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NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

congestion-pricing-tracker.com

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Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#391

Post by saltminer »

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.

> During rush hour, cars block the box

There's an easy solution to this: have ticket writers waiting at intersections to paper all the cars who do it. It's not like they can drive away. NYC used to be really good about enforcement, and it worked extremely well.

It doesn't solve traffic, but it does help stave off gridlock and keep intersections free for bus lanes to operate normally.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#392

Post by durumu »

Lanolderen wrote: post #334
alamortsubite wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're way overplaying the dangers of "crazies" and "the bacteria greenhouse" with respect to travel by motorcycle or scooter (or even automobile). I agree with your point that we should encourage these modes of transportation over cars, but I'd add it will be electric bikes that finally turn the tide on traffic congestion in cities (and all the other great benefits that come with doing that). Just don't tell the ele…

I mean, I'm definitely biased but I've been sick once since ~2015 and that was Covid I caught at a large anniversary celebration. Before that I was With crazies it's not that bad. I remember the bus getting pulled over once by a car with people with pipes/bats who beat a grandpa for getting in an argument with one of the guys prior. That was the only actually violent occurance over thousands of rides, however I still…

In Manhattan ebike access is excellent -- there are tons of bike lanes and bikeshare stations. They are typically as fast as Ubers for getting around the city since traffic is so bad here, and much cheaper. The main issue is that it's not very safe. Probably this does not generalize to most other US cities.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#393

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

fuzzylightbulb wrote: post #196
dralley wrote: post #167

Fantastic. That's step one, now fix the public transit, and make it safer and cleaner, so that people actually enjoy using it consistently rather than just needing to do so. Do that and NYC will be a much, much nicer city to live in.

That is literally what the money is for

You're gonna need a lot more money than that when ~40% of MTA total spending goes to pay pensions and healthcare for people that don't even work anymore by ~2040.

You need ~35% just to keep the system running functioning (which does not include operations - like the actual drivers).

That's only going to leave you ~25% leftover for everything else - and a non-trivial percentage of that comes from the Federal Government - which may not be there in the future (when all of their money is going to pensions and healthcare).

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#394

Post by ben_w »

palmfacehn wrote: post #246
bluesnews wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pedestrians outside of cars don't have agency to prevent injury to themselves from cars.

Situational awareness shouldn't be discounted.

I was hit by a car once, due to the driver's lack of situational awareness.

I was turning from a major road into a minor road, a car was stopped at the exit to that minor road, but they failed to look in my direction, and pulled out into me.

My bike was a write-off, fortunately I was uninjured — they had started from stationary, so probably less than 10 mph when they hit me, and I always wear a helmet.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#395

Post by gradschool »

Congestion charging started in London in 2003. I'm skeptical about the justification that it's intended to disincentivize unnecessary driving because people who drive frequently get a bulk discount rather than a surcharge as one might expect if that were the actual intention. A bulk discount is more indicative of a policy intended to maximize revenue. I'm also skeptical about the justification that it's intended to reduce pollution because the discount for electric cars is ending this year. I have a moral issue with it as well because the roads are financed by everyone's taxes. Around the time the charge was starting it was easy to find supporters for it on tv chat shows but I never met one in real life. I assume there are some but that they support it in a naive attempt to keep anyone poorer than them off the road. Otherwise, the supporter's problem of too much congestion would be easily solved by not driving. The charge has tripled since its introduction so maybe there's an element of poetic justice in it for some of them.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#396

Post by khafra »

Lanolderen wrote: post #283

I wish people would focus more on scooters and motorcycles than moving people in busses. Coming from a place with decent and cheap public transport, no one likes it. It'll never be as fast, you'll always be closed in a bacteria greenhouse with strangers, there will always be crazies, it'll never have the exact path you need, you don't have as much control over it.. For the past year I've been commuting on a motorcycl…

Coming to a place with decent and cheap public transport six months ago: 1. It's faster than commuting by car during rush hour, and otherwise 10%-20% longer within the city limits. 2. There's no crazies. I haven't seen so much as someone rocking and muttering, let alone bothering other passengers. 3. Yeah, it's a petri dish--I've been sick enough to miss days of work twice in the last six months, which is more than in the two years before moving here.

