5 ms·

It's crazy that the NYC transit system is controlled by the state government in Albany, a bunch of folks that pretty much don't use it at all.

by mizzao 8y ago

dvtrn 8y ago
You think that's crazy? Austin Texas has passed on, I think to date, since 2001-five transit improvement programs voted down by a majority of people who don't even use CapMetro to begin with (glares angrily at west Austin)-in addition to lots of other vitally needed city improvements like, new zoning ordinances-which the city punted on after five years of deliberation and planning, not to mention a good amount of money hiring 'consultants' to help City Council figure out how to write the plan they eventually abandoned (CodeNEXT) Glares angrily again at West Austin But hey, we have "bendy"/rapid-transit-style buses as of a couple of years ago that don't even use protected lanes, so at least we can fit more people on a gridlocked Guadalupe St during rush hour than normal buses. OH! And a toll lane on Mopac now that charges you based on how congested the "loop" is and is guaranteed to be just as congested as the non-toll lanes. Austin Texas: A cautionary tale in applying chaos engineering to city planning. Grinds teeth into powder
- Shivetya 8y ago
  so are they voting it down because they are being taxed for something they cannot use or benefit from directly? as for toll lanes, welcome to the the new means of permanent revenue extraction. Atlanta got them in spades including one near billion dollar installation that cannot be used if ice threatens because its nearly all bridges. people had to fight to remove tolls that were promised to be removed from GA400 years ago after it was paid off so now the state just switched to "express lanes" which is a PC way of saying toll lanes.
  - komali2 8y ago
    Having a bustling city center in easy metro access while you sit comfy in the suburbs seems like a great benefit to me. Drives up your land value while you suffer almost none of the detriments to metro-ization.
    - forrestthewoods 8y ago
      So they pay a higher tax rate on higher valued property and get nothing in return until they sell their home and move to a different city? That’s not a great sales pitch.
      - dvtrn 8y ago
        You're not getting anything in return until you sell your home in any other circumstance (beyond leasing a room or the entire residence and hoping you can make a profit) anyway, what's the difference between higher property tax to pay for transit and higher property taxes to pay for, say, police pensions? Points to Chicago's property tax/pension nightmare
        traek 8y ago
        Maybe people would prefer the unstated third option of lower property tax.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    so are they voting it down because they are being taxed for something they cannot use or benefit from directly? I'm hesitant to say this is exactly it (or even that it's one specific thing), since--if memory serves, and I'm opening this up for someone who perhaps has a better memory than I do, there was a bond package in 2005 that wouldn't have even affected the western edges of Travis County as the Cities of Bee Cave and West Lake are unincorporated.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    You say "revenue extraction" but why is it bad? Roads need to be paid for and having express lanes that convince some people to pay more voluntarily seems like a good thing. Busses and trains aren't free (usually) so I don't see why highways should be free.
    - wolco 8y ago
      I agree. Probably the most sensible approach. In some places the taxes on roads far outweights the cost for the gas tax/other forms meant to pay for the upkeep. Transit or general budgets keep the overflow. Probably a good idea in terms of transit funding as increased transit has a traffic clearing effect.
    - jstarfish 8y ago
      Nobody's saying highways should be free, but you're ignoring the fact that your federal tax dollars are supposed to be paying for the interstate highways, and the ad valorem tax, license plate fees, gas taxes and myriad of other vehicular fees you get hit with are supposed to pay for the local roads. 400 in particular was a dick move. They pitched a highway and said they'd fund it by making it a toll road, to be revoked once it paid for itself. It wasn't. Traffic backed up for miles so they could continue to collect a measly $.50 out of scope for years.
  - smush 8y ago
    I have no problems with the new PeachPass lanes _that were constructed for the purpose_. Stealing existing lanes of I-75 that taxpayers paid for "because congestion" and turning them into PeachPass lanes so that the well-off can pay for an easier commute while simultaneously making the rest of us who can't afford to do that have an even more congested road is folly IMO.
- komali2 8y ago
