New York City will charge drivers going downtown • Hacker News Board

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#311

Post by cyberax » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:50 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #265

cyberax wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for it! It would suck for transit, though: 1. It has a higher CO2 footprint than small/medium EVs. 2. Transit forces people into smaller and denser housing, resulting in suboptimal living conditions. 3. Buses in particular result in excessive road wear&tear. It's really amazing that people say things like "car owners should not get subsidized" (by whom?), while talking about transit that is literally infeasib…

Car owners are already hugely subsidized. Toll roads cover only a tiny fraction of road maintenance. The rest is paid by taxpayers, even those who do not drive.

> Car owners are already hugely subsidized

Around 80% of all commutes in the US are by car. You can't subsidize 80% of the population.

Drivers simply pay for their road use through various taxes, and not directly.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#312

Post by cyberax » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:53 PM UTC

Eisenstein wrote: post #284

cyberax wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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You logic is completely backwards. Dense housing doesn't result in traffic congestion. If more people live closer together there is more population density, but as long as they can access commercial areas easily then they can do their shopping and work and recreational tasks without cars. When you remove cars then you suddenly have much more living space because a car takes up a large amount of room to store and ther…

> Dense housing doesn't result in traffic congestion.

Yes, it does. And the relationship is causal.

> If more people live closer together there is more population density, but as long as they can access commercial areas easily then they can do their shopping and work and recreational tasks without cars.

What a bunch of bullshit.

> Are you seriously arguing that adding more space for cars makes cities less congested?

Not quite. Nothing can help hellscapes like Manhattan. They just need to be slowly de-densified, it'll take generations, but it will be done eventually.

Cities should make sure that they don't rely on transit, and the rest will follow.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#313

Post by jrockway » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:53 PM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #300

cogman10 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, everyone also ignores that public transport can be supported through taxes and operated at a loss. In the US, we have a weird obsession with all public goods/services paying for themselves. We should ditch that, operate at a loss, and pull the difference out of progressive taxes. There's no reason your CEO or office shouldn't foot part of the bill to transport you into work. Heck, were I king I'd fund public tr…

The weirdness of the obsession is even stranger when you compare it to basically any other public service. Like, are schools supposed to pay for themselves? Airports? City infrastructure like streets, parks, and rec centers? The military? No, of course not. All of these things are essentials for the which the benefits are felt across the economy, but those benefits are far too diffuse to be individually tallied up an…

I've heard an argument that schools are supposed to pay for themselves. The idea is that people who go to school end up in a higher tax bracket, so it's an investment, not merely public good. Similar arguments are made for parks and recreation; more open space, less noise, so less stress-induced heart attacks, which means more years being a taxpayer.

I think this is a toxic way of thinking of things, but I guess it allows even the most greedy politician to live with himself for not opposing schools.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#314

Post by acdha » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

RhysU wrote: post #294

Jolter wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should motorcycles have a discount? How big should it be in your opinion, and why?

Motorcycles don't cause congestion. Motorcycles can travel through congestion when permitted to lanesplit.

They’re not as bad as cars but they still take up a fair amount of space and pollute (noise, fumes) heavily. A modest discount seems appropriate but they definitely should still cost more than transit.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#315

Post by Reason077 » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

steveBK123 wrote: post #282

My main concern as NYer is the governments inability to build transit, and not for lack of money. NY will find it relatively easy to institute a new tax on drivers, but will the billions collected actually make transit better in any tangible way? NYC is also hamstrung by having its streets controlled locally by our DOT, but our transit & bridges controlled by a state agency. We just caved (again) entirely to the tran…

To be fair, London has looked at the platform screen doors thing a few times too and dismissed it as unaffordable.

New lines get PSDs but there doesn’t seem to be a realistic prospect of retrofitting existing ones any time soon.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#316

Post by cyberax » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #191

cyberax wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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I’m suspicious of that. LA is famous for low use of transit (relative to population) and is also famous for having bad congestion.

You can screw up everything if you try hard enough. LA is an example of that.

On the other hand, the Greater Houston Area has a similar population to NYC, yet it has 26-minute commutes versus 36 minutes for NYC.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#317

Post by giantg2 » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

paulgb wrote: post #280

giantg2 wrote: post #242

Nobody really wants to drive or park in that sort of congestion. If they would just make public transit better, then there would be less congestion naturally.

I agree, but it goes both ways -- you need to reduce congestion to improve transit. In the past NYC has even suspended service around the Holland Tunnel because of gridlock[1] [1] https://www.amny.com/news/mta-bus-traffic-holland-tunnel-con...

Unless they use other methods or restructure the current infrastructure.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#318

Post by steveBK123 » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

steveBK123 wrote: post #303

Hikikomori wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We basically need a modern era Robert Moses to consolidate NYC DOT/MTA/Port Authority and whatever other agencies and bring us into the modern era. Idk about that, maybe a less racist one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Broker https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...

