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Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

nytimes.com

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Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#261

Post by tetromino_ »

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…

> As someone with children, I can not imagine the bliss of living in Manhattan and being able to do things without needing a car.

Lifting a 2 toddler stroller up and down narrow, crowded NYC subway stairs is the exact opposite of bliss. Perhaps you are unaware that many subway stations still don't have elevators (or escalators, for that matter) - only stairs. And where the elevators exist, it seems half the time they are out of order...

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#262

Post by seanmcdirmid »

fallingknife wrote: post #255
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is going to reap more benefits from self driving cars, but they also have (in many cities at least) mass transit in place to truly do multi-modal trips (self driving cars at the end tips of subway rides). The problem with self driving cars is that they can only optimize road bandwidth a bit more than they are now (and even then, only if you outlaw human drivers), they aren’t a magical shortcut to increasing ban…

The multi-modal hassle is why cars are so popular in the first place.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. I just got back from Beijing and long journeys across the city in a taxi...they aren't really feasible. Yes, comfortable, but no, the traffic is still really really bad. Subway is much quicker, but the routes are often indirect and require one or two changes, but at least you know you'll get where you need to go.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#263

Post by bobthepanda »

scuol wrote: post #211
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, w…

s/strategic/wealthy/ I agree there are places in Seattle one can do this, but boy one certainly needs the paper to do this.

Seattle is weird in that drive til you qualify is not a thing unless you start getting really far out. Some inner ring neighborhoods and suburbs are comparable or more expensive than the core.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#264

Post by seanmcdirmid »

scuol wrote: post #211
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, w…

s/strategic/wealthy/ I agree there are places in Seattle one can do this, but boy one certainly needs the paper to do this.

You make a tradeoff. You are still going to plop down $1 million for a home unless you live way out there, but instead of a 2000 foot SFH in Bothell or Lynwood, you make do with a 1250 foot townhome in Ballard (same price, less property taxes, more urban). Ballard isn't exactly Capitol Hill or Queen Anne either (we thought about Magnolia just across the locks, but it made me think that I would at least need an electric cargo bike to make most days work without a car).

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#265

Post by epistasis »

mancerayder wrote: post #250
epistasis wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Oof. I know people with kids in the city, and it seems like if you're taking public transit, it's a nightmare when they're little. (When they're teenagers who knows, you have new problems) People who live outside of Manhattan have more space and sometimes the optional car. The professionals are paying an absolute fortune for child care, a salary's worth, and more for bigger apartments in nice neighborhoods. It's no j…

My little kids looove transit. We take the bus all the time in my small town. We visit San Francisco almost weekly it's how we get around after parking. And we usually start our day in SOMA, an area that is not the nicest. We also frequently take the new central subway. I have not experienced a nightmare yet. Maybe Manhattan is more of a nightmare.

I have no doubt that Manhattan is expensive, but my greater point is that it would be great. A lot of very expensive things are great.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#266

Post by SchemaLoad »

mplanchard wrote: post #183
jmclnx wrote: post #8

Seems to be working fine, I know the large city about 60 miles from me looked at this, and I am all for it. But its mass transit is a awful mess, at times walking is faster that taking a subway. I wish they would start this, but its politics is such a mess nothing really gets done there. New Ideas there gets implemented far slower than then ideas in Roman Catholic Church.

Transit always seems to be kind of a chicken and egg problem. You can’t have good transit unless you have good ridership, and you can’t have good ridership if you don’t have good transit. Everywhere I know of in the US with decent transit already had it before the culture of car dominance really took hold, so it was already good enough to maintain sufficient ridership to stay good. Does anyone know of anywhere that m…

That's not true. You just have to have competent leadership. You can build the infrastructure first knowing people will use it when it's done.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#267

Post by nradov »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #253
nradov wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars aren't nearly as loud as sirens and garbage trucks. Whenever I stay in a dense city those tend to keep me up at night.

Without cars, emergency vehicles could have their sirens at 10% of the volume. Garbage trucks and busses are slowly being replaced by electric versions which are much quieter.

Electric garbage trucks aren't much quieter. I've heard them. Most of the noise comes from the machinery and the reverse beeping, not the engines.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#268

Post by bitfilped »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #239
ackfoobar wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how the urban design forcing poor people to pay car insurance and auto loan, just to survive, is fine; yet charging a hundred or so to use the highly valuable space in the city is outrageous. Concern about public order is fair. But instead of fighting for the privilege to avoid it cheaply, why not fight to actually fix it. Triple the prison population, or whatever your solution is.

Japan has a 99% conviction rate, and still has 56% of women reporting having been groped on transit. This cannot be solved. To force women on transit is to flip a coin whether they will be assaulted. You’re not going to beat a car culture with that strategy. I heavily doubt that New York City has the appetite for incarceration that would be necessary, for even a remote chance, to turn public transit into a merely neu…

Japan is not NY and arguments based on sociatal/cultural behavior don't apply universally. Do you personally use these scary subway systems in the US that you have so many stats about?

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#269

Post by bluGill »

tetromino_ wrote: post #261
epistasis wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> As someone with children, I can not imagine the bliss of living in Manhattan and being able to do things without needing a car. Lifting a 2 toddler stroller up and down narrow, crowded NYC subway stairs is the exact opposite of bliss. Perhaps you are unaware that many subway stations still don't have elevators (or escalators, for that matter) - only stairs. And where the elevators exist, it seems half the time they…

The nyc subway is incompetent at building and has been for decades. But since nobody cares they get buy with ignoring disability and calling it hard even though cities around the world with things just as hard have managed. Those other cities have also done subway expantion is much harder situations at far less cost.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#270

Post by mancerayder »

mplanchard wrote: post #187
oceanplexian wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If public transit even remotely resembled anything in China or Japan, Americans would ditch their cars in a heartbeat. But every train ride I've been on to Manhattan is like commuting through an open sewer while being harassed by strangers doing an obnoxious dance with a bluetooth speaker in my face, dodging puddles of urine, and wondering if today's the day I'll be thrown off the platform. Of course people would rat…

I’ve taken the train a lot in and around NYC, including a ton of subway trips. While the experience you’re describing is certainly not so rare as to be nonexistent, it’s also far from the norm. The large, large majority of subway rides I’ve taken (99% at least) were complete non-events. Perhaps you’re unlucky?

That imagery isn't the norm, but there are dozens of annoying behaviors, smells and experiences on the subway that make the daily grind an RPG dice roll in terms of if it's not a new story you'll be telling.
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