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New York City will charge drivers going downtown

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Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#61

Post by dangus »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #46
dangus wrote: post #42

There's an important concept to the success of city planning: the alignment of incentives. When transit is faster and cheaper than driving, people don't drive as much. The individualistic personal freedom of the automobile doesn't outweigh those practical aspects of getting around. People generally make pretty logical decisions about what they want to do. I'm definitely in favor of congestion charges in certain areas…

Libertarians are usually much more in favor of taxes to on externalities rather than outright bans. So I dispute your characterization. I agree with the rest of the post though, I think taxing externalities is the right thing to do. Cars have gotten a gigantic subsidy for far too long. A car is allowed to take up 140 sq ft of land for free in one of the most expensive places on earth.

In my experience people who claim they are libertarians are against all forms of government regulation and taxation.

But it doesn't really matter to me if my characterization of libertarians isn't 100% accurate because I have no respect for anyone who calls themselves libertarian in any way.

That ideology is a swirling bag of contradictions and people who claim to be libertarian usually just circle back around to being anti-regulation, pro-laissez faire capitalist, pro-consumption, anti-worker conservatives who don't want to admit that they share a bed with the more ugly side of that ideology.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#62

Post by Tinyyy »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #40
DaveExeter wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree! Let's get the poors off the roads. The peasant class belongs on public transport, not on taxpayer-funded roads.

Having more money lets you buy more of everything. Yet you are only concerned about roads (which aren’t even used by the poorest segment since they can’t afford a car)? Why not focus on making something more fundamental to existence free, like food or shelter? Oh right it’s because it creates poor incentives and overuse (tragedy of the commons) exactly like we see with roads (and parking). If car drivers had to pay t…

Yea you’re exactly right, there’s a tragedy of the commons situation right now. You could either decrease the demand or increase the supply to fix this problem, and it seems pretty impossible to increase the supply (build a bridge across the Hudson? That’s crazy). So here we are.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#63

Post by dgrin91 »

automatoney wrote: post #60

For those unfamiliar with NYC, street parking is free basically everywhere so the space cars take up is already heavily subsidized.

In the city, especially downtown its basically not free anywhere. It's always metered. Only free at nights and weekends

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#64

Post by raldi »

thx-2718 wrote: post #58
raldi wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If no one is driving, we can take the unbelievable amount of public spending currently going into subsidizing automobile traffic and redirect it to fund public transit.

I don't have a problem with doing that. Of course how you get public transportation into rural communities is a bigger challenge but we don't have to have society be based around the car. My issue is that the previous post said they would pay for public transportation and walkable carless cities through increase gas taxes and road tolls.

An increase in gas taxes and road tolls would make people drive less, requiring less road maintenance, traffic policing, etc, and allow buses to move more efficiently, freeing up funding that can then go into improving transit.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#65

Post by kodah »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #55
kodah wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first step to rid ourselves of our, dare I say, enslavement to our car-centric way of life is to make car ownership as expensive and inconvenient as possible. I hope more cities follow. Start closing off entire areas to cars. I'm pretty sure GP is responding to this, which while I appreciate the transparency, is atrocious. Creating negative incentives just makes people angry, and generally surfaces a lot of ine…

I think cars have a lot of advantages like the one you mention (and others, eg much less crime risk). But we can pull back on the car obsession a little bit, we’ve gone kind of crazy the past 100 years and made some awful cities. I think cars should be an option, they just shouldn’t be the only reasonable one.

I agree. I walk, take the train, ride my bike, or ride the bus whenever possible. I've adapted a good portion of my life to that thinking, including buying a more expensive house that I could do those things.

But a lot of folks in this thread came to defend someone who analogs cars to enslavement and championed making them so expensive people can't afford them.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#66

Post by Tinyyy »

DaveExeter wrote: post #17
Tinyyy wrote: post #11

I’m a fan of charging market efficient rates for shared goods. The congestion situation in the Holland Tunnel is awful and bleeds out into various streets of Manhattan as well. The cost of sitting in crawling traffic with aggressive drivers cutting around is probably much more than an extra $20.

I agree! Let's get the poors off the roads. The peasant class belongs on public transport, not on taxpayer-funded roads.

I grew up in a city with insanely high taxes on cars and roads (Singapore). But you could get anywhere easily with the bus or MRT. In a rush? Your Grab taxi can get you there quickly and efficiently. I’m not sure why it’d be better to make everyone’s day worse instead. Does that really make the world a fairer place?

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#67

Post by occz »

metalforever wrote: post #8
DirectorKrennic wrote: post #2

[flagged]

What about people with disabilities.

People with disabilities thrive in areas with reduced car traffic. Many people with disabilities are unable to drive and as such benefit from prioritized public transportation, and many small electric vehicles that are appropriate for people with disabilities can use bicycle infrastructure. This covers the vast majority of the needs of people with disabilities - the small remainder can be granted exceptions.

No yank-tanks are required to accommodate people with disabilities - quite the opposite, car-oriented infrastructure limits their agency in society.

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#68

Post by anotherhue »

DaveExeter wrote: post #17
Tinyyy wrote: post #11

I’m a fan of charging market efficient rates for shared goods. The congestion situation in the Holland Tunnel is awful and bleeds out into various streets of Manhattan as well. The cost of sitting in crawling traffic with aggressive drivers cutting around is probably much more than an extra $20.

I agree! Let's get the poors off the roads. The peasant class belongs on public transport, not on taxpayer-funded roads.

> out of a region of 28 million people, just an estimated 16,100 low-income people commute to work via car in Lower Manhattan, according to the MTA

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#69

Post by automatoney »

dgrin91 wrote: post #63
automatoney wrote: post #60

For those unfamiliar with NYC, street parking is free basically everywhere so the space cars take up is already heavily subsidized.

In the city, especially downtown its basically not free anywhere. It's always metered. Only free at nights and weekends

Maybe I'm oblivious to them, but I don't think I've seen meters in Soho/Chinatown/LES and I definitely don't remember them in the East Village. Are they more in the Tribeca/Fidi area?

Re: New York City will charge drivers going downtown

#70

Post by [deleted] »

DaveExeter wrote: post #17
Tinyyy wrote: post #11

I’m a fan of charging market efficient rates for shared goods. The congestion situation in the Holland Tunnel is awful and bleeds out into various streets of Manhattan as well. The cost of sitting in crawling traffic with aggressive drivers cutting around is probably much more than an extra $20.

I agree! Let's get the poors off the roads. The peasant class belongs on public transport, not on taxpayer-funded roads.

[deleted]
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