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Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

nytimes.com

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Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#691

Post by gertlex »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #242
gertlex wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need to be strategic about where you live (e.g. buying the house ... I wonder what % (presumably low) of the population can live in SFHs and achieve this cities like Seattle. I should try finding if there's available work that's made visualizations of this sort of things ("How many homes could be within X miles or minutes of A B and C" for SFH, Quadplex, 5-over-1s etc.)

You aren’t exactly going to find an SFH in the suburbs that is much cheaper. So you have a point, but you have to choose between an SFH, a similar priced townhome (basically an SFH without a yard), or a condo with an HOA, all basically unaffordable unless you want to commute from Kent or Marysville. Seattle still has density (the townhome I live in in Ballard is one of three that used to be one SFH).

Indeed. My intended purpose of such a tool would be to crudely illustrate the impracticality of everyone aspiring to such housing ;)

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#692

Post by const_cast »

munificent wrote: post #671
tizzy wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing up these points when talking about improving urban transit is harmful. These points always appear in reaction to urbanist policy and all of a sudden care about the minority transit user. The problem is that the assigned proportion of road space is unfairly weighted to cars and is impossible to shift because people often say things like “cars make it easier to shift things around” and “some people have mobili…

The point of bringing this up is that you won't convince anyone to stop driving by pointing out that biking isn't slower if speed isn't the reason they drive in the first place. If you want to convince people, you need to understand their actual motivations.

> If you want to convince people, you need to understand their actual motivations.

Yes, but if we did that we would have to deconstruct the history behind the American fixation on private automobiles and, of course, the racism and "think of the children" rhetoric that comes with it.

It's a losing battle. I can't convince people driving is more dangerous than the subway even if all the stats in the world make it plainly true. This is a culture problem, and much like every single one of America's cultural problems, it stems from hundreds of years of systemic racism. It has to be brought down slowly and deliberately.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#693

Post by const_cast »

Mawr wrote: post #666
harrall wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In every transit-heavy city that I have been to, you have both an extensive highway system AND an extensive public transit network. But on the Internet, people are either BAN CARS or BLOCK TRANSIT. In reality, I want both.

Thing is, the world as is is optimized 99% for cars, so BAN CARS, while not reasonable nor correct, is a proportional reaction.

Right, we're not talking about going from 99% of zero percent. We're talking about going from 99% to 95%, which is still, decidedly, pro-car in every sense of the word. This outrage is fake.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#694

Post by const_cast »

jampekka wrote: post #410
an_account wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can afford a car in NYC then you can afford the toll. Cars are very expensive to own.

If you could afford the car only just, it's quite obvious you can't afford it if you now have to pay congestion charges on top.

At that point you're already living beyond your means. Automobiles take up, on average, 15% of the gross income of the average American.

Just take the 15% gross salary raise and move on with your life.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#695

Post by Thorrez »

virtualritz wrote: post #660
genewitch wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New York City has more people in it than the 4 most populated metro areas in Italy. Italy has ~3x the population of the state of New York, half the population of the state lives in NYC area .

The obvious answer is more public transport infrastructure & bike lanes. If you think population density is an excuse for public transport infrastructure not coping or need for more people owning cars I suggest taking a long hard look at e.g. Japan to have that hypothesis reality-checked. I'm btw. not saying you did, just reading between the lines. As I wrote in an earlier reply to parent, NYC hasn't managed to even…

What would a ring metro look like in NYC? Manhattan is an island. Directly west of it is a body of water, then land that is not NYC, in fact is not NY.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#696

Post by jaza »

koyote wrote: post #397
jaza wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow - there's free street parking in Lower Manhattan?! Yep, there's your problem! Here in Sydney Australia, we don't have any congestion charge (there's been some talk about introducing one, but it's not really on the cards at this time). But it's pretty much impossible to find parking in the CBD (Mon-Fri 9-5) for less than around AUD$60 (USD$40) per day. There is literally no un-metered street parking anywhere in th…

> most people choose public transport over driving Is that true? I was surprised when looking at the actual stats (most people in Sydney drive to work), but maybe there are many more people working in places other than the CBD skewing this. When I was cycling in from Balmain, there were a huge number of cars stuck in traffic getting into the CBD every morning. Despite it only being an easy 15 minute cycle (or a 15 mi…

Yes, there are a lot of people working in places in Sydney other than the CBD, and yes, a much higher proportion of those people drive to work.

