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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

#451

Post by margalabargala »

coryrc wrote: post #246
somewhereoutth wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and would it be true to say that regenerative braking on electric cars reduces significantly this dust?

Absolutely. Nearly eliminates. Even non-plugin hybrids have greatly reduced. There was a "study" going around claiming otherwise, which sampled air captured by passing vehicles with a trash bag on a busy road, claiming EVs did not reduce brake dust, but even my brief summary here makes it extremely obvious how flawed this "measurement" is.

For those of us unclear why collecting air from passing cars to measure particulates is obviously flawed, could you elaborate?

EVs unfortunately do increase tire particulate, as well. Fairly significantly. It's not obvious to me that the decrease in brake dust isn't made up by the increase in tire dust.

The removal of the tailpipe emissions is really where EVs shine from a pollution standpoint. If you turn on your car in your garage, you don't die anymore.

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

#452

Post by aurareturn »

lkbm wrote: post #33
aurareturn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minor nitpick, but tailpipes aren't the primary source of emissions. Spend some time in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City or a very dense city in Asia and then come back here. Let me know if you change your mind.

I won't change my mind about emissions in NYC . NYC is full of modern, western cars. Two-stroke engines are terrible , classic automobiles are terrible, cars with no emission regulations will tend to be terrible. Cars in NYC will have catalytic converters and other technologies to reduce tailpipe emissions.

My bad. Your original post did not imply NYC nor did it exclude motorbike engines. It was very general.

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

#453

Post by coryrc »

margalabargala wrote: post #451
coryrc wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Nearly eliminates. Even non-plugin hybrids have greatly reduced. There was a "study" going around claiming otherwise, which sampled air captured by passing vehicles with a trash bag on a busy road, claiming EVs did not reduce brake dust, but even my brief summary here makes it extremely obvious how flawed this "measurement" is.

For those of us unclear why collecting air from passing cars to measure particulates is obviously flawed, could you elaborate? EVs unfortunately do increase tire particulate, as well. Fairly significantly. It's not obvious to me that the decrease in brake dust isn't made up by the increase in tire dust. The removal of the tailpipe emissions is really where EVs shine from a pollution standpoint. If you turn on your ca…

EV brake pads don't hardly wear down, so they obviously can't have nearly the same amount of brake dust, yet the "study" showed they did. I'm guessing there's brake dust on the ground being kicked up.

> EVs unfortunately do increase tire particulate, Fairly significantly

In the USA, mass of EV is not significantly different than the alternative choice. EVs do not have increased tire particulate. If in Europe extremely lightweight tiny cars are actually a likely substitution for nicer, heavier EVs, then it seems reasonable that tire wear will increase proportionally. There's a lot riding on that "if" though.

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

#454

Post by coryrc »

fsckboy wrote: post #423
coryrc wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to add info, an F-150 will change brake pads 3-7 times over 200k miles, while a Model Y will still be on the original set with nearly no sign of wear.

but compare the wear of the tires, and weigh tires vs brakes by the amount of "total pollution delivered to the environment", i.e. 20% more wear of something that is 2x as polluting is 40% more pollution. I don't know the numbers or the answer, I'm just saying it's not as simple as your statement makes it out to be.

Why are you just making up numbers then saying "it's not as simple"? Try educating yourself a little first instead of just jumping to conclusions which reinforce your existing biases.

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

#457

Post by panick21_ »

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…

New York has long been an influential city. It was the Robert Mosses deputies that spread all over the US to drive highways threw every city center. If New York can do something, it might be copied everywhere.

That and right-wing politics where anything that harms the car as a religious symbol is seen as a 'values' based attack.

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

#458

Post by sokoloff »

oasisbob wrote: post #450
sokoloff wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what you substitute it with. If you substitute with “don’t travel far [or at all]”, it’s a big savings. If you substitute flying 1000 miles on an airliner with “drive 1000 miles instead”, or flying US to Europe with a cruise ship trip to Europe, you’ve probably made it worse; in that regards, it’s less the mode of travel and more the total distance in these trades.

The observation that stuck with me is how much of my county's total carbon emissions are due to air travel which begins/ends at our regional airports (~3%), vs what percentage of the population flies in a given year. The distribution of air-travel emissions, to me, seem pretty gross when juxtaposed with the number of people who are doing this travel. The incentives for business travel, in particular, seem misaligned.

I don't think you can just look at the "number of people who are doing this travel", as those same planes are also carrying air cargo and US mail. Not everyone flies, but almost everyone in the county receives mail, cargo, or benefits from same. (It would be easier to replace cargo than passenger transport with a more efficient and comparable total trip time mode of transport if such was available.)

The reason you get asked whether your USPS parcel contains hazardous substances X, Y, and Z and why the fines for violations are so stiff is partly because of passenger airline safety concerns.

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

#459

Post by panick21_ »

taeric wrote: post #363
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You run in very different social circles than I do. The only complaint I have ever heard about California's high speed rail plan (as a life-long Bay Area resident) is how damn long it's taking because of the yokels claiming it'll annoy their cows and almonds.

My assertion is most people arguing online about this do not live near the impacted areas. Happy to be proven wrong on this. I just have a lot of sour taste to the whole thing with how many people constantly harp on public transit, but then want me to see their brand new car.

Of course because more people live outside of CA then inside. And lots of people talk about transport policy. Lots of countries talk about high speed rail and California is known globally.

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

#460

Post by panick21_ »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #386
taeric wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My assertion is most people arguing online about this do not live near the impacted areas. Happy to be proven wrong on this. I just have a lot of sour taste to the whole thing with how many people constantly harp on public transit, but then want me to see their brand new car.

The SF-LA transit project isn't a replacement for driving, it's a replacement for flying. Cars are replaced by local transit, the CA high speed rail line goes through a whole lot of nothing (read: the worst farmland they could route through) between SF and LA. Are you sure you live around here if you're this off-base with the basic premise?

This is completely the wrong way of thinking about it. Long distance and short distance transport form a symbiotic relationship.

And in most countries we wouldn't call multiple cities of 100k+ population 'nothing'.

HSR is the spine of the transportation network, that local and regional traffic docks to making a greater whole. It increases the reach and power of public transport as a whole.

For HSR to be successful, you need people using the in-between station for regional trips, not just end to end airplane like trips.

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