Yeah, he was a terrible guy and all. But stuff got built. The current inability to build anything is almost a direct result. They delegated decision making to an alphabet soup of agencies at different levels of jurisdiction so it's impossible to get anything done. Because there are so many agencies, you can't for example easily put in a busway because you need NYC DOT, MTA, NYS DOT, city council and mayor to all be o…

Another great example is the fact that the BQE cantilever is probably going to collapse before anyone can agree on how to replace it and do so.

So far we have reduced a lane to minimize wear & tear, reduced max tonnage for trucks going over it, and are installing advanced automated ticketing to ticket big trucks attempting to go over it.

That's well and good, but salt water corrosion and bureaucratic inertia are going to get some people killed at this rate. And let's not pretend it can simply be done away with. Where do we expect all the goods & services flowing in/out of the city via truck to go otherwise.. local roads through city streets.. how is this not a significantly worse outcome?

Right now we have a lot of vetos with different agendas - anti-car degrowrethers, NIMBY rich BK Heights owners praying on their lottery ticket if their park expands & view improves, and bureaucrats happy to not have to spend $BBillions to replace the thing.

Sometimes living in NYC feels like the opposite of an headline I once saw re: Japan & Italy, where their strategy was described as "Beautiful decline"... for NYC its Ugly Decline.

"I don't own a car" is often a mantra of folks who think we can simply do away with infra like the BQE for example. People live frictionless lives in their apps, clicking buttons and goods just magically appear at their doorstep. The gritty truth of how those goods get there is another story.

On another note, we apparently are incapable of putting trash in bins, for many reasons. One of which is that the DSNY unions would need to be negotiated with. So for our great push to reduce the rat infestation in the city, we've done the dumbest, least effective, most costliest stuff instead.

Rather than mandating containerized garbage or moving up trash collection times to be overnight, what did the city do? Mandate buildings put out trash after 8pm instead of 6pm. Mind you it's not picked up until 6am. So the rats have a 10 hour feast instead of a 12 hour feast, how does this make a difference?

And what is the cost? Every single building in the city now needs staff schedules shifted or expanded such that their super/porter/maintenance guy is around after 8pm to take out trash. For the city, it's "free", they don't have to budget anything. But for residents, its yet another cost of living with really no benefit.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#319

Post by CSMastermind » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #115

dangus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This anecdote is basically another way of saying the incentives of urban design align and become self-fulfilling prophecies. Suburban dwellers stuck in the automobile mindset automatically assume that big cities must have the most horrendous traffic. It's seems like a logical conclusion: if traffic in my 50,000 person suburb is horrendous, it must be downright horrific in the big city. But that's not really how it wo…

I've not driven in NYC. But I've driven in LA, SF, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Milwaukee, maybe a bit in Dallas. Big cities do have horrendous traffic in high density areas. Even if it's free flowing, there are intersections so often and pedestrians everywhere and so speeds are necessarily quite low. You wouldn't drive through there unless you don't have a choice; maybe the ferry lets off downtown and you need t…

I have driven in pretty much every major North American city and NYC isn't even in the top 10 of worst traffic or places to drive, there are some times and specific areas where it can get bad but I'd happily drive in NYC every day than have commute in Seattle.

I think at least in part that's due to the fact that bad drivers are scared away by New York so don't even attempt to drive there, or if they do they give up quickly.

NYC also has the only public transit system in the US that I don't mind taking so I'm sure that play a role as well.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#320

Post by muh_gradle » Sat, Jun 10, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #208

mortenjorck wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge part of of why London could pull it off is the exceptional state of the Underground. It’s not hard to wean off cars when the alternative is a clean, fast, modern train a short walk away. NYC is going to have an uphill battle getting the MTA to anywhere near that level, and the MTA itself is already leagues ahead of any other transit system in the US. I would love to see London-tier transit in the United States…

I've taken both the Underground and the MTA and you're overstating the difference. Aesthetically, the Underground is far better, no question. But most commuters are focused on functionality. And functionally the MTA is just as good, if not better. The trains run extremely frequently - every few minutes during the day on weekdays. The parallel local-express tracks give the MTA a big speed advantage. And the inside of…

I live in NYC, have taken the tube when I lived in London. I've also lived in other cities like Seoul, Tokyo with superior public transportation. The "aesthetics" aspect that you describe is an incredible understatement. The nearest MTA station is covered in feces and used syringes and I'm not exaggerating. Trains are constantly late. Apparently building a barrier and a gate on the platform is a 10 year, trillion dollar project. I have to put my back to a wall because I'm worried some crazy person will push me onto the track. Yeah, I wouldn't concur with the statement on MTA being so functional.