  Also, if you ride your bicycle, rednecks in lifted trucks will push you onto the curb and shout out the window "are you trying to die?" Choose a motorcycle, people will swerve at you. Whenever I bring up that I won't be in staying in SF, people inevitably say "oh, I heard Austin is a hot new tech hub! You're from Texas, aren't you?" Yup. From. From. And likely never going back.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    Yup. From. From. And likely never going back. I'm a few weeks now into relocating to the midwest (which is why I still say "we" when I talk about Austin), and I've said the same thing. Austin is a marvelous place to spend a weekend or a couple of days if you want to see a festival (I still think Nashville is the better "live music" city), but I will never live there again unless it transforms dramatically so much of their transit issues, housing issues and traffic issues, not to mention finding a city council with a backbone. I don't think I can put it to words and have it sink in any better to someone who hasn't lived there how livid I was to see the news that council abandoned CodeNEXT. That was the move that got me packing up and forced my hand to get the hell out. https://www.statesman.com/news/20180802/codenext-to-code-nixed-adler-council-members-abandon-code-rewrite/1 https://www.statesman.com/news/20180802/codenext-to-code-nix... FTA: Since the first draft of the revised land-use rules was released in early 2017, CodeNext has laid bare the ideological differences between pro-density urbanists and neighborhood preservationists, who have sniped at one another for months in public meetings and through social media. Yep. That's pretty much describes my near 20 years living in Austin to the letter. About the only thing those two groups can agree on is "build another toll road so far out of the city it takes a 20 minute drive to the eastern edge of the city limits just so you can go north to Pflugerville and not sit on I-35 for an hour and a half"
- vertexFarm 8y ago
  I hear you. I'm unable to even tolerate the dystopian traffic these days. Austin is going to NIMBY itself straight to hell. Eventually the infrastructure just plain isn't going to work anymore. A breaking point exists out there and they're stubbornly barreling towards it. I was born in Austin in the eighties and I can't stand going back anymore, even for a visit. I hate it there.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    Austin is going to NIMBY itself straight to hell. It's already happened IMO.
- freehunter 8y ago
  Knowing nothing of Austin politics, if West Austin keeps holding up the spending for something they won't/don't even use, wouldn't it make sense to only charge the people who actually would use it? Either splitting West Austin into its own city so they're free from the taxes, or extending the CapMetro out to West Austin so they can benefit from it, or...? It's easy to blame those guys for not seeing the benefit you would get from the extra tax, but if you put yourself in their shoes, they probably have more pressing issues that you yourself don't even have on your radar.
fcbrooklyn 8y ago
It's crazier that it's paid for by the state government in Albany, with taxes collected from the entire state. The control is a side effect of that.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  Seems fair, though. 40% of NY's tax revenue comes from NYC. Add in the surrounding areas (Westchester, Long Island, etc.) and non-residents who commute and you get up to 82%. https://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2018/feb/01/robert-mujica/do-downstate-ny-residents-contribute-more-income-t/ https://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2018/feb/01/r...
  - fcbrooklyn 8y ago
    Interesting, although the article is strangely silent on the subject of property taxes, which are extremely high in NY. NYC and surrounding areas undoubtedly have higher property values, so perhaps the ratio holds, but the rest of the state is very very big. It may also be that property taxes don't find their way to the state coffers, I'm honestly unsure.
drugme 8y ago
It's crazy that the NYC transit system is controlled by the state government in Albany, a bunch of folks that pretty much don't use it at all. Or given the fact the integrated metro NYC system (subway + regional rail) serves a very significant number of riders who do not actually live in NYC proper -- perhaps it's not so "crazy" after all.
- vonmoltke 8y ago
  It serves a very significant number of riders who do not actually live in New York state as well.
  - murph-almighty 8y ago
    Said riders almost always pay non-resident income taxes to NY as well.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      The tens of millions of tourists probably don't, though. (Now, sales and hotel taxes, on the other hand...)
- zjaffee 8y ago
  It's worth pointing out that a significant number of people who live in the bronx and queens do take metro north and LIRR respectively.
wolco 8y ago
If they could find the money within nyc property tax base they would be able to fund without the state government. Many would say Albany is controlled by nyc interests and why should citizens in cities like Buffalo in western ny fund nyc projects.
pastor_elm 8y ago
Most other (international) metros are owned by private entities (which may be owned by the government (e.g. Tokyo metro which is owned by both the Japanese government and the Tokyo government)). If you let the city own the MTA, they'll never make hard decisions because they'll be at the mercy of voters.
- jcranmer 8y ago
  Private companies owning metros is actually relatively rare. Note that public transit is usually not run for a profit, since many of the benefits of transit cannot be captured by fares. (Those companies that are privately run generally make money by owning the high-value land around).
- fcbrooklyn 8y ago
  A very interesting history of the NYC subway. https://www.amazon.com/722-Miles-Building-Subways-Transformed/dp/0801880548 https://www.amazon.com/722-Miles-Building-Subways-Transforme... It's been years since I read it, but as I recall, the system was built by private entities, who were gradually driven out of business when the city set a cap on the price of a fare (first at a nickel, then at a dime). When they folded one by one, they got subsumed into the MTA, and I guess at some point it was decided that it was ok to raise the price.

