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

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

#401

Post by yannyu »

autoexec wrote: post #393
yannyu wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They know that congestion pricing coming to their city would hurt them in very real ways. But why should they even care to begin with? Just because the news and media made them aware of congestion pricing? This is the whole problem, that local issues are made mainstream news media specifically to cultivate fear and anger in people that literally have no skin in the game and a completely different lifestyle.

> But why should they even care to begin with? Why should they care about something that they feel will hurt them financially when they're already struggling and restrict their freedom on top of that? Why wouldn't they care? > Just because the news and media made them aware of congestion pricing? Uber's "surge" pricing was what first introduced many of them to a world where the price of something they depend on chang…

Why would someone in an Idaho suburb care about how Manhattan manages its congestion pricing? Why is this national news?

Everything you're saying has zero impact on 93-97% of the US population (New York State is 6% of the US population, NYC is 3%). None of these people have real skin in the game, because this literally has no effect on them. New Yorkers don't vote in other states.

Why is a single student's grade in OSU national news? Why is congestion pricing national news? Why is a library in the middle of nowhere California news?

None of these things are actually related to why people are stretched thin and getting screwed by the system. In fact they're exactly unrelated which is why we're blasted with this stuff on the news 24/7. You're worried about a slippery slope argument when most of us are already being fleeced by current, real policies from government and corporations.

Congestion pricing is not the thing screwing over American families, it's the thing they're pointing at so you don't look at the actual thing.

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

#402

Post by ceejayoz »

dchest wrote: post #73
ceejayoz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving (and more importantly, parking ) in NYC was never that much of a poor person thing.

This fits the template in the post you're replying.

No; it was already economically infeasible, and thus the drop was not marked.

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

#403

Post by cogman10 »

bluGill wrote: post #396
taeric wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in Atlanta and Seattle. Both have perfectly workable transit. Even if Atlanta does seem to have gotten a bit worse over the years.

Workable is not a great endorsement. If things are not fast and frequent people will prefer to drive even if transit could work. Also both have workable transit only for some destinations - I don't live in either city, but I'd guess without looking getting downtown is easy but if your destination is one suburb over it is technically possible but you could baby crawl faster.

Yup, it's something I think people need to experience.

I lived in the UK for 2 years without a car and it ultimately did not negatively impact me (other than needing to memorize local bus routes). I lived in towns as small as 10000 people (Newtown, Wales) and they had both a connected rail system and a couple of bus routes serving the town and connecting it to other towns.

Buses absolutely can work in even quiet rural locations, they just need to be properly funded and prioritized. They also need to be subsidized. The American notion that public transit needs to either run net zero or turn a profit is backwards and fundamentally stopping it from working well.

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

#404

Post by squigz »

vel0city wrote: post #299
MisterTea wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please. Truckers aren't intentionally giving kids asthma. Go after the capitalists who incentivized the behavior. Otherwise you're just harming more innocent people. (edit: grammar)

> Truckers aren't intentionally giving kids asthma The number of trucks I see that are either horribly maintained or purposefully modified to defeat emissions devices spewing massive clouds of black smoke every time they step on the accelerator pedal speaks otherwise to me. Rolling Coal is absolutely a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal

Even those people don't deserve to be "dragged from their cabs and beaten by angry mobs"

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

#405

Post by autoexec »

yannyu wrote: post #401
autoexec wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why should they even care to begin with? Why should they care about something that they feel will hurt them financially when they're already struggling and restrict their freedom on top of that? Why wouldn't they care? > Just because the news and media made them aware of congestion pricing? Uber's "surge" pricing was what first introduced many of them to a world where the price of something they depend on chang…

Why would someone in an Idaho suburb care about how Manhattan manages its congestion pricing? Why is this national news? Everything you're saying has zero impact on 93-97% of the US population (New York State is 6% of the US population, NYC is 3%). None of these people have real skin in the game, because this literally has no effect on them. New Yorkers don't vote in other states. Why is a single student's grade in O…

> Why would someone in an Idaho suburb care about how Manhattan manages its congestion pricing?

Because in all likelihood this isn't going to be limited to Manhattan, and I'd argue (like many others) that it probably shouldn't be. The fact that it's been so successful makes it all but inevitable that the practice will spread. Why would people wait until they're forced to choose between driving to work and affording groceries before they speak out against it?

> None of these things are actually related to why people are stretched thin and getting screwed by the system

I think a lot of people would argue that dynamic pricing schemes and governments taking increasing amounts of money from their pockets is, at least in part, why they are stretched thin. In any case, regardless of the cause of their struggles they are struggling. If they were feeling financially secure they might grumble at the increasing likelihood of paying fines to drive where they want to, but they wouldn't be panicking over it like they have been.

