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Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

nytimes.com

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Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#451

Post by ochoseis »

steadicat wrote: post #438
Thorrez wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>IMHO the real problem is cars. The US still can't imagine itself without cars. All of the US except NYC. In NYC 45.6% of households own a car. In Berlin it's 49%. https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/u-s-cities-with-th... https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/en/car-free-berlin-li.113268

You’re kind of proving the point here. NYC has fewer car owners and yet NYC doesn’t have a single pedestrian street or street closed to through traffic. Sounds like a city that can’t imagine itself without cars even though it’s completely realistic.

You’re either exaggerating or don’t spend much time in NYC. Half of Broadway is closed to cars now, same with Wall Street. We have summer streets where they close many on weekends. Lots of dedicated bike lanes and a few isolated paths throughout the city. Could there be more? Sure. Are they completely absent? No.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#452

Post by neves »

Larrikin wrote: post #252
neves wrote: post #40

Earlier 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.

If I live in a NYC like this how do I visit my friends in Philadelphia? What if they live in Towson MD? Now what if they live in the suburbs? How would I visit anybody in the country side anywhere? What if I want to buy in bulk at Costco? What if I just want to buy anything I can't carry on the subway? I have spent over a decade without owning a car in multiple cities. It's definitely possible but I've been fortunate…

This is crazy. Costco just exists because America is an auto addicted society. In sane places you can make multiple small errands. Maybe you could even get to know some neighbors

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#453

Post by jcattle »

dripdry45 wrote: post #283

I wonder if adding congestion pricing in small cities to certain intersections or stretches of road would work the same way. if people really want to go through the busiest intersections or areas, then they’re going to have to pay a little bit. Then people question whether they are going to go through, or pay a little bit to keep up the infrastructure if they do.

I think that would have the opposite effect. Instead of most cars going through the busy intersection (which is probably busy because it's the main way to get from A to B) more cars would go through side roads to avoid the toll. And then you have more cars going through mainly residential streets.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#454

Post by neves »

neither_color wrote: post #223
neves wrote: post #40

Earlier 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…

Other societies decide where they spend money. It can be public transportation, paid maternity leave or universal healthcare.

America addiction to cars is a human construction, so it can be changed.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#455

Post by h2zizzle »

jfim wrote: post #431
virtualritz wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's curious but unsurprising that privatization of public transport is considered an answer to congestion when existence of good (or great) public transport is the working answer one can find in many places around the world. When I visited NYC two years ago, I was blown away by how unbelievably bad public transport infrastructure is. The most flabbergasting thing was the absence of Metro ring lines around the center…

Part of the reason is that public transit for whatever reason appears to be unusually sketchy in many places in the US. For example, a few years ago, there was an incident with a man with two chainsaws threatening passengers [1] in the local transit system. In contrast, the transit systems I've seen in Europe and Asia appear well maintained, clean, and relatively safe. Biking is also safer in European cities that hav…

? Japanese subways were infamously the site of a nerve gas attack in the 90s. 33 people were killed in mass knife attacks in Kunming, China in 2014. France has had a handful of subway and train attacks.

However, the point is that these incidents, along with the BART one, are unusual. Avoiding public transit because of them would be like avoiding flying because of air accidents or avoiding going to a theater or musical event because of the various massacres that have happened at them over the years.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#456

Post by vladvasiliu »

Tade0 wrote: post #426
vladvasiliu wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And, of course, public transportation is often lacking quality compared to individual traffic. (Taking a bike across a bicycle road vs. getting into a crammed subway train in July, for instance.) Well, it doesn't have to be like that. Riding a bike in July is atrocious where I live, even with an electrical one. I'll end up drenched after my 20-minute commute, even though it's mostly flat. Cars didn't use to have AC…

People have been doing this, but the majority doesn't have this sort of flexibility[0]. Particularly any customer-facing job is going to require being there at a certain hour. [0] Those who do typically could well be working remotely instead.

I think it doesn't need to be a majority for the situation to be a net improvement.