It's crazy that the NYC transit system is controlled by the state government in Albany, a bunch of folks that pretty much don't use it at all.

by mizzao 8y ago

It's crazy that the NYC transit system is controlled by the state government in Albany, a bunch of folks that pretty much don't use it at all.

dvtrn 8y ago

You think that's crazy? Austin Texas has passed on, I think to date, since 2001-five transit improvement programs voted down by a majority of people who don't even use CapMetro to begin with (glares angrily at west Austin)-in addition to lots of other vitally needed city improvements like, new zoning ordinances-which the city punted on after five years of deliberation and planning, not to mention a good amount of money hiring 'consultants' to help City Council figure out how to write the plan they eventually abandoned (CodeNEXT) Glares angrily again at West Austin But hey, we have "bendy"/rapid-transit-style buses as of a couple of years ago that don't even use protected lanes, so at least we can fit more people on a gridlocked Guadalupe St during rush hour than normal buses. OH! And a toll lane on Mopac now that charges you based on how congested the "loop" is and is guaranteed to be just as congested as the non-toll lanes. Austin Texas: A cautionary tale in applying chaos engineering to city planning. Grinds teeth into powder

Shivetya 8y ago
so are they voting it down because they are being taxed for something they cannot use or benefit from directly? as for toll lanes, welcome to the the new means of permanent revenue extraction. Atlanta got them in spades including one near billion dollar installation that cannot be used if ice threatens because its nearly all bridges. people had to fight to remove tolls that were promised to be removed from GA400 years ago after it was paid off so now the state just switched to "express lanes" which is a PC way of saying toll lanes.
- komali2 8y ago
  Having a bustling city center in easy metro access while you sit comfy in the suburbs seems like a great benefit to me. Drives up your land value while you suffer almost none of the detriments to metro-ization.
  - forrestthewoods 8y ago
    So they pay a higher tax rate on higher valued property and get nothing in return until they sell their home and move to a different city? That’s not a great sales pitch.
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      You're not getting anything in return until you sell your home in any other circumstance (beyond leasing a room or the entire residence and hoping you can make a profit) anyway, what's the difference between higher property tax to pay for transit and higher property taxes to pay for, say, police pensions? Points to Chicago's property tax/pension nightmare
      - traek 8y ago
        Maybe people would prefer the unstated third option of lower property tax.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  so are they voting it down because they are being taxed for something they cannot use or benefit from directly? I'm hesitant to say this is exactly it (or even that it's one specific thing), since--if memory serves, and I'm opening this up for someone who perhaps has a better memory than I do, there was a bond package in 2005 that wouldn't have even affected the western edges of Travis County as the Cities of Bee Cave and West Lake are unincorporated.
- skybrian 8y ago
  You say "revenue extraction" but why is it bad? Roads need to be paid for and having express lanes that convince some people to pay more voluntarily seems like a good thing. Busses and trains aren't free (usually) so I don't see why highways should be free.
  - wolco 8y ago
    I agree. Probably the most sensible approach. In some places the taxes on roads far outweights the cost for the gas tax/other forms meant to pay for the upkeep. Transit or general budgets keep the overflow. Probably a good idea in terms of transit funding as increased transit has a traffic clearing effect.
  - jstarfish 8y ago
    Nobody's saying highways should be free, but you're ignoring the fact that your federal tax dollars are supposed to be paying for the interstate highways, and the ad valorem tax, license plate fees, gas taxes and myriad of other vehicular fees you get hit with are supposed to pay for the local roads. 400 in particular was a dick move. They pitched a highway and said they'd fund it by making it a toll road, to be revoked once it paid for itself. It wasn't. Traffic backed up for miles so they could continue to collect a measly $.50 out of scope for years.
- smush 8y ago
  I have no problems with the new PeachPass lanes _that were constructed for the purpose_. Stealing existing lanes of I-75 that taxpayers paid for "because congestion" and turning them into PeachPass lanes so that the well-off can pay for an easier commute while simultaneously making the rest of us who can't afford to do that have an even more congested road is folly IMO.
komali2 8y ago
Also, if you ride your bicycle, rednecks in lifted trucks will push you onto the curb and shout out the window "are you trying to die?" Choose a motorcycle, people will swerve at you. Whenever I bring up that I won't be in staying in SF, people inevitably say "oh, I heard Austin is a hot new tech hub! You're from Texas, aren't you?" Yup. From. From. And likely never going back.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  Yup. From. From. And likely never going back. I'm a few weeks now into relocating to the midwest (which is why I still say "we" when I talk about Austin), and I've said the same thing. Austin is a marvelous place to spend a weekend or a couple of days if you want to see a festival (I still think Nashville is the better "live music" city), but I will never live there again unless it transforms dramatically so much of their transit issues, housing issues and traffic issues, not to mention finding a city council with a backbone. I don't think I can put it to words and have it sink in any better to someone who hasn't lived there how livid I was to see the news that council abandoned CodeNEXT. That was the move that got me packing up and forced my hand to get the hell out. https://www.statesman.com/news/20180802/codenext-to-code-nixed-adler-council-members-abandon-code-rewrite/1 https://www.statesman.com/news/20180802/codenext-to-code-nix... FTA: Since the first draft of the revised land-use rules was released in early 2017, CodeNext has laid bare the ideological differences between pro-density urbanists and neighborhood preservationists, who have sniped at one another for months in public meetings and through social media. Yep. That's pretty much describes my near 20 years living in Austin to the letter. About the only thing those two groups can agree on is "build another toll road so far out of the city it takes a 20 minute drive to the eastern edge of the city limits just so you can go north to Pflugerville and not sit on I-35 for an hour and a half"
vertexFarm 8y ago
I hear you. I'm unable to even tolerate the dystopian traffic these days. Austin is going to NIMBY itself straight to hell. Eventually the infrastructure just plain isn't going to work anymore. A breaking point exists out there and they're stubbornly barreling towards it. I was born in Austin in the eighties and I can't stand going back anymore, even for a visit. I hate it there.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  Austin is going to NIMBY itself straight to hell. It's already happened IMO.
freehunter 8y ago
Knowing nothing of Austin politics, if West Austin keeps holding up the spending for something they won't/don't even use, wouldn't it make sense to only charge the people who actually would use it? Either splitting West Austin into its own city so they're free from the taxes, or extending the CapMetro out to West Austin so they can benefit from it, or...? It's easy to blame those guys for not seeing the benefit you would get from the extra tax, but if you put yourself in their shoes, they probably have more pressing issues that you yourself don't even have on your radar.

