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Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

nytimes.com

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Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#301

Post by frosted-flakes »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #179
zahlman wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>She's lived in suburban and rural areas her entire life. The idea that she simply has to get in a car to go anywhere is so ingrained into her psyche that even a solid week of not driving is insufficient to dislodge it. I'm in a suburban area. When I was a child, I got driven everywhere - until I was old enough to take public transit by myself. I'm about to walk ~3km (2mi) each way to a grocery store, something I do…

1. Possibly reasons like this: https://archive.is/tjdZ2 ... to save you the click, the title/subtitle reads: > When Getting Out of Jail Means a Deadly Walk Home > Nearly every day in Santa Fe, N.M., people released from jail trudge along a dangerous highway to get back to town. Jails often fail to offer safe transport options for prisoners. 2. You must have a preference for walking, since a bicycle would be at least…

The average annual cost of owning a car in Canada is >$16000 CAD. In the US it's even higher at >$12000 USD.

Obviously owning a bike, taking public transit and taxis, and occasionally renting a car isn't free, but if you live in a walkable neighbourhood and can take public transit to work it's easy to keep your monthly transportation expenses under $200. The great part about not needing to own a car is that there's no sunk cost that incentivises you to choose one option over another.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#303

Post by bitmasher9 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #263
scuol wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/strategic/wealthy/ I agree there are places in Seattle one can do this, but boy one certainly needs the paper to do this.

Seattle is weird in that drive til you qualify is not a thing unless you start getting really far out. Some inner ring neighborhoods and suburbs are comparable or more expensive than the core.

If you want to head straight south or straight north you won’t have to go further out than 1 hour before rents and property values fall significantly from city center Seattle. Tacoma is 30 minutes away without traffic and has a median home price 40% less than Seattle. Drive till you qualify is real.

If you want to head east, you’re running into the real estate aftermath of Microsoft making tens of thousands of millionaires in the 90s and 00s. You won’t save much money there.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#304

Post by throwaway2037 »

timewizard wrote: post #136
lokar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Manhattan, and was very well paid. I did not own a car, and loved it. This would have been great for me as well.

Did you have children or did you live alone?

The children part I understand, but why is it important is the OP lived alone?

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#305

Post by Lammy »

mcswell wrote: post #241

There was a time when there were no automobiles in New York City, but there was lots of public transportation. (Ok, there were horses and the consequent manure, and the population was way smaller then. But still...)

> there was lots of public transportation

There could have been a lot more. The 1929 IND Second System expansion plan is depressing, especially the parts where provisions are already built:

- https://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_index/2021/01/ind-second-...

- https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/IND_Second_System_-_1929_Plan

- https://www.awakennyc.com/second-system-gems

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#306

Post by divbzero »

gertlex wrote: post #212
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can live in an urban neighborhood and only use your car a few times a week (mostly on weekends and for yearly kid doctor visits). Its not just Manhattan, Seattle supports this as well (well, you still "need" a car, but you can get away with not driving it very often). You need to be strategic about where you live (e.g. buying the house 7 minutes away from your kid's K-8 and 10 minutes away from his future 9-12, w…

> You need to be strategic about where you live (e.g. buying the house ... I wonder what % (presumably low) of the population can live in SFHs and achieve this cities like Seattle. I should try finding if there's available work that's made visualizations of this sort of things ("How many homes could be within X miles or minutes of A B and C" for SFH, Quadplex, 5-over-1s etc.)

Walk Score can provide an estimate of walkability for any given address.

https://www.walkscore.com/

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#307

Post by throwaway2037 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #262
fallingknife wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The multi-modal hassle is why cars are so popular in the first place.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. I just got back from Beijing and long journeys across the city in a taxi...they aren't really feasible. Yes, comfortable, but no, the traffic is still really really bad. Subway is much quicker, but the routes are often indirect and require one or two changes, but at least you know you'll get where you need to go.

If you ride the subway enough in Beijing or Shanghai, eventually you will come to the conclusion that both cities are just way too big. No matter how many subways that you build, getting from one place to another takes a minimum of 45 mins (including some walking on both ends). New York, London, Seoul, and Tokyo all suffer from similar problems -- giant metro systems, but these cities are huge.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#308

Post by tonymet »

ericpauley wrote: post #195
tonymet wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you haven't described the observations or the sample

TFA describes this extensively. The observations are traffic speed, bus timeliness, and over a dozen other metrics. The samples are sub-areas of NYC.

Anything negative ?

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#309

Post by jaza »

epistasis wrote: post #272
tetromino_ wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone with children, I can not imagine the bliss of living in Manhattan and being able to do things without needing a car. Lifting a 2 toddler stroller up and down narrow, crowded NYC subway stairs is the exact opposite of bliss. Perhaps you are unaware that many subway stations still don't have elevators (or escalators, for that matter) - only stairs. And where the elevators exist, it seems half the time they…

We bought a very fancy and expensive 2 toddler stroller when we had two toddlers and it saw almost no use because it was a hassle pretty much everywhere. I advise all new parents to avoid purchasing one until there's a proven need, and I don't know any other parents that thought it was a good idea to purchase one. I'm sure it's great for some kids, but certainly not mine or even most kids. I honestly don't understand…

My twins spent several hours in their stroller (bugaboo donkey) on many days, back when they were toddlers (a lot of that time being spent having their afternoon nap in the stroller). Living in Sydney Australia. Similar car-centric problems to most US cities. But I guess we're lucky to live walking distance from parks, supermarkets, childcare centres (and now school), and a train station. And the stroller fitted folded-up in the boot (aka trunk) of our (small hatchback!) car. And our train station (and our most common destination stations) has a lift (aka elevator - Sydney has successfully been rolling out a project [1] to install lifts in more and more of its ageing train stations over the past decade). I couldn't imagine having managed, back then, without a 2-toddler stroller.

[1] https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/projects/transport-access-p...

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#310

Post by lelandbatey »

bitmasher9 wrote: post #303
bobthepanda wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle is weird in that drive til you qualify is not a thing unless you start getting really far out. Some inner ring neighborhoods and suburbs are comparable or more expensive than the core.

If you want to head straight south or straight north you won’t have to go further out than 1 hour before rents and property values fall significantly from city center Seattle. Tacoma is 30 minutes away without traffic and has a median home price 40% less than Seattle. Drive till you qualify is real. If you want to head east, you’re running into the real estate aftermath of Microsoft making tens of thousands of millio…

Yeah, the Eastside is a real estate hellscape. Everything east of Lake Washington till highway 203/18 is genuinely quite bad. I had cheaper rent on top of Queen Anne, 1 block from the Trader Joe's, than any place of comparable walk/transit on the east side ($2065/month for a 2 bedroom 1.75 bathroom apartment+1 parking place, ~950sq/ft).
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