1. The data is obviously flawed, but if there's anything to speculate from it, it's that the actual congestion in lower Manhattan isn't affected that much. 2. So the success of this policy really depends on how much additional revenue it's bringing in for the city and the MTA. The $9 increase needs to significantly offset the loss in toll revenue from the decrease in drivers. 3. There are so many other simple policie…
Metered parking everywhere. Please no. Just tax me at the end of the year if you really need more money. Stop paywalling everything.
NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker
541–550 of 653 posts
Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker
#542Although marginally better traffic might be a side effect of congestion pricing, its primary effect is a wealth transfer from lower- and middle-class residents of Manhattan, who must buy goods locally at higher prices, to MTA contractors and their labor unions, who already make construction on the New York subway far and away the most expensive in the world. Where is the congestion pricing tracker that measures the h…
Why would groceries be more expensive? Do you think a $25 fee makes any difference to a delivery truck loaded with $10k of products?
Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker
#5432. Congestion pricing, more generally, is ivory tower social engineering (economic discrimination like toll lanes) and a disproportionate tax on the working poor. It would be fairer if it were progressively taxed based on income.
Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker
#544Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I just wonder why they choose not to enforce this aspect of it when it can be a significant population (in a statistical sense) of the car traffic as well as revenue. It's not. 85% of Manhattan households don't own a car at all. The number is even higher inside the Congestion and Relief Zone. Almost all car traffic within the zone is from people who do not live within the zone.
Plus of that 15% that do own a car how many actually only use the car within the Congestion Zone a significant portion of the time? My guess is the number is well below 1% of car traffic could possibly dodge a significant portion of the toll.
There's no real way to get reliable numbers on this, but I would estimate that >70% of people who live in the Congestion Relief Zone and own a car use it primarily as a way to access their second home in the Hudson Valley.
I would have said that in 2019, but the testimony from congestion pricing opponents during the multiple rounds of public hearings that we've had since then only further corroborate that impression.
Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker
#545Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you're looking for non-regressive ways to share scarce resources, you're going to struggle. It's not actually that hard. You fund them through general taxes rather than fares. Then how much you pay is proportional to how much money you make -- even a flat tax does at least that -- as opposed to the largely fixed amount that corresponds to the amount the average person has to move around in order to live an ordin…
That's how to pay for it, sure. But I said share the resource. Not everyone who wants to drive at a given time can do so, there simply isn't enough space. How does your plan help _share_ the resource? Who gets to use the roads at 8am when everyone wants to?
There isn't space in the current design. That's the thing you spend money to fix. Build subways in high traffic areas -- the ones where there is currently congestion -- and make them completely free to encourage people to use them (and eliminate the administrative cost of fare collection to both riders and government). Build more dense housing near the subway stops so people are traveling fewer miles, removing traffic from the roads -- this one doesn't even cost money, just stop prohibiting people from doing it with zoning. Build pedestrian catwalks or tunnels in high traffic areas to prevent crossings from congesting the roads and road traffic from killing the pedestrians. And yes, you can even add more travel lanes -- it's not always the thing you need but it sometimes is.
You don't have to rate limit the resource when you actually build enough of it to satisfy the demand. There exist roads that aren't congested, the demand for them isn't infinite.
Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker
#546Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I'm curious about is if business in the Manhattan will be lessened as a result of less people there. I know the goal is less cars, rather than less people, but I want to see if that's actually what will happen. As someone who doesn't live in Manhattan I wish there was a better way to go basically anywhere in New York without entering Manhattan. Every single road, bus, and subway goes through this super dense are…
Car people did the same hand wringing when my nations capital outright banned cars in the city center. After a few years it turned out, that the business grew because the place became more pleasant for folks to go to.
If you removed all the through traffic, leaving just people who want to stop there, that change alone, would improve things dramatically.
Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker
#547Earlier quoted context omitted.
So far, none of the data provided by the linked site would suggest Manhattan will see a reduction in transportation times. This is with the Monday snow however, which I'd imagine caused delays by itself. I will say, being in Manhattan, their seems to be less traffic on the road. I wonder if Google Maps traffic data is using a rolling average of ~7 days or something
Are you sure? Compare before/after for the main affected regions (Holland Tunnel, Queensboro) versus the unaffected regions. We definitely need more data, but I think there's an immediate reduction in the obvious places.
Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker
#548Earlier quoted context omitted.
The MBTA already runs top speed on most of its lines once you get outside of roughly I95 depending on the line. Getting there faster would help but I don't think it would shave as much time off the end to end trip as you think. And for the urban stops they already accelerate and brake at the limit of what is reasonable for standing passengers. They can't push it too much or an old lady is gonna bounce off a wall and…
if there aren't enough seats and they're still running 30 minute headways, that's incredibly stupid.
Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker
#549Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I lived in NYC I paid huge amounts of money in taxes and as far as I can tell got very little for my money. Until they can start using their enormous existing budget wisely I don't see any reason they should be given more money.
> as far as I can tell got very little for my money You literally lived in the greatest city in the history of world civilization. Sorry it didn't work out for you.
1) Built at least 100 years ago. De-facto relics of a government and society that no longer exists.
2) Things built by the people in spite, not because, of its public policy and government.
If anything, what interests me about NYC is “why isn’t worse?”. There is something amazing about NYC: how a city and civilization can be so successful in the face of government incompetence and public policy failures at every level.
Re: NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker
#550Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thats the thing with socal traffic especially. Absolutely zero enforcement by the police. What do they do with their resources instead? There was a man with a knife caught in a burglary last week and the police sent like 40 suvs some unmarked with the blue and red lights through the windscreen, a swat team, and a helicopter. Probably in the millions spent for that operation alone for this guy with a kitchen knife. I…
That's hardly a SoCal phenomenon, sadly. In all the places I've lived, "protect and serve" seems to be abbreviated - "protect and serve our desk jobs and pensions" would be more accurate. If the TSA is security theater, the police are a circus, and the occasional show of force is them coming to town. It's like those pictures of Luigi Mangione being perp walked in Manhattan with 20 cops and FBI agents behind him. Imag…
They just don't do anything like that in socal. I've not once seen a cop take radar in socal. Not once. I can't even remember the last time I've seen someone pulled over in socal but it happens probably three times in my view whenever I go elsewhere to visit.