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The financial & car industries have been immensely successful at making cars accessible to all consumers. Anyone with an income, a bit of credit history and a

The financial & car industries have been immensely successful at making cars accessible to all consumers. Anyone with an income, a bit of credit history and a pulse can roll out of dealership with a car. Roads on the other hand are publicly funded and physical constrained. It's inevitable that car owning will have to become much more expensive via taxes in the decades ahead. The mayors listed are not however making their cities particularly more accessible to pedestrians and bicyclists. They generally sandbag those improvements on the slightest complaints about loss of parking or access. DiBlasio drives to a gym in Brooklyn everyday and has the NYPD run a war on ebikes/bikes, Durkan just canceled a long-planned bike lane on an important arterial, Portland's doing a massive freeway expansion. Most of these cities are failing on Vision Zero efforts. The reason congestion pricing is catching on is that the wealthy & politically connected older generations finally settled on it as the way to reclaim their privilege to drive straight into the downtown from their suburbs. Congestion pricing is now just another way to maintain a vehicular status quo.

rayiner 8y ago
Is optimizing for bikes worth the disruption to traffic? It seems like a handful of bicyclists hold up a lot of people in cars. (Also, the anti-suburb sentiment is quite ... problematic. Hint: There is a reason most of the good ethnic food in New York is in actually in Westchester and Long Island.)
- mannykannot 8y ago
  The Bronx is not Westchester.
  - rrdharan 8y ago
    And Queens is not Long Island.
    - joemaller1 8y ago
      well, technically...
    - rayiner 8y ago
      1) Gentrification has moved most of the lower-income folks in Queens away from the subway lines. And in the Bronx, there is not much subway access to begin with (the lines are spaced as far apart as the entire island of manhattan). 2) The NYC congestion pricing scheme would apply to folks entering Manhattan. That would seem to include folks coming in from the Bronx and Queens. The overall point remains--the "bridge and tunnel crowd" aspersions always were classist, but the gentrification of manhattan has now made it quite racist as well.
- btrettel 8y ago
  As a daily transportation cyclist, I doubt I add any measurable amount of time to the commutes of drivers I encounter on the road. In fact, it's not uncommon to see the same drivers at multiple stoplights because the effective speed (due to the stoplights) is sometimes a bit slower than I ride. That of course leads to another problem: Impatient drivers giving me close "punishment passes" only to wait at the stoplight. This is a common experience for cyclists. Add on top of this the fact that most cyclists usually take different routes than drivers would from point A to point B. (Routes with less cars.)
- francisofascii 8y ago
  You have to realize the number of bicyclists is significantly constrained because of the danger caused by the cars.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    So, not mixing cars and bikes together would be a win-win.
- hannasanarion 8y ago
  That "handful" you perceive are way more than the number of people in cars using the same space. A bicycle needs less than a quarter as much space on the road as a car does, it seems there are fewer of them because they are physically smaller.
- AckSyn 8y ago
  The anti-suburbian trend among "city folk" strikes me of arrogance and ignorance just as the anti-car one. If they want to solve problems in their area that's fine and dandy but sticking their noses where they don't live is terribly (and terrible) "busybody" way to live.
eikenberry 8y ago
The City of Portland is not doing a massive freeway expansion, the Feds are doing it. They deemed I5 going through Portland to be a bottleneck and required the expansion.
- inpdx 8y ago
  The majority want the bottleneck fixed. "massive freeway expansion" is absurd - it's less than a mile, and isn't adding more lanes than are already on points north and south of it.
inpdx 8y ago
This is the point being made by many of us here in Portland when congestion pricing is brought up. It makes vastly less sense here without good public transit, and it will disproportionately affect the working classes. While the wealthy will continue as usual.
- btrettel 8y ago
  Do you think congestion pricing would cause public transit to improve? (I'm interested in others' opinions as well.)
  - inpdx 8y ago
    I think it's putting the cart before the horse. Improve the public transit first. I also have very little confidence that congestion pricing revenue would be spent wisely.
  - francisofascii 8y ago
    I ride buses. And the biggest reason the bus is late and slow is traffic. So yes, less congestion will help. Also the more riders, the more reason to add frequency.
- dawnerd 8y ago
  It seems a lot of people here have never been to a larger city during rush our. Our traffic is nothing compared to say, LA or SF. That's not to say it's not bad, but some people here make it sound like we're the only city with traffic.
clay_the_ripper 8y ago
I disagree. Pretty much any economist will tell you that the best way to reduce consumption of a good is to increase its price. By implementing congestion charges only those with a good enough reason to drive will do so, and give an incentive to use alternatives. Will this disproportionally affect people with less money? Yeah, in the same way that everything that gets more expensive affects people with less money. People with less money have less of it to spend on things. They are now incentivized to find alternatives, creating demand for alternatives, therefore creating supply of alternatives. If people still decide they want to burn more of their money driving, they are welcome to do so. No one is telling anyone how to spend their money. We are simply adjusting the price of a good to price in things that aren’t taken into account (traffic). People arguing that congestion charges dispropropprtioanlly affect the poor often also support pricing in the true cost of other things, like carbon emissions and plastic bags. Are you saying you wouldn’t support a tax on plastic? Or emissions? Cap and trade? Those things also increase the prices of things we want to discourage the consumption of and also probably affect people with lower incomes disproportiaonately. You can’t have it both ways.
- int_19h 8y ago
  > Will this disproportionally affect people with less money? Yeah, in the same way that everything that gets more expensive affects people with less money. People with less money have less of it to spend on things. They are now incentivized to find alternatives, creating demand for alternatives, therefore creating supply of alternatives. This is all very well in the abstract, but what exactly are those people supposed to do in the meantime - you know, while the public transit that they demand actually gets built?
  - clay_the_ripper 8y ago
    True enough. I think the point here is to reduce that marginal car. When the decision is to drive or not drive and there is a viable alternative (which in NY there is, unlike, say LA), then this takes that marginal car off the road when people say, ah screw it its not worth the extra couple bucks.
- 8y ago

