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Could you please expand on how that is murder?
Changes since congestion pricing started in New York
371–380 of 735 posts
Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York
#372As a long time NYC resident who moved out during Covid but commute to work in the city. I definitely noticed less traffic on the streets and less noise. I see a lot of talk of other cities that don't have good public transportation. For example, between Flushing in Queens to 8th Ave in Brooklyn, there are privately run buses at affordable rate and get you there at half the time of trains. There are buses from a lot o…
I don't think London has private mini buses like that, just a huge amount of buses. They are operated by companies for TFL (though they are all red, you can read the company name). I'm not sure at what point that arrangement happened, somewhere between the outright privatisations of the 80s, or the stealth ones of the black years, which used PFI.
I think citymapper ran an experimental private bus line because they had identified a gap. But their article doesn't have a date, and I seem to remember this was years ago, so not sure where it's at.
https://citymapper.com/news/1800/introducing-the-citymapper-...
Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York
#373Completely biased article that omits so many negative pieces of information. What a joke for this to even be on HN.
Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York
#374As a long time NYC resident who moved out during Covid but commute to work in the city. I definitely noticed less traffic on the streets and less noise. I see a lot of talk of other cities that don't have good public transportation. For example, between Flushing in Queens to 8th Ave in Brooklyn, there are privately run buses at affordable rate and get you there at half the time of trains. There are buses from a lot o…
A lot of the UK did this in the 1980s and it’s turned into such a disaster, most mayors and local authorities are trying to move to the London model: companies can bid a flat rate to deliver a bus service (effectively, they commit to providing drivers to deliver the timetable). TfL collects all fares. They also - I think - supply most of the buses to ensure they are of a certain standard, but the companies need to le…
I don't know about London, but many places systems like this results in terrible working conditions for drivers. Pay is lousy, shift arrangements are in some cases insane, like work from 5:30-10:00 and then 14:00-17:00. Minimal time in between routes to go to the toilet and so on.
Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York
#375As a long time NYC resident who moved out during Covid but commute to work in the city. I definitely noticed less traffic on the streets and less noise. I see a lot of talk of other cities that don't have good public transportation. For example, between Flushing in Queens to 8th Ave in Brooklyn, there are privately run buses at affordable rate and get you there at half the time of trains. There are buses from a lot o…
I don't think London has private mini buses like that, just a huge amount of buses. They are operated by companies for TFL (though they are all red, you can read the company name). I'm not sure at what point that arrangement happened, somewhere between the outright privatisations of the 80s, or the stealth ones of the black years, which used PFI.
The existence of private minibuses is a clear indication that the transit authority has failed.
The experience of bus deregulation in Britain outside of London tended to go one of two ways. In most of the country it simply created a private monopoly while in a few cities like Manchester there were routes so popular (busiest bus route in Europe!) that multiple companies competed for custom and the city council had to employ stewards to ensure fair play.
This level of success was really an admission of failure. Anywhere else would have built a subway or at least a tram. (Metrolink is great it just doesn't even attempt to serve the busiest transit corridor in the city.)
London was of course treated differently. While the operators were privatised they remained regulated by government. Public transport in London is simply too important to the UK to be allowed to fail as it was in other parts of the country.
Anyway it's good to see central government allow Greater Manchester to regulate its buses again. After smashing it up local transport in 1986 the Tories finally relented in 2023 and allowed Greater Manchester control. Quite what Labour were doing for local transport outside of London between 1997 and 2010 is open to question. But it certainly resulted in renaissance of London public transport.
Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
The best decision would be to completely forbid individual transport. Now the common space dedicated to streets is for who can pay extra. Forbid individual transport and create some parks and pedestrian streets.
These threads tend to devolve into, "Americans are so unsophisticated everyone else in the world is banning cars and turning downtown into walkable utopia" but what they really mean by rest of the world is a few crowded European cities. If you look at all the new rich mega cities built in the Middle East and East Asia cars continue to exist alongside good public transit as aspirational status icons and the preferred…
These USian supremacist talking points are the prime reason minorities feel unwelcome on this site
Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York
#377The downsides are all dismissed one way or the other ... Restaurants, Broadway Holding up Pollution Too soon to say Lower-income commuters Too soon to say Public opinion Not great, but improving I think highly of the NYT, but this is a fan's article. At the top they say, The reporters sought information from everyone they could think of, including the M.T.A., the Fire Department, restaurant-booking platforms, researc…
Agreed, this article is a love letter to congestion charges. My guess is that nearly nothing has changed and will change. The fact is that the public transit systems are simply unable to modernise and Union Labor makes it next to impossible to make changes.
When I bought a NJTransit when I started working a monthly ride card for a 1hr commute cost $500/month approximately. The same commute with a car was 45 minutes and fuel/maintenance was $250/month + I needed the car anyway.
A 1hr commute in Switzerland costs me like $1.5k per year.
The congestion charge changes the math, but I’m not sure it changes the service.
Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York
#378Earlier 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…
When I can, I always take the stairs. It's usually vacant, while the escalator is packed. I used to work on the second floor. My colleagues would all push the button for the elevator, and wait, wait, wait. I'd be at my desk before they reached the 2nd floor. (Some of them were jocks.) In my 20s, I worked a stint on the 6th floor. I'd run up the stairs to try and beat the elevator. I'd poop out on the 5th and have to…
The only life advise I've ever taken seriously is to always take the stairs.
Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
London has changed for the better for sure but black snot on the tube hasn't changed at all. I get it from 20 minutes on any deep line like the Victoria. It's from train brake dust, nothing to do with vehicle emissions.
Victoria might be one of the worst for this. You can hear the wheels screaming the abrasion off for long sections of it. It’ll be interesting to see whether the Piccadilly gets better for you when the new trains arrive over the next couple of years.
I think the screeching is because the section from Highbury to Blackhorse is one massive right hook that the trains take at an uncompromising speed.
Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I read that the warmth from people and braking has baked some of the clay earth around the tunnels, making them even more insulative!
Because of how old they are there is some really interesting long term data as the earth itself around the tunnels reaches a new thermal equilibrium. In looking for a source, i found a good wikipedia article on tube temp in general. These comments and the article made me see how much of it is/was due to braking. TIL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_cooling
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