I'm not sure how well 1 and 2 could generalize from Germany to America. You'd need Harberger Taxes or liberal use of Eminent Domain to put rail networks into a city. You'd need competent and well-funded law enforcement to curtail the crazies.

#3 we could fix in either area with UVC and filtered air circulation; or I could just get comfortable with being the weirdo wearing an N95 mask every day

I have also commuted by motorcycle for around 30k miles. It does save a lot of money, but it's not much faster than cars if you're strictly following the law in the 49 states where lane splitting isn't fully legal. You also have 90 times the risk of death per mile travelled, compared to a car, which balances the increased disease risk on a train.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#397

Post by walterbell »

oliwarner wrote: post #267
walterbell wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a daily quota on rideshare cars operating in Manhattan. They are a significant percentage of traffic, often with zero passengers.

Taxies in general. I know medallions already limit their numbers but if you've ever been locked in traffic surrounded by yellow cabs, count the passengers. Each one —mostly empty IME— is 120sqft of road. Cars trolling around for patrons is a bad system. The Subway, buses, trams, etc, etc are all way better for passenger density.

Like airports already do, the city could provide rideshare "waiting area" parking lots in different zones. That would retain rapid response to on-demand pickup, without random trolling on city streets as defacto parking lots. Rideshare averages only 50% utilization of taxis, despite having the advantage of automated scheduling.

Instead the city added a per-ride fee, which will be covered by Uber/Lyft, making it useless as an incentive for ride reduction, https://archive.is/MtRgo

> Riding in a taxi, green cab or black car will now cost passengers an extra 75 cents in the congestion zone... The surcharge for an Uber or Lyft will be $1.50 per trip... cars for services like Uber and Lyft make fewer trips and are more likely to idle in the zone. In 2023, taxis made an average of 12 daily trips, while ride-hail vehicles made an average of six.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#398

Post by CPLX »

Aspos wrote: post #360
CPLX wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as far as I can tell got very little for my money You literally lived in the greatest city in the history of world civilization. Sorry it didn't work out for you.

You seriously think NYC is the greatest city in the history of world civilization? Or is it sarcasm? I am asking this as NYC resident.

Of course I do. Ask any person living in New York, they'll tell you the same thing.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#399

Post by coldpie »

randomopining wrote: post #345
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

Figuring out how, and how much, to pay, and then fumbling with cash and change or whatever, during the fairly stressful experience of boarding, is something of a barrier to using transit. So removing the fare payment entirely removes that barrier. But, that's gotten a lot easier with support for paying fares in apps, so I think it's a lot less of an issue now than it was ten years ago. I used to be in favor of free fares, mostly because it'd make using transit less intimidating for newbies. But I'm on the fence now.

Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

#400

Post by mjmsmith »

tomp wrote: post #266
paulgb wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a New Yorker, a few things made me a proponent of congestion pricing: - watching people have to squeeze between stopped (mostly single-occupant) cars blocking sidewalks on Broome or Canal on their own pedestrian light at rush hour, and realizing that it would be impossible for someone with a stroller or mobility aid. - seeing packed busses miss light cycles because the intersection is blocked - seeing ambulances o…

All these issues have better solutions than congestion pricing. Cars blocking intersections and/or sidewalks can easily be solved with automated traffic fines - that's how Zurich and London does it (the former without any congestion pricing!) Many cities also have special lanes only useable by some classes of vehicles - e.g. busses (or sometimes taxis as well) - I guess ambulances could also use those. In fact, conge…

People who oppose congestion pricing in NYC also oppose dedicated bus lanes and bike lanes because they "cause congestion".
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