rayiner 8y ago

Is optimizing for bikes worth the disruption to traffic? It seems like a handful of bicyclists hold up a lot of people in cars. (Also, the anti-suburb sentiment is quite ... problematic. Hint: There is a reason most of the good ethnic food in New York is in actually in Westchester and Long Island.)

mannykannot 8y ago
The Bronx is not Westchester.
- rrdharan 8y ago
  And Queens is not Long Island.
  - joemaller1 8y ago
    well, technically...
  - rayiner 8y ago
    1) Gentrification has moved most of the lower-income folks in Queens away from the subway lines. And in the Bronx, there is not much subway access to begin with (the lines are spaced as far apart as the entire island of manhattan). 2) The NYC congestion pricing scheme would apply to folks entering Manhattan. That would seem to include folks coming in from the Bronx and Queens. The overall point remains--the "bridge and tunnel crowd" aspersions always were classist, but the gentrification of manhattan has now made it quite racist as well.
btrettel 8y ago
As a daily transportation cyclist, I doubt I add any measurable amount of time to the commutes of drivers I encounter on the road. In fact, it's not uncommon to see the same drivers at multiple stoplights because the effective speed (due to the stoplights) is sometimes a bit slower than I ride. That of course leads to another problem: Impatient drivers giving me close "punishment passes" only to wait at the stoplight. This is a common experience for cyclists. Add on top of this the fact that most cyclists usually take different routes than drivers would from point A to point B. (Routes with less cars.)
francisofascii 8y ago
You have to realize the number of bicyclists is significantly constrained because of the danger caused by the cars.
- int_19h 8y ago
  So, not mixing cars and bikes together would be a win-win.
hannasanarion 8y ago
That "handful" you perceive are way more than the number of people in cars using the same space. A bicycle needs less than a quarter as much space on the road as a car does, it seems there are fewer of them because they are physically smaller.
AckSyn 8y ago
The anti-suburbian trend among "city folk" strikes me of arrogance and ignorance just as the anti-car one. If they want to solve problems in their area that's fine and dandy but sticking their noses where they don't live is terribly (and terrible) "busybody" way to live.

eikenberry 8y ago

The City of Portland is not doing a massive freeway expansion, the Feds are doing it. They deemed I5 going through Portland to be a bottleneck and required the expansion.

inpdx 8y ago
The majority want the bottleneck fixed. "massive freeway expansion" is absurd - it's less than a mile, and isn't adding more lanes than are already on points north and south of it.

inpdx 8y ago

This is the point being made by many of us here in Portland when congestion pricing is brought up. It makes vastly less sense here without good public transit, and it will disproportionately affect the working classes. While the wealthy will continue as usual.

btrettel 8y ago
Do you think congestion pricing would cause public transit to improve? (I'm interested in others' opinions as well.)
- inpdx 8y ago
  I think it's putting the cart before the horse. Improve the public transit first. I also have very little confidence that congestion pricing revenue would be spent wisely.
- francisofascii 8y ago
  I ride buses. And the biggest reason the bus is late and slow is traffic. So yes, less congestion will help. Also the more riders, the more reason to add frequency.
dawnerd 8y ago
It seems a lot of people here have never been to a larger city during rush our. Our traffic is nothing compared to say, LA or SF. That's not to say it's not bad, but some people here make it sound like we're the only city with traffic.

clay_the_ripper 8y ago

I disagree. Pretty much any economist will tell you that the best way to reduce consumption of a good is to increase its price. By implementing congestion charges only those with a good enough reason to drive will do so, and give an incentive to use alternatives. Will this disproportionally affect people with less money? Yeah, in the same way that everything that gets more expensive affects people with less money. People with less money have less of it to spend on things. They are now incentivized to find alternatives, creating demand for alternatives, therefore creating supply of alternatives. If people still decide they want to burn more of their money driving, they are welcome to do so. No one is telling anyone how to spend their money. We are simply adjusting the price of a good to price in things that aren’t taken into account (traffic). People arguing that congestion charges dispropropprtioanlly affect the poor often also support pricing in the true cost of other things, like carbon emissions and plastic bags. Are you saying you wouldn’t support a tax on plastic? Or emissions? Cap and trade? Those things also increase the prices of things we want to discourage the consumption of and also probably affect people with lower incomes disproportiaonately. You can’t have it both ways.

int_19h 8y ago
> Will this disproportionally affect people with less money? Yeah, in the same way that everything that gets more expensive affects people with less money. People with less money have less of it to spend on things. They are now incentivized to find alternatives, creating demand for alternatives, therefore creating supply of alternatives. This is all very well in the abstract, but what exactly are those people supposed to do in the meantime - you know, while the public transit that they demand actually gets built?
- clay_the_ripper 8y ago
  True enough. I think the point here is to reduce that marginal car. When the decision is to drive or not drive and there is a viable alternative (which in NY there is, unlike, say LA), then this takes that marginal car off the road when people say, ah screw it its not worth the extra couple bucks.
8y ago