221–230 of 653 posts
Congestion pricing can work to dissuade individuals from living in the burbs, only if there is controls on real estate to deal with the influx of people moving inward. The other benefit is an increase of mass transit usage, which is a plus? I personally took a cab from Newark to Laguardia at MIDNIGHT and it took 40 min to cross into Manhattan to get to the Queens-Midtown tunnel. Just a new level of traffic. Was fun g…
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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.
It’s not popular on HN but this is the truth. Cars are fast, and they operate on your own schedule, and they don’t have to make a bunch of stops. There’s just no way transit can compete on travel time. Unless of course, a city decides to purposely underbuild roads relative to population (like what is induced with increased density) or purposely destroys car infrastructure, as San Francisco is doing with absurd speed…
This means that a single bus lane has as much transport capacity as 4-5 car lanes. A single light rail track as much as 10 or more car lanes. It’s just physically impossible to fit all the lanes for cars. The correct answer to congestion is not to build a second lane. It is to add a bike lane and a bus lane, and if the bus lane is full - upgrade to tram.
(Corollary: this is also why bike lanes always look empty. A full bike line would be equivalent to seven lanes of cars. At an equivalent of 3 full lanes of cars, the bike lane is half-empty)
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> During rush hour, cars block the box i got a fine in London for doing this by mistake. i didn’t even block traffic, i just went into the intersection without the cars in front moving. bam, fine. lesson learned.
What you did is the definition of blocking the box - stopping in the intersection (even if your light is green). Blocking traffic would be if your light was red. It's better this way that the law penalizes what you can control (your own vehicle movement) as opposed to what you can't (the cars in front of you)
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Look at the carpool lanes in the Bay Area. It’s as much as $9 for a couple of miles around the Palo Alto / Atherton area and there’s no lack of cars. Then there’s like another $5 or something between that area and Santa Clara. Maybe it will work in NYC, but in the Bay Area I can’t help but feel like it’s a regressive tax because people who already have the money will continue their ways and pay but people who are on…
Anything that costs money is 'regressive' if you use your definition. Sure, we could means test every toll and fee, but there's a different solution for that already - taxation. There's a secret third option to congestion, which is you disallow some number of people at a time from using the facility, and people really don't like that one. Dig deeper and you find it's a housing problem anyway. People can't afford to h…
I'm incredibly hopeful that NYC congestion pricing pays off in a big way - and that we start to see it in other cities across America. I really, really want congestion pricing in downtown SF. During rush hour, cars block the box and slow down busses, with cascading effects.
Why can’t we have dedicated bus lanes. Seems like a more amicable solution. Personally I find it weird that SF’s public transit is so under water it needs bail outs from car drivers. Yet it also doesn’t serve the car drivers with any compelling equivalent.
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The median income of a household with a car in the city is more than double that of households without cars [1]. In a city where public transport is a viable and relatively cheap alternative, it doesn’t seem obvious that it disproportionately impacts the poor, unlike for instance a flat sales tax on essential goods. [1] https://blog.tstc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/how-car-fre...
It disproportionately impacts the working lower classes. Poor in NYC likely means homeless. Dual income McDonalds working family is above the CarLess HHI median wage in the reports you linked. That same worker is heavily impacted by congestion pricing vs say a Quant trader 17$/hr * 50hrs/week * 52weeks/year * 2 earners = 88.5k/year
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Safety and schedule. I've never had a safety issue with taking commuter rail into Boston but taking it home from an evening event is basically a non-starter given how seldom it runs and how much longer it will take relative to driving even if I catch my train.
I'm very hopeful that Boston commuter rail gets electrified with the associated speed and frequency improvements soonish. the inner half of the commuter rail network is absolutely dense enough to be worth running service every 15 minutes on peak and every 30 off peak
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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.
It’s not popular on HN but this is the truth. Cars are fast, and they operate on your own schedule, and they don’t have to make a bunch of stops. There’s just no way transit can compete on travel time. Unless of course, a city decides to purposely underbuild roads relative to population (like what is induced with increased density) or purposely destroys car infrastructure, as San Francisco is doing with absurd speed…
If that increased to 100%, you wouldn't be able to park anywhere without paying a lot, and getting anywhere would be super slow.
It might make sense on a per-individual or per-trip basis to say that you prefer using a car, but if everyone makes that choice (old used cars are fairly cheap), it's a problem.
The branding of congestion pricing has been so disastrous. It could have been separated into two very normal things: tolls and parking fees. Every city has those. NYC could have played with those knobs until they got mostly the same effect but there would have never been any nonsense about it being illegal or unconstitutional or whatever car advocates are saying. Even if this works, it will always be hated and fought…
Just rip the bandage off already.
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I think it's highly unlikely to result in positive effects. I would be hoping that it only harms NYC economic condition "a little", as the best case outcome. This falls solidly in the "it sounds good but causes significant negative unintended consequences" bucket of regulation, like the rest of NYC's many regulations that led up to this point.
It has been highly successful in London. Less congestion, better air quality, incentivises the most disruptive things like heavy good vehicles to deliver out of rush hour reducing impact on other traffic etc.
At least this study [1] suggests a mild improvement but interestingly replacing one pollutant with another (due to diesel exemptions).
In my opinion, we should primary focus on improving the standards of public transport. Safety, cleanliness, punctuality and price. I'm a car owner living 15mins drive from downtown of a European capital city, and I refuse to drive near the city because the parking is expensive, there's always roadworks but primarily the public transport is excellent and comfortable.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01660...