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New York Becomes the City That Never Shuts Up

• econ4all 8y ago
  Two words: congestion tax. It's practically criminal that their mayor and other local figures are opposed to it.
  • sonnyblarney 8y ago
    Criminal to ensure that regular citizens of America and NY can actually drive down the street? These taxes are basically a way to exclude vast numbers of people from the city and embolden systems that cause economic asymmetry. A 'pure market' solution would involve the streets being largely empty save a fleet of limos paid for by a tiny fraction of the population. A lot of New Yorkers would be happy to pay a price to make sure that you can't drive your car anywhere near them. How about: every few avenues and streets make them 100% public transit and have tons of 'no driver' trams running all the time so that anyone can get anywhere really fast? Get rid of all large cars? And cabs are not a particularly efficient use of space. Besides, living in NYC already comes with so many de-facto taxes ...
    • JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      Why not just apply the congestion tax to paid drivers while removing street-side parking? I don’t want to live in a city where there is zero chance of block-to-block motorised transport.
      • rubbingalcohol 8y ago
        How about don't live in a big fucking city if you don't like a lot of noise?
        • jacobmoe 8y ago
          People who live in big cities are a lot like people who live anywhere - they generally try to fix problems and improve the place they live in. Some noise is inevitable. Excessive noise is a problem that can be fixed.
          • rubbingalcohol 8y ago
            Given that the top complaint filed relates to construction noise, I can't imagine a way to fix that unless they don't allow construction. I live near an airport and have neighbors who are always bitching about airplane noise. I'm not sure what they expected when they bought a house next to an airport. Filing these sorts of issues under "user error."
        • codyb 8y ago
          People enjoy discussing potential solutions to problems and weighing the varying contrasting viewpoints presented in other comments. This is a large community filled with engineers, researchers, and folk from all sorts of other interesting backgrounds who like to solve problems. It's only natural that the comments on such an article would include such comments, so I guess my question is, why did you feel the need to post that valueless comment? Did you think GP didn't know he has the freedom to move? Anyways, as for the article, the huge influx of ride sharing vehicles has slowed traffic something like 15% in some parts of Manhattan. The trains are a disaster which they need to fix and expand. I support taxing more heavily ride sharing services as they've already squeaked out of the medalion system and are clogging the roads. I'm not sure how you accomplish. Or limits to the numbers of cars riding around at any given time. Expanding and fixing the MTA is a huge project that should be started immediately. Crippling the nations largest city with a terrible public transit option is death by a thousand cuts for a place like New York. Everytime someone can't get where they want or outright chooses not to the businesses they'd have visite suffer. We should tackle this issue head on and from several angles to encourage the efficient transportation of citizens through the metropolis and allow them some solace at times. Constructions a big one in terms of noise, it just goes on forever too. I'm not sure there's a way to solve that and the city needs a bit more construction to dampen housing prices. If there was a decent way to encourage actually affordable housing developments that'd be fantastic.
          • rubbingalcohol 8y ago
            My issue here is that the "problem" as posed is stupid and so all "solutions" are trivial and irrelevant, particularly the suggestion to tax everything until only super rich people can afford to drive. That's the neoliberal fantasy of a "public/private partnership" at its finest.
        • deleted 8y ago
          [deleted]
        • CalRobert 8y ago
          How about don't live in a big fucking city if you don't like a lot of congestion?
          • CalRobert 8y ago
            To clarify, if you care about pleasant motoring and not pleasant walking, the city may not be for you.
      • tomatotomato37 8y ago
        Yes, because taxing minimum wage drivers in dying industries and only allowing car ownership to those who live in million dollar condos with underground parking is the perfect way to improve the lives of the common New Yorker
    • pteredactyl 8y ago
      Let's give the state more money to solve all our problems! They have a great track record too!
      • sonnyblarney 8y ago
        Ok then take away the 'state run' subway in American cities and see what happens? Or take away the 'state managed' roads and highways? The state is not hugely efficient, but when it comes to these things, it's largely construction unions and the not-overtly-but-kinda-corrupt construction firms etc.. Doing any city work costs gazillions unfortunately. But some forms of public transit (subways, maybe not buses) are as priceless as the highway system.
        • pteredactyl 8y ago
          I don't think it'd make much a difference. But I didn't say take away all money from the state... Funny how that's the knee-jerk these days. From my experience Roads and subways are not being adequately maintained. At least in the big cities. But I do know every few years we pass a multi-billion dollar referendum for the BART that goes to... mostly pensions.
