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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

#511

Post by margalabargala »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #507
margalabargala wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't. With the ICE car, if you want to go 55, you might accelerate to 57 and then coast down to 55 without using brakes. With an EV you might accelerate to 57 and then brake to 55 when you let off the accelerator. Tire wear is a function of how often you use your tires to slow down the car. With an ICE car that's every time you hit your brakes. With an EV that's both brakes and regen. An EV's time spent bra…

> With an EV you might accelerate to 57 and then brake to 55 when you let off the accelerator. No one with more than a few miles of one-pedal driving would do this; it’d be highly unpleasant. What actually happens is you remap your pedal inputs: all the way off is braking, somewhere in the middle is coasting. Your brain will do it automatically and OPD is far more pleasant than two-pedal driving after a trivial learn…

I agree that OPD is better. I disagree that it's easy to coast with OPD.

What actually happens is you wind up decelerating for curves, accelerating on straights more, and otherwise having better control of the car. Holding the pedal in a location where power is neither going to or coming from the motor is very difficult; usually you want power going to the motor anyway to overcome air resistance.

Also, consider that most EVs will automatically regeneratively brake when going downhill with cruise control on. The last ICE car I owned just coasted and would speed up on large downhills with cruise on.

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

#512

Post by autoexec »

AmigoCharlie wrote: post #480
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…

Autoexec, don't you feel a little bit like Rhea Seehorn as "Carol" in her struggle with the hive-mind humanity of "Pluribus"? It looks as in this discussion there is a lot of anti-car hivemind at play...

Haven't seen it. The sad thing is that I share many of the concerns the anti-car crowd has, but their work is only going to be harder if they ignore the concerns that people have, can't reassure people that their proposed solutions won't hurt them, and/or don't ensure that their solutions are implemented equitably. They risk losing people who could be supporters.

I also wish they put less emphasis on punishing people for driving and put more effort into giving people alternatives that are genuinely better. When people are given an option to use something better than what they have, they tend to gravitate to it naturally and with gratitude. It's a lot easier than punishing people and trying to convince them that it's for their own good.

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

#513

Post by bryanlarsen »

margalabargala wrote: post #510
bryanlarsen wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With an EV you might accelerate to 57 and then brake to 55 when you let off the accelerator. No you don't; in fact you can't. Letting off the accelerator enough to apply regen is going to take far more than 2 mph off your speed. If you want to drop from 57 to 55 in an EV its done the exact same way you do it in an ICE vehicle: you coast.

Of the three EVs, all different manufacturers, that we've owned in the last decade, zero have coasting as an easy option. You have to either switch off OPD entirely, or else literally shift the car into neutral. And yes, you are right, if you do that you can coast and then your tire wear will be no worse than an ICE vehicle. Most EV drivers don't do those things.

Yeah, you're not shifting into neutral on your ICE car to coast from 57 to 55 either, you're just releasing the accelerator. You've still got the motor engaged, so you're doing mild engine braking on the ICE even if it's vernacularly called coasting.

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

#514

Post by panick21_ »

taeric wrote: post #490
panick21_ wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, people are not ideological. If the car is 5x faster and nicer, then people will use it. People use what is convenient, most people don't pick public transport when it is 'workable' they pick it when it is actually good. And the reason it seen as 'for poor' people is because you only use it when you can't get a car. So the underlying issue is the overall quality of the service (frequency, reliability, co…

Ish. If the car costs 10x, then they will stick to not having one. See Tokyo. Again, I lived for over a decade with a tech job and no car. In Atlanta. It is easily doable. Especially for younger people that don't have a family. When I got married and we started having kids, I never had "my" car. Stayed on transit and cycling to get to work. It is frustrating, because I would be surrounded by progressive people at wor…

If a car cost 10x but public transport is 20x worse then people will still buy cars unless they can't afford it.

Look it might be easily doable for you, but the data shows pretty clearly that if one thing is easier and faster then another, most people, not all people will pick what is easier and faster. There are always 10-20% of people who will just prefer one thing, no matter what. See people who ride bikes in horrible dangerous conditions threw traffic. You might be willing to, but most people are not.

But what you need is a system with enough quality that enough people use it so they can demand continued increases in quality.

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

#515

Post by panick21_ »

taeric wrote: post #471
panick21_ wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It isn't necessarily a problem one way or the other, I should add. The observation, though, is that people are far far more forceful and opinionated on the situation the further from the area that they are.

I'm not sure how you measured how far away everybody talking about it is. If seen more passion form Americans then from Europeans about HSR in California. And I don't think most people in China are hot on it.

I guess there are some very passionate rail fan liberals in the Eastern united states that hope for true HSR on the East coast that really root for HSR.

