Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 735 posts

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#531

Post by seanmcdirmid »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #307
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. I just got back from Beijing and long journeys across the city in a taxi...they aren't really feasible. Yes, comfortable, but no, the traffic is still really really bad. Subway is much quicker, but the routes are often indirect and require one or two changes, but at least you know you'll get where you need to go.

If you ride the subway enough in Beijing or Shanghai, eventually you will come to the conclusion that both cities are just way too big. No matter how many subways that you build, getting from one place to another takes a minimum of 45 mins (including some walking on both ends). New York, London, Seoul, and Tokyo all suffer from similar problems -- giant metro systems, but these cities are huge.

At least you can often sit down in Tokyo if you aren't traveling on peak. In Beijing, you never get to sit unless you are clever about your route (e.g. taking the line 10 the long way around when going to West Beijing, rather than transferring to line 1 in guomao). A 1 hour+ trip standing feels a lot longer than 1 hour.

As you say, the solution of course is to not go that far on a daily basis. You can make your life convenient, as long as you are living alone.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#532

Post by gazarubbleparty »

virtualritz wrote: post #399
aynyc wrote: post #271

As a long time NYC resident who moved out during Covid but commute to work in the city. I definitely noticed less traffic on the streets and less noise. I see a lot of talk of other cities that don't have good public transportation. For example, between Flushing in Queens to 8th Ave in Brooklyn, there are privately run buses at affordable rate and get you there at half the time of trains. There are buses from a lot o…

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…

[flagged]

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#534

Post by allturtles »

jmyeet wrote: post #33

I was living in London when congestion pricing was introduced and went into the West End the day before and the first day of and the difference was night and day. The difference along Oxford Street, Regent's Street, Green Street, etc was astounding. And in the 20+ years the evidence seems to back up how much of a net positive it has been. NYC congestion pricing took way too long because the New York Democratic Party…

> What's so bizarre to me is how many people have strong opinions on NYC congestion pricing who have never been and will never go to NYC.

All kinds of seemingly local issues are getting sucked into the vortex of the national political scene in order to stoke outrage against "the enemy." See also all the people who have never been to SF and will never go to SF who have very strong opinions about SF homelessness/street crime (or, on the other side, the various "library in a small town you never heard of banned some books" stories that were popular a couple of years ago).

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#535

Post by scuol »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #264
scuol wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/strategic/wealthy/ I agree there are places in Seattle one can do this, but boy one certainly needs the paper to do this.

You make a tradeoff. You are still going to plop down $1 million for a home unless you live way out there, but instead of a 2000 foot SFH in Bothell or Lynwood, you make do with a 1250 foot townhome in Ballard (same price, less property taxes, more urban). Ballard isn't exactly Capitol Hill or Queen Anne either (we thought about Magnolia just across the locks, but it made me think that I would at least need an electr…

Totally agree. I'm renting on the eastside at the moment, but places like Ballard and Magnolia are on my list of places to look to buy for the very reasons you mentioned. Having more space in these exurbs is "nice", but you pay the time tax every time you want to do something.

I remember coming here mid-pandemic and having white picket fences in my eyes as the company pointed me to a real estate agent. Thank god I didn't pull the trigger and buy because I would've been financially trapped (upside down) in some very unsafe urban area (e.g. south Seattle) or far-flung place (like Sultan).

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#536

Post by ghaff »

gmueckl wrote: post #525
TingPing wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the US population lives in metro areas of large cities. You are an outlier, that’s fine for rural areas.

I would not call ~20% of the US population an outlier. It's a very different situation from urban areas, but just as valid And even cities in the US are vast sprawls compared to organically grown very old cities in other parts of the world. That makes a huge difference for walkability.

Furthermore, the 80% urban stat from the US census gets routinely misinterpreted. Just going through some property line details with a couple neighbors on collectively about 75 acres plus adjacent conservation land. The census considers this urban.

And, as you say, Urban != dense city downtown.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#537

Post by emptybits »

mplanchard wrote: post #521
frosted-flakes wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vancouver. The first section of SkyTrain was built in 1985 (40 years ago) well after cars had dominated the city. I couldn't find historical figures for transit mode share, but today more than 50% of all trips are made by public or active transportation, and 90% of residents live within 10 minutes of a frequent transit line. For context, in most US cities that figure is 2-3%.

This is really interesting, thanks! I haven’t found a good summary of the history in a couple of minutes of searching. Do you know if it was just huge government investment that drove the increase? And what drove the public sentiment to want transit vs more highways or whatever?

Another fact you may find interesting because it's unique, I think, for a North American city of its size: Vancouver has no freeways.

Within city limits, there are no roads with speed limits over 50 km/h (30 mi/h), lots of traffic lights, lots of bus/bike lanes, and lots of congestion. The Trans Canada highway skirts along the side of the city but does not enter it. Things get slow, very quickly.

There are complex historic reasons behind this. Politics, activism, lack of federal funding, etc.

This is a decent article:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/09/story-cities-...

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#538

Post by paddy_m »

richardfontana wrote: post #528
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…

> The most flabbergasting thing was the absence of Metro ring lines around the center. The fact these have not been built, in 2025, when Metro transport networks in most cities are now over a century old, is telling. I'm having trouble imagining where a useful ring line could exist in the New York metropolitan area or within the city itself, given its geography, longstanding commuter movement patterns and other chara…

The Interborough Express is one example. Going from southern Brooklyn on the water up to queens. Previous proposals had it also connecting to the Bronx. If you want to be really ambitious, connect Bayridge to Staten Island and continue on with branches to Elizabeth and Bayonne. Up north, it's surprising there isn't rail from the Bronx, through Manhattan, across the GW Bridge to NJ.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interborough_Express

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#539

Post by mathgeek »

chongli wrote: post #279
mathgeek wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Converting all of NYC into a huge pedestrian-only zone obviously isn't going to work The dreamer in me immediately asks “why not?” and while I agree it will never happen, it felt good to imagine it.

How do you get all the food in? Manhattan is an island. Without constant food deliveries by truck it will die. This food is delivered to countless restaurants and grocery stores, not to some central warehouse, so delivery by train doesn't work.

While I wasn’t claiming it would work, that example is easily solved around the world already by allowing vehicles into pedestrian zones overnight.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#540

Post by ramesh31 »

paddy_m wrote: post #83
ramesh31 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The increased speeds are excellent for those who can afford the toll. This is a universal benefit of toll roads for those people. Anecdotally that seems to be the case. The largest burden of this tax is falling on low income commuters who live off the train lines and have to drive into Manhattan, yet all of the money is going to... the train lines (MTA). Understandably they're not too happy.

Those people simply don't drive into Manhattan, parking is already $30-$40 a day, driving from Jersey means you are already paying at least a $15 toll (you can drive from Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx without paying a toll). An extra $9 simply doesn't matter. Already 85% of commuters to lower Manhattan take public transit. Of the remaining 15%. An analysis found that only 2% of working poor New Yorkers would pay th…

Again, anecdotally. This point came from a bartender in the east village, who has indeed driven into the city every day for years. Longtime locals who know where to park are not paying $30-40 (in fact that is at the high end of anywhere I've seen in Manhattan).
Post reply on HN