          • chrisdhoover 8y ago
            And when you point that out you get abuse. There is a very cover your ears and chant nah nah nah I can’t hear you! Then they counter that baby boomers are shit.
      • TheCoelacanth 8y ago
        I agree. We should get rid of all state spending on roads and simply not allow people to drive in Manhattan.
        • pteredactyl 8y ago
          Maybe we should. Open it up to the market. What's it cost now, 5 million a block of road? For the record, I did not say take away all money from the state, but I understand why you'd think that.
    • jacobmoe 8y ago
      If inequality is your concern, guaranteeing that everyone sit in gridlock together is about the worst possible way you could go about it. Taxing people who want to drive and using that money on public transportation is an obviously more effective way of addressing "economic asymmetry", particularly in NYC where driving is already not the norm. Driving isn't a right, especially not in NYC. You could apply your logic to anything and get the same result: scarcity.
      • bilbo0s 8y ago
        I agree. Only I think the tax should be indexed, and increase semi-exponentially based on the price of your vehicle. That would satisfy both sides of the argument. The wealthy would pay WAY more for their ego-mobiles. The poor and middle class would be paying next to nothing for their Honda Civics. And all the money collected would be made available to improve public transit.
        • econ4all 8y ago
          The problem with these "progressive" modifications is that they complicate a simple idea, add points of contention and ultimately kill the whole thing. Just pass the tax in it's simplest form and then see if further adjustment is needed, the perfect being the enemy of the good and what not.
          • jacobmoe 8y ago
            I agree in general, but think you might have it backwards in this particular case. Simple is better, but if the only way to ensure it gets through is to make it more complicated, then let's add the modifications.
            • econ4all 8y ago
              Gotcha.
            • sonnyblarney 8y ago
              Making the tax different based on the type of car is not the kind of 'complexity' that risks the nature of the tax. In fact, that's pretty easy. Getting 'right of way', building permits, hiring firms, planning massive construction projects involving 'new technology' etc. etc - this is 'complicated' beyond the threshold that I would trust the NYC government. But some kind of tax on cars is within feasibility.
    • rbranson 8y ago
      I’m pretty sure the traffic as well as the cost of parking and bridge tolls already excludes vast numbers of people from driving into the city.
      • jacobmoe 8y ago
        I sold my car after I had to move my registration and I saw how much I'd be paying for insurance. Luckily, it's New York, where you don't _need_ a car. I just can't understand how anyone is against this, unless you personally enjoy driving in the city for some reason. There are too many cars on the road, in other words, there is a scarcity of space in the city. Scarcity can always be traced back to the same thing: prices are too low.
        • sonnyblarney 8y ago
          "Scarcity can always be traced back to the same thing: prices are too low." And prices (i.e. the supply curve and the demand curve) are function of relative economic power. If you want to sell the roads to the highest bidder, the 'expensive cost' of driving you had will go up 10x and you will never be able to drive in NYC because it will be a privilege of a class of very few individuals that you will never be a part of. Like I say enough people would be happy to pay a price to make sure you can't drive near them.
          • jacobmoe 8y ago
            > people would be happy to pay a price to make sure you can't drive near them And I would be happy to receive their money and use it to fix and expand the subway. This is obviously a larger discussion of ideology. I'm a left-of-center liberal and generally don't enjoy arguing from the right, but there are economic facts that I find to be just inescapable. Of course I _want_ everyone to be able to drive whenever the want, but history and simple logic show that when you have a state of scarcity, societies need to pick one of two choices: higher prices or rationing. Rationing, in this case, either means the government telling you when you can or can't drive (I recall that Bogota had a system where license plates ending in odd or even numbers get to drive on certain days of the week), or just letting everyone sit in traffic, the equivalent of the bread line. It just seems screamingly obvious to me that taking money from rich people to drive in the city and using that money to fund the MTA will lead to the best outcomes.
    • CalRobert 8y ago
      We charge "congestion tax" on human beings in the form of rent. Are you opposed to that? I'd rather some of the space used on hulking metal boxes be used for humans instead. Also the streets would get plenty of use. By people. Like we used streets for thousands of years before people in autos showed up and almost literally said "stop walking in MY street or I will kill you" and we decided it was OK, for some reason. http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/05/footage-of-city-life-in-the-early-1900s/ http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/05/footage-of-city-life-i...
      • sonnyblarney 8y ago
        Roads are public spaces, living spaces are not.
        • CalRobert 8y ago
          I was referring to streets, not roads. Also, automobiles are an appropriation of public space for private use (parking, denying others use of the street while you're driving on it, etc.) so I hardly see that as a counterexample.
