Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

e360.yale.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 524 posts

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#371

Post by ceejayoz »

CryptoBanker wrote: post #369
ceejayoz wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congestion pricing was agreed to in 2019. Expected revenue was used to budget quite a few projects; this caused a bit of a scare when Hochul put it on hold for a while. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/16/nyregion/congestion-prici...

The loans backed by congestion pricing revenue weren't taken out until this year https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-07/ny-mta-ge... That money you're talking about was money that was already spent to implement congestion pricing

One specific loan was taken out this year. (And planning tends to preceed the actual loans.)

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#372

Post by jkingsbery »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #199

I'm curious how congestion pricing became a national issue. The strength of conviction people have about this policy–almost either way, but certainly among those against–seems to scale with distance from the city. Nobody in Idaho gets uppity about New Jersey's tolls. But they have strong, knowledge-free, almost identity-defining opinions about congestion charges. Is it because it's a policy that's worked in Europe an…

> The strength of conviction people have about this policy–almost either way, but certainly among those against–seems to scale with distance from the city.

Writing this from mid-town Manhattan. There are a lot of strong feelings about congestion pricing. It was a common topic in the local media. The stronger voices tend to be those who drive and are affected by it. For Manhattan that is a relatively low percent of the population.

There are some people who are pro-congestion pricing, but as often has with these things the benefits are distributed whereas the costs are concentrated, leading to certain behavior.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#373

Post by TulliusCicero »

offsign wrote: post #229

One thing that irks me about these schemes is that they often ignore cities role as regional hubs -- i.e. many cities became cities because they serve as geographical gateways interlocking the surrounding region. They are happy to take the benefits of being at the hub, but (increasingly) adopt a nativistic dialogue with the rest of the spokes. I get that no one likes highways running through their communities, but wh…

What you're describing as a problem is actually the solution, and what you think is the solution is actually the problem.

Highways running straight through the middle of major cities is stupid, unnecessary, and harmful. Going to the major cities is fine, but there's no good reason they need to go all the way through them. They should just go around/near the cities instead.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#374

Post by selimthegrim »

ceejayoz wrote: post #304
selimthegrim wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you recommend them based on winter performance?

I live in a snowy area and am quite happy with them.

I believe they are directional tires so it would make it hard to operate with a full size spare otherwise I’ll definitely consider them

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#375

Post by kjkjadksj »

SoftTalker wrote: post #203
jgeada wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does everyone immediately pivot to EVs on this subject, instead of (looks around) gargantuan SUVs and trucks everywhere, due to peculiarities of US policies regulating SUVs more leniently than cars on fuel efficiency?

Consumers like SUVs. They are convenient, easy to get in and out of, flexible for hauling large items, many can pull trailers, offer good visibility for the driver, and do well in the snow.

Wagons can do all of that too

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#376

Post by maerF0x0 »

hamdingers wrote: post #354
maerF0x0 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the house I lived it was not debunked. It was fact. The caltrain blasted it's horn hourly (or more) 24/7 within earshot of my house. I could not sleep with my window open and often slept with ear plugs even with the window closed. I get you might be tempted to spout generic statistics, but I can tell you without a doubt it was ear blistering loud up close, and sleep disturbing even 2 blocks away. Also for what it'…

So you would have preferred a roughly 12 lane freeway 2 blocks from your house to move the same number of people?

Perhaps, but more likely I would have preferred regulating the blasting of that damn horn.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#377

Post by bgirard »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #194
bgirard wrote: post #17

Not surprising. The real question is how do we measure the opportunity cost of these measures? Is it a net gain? You could, at the extreme, ban all motor vehicles but the opportunity cost would outweigh the benefits.

I wouldn't assume your last claim. It could also be the case that making it viable to drive personal vehicles at all inside a dense city comes with opportunity costs (parking, roads that cut through infrastructure, pollution, noise) that aren't worth it. And I'd wager that it is the case.

That's a straw man. I didn't say personal vehicles.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#378

Post by bgirard »

eigenspace wrote: post #162
pulisse wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of congestion pricing is to let market mechanisms determine where the optimum is.

Well, the market decides where the optimum is *in response to* the price set by the government. So the government can decide at least approximately where they want things to end up by setting a higher or lower price.

Right. It finds an economic optimum limited to what people are willing to pay and their perceived value from that. That optimum doesn't naturally weight more complex factors like for the trade-off for the smog generated from your travel.

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#379

Post by hamdingers »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #376
hamdingers wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you would have preferred a roughly 12 lane freeway 2 blocks from your house to move the same number of people?

Perhaps, but more likely I would have preferred regulating the blasting of that damn horn.

There are regulations, encourage your local government to establish a quiet zone if that's truly your issue with the train.

https://railroads.dot.gov/railroad-safety/divisions/crossing...

Re: In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

#380

Post by Kye »

autoexec wrote: post #348
Kye wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably referring to autoexec.bat, not cars.

lol I hadn't even considered that. I didn't know what that comment was getting at and thought that maybe it was a dig at my age!

It did remind me of this comic: https://boingboing.net/2017/01/02/autoexec-bat-the-tee-shirt...

The original seems to have disappeared.

Post reply on HN