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In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

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Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"relatively clean" means 85% of PM2.5 is from non-exhaust sources, and 15% is from exhaust after catalytic conversion. In New York EV and ICE are pretty much on par when it comes to this category of pollution, as the additional weight increases non exhaust sources. Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13522... It is different in Africa, where catalytic converters are harvested for precious m…

That source is Europe, not New York. It claims EV's are 24% heavier than ICE vehicles. That might be true in Europe but definitely not the case in the US where the average ICE vehicle is a 6000 pound truck and the average EV is a 4000 pound Tesla. It also assumes they're using the same tires. EV owners put on EV tires, which are formulated to have a lower rolling resistance, quieter and last longer. All 3 of those co…

New York City has a more European balance of cars versus light trucks than most of the USA. Not easy to park a modern American pickup in any bourough except maybe Staten Island. Source: lived there

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diesel looks good if you are focusing primarily on fuel economy (mpg / L/100km), and when companies cheat the tests on other emissions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal When you remove the cheating and give adequate weight to those emissions, diesel for passenger vehicles makes a lot less sense.

Diesel is less fuel efficient than regular gasoline except when you measure by volume. It gets fewer miles per unit of energy in the fuel.

Fuel is sold by volume, which is why volumetric fuel efficiency is desirable to the consumer

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#213
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

working class people are predominantly using public transit to get around nyc this claim has been debunked many times and anyone with eyes can see who the private drivers in NYC are

Because it's economically infeasible to drive?

It's economically infeasible for a large percentage of people to drive in a dense urban area, period.

That's true even without congestion pricing. A city would go broke and bulldoze itself trying to add enough stacked lane, highways, and parking to handle everyone who would prefer to drive in or through if the capacity existed.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I guess more pollution added up to the surrounding borroughs in addition to more traffic Why? Fewer cars into Manhattan means fewer cars through the boroughs. And even if they all diverted, you’re still looking at less idling and less stop and start braking.

Not necessarily. I use my brake far more in stop and start traffic on the highway than I do in Manhattan. In the city stop and start is primarily determined by traffic lights, which are predictable, rather than the traffic itself.

> I use my brake far more in stop and start traffic on the highway

Is that because of gridlock or because of the higher energies?

> In the city stop and start is primarily determined by traffic lights

Source? In my experience it's unexpected incursions, whether that be cars changing lanes, pedestrians stepping off the sidewalk or food-delivery bikers yeeting themselves into an intersection.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#215
post #17

Not surprising. The real question is how do we measure the opportunity cost of these measures? Is it a net gain? You could, at the extreme, ban all motor vehicles but the opportunity cost would outweigh the benefits.

You take a walk along a 55-mph stretch of highway, and then you take a walk down Broadway, and you see which one makes you feel better as a human being.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#216
post #2

> Particulates issued from tailpipes can aggravate asthma and heart disease and increase the risk of lung cancer and heart attack. Globally, they are a leading risk factor for premature death. Minor nitpick, but tailpipes aren't the primary source of emissions. The study is about PM2.5[0]. which will chiefly be tires and brake pads. Modern gasoline engines are relatively clean, outside of CO2, though diesel engines s…

It's true that brake dust is the primary PM2.5 emission from vehicles in an urban environment. However the PM2.5 component from tail pipes are still very significant, higher than the contribution from tires. The order is: 1. brake dust 2. road dust 3. engine emissions 4. tire dust https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00456... https://electrek.co/2025/05/27/another-way-electric-cars-cle...

and would it be true to say that regenerative braking on electric cars reduces significantly this dust?

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#217

I'm curious how congestion pricing became a national issue. The strength of conviction people have about this policy–almost either way, but certainly among those against–seems to scale with distance from the city. Nobody in Idaho gets uppity about New Jersey's tolls. But they have strong, knowledge-free, almost identity-defining opinions about congestion charges. Is it because it's a policy that's worked in Europe an…

It's because Trump made it one of his obsessions for a period of time, putting it on the MAGA radar.

> It's because Trump made it one of his obsessions for a period of time, putting it on the MAGA radar

Had most people outside the tri-state area not heard and formed an opinion about congestion pricig before Trump brought it up?

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"relatively clean" means 85% of PM2.5 is from non-exhaust sources, and 15% is from exhaust after catalytic conversion. In New York EV and ICE are pretty much on par when it comes to this category of pollution, as the additional weight increases non exhaust sources. Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13522... It is different in Africa, where catalytic converters are harvested for precious m…

That source is Europe, not New York. It claims EV's are 24% heavier than ICE vehicles. That might be true in Europe but definitely not the case in the US where the average ICE vehicle is a 6000 pound truck and the average EV is a 4000 pound Tesla. It also assumes they're using the same tires. EV owners put on EV tires, which are formulated to have a lower rolling resistance, quieter and last longer. All 3 of those co…

The subject here is New York City where I would expect people are less like to drive the heavy ICE vehicles (unless they are doing some that needs such a large vehicle).

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#219
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> though diesel engines spit out a bunch of bad stuff. Exactly. The noxious tailpipe emissions in a city are usually from diesel trucks, small vehicles like motorcycles (small or absent catalytic converters), modified vehicles (catalytic converter removed or diesel reprogrammed to smoke), but not modern gasoline ICE vehicles. The love for diesel engines in many European countries was always confusing to me. PM2.5 is…

> The love for diesel engines in many European countries was always confusing to me. And turns out the whole thing was a lie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal It's unfortunate that so much rhetoric around environmentalism is based on faulty claims. It's starting to make me sceptical of environmental claims in general. The latest one is AI data center water use- the extreme numbers like 5 liters…

>It's starting to make me sceptical of environmental claims in general.

What does that even mean?

Honestly whatever it means it sounds like you would be the kind of person that would fall for the firehose of falsehood rather than look for the truth behind the actual claims.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich were driving before, and are still driving. The difference is that now they are paying for that service they were already using, and those funds are going to public transit which serves the majority of New Yorkers especially those with lower incomes.

The problem is that no one in NYC, rich or poor, has any confidence in the MTA's ability to properly and efficiently use these funds. This stems from a long history of incompetence and wastefulness by the MTA

Sounds like a great area to advocate for improvement.
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