fcbrooklyn 8y ago

It's crazier that it's paid for by the state government in Albany, with taxes collected from the entire state. The control is a side effect of that.

ceejayoz 8y ago
Seems fair, though. 40% of NY's tax revenue comes from NYC. Add in the surrounding areas (Westchester, Long Island, etc.) and non-residents who commute and you get up to 82%. https://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2018/feb/01/robert-mujica/do-downstate-ny-residents-contribute-more-income-t/ https://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2018/feb/01/r...
- fcbrooklyn 8y ago
  Interesting, although the article is strangely silent on the subject of property taxes, which are extremely high in NY. NYC and surrounding areas undoubtedly have higher property values, so perhaps the ratio holds, but the rest of the state is very very big. It may also be that property taxes don't find their way to the state coffers, I'm honestly unsure.

drugme 8y ago

It's crazy that the NYC transit system is controlled by the state government in Albany, a bunch of folks that pretty much don't use it at all. Or given the fact the integrated metro NYC system (subway + regional rail) serves a very significant number of riders who do not actually live in NYC proper -- perhaps it's not so "crazy" after all.

vonmoltke 8y ago
It serves a very significant number of riders who do not actually live in New York state as well.
- murph-almighty 8y ago
  Said riders almost always pay non-resident income taxes to NY as well.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    The tens of millions of tourists probably don't, though. (Now, sales and hotel taxes, on the other hand...)
zjaffee 8y ago
It's worth pointing out that a significant number of people who live in the bronx and queens do take metro north and LIRR respectively.

wolco 8y ago

If they could find the money within nyc property tax base they would be able to fund without the state government. Many would say Albany is controlled by nyc interests and why should citizens in cities like Buffalo in western ny fund nyc projects.

pastor_elm 8y ago

Most other (international) metros are owned by private entities (which may be owned by the government (e.g. Tokyo metro which is owned by both the Japanese government and the Tokyo government)). If you let the city own the MTA, they'll never make hard decisions because they'll be at the mercy of voters.

jcranmer 8y ago
Private companies owning metros is actually relatively rare. Note that public transit is usually not run for a profit, since many of the benefits of transit cannot be captured by fares. (Those companies that are privately run generally make money by owning the high-value land around).
fcbrooklyn 8y ago
A very interesting history of the NYC subway. https://www.amazon.com/722-Miles-Building-Subways-Transformed/dp/0801880548 https://www.amazon.com/722-Miles-Building-Subways-Transforme... It's been years since I read it, but as I recall, the system was built by private entities, who were gradually driven out of business when the city set a cap on the price of a fare (first at a nickel, then at a dime). When they folded one by one, they got subsumed into the MTA, and I guess at some point it was decided that it was ok to raise the price.