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NYC congestion pricing cuts air pollution by a fifth in six months

airqualitynews.com

121–130 of 211 posts

Re: NYC congestion pricing cuts air pollution by a fifth in six months

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EVs help with air pollution & congestion, but a huge part of the AQI impact of cars is tires, and I don't think there's a solution for that yet short of "fewer cars"

How do EVs help with congestion? They take up the same amount of space as an ICE car.

EV shuttles will come in lots of capacities. Vans, buses. But you won't need to worry about schedules or preset routes because it's all dynamic.

Wherever there would be the most congestion is precisely where the app will give you the biggest discount to switch from your private vehicle into a bus, then switch back into another private vehicle for the last 5 minutes of your trip.

Re: NYC congestion pricing cuts air pollution by a fifth in six months

#122
post #24

I live in Europe so it's still very much considered pedestrian-friendly, but cars and roads scale so bad. Especially with population density going through the roof in bigger cities. I wonder how it's going to look like in 50 years.

EV self-driving shuttles you can take on demand so nobody needs to keep a car

EV human-driven shuttles can do the same. Why do we need a robot for that?

Re: NYC congestion pricing cuts air pollution by a fifth in six months

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MTA is billions in the red because it overpays the union workers and fails to commercialize the stations

You may not realize this, but the roads are also in the red. All transportation is subsidized out of taxes.

You may not realize this, but there are numerous rail systems around the world that are not subsidized and are in fact profitable. See Japan, for instance

Re: NYC congestion pricing cuts air pollution by a fifth in six months

#124
post #24

I live in Europe so it's still very much considered pedestrian-friendly, but cars and roads scale so bad. Especially with population density going through the roof in bigger cities. I wonder how it's going to look like in 50 years.

EV self-driving shuttles you can take on demand so nobody needs to keep a car

EVs are just going to further escalate the race to the bottom with traffic that we’re already seeing with services like DoorDash.

Driving down the marginal cost per hour to operate a vehicle on the road and removing humans who are averse to sitting in endless traffic is not going to result in the utopia people think it will.

Re: NYC congestion pricing cuts air pollution by a fifth in six months

#125
post #24

I live in Europe so it's still very much considered pedestrian-friendly, but cars and roads scale so bad. Especially with population density going through the roof in bigger cities. I wonder how it's going to look like in 50 years.

NYC has a better subway system than most Euro cities. Probably because NYC has the advantage of being old before cars became affordable. For a few decades it seemed planners all over the world really had this crazy idea that everyone would just drive around for everything. Just put 10 lane highways straight through your town!

> NYC has the advantage of being old before cars became affordable.

Aren't Euro cities generally much older than those in the New World?

Re: NYC congestion pricing cuts air pollution by a fifth in six months

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not realize this, but the roads are also in the red. All transportation is subsidized out of taxes.

You may not realize this, but there are numerous rail systems around the world that are not subsidized and are in fact profitable. See Japan, for instance

I don't want our public infrastructure to be profitable; I want it to be ubiquitous and frequent.

Re: NYC congestion pricing cuts air pollution by a fifth in six months

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many things hurt the poor more, because there are many things that the poor do that have negative externalities that cannot be compensated for by the productivity of the poor. Strict enforcement against violent crime is pretty regressive in that more poor people are incarcerated when this is done. Others are that strict enforcement of traffic laws is pretty regressive; paid parking is regressive; as are fares for bus…

> Officer ASVAB score requirements are regressive Used to be that you had to purchase an officer's commission...

The glory days when we could charge cannon fire on horseback. This is what they took from us.

Re: NYC congestion pricing cuts air pollution by a fifth in six months

#128
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No city has reliable data on this for a fleet of reasons. The high quality data tends to show little effect on retail foot traffic, slightly more reliable commute times, and then the wealth of health benefits. Linking this to output seems to be beyond economists for cities that have done something similar (London, Stockholm, Milan, etc)

Is this an AI assisted answer?

Doubting the humanity of other community members ought to be against guidelines

Re: NYC congestion pricing cuts air pollution by a fifth in six months

#129
I couldn't find anything more recent that this but apparently it has made the streets safer for pedestrians too. "Traffic fatalities in the Congestion Pricing zone are down 40% from last year."

This is from July 2025: https://transalt.org/press-releases/new-data-from-transporta...

Re: NYC congestion pricing cuts air pollution by a fifth in six months

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EV self-driving shuttles you can take on demand so nobody needs to keep a car

EVs help with air pollution & congestion, but a huge part of the AQI impact of cars is tires, and I don't think there's a solution for that yet short of "fewer cars"

Braking dust is worse than tires, and EVs don't use brake pads nearly as much because they rely on regenerative braking.
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