest is just about not removing all the streets. You also need enough roads for emergency veh…

One-lane road in a city means any car can block the whole road. So if an ambulance needs this road to save you, you're out of luck.

Prohibit on-street parking on at least one side of the road, make the side walk on that side big enough that an ambulance can use it to pass other vehicles if the road is blocked (I'll skip the question of why the street is blocked in the first place). Actually enforce the parking restriction.

You need space for pedestrians anyways, and with traffic restricted to the necessary minimum you don't need bollards everywhere

This isn't some kind of rocket science that has never been tried before, it's the reality in many cities around the world. You need an entire concept instead of adding half-backed solutions to an existing system, but the solutions are all well-tried and for the most part very straight forward.

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

#133

Post by wat10000 »

steele wrote: post #129
Qwertious wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abolish free parking, and raise prices on the parking meter until the parking spots are only ~80% occupied (if they're less than 80% occupied, lower the price). If there's not enough parking, let the market fix that problem - if private parking lots are profitable use of land, then people will build them. But people will never be satisfied with private parking lots if they could have used free public parking instead…

Any other innovative ways to disproportionately tax the wage class?

Charging money for services is “innovative”? I know the hacker set likes to reinvent other industries and call it new, but this is rather extreme.

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

#135

Post by shiroiushi »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #116
ekianjo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downtown only exists in the first place because roads go there. You know the old saying? All roads lead to Rome. Cities concentrate people and need a lot of resources to be sustainable, and roads are what bring these resources.

That’s just pure nonsense. Have you been to, like, any major non-American city? People just take public transit, or walk, or, live in downtown

This entire comment section is simultaneously hilarious and sad to read, because it's obviously a bunch of myopic Americans who have never ventured outside of America and have no clue how other cities in the world work. Honestly I try to avoid commenting in forums like this because it's so fruitless: it's just like trying to have a rational discussion about vaccines (or anything really) with a bunch of Trump followers.

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

#136

Post by fooker »

wat10000 wrote: post #130
fooker wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tokyo barely makes it into the top hundred by population density. Also yes, for most large cities you can find news articles about people dying in fires or because of an ambulance getting delayed.

Funny how you don’t see articles about people dying in fires because they live on a suburb that’s 10% as dense as it should be and so the fire station is 3x farther away than it should be. No real surprise, though. People love stories where you can point to a few people and say, they’re the ones who did this. It’s much less fun when it’s systemic and no one person or group can be blamed.

As a rule of thumb, you can't design anything trying to account for black swan events.

Optimizing for the regular, daily use case is hard enough.

It would help to think of this as a smart but random person reading about a security issue like spectre and offering you software design advice. Common sense arguments are only useful to an extent, the devil is in the details.

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

#137

Post by lostdog »

dottjt wrote: post #40

I think an issue with this kind of policy (not necessarily in Manhattan) but in other cities is that often there is no alternative other than to drive to the city. For example, my partner needs radiation for her cancer and the hospital is located in the city. There is no other option than to drive. I feel like this type of policy negatively affects people in this situation, with no other alternative.

A $9 congestion charge is probably a huge help to you. For just $9 per visit, you get much lower traffic and easier parking. Your very high priority trip is easier because lots of lower priority trips either didn't happen, or used transit instead.

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

#138

Post by wat10000 »

ekianjo wrote: post #76
jmward01 wrote: post #38

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…

Downtown only exists in the first place because roads go there. You know the old saying? All roads lead to Rome. Cities concentrate people and need a lot of resources to be sustainable, and roads are what bring these resources.

Giant American roads mostly don’t bring those resources. They bring vehicles passing through, they bring vehicles filled to 20% or less of their capacity, and they bring street parking, one of the most inefficient uses of land imaginable in a downtown area.

Look at what’s needed to bring those resources and people, only those, and you need far less than what American cities have.

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

#139

Post by meandave »

I live at a _very_ loud and busy intersection in downtown manhattan, it's usually gridlocked every day from 4pm - 7pm at least. That hasn't happened once since congestion pricing kicked in (I'm enjoying the relative quiet, but I do sort of miss the chaos). The first two days, everything was covered in snow down here. I wonder how much this will hold up into summertime.

As an unrelated aside a new bmw sedan driving the wrong way on mulberry street intentionally ran into me at a crosswalk today. So don't let your guard down lol

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

#140

Post by wat10000 »

shiroiushi wrote: post #135
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s just pure nonsense. Have you been to, like, any major non-American city? People just take public transit, or walk, or, live in downtown

This entire comment section is simultaneously hilarious and sad to read, because it's obviously a bunch of myopic Americans who have never ventured outside of America and have no clue how other cities in the world work. Honestly I try to avoid commenting in forums like this because it's so fruitless: it's just like trying to have a rational discussion about vaccines (or anything really) with a bunch of Trump follower…

What’s funny is that I’m sure most of them know other kinds of cities exist. And they know that people somehow manage to survive and thrive there, even if they don’t know how. But this all gets ignored once you start talking about trying to emulate some of that.

For too many Americans, there’s no difference between “that can’t work,” “that can’t work here,” and “we don’t do that.”

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