Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 735 posts

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#171

Post by jasonfarnon »

woodruffw wrote: post #109
listenallyall wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the slippery slope concept surprise you? It actually happens often - banning smoking indoors, for example - started in just one city, once they tweaked the model and overcame the legal challenges, it spread rather quickly. Legalized casinos, same thing. Uber, drinking age, pot legalization, more. Why would toll roads or congestion pricing be different? (Idaho's Sun Valley probably already implements somethin…

These would be examples of normalization, not a slippery slope. The OP's example makes this clear (from "congestion pricing in NYC" to "they're going to take my car," not "congestion pricing in NYC" to "congestion pricing elsewhere"). (Regardless, I think the answer is simple: congestion pricing is only economically viable when an area is simultaneously congested and has alternative transportation methods that would…

"normalization, not a slippery slope"

Sounds like an arbitrary distinction, but in any event, it was the OP who used "slippery slope" to refer to going from "congestion pricing in NYC" to "they're going to take my car."

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#172

Post by jwagenet »

potato3732842 wrote: post #141
jmyeet wrote: post #33

I was living in London when congestion pricing was introduced and went into the West End the day before and the first day of and the difference was night and day. The difference along Oxford Street, Regent's Street, Green Street, etc was astounding. And in the 20+ years the evidence seems to back up how much of a net positive it has been. NYC congestion pricing took way too long because the New York Democratic Party…

I'm fundamentally against any measure that intentionally increases the cost at use of any form of transportation service whatsoever. Public transit? Free. Gas tax? Kill it. I grew up on a goddamn island, I've seen what an inability for people to travel easily or when the cost of doing so has to be seriously weighed does to an economy and it's not good for anyone or anything except a very select lucky few who are well…

I’m in the side of transit should be free, but as I understand it, the fare is often a pretense to more easily enforce problematic behavior on the train. Fare evasion and other antisocial behavior often come together.

California has quite the gas tax, but it seems to do little to change behavior. Likely because the alternatives to driving are generally not great, but rolling the taxes back shouldn’t be the solution.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#173

Post by seanmcdirmid »

epistasis wrote: post #137
timewizard wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you have children or did you live alone?

As someone with children, I can not imagine the bliss of living in Manhattan and being able to do things without needing a car. Car-centric urban planning is hell with kids. You have to load them up into the car for any small trip. You can't walk or bike anywhere because cars make it so dangerous. My only regret about living in the US is this car hellscape that is so hard to avoid. It's mandated by law, not chosen by…

You can live in an urban neighborhood and only use your car a few times a week (mostly on weekends and for yearly kid doctor visits). Its not just Manhattan, Seattle supports this as well (well, you still "need" a car, but you can get away with not driving it very often). You need to be strategic about where you live (e.g. buying the house 7 minutes away from your kid's K-8 and 10 minutes away from his future 9-12, with grocery stores and dentists nearby).

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#174

Post by mathgeek »

crote wrote: post #115
SoftTalker wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremes rarely work out well. The people paying for the luxury are funding improvements for everyone.

It works really well in quite a few other cities, actually. Car infrastructure takes up a huge amount of space and is incredibly hostile to any kind of mixed use. Having near-zero cars means there is suddenly space available for an order of magnitude more pedestrians. It's why reducing car traffic almost always results in a significant increase in revenue for local shops and restaurants - which means more taxes are b…

> Converting all of NYC into a huge pedestrian-only zone obviously isn't going to work

The dreamer in me immediately asks “why not?” and while I agree it will never happen, it felt good to imagine it.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#176

Post by woodruffw »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #171
woodruffw wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These would be examples of normalization, not a slippery slope. The OP's example makes this clear (from "congestion pricing in NYC" to "they're going to take my car," not "congestion pricing in NYC" to "congestion pricing elsewhere"). (Regardless, I think the answer is simple: congestion pricing is only economically viable when an area is simultaneously congested and has alternative transportation methods that would…

"normalization, not a slippery slope" Sounds like an arbitrary distinction, but in any event, it was the OP who used "slippery slope" to refer to going from "congestion pricing in NYC" to "they're going to take my car."

The distinction is important: a change in a law isn’t always a slippery slope towards other things. Implementing congestion pricing isn’t a slippery slope towards seizing peoples’ cars, which was GP’s point (which I agree with).

To make it obvious: universal suffrage is a change that happened, but it wasn’t a slippery slope towards giving dogs the right to vote. Some changes result in new stases.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#177

Post by autoexec »

zzzbra wrote: post #151
graeme wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time is a cost though. You're looking only at monetary cost.

This is precisely the reasoning I bring up. In essence traffic congestion is an externality not unlike pollution. What society now pays in the form of a financial levy it formerly paid in the form of a wasted time. We've made explicit a cost that was already there, and by doing so the system can respond to it and behave more intelligently.

> What society now pays in the form of a financial levy it formerly paid in the form of a wasted time.

Where it gets to be a problem is when instead of spending 40 minutes to get somewhere because of time stuck in traffic many people become priced out of driving and now have to spend 1.5 hours on public transportation to make the same trip. The cost of wasted time in this specific case might not be as extreme, but as more public roads are paywalled off around the country I expect we'll see more people forced to use inadequate public transportation suffer.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#179

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

zahlman wrote: post #164
bunderbunder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example of the "force of habit" factor: Every time my mom comes to visit us in the city, at some point she says she could never live here because she couldn't imagine having to drive in city traffic every day. And every time she does that, I remind her that her car hasn't moved even once since she first arrived a week ago. Mostly we walk everywhere. And every time she responds, "Oh, you're right. You know, that's bee…

>She's lived in suburban and rural areas her entire life. The idea that she simply has to get in a car to go anywhere is so ingrained into her psyche that even a solid week of not driving is insufficient to dislodge it. I'm in a suburban area. When I was a child, I got driven everywhere - until I was old enough to take public transit by myself. I'm about to walk ~3km (2mi) each way to a grocery store, something I do…

1. Possibly reasons like this: https://archive.is/tjdZ2 ... to save you the click, the title/subtitle reads:

> When Getting Out of Jail Means a Deadly Walk Home > Nearly every day in Santa Fe, N.M., people released from jail trudge along a dangerous highway to get back to town. Jails often fail to offer safe transport options for prisoners.

2. You must have a preference for walking, since a bicycle would be at least 3x and as much as 10x faster than walking.

3. The thousands of dollar number seems misleading. If you bought a car solely for this purpose, yes, I believe you're right. But that seems unlikely. The actual marginal cost of using a car you already owned for this purpose is on the order of $3-500.

I commend and support what you do (though I prefer to use my bike when I can). But I don't think the financial benefits should be overstated. There are, of course, other benefits.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#180

Post by CGamesPlay »

tantalor wrote: post #150
philipallstar wrote: post #9

The increased speeds are excellent for those who can afford the toll. This is a universal benefit of toll roads for those people.

"universal for x" is a weird thing to say

I think it's meant to be interpreted as, "among all Y, X is true". And Y is meant to be "toll roads".
Post reply on HN