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NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

congestion-pricing-tracker.com

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Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#341

Post by polon »

occz wrote: post #136
paxys wrote: post #29

While I'm sure congestion pricing will have a positive impact on traffic, I'd wait a little while longer to draw any conclusions, considering (1) the data is from a single day (2) lots of people aren't back from holiday travel and (3) there's a winter storm across the country and a decent amount of snow fell in Jersey/New York today, discouraging driving.

You can already extrapolate from the results from other cities who have implemented the policy, where it has been wildly successful at reducing congestion.

So far, none of the data provided by the linked site would suggest Manhattan will see a reduction in transportation times. This is with the Monday snow however, which I'd imagine caused delays by itself.

I will say, being in Manhattan, their seems to be less traffic on the road. I wonder if Google Maps traffic data is using a rolling average of ~7 days or something

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#342

Post by potato3732842 »

JackFr wrote: post #168
whimsicalism wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what unintended consequences?

The real unintended consequence is that cities ultimately don’t like to run them. They’re effective, and thus the revenue the city is expecting disappears. In they end they become costs rather than revenue sources.

The root problem is voters tolerating a government that sees law enforcement as a profit center.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#343

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#344

Post by johnkpaul »

MisterTea wrote: post #336
freditup wrote: post #3

Note that it was snowy in NYC today, so people were likely dissuaded to drive by other factors than congestion pricing as well. It'll be interesting to see what impact there is as we get further along in the year. The dashboard is based off of Google Maps travel time data which I'm unsure of the exact accuracy. I imagine the city might also have other more direct metrics that can be used, such as the count of vehicle…

Snowy? That was a light dusting that I cleaned up with a broom.

I think it was worse in suburban areas slightly outside of the city, at least on the NJ side. In western Bergen county, I had a bit over 1 inch and had to break out the shovel for the sidewalk.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#345

Post by randomopining »

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…

What does free transit do? People need to earn some money and then use that money. It's a healthy psyche. $3 for a ride anywhere in the city is pretty cheap

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#346

Post by throwawaymaths »

gregshap wrote: post #325
steveBK123 wrote: post #296

I think the biggest thing CP is going to do in NYC is end toll shopping. There were previously some pretty obvious arbs available to people trying to get off LI. The biggest policy failure of CP though to me is that they left taxi/uber relatively unscathed. Often the majority of traffic is taxi/uber, so make the surcharge on them a fraction of what individual drivers pay is kind of nonsensical. Are we trying to minim…

The uber/taxi fee is charged per ride, whereas private passenger cars pay once per day. Seems like a reasonable tradeoff.

if the passenger car pays once a day, it's only generating one unit of congestion.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#347

Post by mattlondon »

Twirrim wrote: post #171
Ferret7446 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On the wiki page for the London charge they suggest that ten years after the introduction of the congestion charge, traffic levels have been reduced by 10% (ten).

So yes technically less traffic, but not really enough to make any meaningful difference IMO. It is still noisy, it is still congested, it is still polluted, it is still hard to cross roads, it is still hard to get anywhere on a bus in a predictable time, it is still very frightening to be a cyclist (and indeed it is still common for cyclists to get killed or badly injured), and it is still better to get the tube.

I view it more as a toll now really, rather than an attempt to dissuade people from driving in. If they were really serious about trying to stop people driving in, the price would not be £15/day but it would be £500/day or more.

As it stands at the moment, even on the weekend (yes, it runs on the weekend even though there is not much congestion e.g. on a sunday afternoon) if I want to go to central London with the family I will drive. It costs £15, but the price of a return tube ticket is £6, so x2 for me and the wife and it is already £12, then add in £1.75 for the bus tickets to-and-from the tube station (so £3.50 per adult return = £7), and you are already at £19 to use public transport, vs £15 for the congestion charge.

So it is approx 20% cheaper to drive, AND it is more convenient, AND it is quicker, AND it is more comfortable.

Like I said, if they were serious about it being a deterrent they'd price it way, way higher than £15. But actually they want to make cheap enough so that people pay it, and they get money for me using my own private transport and fuel to travel around, and don't have to pay for the running costs of more tubes/buses etc.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#348

Post by steveBK123 »

CPLX wrote: post #326
steveBK123 wrote: post #296

I think the biggest thing CP is going to do in NYC is end toll shopping. There were previously some pretty obvious arbs available to people trying to get off LI. The biggest policy failure of CP though to me is that they left taxi/uber relatively unscathed. Often the majority of traffic is taxi/uber, so make the surcharge on them a fraction of what individual drivers pay is kind of nonsensical. Are we trying to minim…

How do you figure that? The amount of the surcharge for the average taxi/uber driver per day will be many many multiples of the cost for a regular driver. In the case of a regular driver you you have someone paying $9 to bring a car into the congested area, probably serving one trip by one person. In the case of a TLC driver you'll have them paying probably well over $100 a day (assuming the $2.75 charge x 4-5 trips…

I have a car and live in Brooklyn. I usually take an Uber anyway because parking is a pain and/or expensive.

So I was previously comparing: $0 car toll + $20-50 parking vs $0 car toll + $50 Taxi/Uber fare

Now I am comparing: $9 car toll + $20-50 parking vs $1.50 Uber toll + $50 Uber fare

That is - the fee is being passed onto riders anyway, so why should I pay a lower toll sitting in the back of an Uber than when driving myself across the bridge?

This is where some of the concerns about classism come into play. I'm already paying more to be driven around in an Uber vs drive myself. Why should I be given a toll discount?

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#349

Post by steveBK123 »

gregshap wrote: post #325
steveBK123 wrote: post #296

I think the biggest thing CP is going to do in NYC is end toll shopping. There were previously some pretty obvious arbs available to people trying to get off LI. The biggest policy failure of CP though to me is that they left taxi/uber relatively unscathed. Often the majority of traffic is taxi/uber, so make the surcharge on them a fraction of what individual drivers pay is kind of nonsensical. Are we trying to minim…

The uber/taxi fee is charged per ride, whereas private passenger cars pay once per day. Seems like a reasonable tradeoff.

Private passenger car driver is paying 12x Taxi toll / 6x Uber toll. Taxi/Uber toll is passed directly onto he rider.

Why should it be cheaper to be chauffeured?

Also your average Taxi may not even cross into the CPZ 12x per day, so unclear we are making it up on volume either.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#350

Post by tshaddox »

potato3732842 wrote: post #291
tshaddox wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that’s a dismissive interpretation. It’s a bit like saying “sure, a cinema that refuses to sell more tickets than it has seats leads to a better cinema viewing experience, but only if you remove price from the equation!”

It boggles my mind (by which I mean "you should feel dirty for employing a dishonest rhetorical trick like that") that you can call his take dismissive when you simply ignored the area that is regressing (cost) in order to facilitate the tradeoff. Cost is explicitly being traded away here to facilitate improvement in other areas. That's the whole point of implementing the toll/tax!!!!!

Phrases like “toll” and “congestion pricing” clearly imply that there will be a cost to driving, so I don’t think it’s reasonable to say anyone in the conversation is ignoring cost.

But again, dismissing the improvements because costs go up is like dismissing the reduction of water pollution because “now only people who can afford chemical disposal can operate a tannery next to the river.”

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