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NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

congestion-pricing-tracker.com

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Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#111

Post by cyberax »

milch wrote: post #90
taatof wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds right. Here in SF, instead of police pulling over people who speed and run stop signs, we're getting rid of parking spots within 20ft of intersections so people speeding and running stop signs can see if they're about to kill a pedestrian. Could raise a fortune for public transit if we enforced traffic laws and used that money.

Because police can't physically be in every intersection at once, and there's research that shows that removing parking around intersections reduces pedestrian fatalities. They could add cameras, but I bet you that people would fight tooth and nail against that as well... not being able to park within 20ft of an intersection doesn't cause any privacy issues, or funnel money into the city councilman's cousin's company…

> Because police can't physically be in every intersection at once

They don't have to be everywhere. They have to be at least _somewhere_ and start visible enforcing. People need to know that they might get away with running a red light a couple of times, but they WILL be caught eventually, and there WILL be consequences.

> and there's research that shows that removing parking around intersections reduces pedestrian fatalities.

I read a lot of the urbanist propaganda research, and most of it is pure crap. Bad statistical methods, poor significance, P-hacking, biased tests, you name it.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#112

Post by paxys »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #86
paxys wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay now let's similarly post about every single one of the hundreds of people who were killed in traffic accidents last year in the city (including plenty who burned to death in their cars). That should be enough to convince you that no one should drive here right? Or is safety suddenly not a concern anymore?

People seek agency and don't consider traffic deaths to be the same as random assaults. It's for the same reason most people think they'd do well in a fight. They value their agency and assume they would be able to prevent it.

Are you implying everyone who gets in a traffic accident has full agency over the situation? Because that is laughably far from reality. It is infinitely easier to consciously avoid danger on the subway than in a car.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#114

Post by cyberax »

milch wrote: post #97
jazzyjackson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fewer single-person-vehicles = more desirable ontime Bus/Tram throughput = more people who are close to MUNIBART taking MUNIBART. Then use tolls to improve and expand the mass transit services instead of only ever catering to the single-person-car-commuters. (ofc it takes more than ontime performance to sell people on mass transit, needs to be a safe environment at all hours of the day -- even if I can take BART into…

Most transit agencies have this problem of the "vicious transit cycle" - people don't take the bus because it's too infrequent/unreliable => more cars make the buses more unreliable => less money because so few people take it => back to start. It's amazing when you're sitting in a bus behind 20 cars backed up over 4 blocks, and you look back and there's 50 people on the bus. Really makes you think why the 50-person b…

Nah. Most agencies have a problem of people realizing that wasting life in buses is not worth it.

Transit can never compete with cars on speed in well-designed cities.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#115

Post by ignormies »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #46
jmyeet wrote: post #25

I happened to be living in London when congestion pricing was brought in and the difference on day 1 in the West End was like night and day. I believe it's never gone back to the pre-congestion pricing levels. I fully expect similar in Manhattan. The social media response has been particularly interesting. Predictably, there are a lot of non-NYCers who simply object to the slightest inconvenience to driving in any fo…

>Another complaint: drivers are paying for the roads. This is untrue anywhere in the US. Drivers only partially subsidize roads everywhere. I agree with pretty much everything else you wrote, but this it needs to be noted that most road damage is done by weather and heavyweight vehicles like semis/trash/buses/delivery vehicles etc., not regular passenger vehicles. Semis et al. definitely do not pay taxes proportionat…

Note that diesel is taxed nearly 40% higher than gasoline per gallon in the US. And shipping trucks use a lot more gallons of gas (total and per mile).

Should the rate be higher? Perhaps. But it's already a bit slanted towards vehicle weight based on fuel type and consumption.

Electric vehicles, and especially electric shipping trucks, are going to require finding new taxation sources.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#116

Post by SoftTalker »

whimsicalism wrote: post #105
fragmede wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF put in 33 speed cameras in known locations, and are aiming to install 900 more by the end of this year. As a bonus to speeders, speeds in excess of 100 mph will incur a $500 speeding ticket, though that may have unintended consequences.

what unintended consequences?

$500 is just dinner for some people in SF.

Or maybe people will drive at 99 mph to get the best value.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#117

Post by tlogan »

maxwellg wrote: post #34
gkoberger wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with disliking the things you mentioned, could it be argued that adding barriers to entry for getting into the city will just increase WFH and hurt SF more? I can see a lot of people choosing to just stay home rather than take a bus – not everyone is close to MUNI or BART.

For a concrete example of carrot and stick - check out ridership numbers for the 49 after the Van Ness BRT project finished. 49 ridership is more than completely recovered at 140% of pre-pandemic numbers. In comparison, the 38 and 38R didn't get their dedicated bus lane out in the Richmond and ridership numbers are still nowhere near pre-pandemic. Make the bus fast and frequent and people will take it. https://www.sf…

By the way, the head of SFMTA resigned this week, and there are rumors of a full audit on the horizon.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#119

Post by leetcrew »

ars wrote: post #45
maxwellg wrote: post #11

I'm incredibly hopeful that NYC congestion pricing pays off in a big way - and that we start to see it in other cities across America. I really, really want congestion pricing in downtown SF. During rush hour, cars block the box and slow down busses, with cascading effects.

What I'm curious about is if business in the Manhattan will be lessened as a result of less people there. I know the goal is less cars, rather than less people, but I want to see if that's actually what will happen. As someone who doesn't live in Manhattan I wish there was a better way to go basically anywhere in New York without entering Manhattan. Every single road, bus, and subway goes through this super dense are…

I've thought about the same thing and concluded this basically reduces to "why do economies organize around dense urban cores"? pretty much any business that can afford to will want to rent space in the barycenter of a metro area. that's what manhattan is to the NYC metro.

when the vast majority of daily trips are into and out of that dense core, that defines the most economic routes for building transit. beltways/bypasses exist to relieve the already saturated surface roads of the core. you don't see the same thing with trains because it's not necessary. it sucks for the passenger to transfer between three or four different trains to get from EWR to flatbush, but the rail infrastructure has plenty of capacity to accommodate a few extra pax on that route.

I think it would be a lot nicer to have urban life/transit built around many smaller cores with everyone living much closer to work. but in aggregate, businesses want the largest hiring base, and people want the best jobs they can get in the area.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#120

Post by shipscode »

timewizard wrote: post #54
mlinhares wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving and parking in NYC is already a luxury, there’s no poor person driving and parking there.

So just exclude them from your civic thinking because you can't imagine them existing? You do realize there are special exemptions for this exact program for low income drivers? Perhaps you feel these shouldn't exist since it's already a luxury beyond them?

The "anything I don't know doesn't exist" crowd is very strong when it comes to congestion pricing arguments. It's weird specifically that many of it's loudest proponents come from transit thinktanks from out west, etc. Very little actual support amongst New Yorkers for obvious reasons.
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