  • TuringNYC 8y ago
    Long-time (former) resident of NYC here (25+yrs) -- almost everyone I knew in NYC was open to using mass public transit, which is pretty impressive compared to what I heard in other cities. So in theory a congestion tax would work well...except...the NYC subway system has deteriorated precipitously over the past 4 years to the extent where you almost have to drive, especially on nights/weekends/evenings I'd support a congestion tax if there was a way to avoid cars (in fact, i dislike both the concept and the task of driving)...but a congestion tax is just a regressive exclusion tax if mass transit does not work. In NYC mass transit does-not-work on weekends/evenings/nights. Those not familiar with the decline of NYC transit can read this: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-subway-system-failure-delays.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-subway-... Here is a real example with evidence from two weekends ago when I was in NYC: PICTURE EVIDENCE: https://imgur.com/a/p4JCaPP https://imgur.com/a/p4JCaPP EVIDENCE NOTE 1: Monitor claiming F trains would arrive EVIDENCE NOTE 2: Sign contradicting what monitor says EVIDENCE NOTE 3: Monitor and Sign side-by-side I used the MTA Subway Time app and it also claimed F trains were on their way, these were obviously fake schedule data rather than real prospective arrivals data. So if you used the MTA Subway Time, you'd wait forever. This also suggests to me that perhaps some of the historical on-time uptime/arrival stats are fake as well. Now, given this level of dysfunction...would you risk a subway ride or just take a car/uber/lyft?
    • econ4all 8y ago
      The assumption is that tax revenue would go to mending the subway system and other public transport. People will manage, it wouldn't be the first implementation of the tax, you'll end up with less cars on the road and more revenue and that is something you can work with.
      • TuringNYC 8y ago
        That works in theory. In actuality the system is already overfunded compared to other cities and funds simply become fodder for well-connected contractors on large capital projects or union workers. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-subway-system-failure-delays.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-subway-... Here is an excerpt from the article: "Subway workers, including managers and administrative personnel, now make an average of about $155,000 annually in salary, overtime and benefits, according to a Times analysis of data compiled by the federal Department of Transportation. That is far more than in any other American transit system; the average in cities like Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington is less than $100,000 in total compensation annually."
  • ddoran 8y ago
    We already pay tolls to access Manhattan on some bridges and all tunnels. With a congestion charge added, a return journey from Long Island City, Queens to Jersey, about 3 miles, would involve three tolls.
    • econ4all 8y ago
      Or just add tolls to the rest of bridges and add the congestion tax to the toll price.
• leroy_masochist 8y ago
  This is kind of a dumb article, I grew up on the Upper East Side in the 80s/90s and there was certainly plenty of construction noise. Car alarms were way more of a nuisance back then as well...Darrell Issa's voice booming "please step away from the car" every 15 minutes from some dickhead's souped-up and window-tinted Lexus. Better title for this article would be, "In Times of Change and Uncertainty, New Yorkers Still Really Good at Complaining About Everything".
  • zjaffee 8y ago
    This is exactly it. I grew up there as well and New York has always been a loud place, it's a fundamental part of the historic character of the city. People have always been complaining about the noise and scaffolding from construction. The culture of the city deeply involves complaining about/yelling at everything that gets in your way.
  • rconti 8y ago
    Oh my god, I knew about Issa and Viper, but I had no idea that was ACTUALLY his voice! Amazing.
• mattlondon 8y ago
  I wonder how much the grid system affects noise transmission? Being used to London, the first time I went to NYC I was surprised at how far you could see down the streets compared to London where at best it's a hundred metres or so before a turn (a few notable exceptions of course) Do those long open spaces allow noise to travel further?
  • scythe 8y ago
    Hopping on this comment, I had wondered about the merits of a grid system based on parabolic coordinates: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_coordinates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_coordinates which might retain the convenient local regularity of street grids while preventing the streets from "channeling" wind/noise.
• Hasknewbie 8y ago
  Meanwhile, Hong Kong and Tokyo have higher population density, and they're not as noisy. These cities have 2 things in common: first, they have top notch public transportation (especially HK. If you have tried the MTR, Elon Musk's past jabs at public transportation ring hollow: clearly he doesn't know), which means much reduced traffic -- it's still busy mind you, but "European capital" level of busy. And second, they have (or have learnt) that most essential of things in urban life: etiquette. They know when to shut up. I will add that around 40% of Hong-Kongers are immigrants, mostly from (much more noisy & unruly) Mainland China, so clearly that etiquette thing is not innate and can be learnt. So I would make the case that if you want a high-density city in the West to remain tolerable noise-wise, basic regulations are not enough. You need some 'investment', both in the local administration and in the local culture.