And yes, there are still enough people who drive into the Sydney CBD in peak hour, to cause massive traffic (and to keep the carparks, aka parking lots, being very lucrative businesses!). Nevertheless, they're a minority - more than 75% of people commute to the Sydney CBD on public transport [1].

Also, re: traffic from Balmain in peak hour. Plenty of places you can be going to, eastbound on the Anzac Bridge, apart from the CBD! I'd say a significant number of those drivers would be heading north of the harbour to work (eg North Sydney, St Leonards / Crows Nest, maybe Chatswood, maybe Macquarie Park), and they'd be bypassing the CBD thanks to the Western Distributor (could also be connecting to Cross City Tunnel to eg Bondi Junction, also Eastern Distributor to Randwick / Waterloo).

[1] https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/media/d...

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#697

Post by sebstefan »

RhysU wrote: post #551
sebstefan wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're just quoting a danish government report Googling it, I found a second one in London with the same methods (surveying CCTV footage of multiple intersections) and they get the same findings In both: - Motorists break way more traffic laws - Motorists mainly break the law for speed or convenience - The infractions by motorists are generally more serious and pose a threat to others (the main one is speeding) - Th…

> the main one is speeding Speeding mildly is usually a consequence of stupidly low speed limits. Unless the speeding is bucketed, this alone is enough to skew the results to say motorists are worse than bicyclists. Remember, speeding tickets are a revenue source and the incentive is to set limits that produce revenue. > The main one cyclists break is riding on the sidewalk - which is because of cars, and it doesn't…

>> the main one is speeding

> Speeding mildly is usually a consequence of stupidly low speed limits.

>> The main one cyclists break is riding on the sidewalk -

> This is still illegal. Blaming it on cars is lame- these are grown adults willfully ignoring the law because they find it inconvenient

???

The dissonance is insane

Also, between cyclists and motorists, which one is always grown adults, who passed an exam to use their vehicle, and which one includes children, the mentally disabled and all of those who can't drive and their right to the road cannot be stripped away?

Whoops, I gave it away.

You can in fact blame it on cars

Actually, do you remember that the report mentioned bike lanes solve this problem? You can blame street design, too. Except if cars weren't there, you wouldn't even need the bike lanes.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#698

Post by lazide »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #645
lazide wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bwahaha this is so ridiculous.

You’re really claiming that a congested street isn’t meaningfully more noisy than an uncongested one, including in terms of frequency and duration of horns and sirens?

More noisy? Of course. But even in nice places like Chelsea - at 2am when there are no cars or congestion at all - the cops/ambulances and garbage trucks have no problem being incredibly noisy.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#699

Post by virtualritz »

Thorrez wrote: post #695
virtualritz wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious answer is more public transport infrastructure & bike lanes. If you think population density is an excuse for public transport infrastructure not coping or need for more people owning cars I suggest taking a long hard look at e.g. Japan to have that hypothesis reality-checked. I'm btw. not saying you did, just reading between the lines. As I wrote in an earlier reply to parent, NYC hasn't managed to even…

What would a ring metro look like in NYC? Manhattan is an island. Directly west of it is a body of water, then land that is not NYC, in fact is not NY.

It doesn't have to be a closed ring. Or resemble a ring.

Many metro systems in other big cities with comparable topological constraints have metro lines that are orthogonal to those going out in roughly a star pattern from the center.

But NYC almost only has the latter.

Underwater sections are not an issue, really. There are many cities that have metro lines going under bodies of water.

And even the length or depth required is not an issue if you want to build it.

That's why you can go from England to France, by train, in roughly half an hour, under the English Channel.

Re: Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

#700

Post by tomhow »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #494
tomhow wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right, because you’re an elitist Please stop this style of commenting. You've been here long enough to know it's against the guidelines.

[flagged]

This is all plainly false. Community members who are sincere about wanting to make HN better or just holding the moderators to account can easily do so. They can email us with URLs, or include URLs in their accusatory comments. Plenty of community members do that and we always take action or explain our thoughts on the matter.

Accusations like this one, without any evidence that would enable other community members to check for themselves, serve only to deflect from the accuser's own conduct, and achieve nothing but make the site worse.

If you're sincere in being concerned about the patterns you claim are so pervasive here, please cite the evidence so we can all understand what you're talking about and enable the moderators to take the appropriate action.

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