Among my colleagues (~20 people) nobody has a customer-facing job, and only one needs to manage children. The others either don't have kids at all, or the kids are old enough to manage on their own. They all come in the office around 9:30 AM. We rarely schedule meetings before 10 AM and after 5 PM. I'm pretty sure that if even 10% of the people would change their schedules a bit, comfort would improve for everybody. It's the same thing with lunch. Everybody goes down at 1 PM on the dot and complains about there being too many people. I go around 12:30 and never have to wait in line for ages.

Of course, WFH would be even better, but I understand not all people like it. The company I work for is actually quite flexible, but the people do tend to prefer working from the office. I, personally, prefer WFH (which is what I do generally). But my point isn't to push a particular working arrangement, rather to point out that even when there is some inherent flexibility in the system, people seem to choose not to use it.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#457

Post by walthamstow »

mattlondon wrote: post #441

Good luck New York. In London it is now just a toll. It started off at just the busiest times but now you need to pay it 24/5, and even on Saturday and Sunday afternoons when there is no rush hour. Not only have the hours expanded, but so has the size of the zone. So now even right out in the suburbs you need to pay if you drive a diesel but I fully expect them to include petrol cars, then eventually all EVs too. The…

> public transport is so utterly utterly awful and unreliable and slow and dirty and just terrible in London.

I've lived here all my life, never owned a car, and I have no idea what you're talking about

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#458

Post by nmeofthestate »

jampekka wrote: post #384
stuaxo wrote: post #359

Hi from London: The centre is much more pleasant to walk in, as are most places in the zone. Pollution is much, much better: if you came to London and travelled on the underground you would have black snot when you blew your nose, this hasn't been the case for a few years now. I hope NY gets the sake improvements.

Travel of low-income people also declined significantly while high-income travel did not. So quite literally the London congestion pricing got the poor off the zones. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03611981221138801

How would limiting access by adding a cost not obviously impact people differently based on their income? I'm struggling to see why this would even need to be verified by research.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#459

Post by horns4lyfe »

h2zizzle wrote: post #455
jfim wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the reason is that public transit for whatever reason appears to be unusually sketchy in many places in the US. For example, a few years ago, there was an incident with a man with two chainsaws threatening passengers [1] in the local transit system. In contrast, the transit systems I've seen in Europe and Asia appear well maintained, clean, and relatively safe. Biking is also safer in European cities that hav…

? Japanese subways were infamously the site of a nerve gas attack in the 90s. 33 people were killed in mass knife attacks in Kunming, China in 2014. France has had a handful of subway and train attacks. However, the point is that these incidents, along with the BART one, are unusual. Avoiding public transit because of them would be like avoiding flying because of air accidents or avoiding going to a theater or musica…

That’s rare enough to not keep people away from public transport. Speaking from experience in Portland OR, it’s more the daily low level stress of having to keep an eye out for the meth crazed lunatics around you. There always seems to be one and they’re wildly unpredictable.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#460

Post by sebstefan »

FergusArgyll wrote: post #434
sebstefan wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Cyclists Break Far Fewer Road Rules Than Motorists, Finds New Video Study" ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists... ) Perhaps if there is a no bikelanes and cyclists are bothering you on the sidewalk you should walk in the middle of the road, as the real danger is bikes, right?

> Most content on Forbes.com is written by contributors or "Senior Contributors" with minimal editorial oversight, and is generally unreliable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...

They're just quoting a danish government report

Googling it, I found a second one in London with the same methods (surveying CCTV footage of multiple intersections) and they get the same findings

In both:

- Motorists break way more traffic laws

- Motorists mainly break the law for speed or convenience

- The infractions by motorists are generally more serious and pose a threat to others (the main one is speeding)

- The main one cyclists break is riding on the sidewalk - which is because of cars, and it doesn't happen when there is a bike lane

- The second one is turning right on red without causing inconvenience to other road users

https://content.tfl.gov.uk/traffic-note-8-cycling-red-lights...

For the danish government report unfortunately they moved it and I can't find it anymore

http://api.vejdirektoratet.dk/sites/default/files/2019-05/Cy...

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