Congestion pricing isn't seen as something that's screwing them over right now, but it is seen as the latest scheme cooked up by government that will be screwing them over if they can't put a stop to it.

I think we'd agree that congestion pricing isn't the biggest issue impacting the struggling American family right now, but I can understand why it's being seen as a concern and as something they want to keep out of their own cities. For some that means putting a stop to the practice before it spreads.

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

#406

Post by JumpCrisscross »

offsign wrote: post #302
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when you decommission historical arteries There are no highway arteries running through the congestion zone. Building one would require hundreds of billions of dollars of eminent domain. Manhattan has a $1tn GDP [1], on par with Switzerlad [2]. Its economy is larger than all but 6 states (between Pennsylvaia and Ohio) [3]. More than all of New Jersey. If it crossed the pond it would be the fifth-largest member of t…

Didn't advocate for "more highways" -- I totally get it. More offering that maybe these problems shouldn't be viewed as a purely zero-sum game, where cities get all the benefit at the expense of the larger region due to a form of geographic tyranny. (Or at least, perhaps we shouldn't pretend that externalities don't exist through studies that largely look at quality-of-life factors in the hub.) You can see some of th…

> where cities get all the benefit at the expense of the larger region

A pair of thought experiments. The tri-state area is depopulated and turned into a nature reserve. Everywhere except for New York City. How does it do?

Now, New York City is leveled and turned into a nature preserve. How does this affect those states’ non-urban populations? (Hint: economic collapse. Budget cuts. Unemployment.)

Cities suck resources from outside. But by and large, they also distribute largesse to their proximities and subsidize life for everyone around them.

> led to a recent recall of the local council member. Why does the majority vote of a city of 800k people get to unilaterally dictate the transportation options for a region upwards of 7MM?

New York City has a population of 8.5mm [1]. That’s almost half of the metropolitan area’s population [2]. Include New York State and the non-voting population effect is a minority. Congestion charging isn’t a tyranny of the minority.

As for why, self determination.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area

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

#407

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cogman10 wrote: post #400
afavour wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I think there's a hard stop at "having a functioning public transit system". I could imagine DC implementing a congestion charge. Nashville less so.

Sure, but that also drives the question of "why don't we have functioning public transit?" or "why aren't we building out our public transit?". There will be a stop and balance struck everywhere, but this sort of thing really does make people that deal in the car industry nervous. I'd gladly ditch my car tomorrow if I could catch a bus within walking distance. I'm unfortunately 5 miles from the nearest bus stop.

> that also drives the question of "why don't we have functioning public transit?" or "why aren't we building out our public transit?"

The answer to which in many American cities being because there isn’t enough density.

Outside America’s 4 to six largest cities, ditching cars probably doesn’t work.

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

#408

Post by MisterTea »

vel0city wrote: post #299
MisterTea wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please. Truckers aren't intentionally giving kids asthma. Go after the capitalists who incentivized the behavior. Otherwise you're just harming more innocent people. (edit: grammar)

> Truckers aren't intentionally giving kids asthma The number of trucks I see that are either horribly maintained or purposefully modified to defeat emissions devices spewing massive clouds of black smoke every time they step on the accelerator pedal speaks otherwise to me. Rolling Coal is absolutely a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal

You really don't see that here in NYC. Enforcement for big rigs and even pickups curbed a lot of that. Used to be common to see a big truck or especially a city bus belch black smoke but nowadays with enforcement and emissions systems it's much less common. Ironically, the worst offenders are the obviously poorly maintained school busses.

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

#409

Post by mrguyorama »

HPsquared wrote: post #392
ceejayoz wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a bit of materials science work in that direction. For example, I have Michelin's CrossClimate tires, which are all-weather tires that do better in snow but don't break down as fast as dedicated winter tires do in warm weather.

I was thinking more from the perspective "make them out of materials that aren't too bad to inhale/ingest"

What material is strong, malleable, dirt fucking cheap, has a high coefficient of friction, easy to work with, amenable to additives, meets all the suspension properties we expect out of a tire, etc, and isn't bad to breathe a lot of the dust of?

Modern tires are works of material science miracle, working with dirt cheap inputs.

Even iron dust from steel on steel friction like with trains is bad for your health.

The human lungs just have bad filtration.

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

#410

Post by SECProto »

saalweachter wrote: post #311
SECProto wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuel is sold by volume, which is why volumetric fuel efficiency is desirable to the consumer

Fuel is sold by volume and fuel type ; diesel is about 25% more expensive per gallon than regular gasoline where I am.

Correct - where I am it is cheaper most of the year, a bit more expensive in the winter.
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