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

431–440 of 735 posts

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#431

Post by jfim »

virtualritz wrote: post #399
aynyc wrote: post #271

As a long time NYC resident who moved out during Covid but commute to work in the city. I definitely noticed less traffic on the streets and less noise. I see a lot of talk of other cities that don't have good public transportation. For example, between Flushing in Queens to 8th Ave in Brooklyn, there are privately run buses at affordable rate and get you there at half the time of trains. There are buses from a lot o…

It's curious but unsurprising that privatization of public transport is considered an answer to congestion when existence of good (or great) public transport is the working answer one can find in many places around the world. When I visited NYC two years ago, I was blown away by how unbelievably bad public transport infrastructure is. The most flabbergasting thing was the absence of Metro ring lines around the center…

Part of the reason is that public transit for whatever reason appears to be unusually sketchy in many places in the US. For example, a few years ago, there was an incident with a man with two chainsaws threatening passengers [1] in the local transit system.

In contrast, the transit systems I've seen in Europe and Asia appear well maintained, clean, and relatively safe.

Biking is also safer in European cities that have proper bike infrastructure.

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/man-armed-chainsaw-threatens-bart-r...

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#432

Post by Urahandystar »

literalAardvark wrote: post #403
PaulRobinson wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the UK did this in the 1980s and it’s turned into such a disaster, most mayors and local authorities are trying to move to the London model: companies can bid a flat rate to deliver a bus service (effectively, they commit to providing drivers to deliver the timetable). TfL collects all fares. They also - I think - supply most of the buses to ensure they are of a certain standard, but the companies need to le…

That sounds divine. Does it also work in practice?

It has been a huge improvement in places like Manchester which the OP mentioned has switched to the London model. Before it was unbelievably expensive and fragmented in terms of the service with different providers requiring different fares or weekly/monthly passes. Also never knowing when a bus was going to show up.

Now their an app which shows you when your next bus will arrive tracked by gps so you can leave the house on time to get there, and fares are standardised at £2 per trip or £5 all day. Before the standardised pricing you had people on minimum wage who would be paying an hour or two of their wage just to get to work.

All this came due to the local Government mandating it, these things could have been implemented before by private companies as they have existed in London for years but they simply chose not too.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#433

Post by lazide »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #237
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.

> Cars aren't nearly as loud as sirens and garbage trucks Guess what forces emergency vehicles to fire their sirens, or garbage trucks to linger.

bwahaha this is so ridiculous.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#434

Post by FergusArgyll »

sebstefan wrote: post #417
kortilla wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car drivers are very routinely punished for running red lights. That is far less common than cyclists doing it.

"Cyclists Break Far Fewer Road Rules Than Motorists, Finds New Video Study" ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists... ) Perhaps if there is a no bikelanes and cyclists are bothering you on the sidewalk you should walk in the middle of the road, as the real danger is bikes, right?

> Most content on Forbes.com is written by contributors or "Senior Contributors" with minimal editorial oversight, and is generally unreliable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#435

Post by inferiorhuman »

aynyc wrote: post #271

As a long time NYC resident who moved out during Covid but commute to work in the city. I definitely noticed less traffic on the streets and less noise. I see a lot of talk of other cities that don't have good public transportation. For example, between Flushing in Queens to 8th Ave in Brooklyn, there are privately run buses at affordable rate and get you there at half the time of trains. There are buses from a lot o…

Last I checked, which was admittedly, a few years ago there were jitneys in San Francisco.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#436

Post by coliveira »

Thorrez wrote: post #429
virtualritz wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's curious but unsurprising that privatization of public transport is considered an answer to congestion when existence of good (or great) public transport is the working answer one can find in many places around the world. When I visited NYC two years ago, I was blown away by how unbelievably bad public transport infrastructure is. The most flabbergasting thing was the absence of Metro ring lines around the center…

>IMHO the real problem is cars. The US still can't imagine itself without cars. All of the US except NYC. In NYC 45.6% of households own a car. In Berlin it's 49%. https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/u-s-cities-with-th... https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/en/car-free-berlin-li.113268

This only showcases how bad the US is in this area, when the city that most relies on public transportation still has such a bad service.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#437

Post by vidarh »

zahlman wrote: post #168
vidarh wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missing the point, which was that you're not going to convince people like me who ignore the vegan options just by having them be cheaper than meat, because I won't look. The only thing that would make me look at the vegan options would be if I felt I couldn't afford the meat options.

Okay, but why is that?

Because my experience is that I don't find the food tempting, and so it feels pointless to spend time considering it.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#438

Post by steadicat »

Thorrez wrote: post #429
virtualritz wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's curious but unsurprising that privatization of public transport is considered an answer to congestion when existence of good (or great) public transport is the working answer one can find in many places around the world. When I visited NYC two years ago, I was blown away by how unbelievably bad public transport infrastructure is. The most flabbergasting thing was the absence of Metro ring lines around the center…

>IMHO the real problem is cars. The US still can't imagine itself without cars. All of the US except NYC. In NYC 45.6% of households own a car. In Berlin it's 49%. https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/u-s-cities-with-th... https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/en/car-free-berlin-li.113268

You’re kind of proving the point here. NYC has fewer car owners and yet NYC doesn’t have a single pedestrian street or street closed to through traffic. Sounds like a city that can’t imagine itself without cars even though it’s completely realistic.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#439

Post by inferiorhuman »

schwartzworld wrote: post #412
aynyc wrote: post #271

As a long time NYC resident who moved out during Covid but commute to work in the city. I definitely noticed less traffic on the streets and less noise. I see a lot of talk of other cities that don't have good public transportation. For example, between Flushing in Queens to 8th Ave in Brooklyn, there are privately run buses at affordable rate and get you there at half the time of trains. There are buses from a lot o…

Growing up in Jersey we called them jitneys. And no, they don’t have them in other cities.

Jitneys could be found all over the country but they've largely fallen out of favor.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#440

Post by ajuc »

aynyc wrote: post #271

As a long time NYC resident who moved out during Covid but commute to work in the city. I definitely noticed less traffic on the streets and less noise. I see a lot of talk of other cities that don't have good public transportation. For example, between Flushing in Queens to 8th Ave in Brooklyn, there are privately run buses at affordable rate and get you there at half the time of trains. There are buses from a lot o…

After communism fell in Poland there was a period of privatization of public transport. It was reverted in last 2 decades in most big cities because it usually had worse quality standards (only competed on price), only served the few most profitable routes, and was uncooperative regarding the schedule (for example city buses were speeding to get to the bus stops before the time to get more passengers ahead of competition).

So in theory there was a schedule with buses from lines 1,2,3 interleaving every 5 minutes - but in practice line 1 was going slower and line 3 was going faster and all buses were there at the same time and then you had to wait for 15 minutes for the next round :/

The worst part was that people outside the most profitable routes had no access to public transport - because public transport had to be subsidized more because the profitable routes were taken over by private buses.

Basically it was a mistake, don't do it.

Post reply on HN