But then again I have heard plenty of Californians passionately denounce/advocate for the project.

So I don't think your observation holds.

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

#516

Post by subpixel »

GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #385
subpixel wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are en extension of some Americans' identity and driving is something they feel utterly entitled to. I've lived all over the world and in NYC for decades so it seems silly to me. Bust most Americans have never seen or ridden an effective form of public transport. So they view congestion pricing as an infringement on their rights and quality of life.

> Cars are en extension of some Americans' identity i hear this a lot and i also feel like this population is declining very significantly for a lot of reasons (cars that people care about are unaffordable, most cars on the road tend to fit into one of a very small number of categories, people find other ways to navigate depending on where they live, people don't do as many activities out of the home that require a v…

To be fair cars have always been an extension of their drivers identities in the US, or at least as far back as their being competing brands available.

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

#517

Post by margalabargala »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #513
margalabargala wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the three EVs, all different manufacturers, that we've owned in the last decade, zero have coasting as an easy option. You have to either switch off OPD entirely, or else literally shift the car into neutral. And yes, you are right, if you do that you can coast and then your tire wear will be no worse than an ICE vehicle. Most EV drivers don't do those things.

Yeah, you're not shifting into neutral on your ICE car to coast from 57 to 55 either, you're just releasing the accelerator. You've still got the motor engaged, so you're doing mild engine braking on the ICE even if it's vernacularly called coasting.

Thanks to the magic of automatic transmissions, there's basically no difference!

Certainly not enough to make up the EV tire wear from regen.

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

#518

Post by vladvasiliu »

margalabargala wrote: post #504
vladvasiliu wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if the car decelerates harder when you let off the gas than you expect (compared to an ICE), maybe you'll give it a bit more "gas", so that, in the end, your deceleration is roughly the same in both types of cars? I haven't noticed EVs oscillating between full acceleration and hard braking when out and about. They seem to be driven pretty much the same as any other car. If I'm not mistaken, this means that tyre w…

The oscillation you mention does exist, it's just small enough that it's tough to pick out visually watching the car. But it can be felt within the vehicle, and the small oscillations are certainly enough to wear tires more than the ICE alternative. If you have any friends with motion sickness, ask them if it feels different to be a passenger in an EV. Alternately go to a tire shop and ask whether EVs wear tires fast…

> Alternately go to a tire shop and ask whether EVs wear tires faster.

I'm convinced they do, many people noted this. But I always thought it was mainly because the cars are heavier than what most people are used to, and they also have much better acceleration.

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

#519

Post by margalabargala »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #518
margalabargala wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oscillation you mention does exist, it's just small enough that it's tough to pick out visually watching the car. But it can be felt within the vehicle, and the small oscillations are certainly enough to wear tires more than the ICE alternative. If you have any friends with motion sickness, ask them if it feels different to be a passenger in an EV. Alternately go to a tire shop and ask whether EVs wear tires fast…

> Alternately go to a tire shop and ask whether EVs wear tires faster. I'm convinced they do, many people noted this. But I always thought it was mainly because the cars are heavier than what most people are used to, and they also have much better acceleration.

Those are also factors yes.

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

#520

Post by taeric »

panick21_ wrote: post #514
taeric wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ish. If the car costs 10x, then they will stick to not having one. See Tokyo. Again, I lived for over a decade with a tech job and no car. In Atlanta. It is easily doable. Especially for younger people that don't have a family. When I got married and we started having kids, I never had "my" car. Stayed on transit and cycling to get to work. It is frustrating, because I would be surrounded by progressive people at wor…

If a car cost 10x but public transport is 20x worse then people will still buy cars unless they can't afford it. Look it might be easily doable for you, but the data shows pretty clearly that if one thing is easier and faster then another, most people, not all people will pick what is easier and faster. There are always 10-20% of people who will just prefer one thing, no matter what. See people who ride bikes in horr…

The data clearly shows that if you keep cars cheap, people use them. That is literally the point of this entire article. When they started making driving into the city more costly, more people started taking transit. Is literally the data.

Even in places like Tokyo, you will find that the wealthy neighborhoods have cars. The catch is in Tokyo, this is enforced by law. If you can't show that you have a legal parking spot, you aren't allowed to register a car. That is a very steep hurdle that makes the vehicle far more than just 10x. And is a large part of why even the largely confusing mess of major transit offerings that will require different tickets works, there.

In spite of that, commute times in Tokyo are, on average, still HIGHER than SF and NYC commute times. My commute time even on public transit in Atlanta was better than the average commute in Tokyo. I don't know how you want to start quantifying "worse" or "better." Are they "workable?" Yes. Absolutely. Will people use if they can afford to get and operate a car? No.

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