  • Nav_Panel 8y ago
    Agreed. I used to live near a busy intersection in Brooklyn. Most of the noise was from cars. But not their engines: their horns. There was a busy bus stop across the way, and drivers loved to lay on the horn when a bus would stop for passengers. Because, of course, traffic isn't moving, better start honking! This is something that basic etiquette would fix.
    • robbyt 8y ago
      I think some cars in NYC have a breaking system is attached to their horn. They're unable to stop or slow down without the horn also going off.
      • qbrass 8y ago
        Wiring the horn to the brake lights was supposed to be a prank. But if the driver doesn't acknowledge that it's happening, the prank backfires on the prankster.
    • TheCoelacanth 8y ago
      And most of that honking is actually illegal because in NYC it is illegal to honk except in an emergency. Even some basic enforcement of traffic laws would stop the honking. The US in general seems to have very little appetite for actually enforcing traffic laws, though.
• nimbius 8y ago
  as an auto mechanic I've been dying to touch on the subject of how cars and especially trucks have gotten louder over the years. - hard tires that lower rolling resistance but increase noise. this combined with thin sidewall tires. - lax enforcement of the noise ordinance with respect to riced out civic coffee can exhaust. these are rarer in 2018 as its impossible to install one without the emission control balking at you. - streets that havent been paved since the carter administration - heavy trucks with massive turbochargers and oversized "ram" air intakes (vortec, etc..) to appeal to businesses that want to save fuel costs. Vortec type intakes especially are deafeningly loud at scale. - trucking companies that dont size their loads. Do not send a 53' lowboy into a densely populated city street. there are quieter options. sub it out to a millwright or last miler. - heavy construction equipment companies that insist if they add catalytic converters, mufflers, or noise controls theyll have to declare bankruptcy. Same goes for companies that include the absolute loudest "motion" alarm for equipment (the beep beep sound.) Im looking at you, Komatsu. - Cities that tolerate lax air standards for older construction equipment. these translate into lax noise standards as well. - garbage trucks. Heil brand trucks are absolutely the noisiest trucks on the planet because they dont include ameneties like bumpers for their skids, or bumpers for the top of the truck to cushion the bin when it hits the rooftop. The arm for loading plastic bins was designed by a grad student and it shows. High speed lift and slam.
  • TheCoelacanth 8y ago
    Don't forget non-existent enforcement of traffic laws. In NYC, it is illegal to honk except in an emergency situation. You would never know that from listening to traffic, though.
  • Rumudiez 8y ago
    Thanks for sharing. People tend to think about engine noise when talking about loud cars, but I often remark to myself how loud Tesla’s et al electric cars still are due to road noise. From my balcony a couple floors above street level I can’t tell the difference between any electric and most ICE vehicles traveling by without needing to look.
  • js2 8y ago
• CydeWeys 8y ago
  I live in Manhattan and the biggest noise problem to me is from vehicles, mostly just cars honking their horns for no damn reason. It's hard to imagine there ever being any effective enforcement of this though, so I'd settle for reducing the number of vehicles. Add a congestion charge a la London for all of Manhattan south of 72nd Street, remove all free on-street parking and replace some of it with a combination of meters and/or resident-permit-only parking (said permits would not be cheap -- I'm thinking hundreds per month), turn all the rest of the freed up parking spots into protected bike lanes, and turn a bunch of roads into the most popular areas into pedestrian plazas like Times Square (or what many European cities have in their downtowns). Most people who live in this city do not drive (and cannot, for simple scaling reasons), and yet the majority of public space is reserved for vehicles. It makes no sense whatsoever and is a terrible misallocation of very limited and valuable space.
  • vonmoltke 8y ago
    > remove all free on-street parking Where is there free on-street parking? Certainly not in Midtown. Hell, most street parking in Midtown is commercial-only during the weekdays.
    • CydeWeys 8y ago
      This is in the context of all of Manhattan. Midtown is just one neighborhood amongst dozens.
  • A2017U1 8y ago
    > It's hard to imagine there ever being any effective enforcement CCTV to automatically record license plates and microphone triangulation to identify the noise makers. If the authorities really wanted to they could fix it.
• arprocter 8y ago
  The article kind of glosses over it - although construction hours are limited, 'urgent' repairs can still be done at any time So your Saturday morning alarm clock is a jackhammer at 5am