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Manhattan is different in that it connects New Jersey and Brooklyn into a super region, they are dependent on each other to thrive. Banning cars would be an abs

Manhattan is different in that it connects New Jersey and Brooklyn into a super region, they are dependent on each other to thrive. Banning cars would be an absurd nightmare at least in this situation.

mobilefriendly 7y ago
This isn't an actual argument against severely limiting cars. Most of the people traveling the super-region already use the subway or buses. That will become easier and more efficient without private cars.
- badfrog 7y ago
  > Most of the people traveling the super-region already use the subway or buses. That only works well if your origin or destination is in Manhattan. To go from Union City NJ to Belmont Park on a weekend is a 45 minute drive or > 90 minutes on transit consisting of bus, subway, LIRR, another bus. There are similar examples even within NYC, like Red Hook to Jackson Heights.
- ThomPete 7y ago
  How will it become more efficient to force more people onto the trains? You haven't traveled with the L train recently.
geofft 7y ago
I work in Manhattan and live in Brooklyn, and my office overlooks the Holland Tunnel (connection to New Jersey). Roads are a backlogged mess every evening, where "evening" on Friday seems to start at noon. Traffic cops are in a half-dozen intersections around the Holland Tunnel entrance manually restricting flow and more importantly rerouting cars to keep all the possible entrance routes roughly balanced. The vast majority of this traffic is from Manhattan - otherwise it wouldn't be spread across so many routes. If you want to designate a cars-ok route in Manhattan between the Battery Tunnel (to Brooklyn) and the Holland Tunnel and let that back up, you could do that and it would be less of a mess than the status quo: it would stay on West Side Highway out of the way and it would have less traffic. One time I took a taxi from Newark to my home in Brooklyn, and the taxi driver dropped me off right after getting out of the Holland Tunnel (next to a subway stop) saying he didn't want to deal with more traffic. There is no effective vehicular link between New Jersey and Brooklyn right now. There is a moderately effective link between each of those and Manhattan, that's it.
- melling 7y ago
  We need a lot more subways. And they need to extend into NJ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension
  - brownbat 7y ago
    And more of them should be accessible by wheelchair. Currently it's only around one in five stations.
    - mruts 7y ago
      Sounds fine too me. I’m not saying there should be no wheelchair accessible stations, but seeing that they are a miniscule minority, I don’t think that my tax dollars be paying to make everything accessible to them. It’s not possible, anyways, without incurring massive costs. Imagine what would happen to rents if the government mandated that all apartments and houses to be wheelchair accessible. It would be a total disaster.
      - SECProto 7y ago
        Subway stations in many systems around the world are accessible. It doesn't take much for a minimum viable product - drop a 5m diameter tube for a single elevator from street level down to platform level, put separate ticket gates on it. Impact on surface infrastructure is much less than that 5m. Retrofit it in a few stations a year over the next couple decades. Your take seems rather shallow. Accessible infrastructure includes curb cuts (originally designed for wheelchairs, also make sidewalks useable by the elderly, strollers, etc who have issues with a 6" step), audible crossing signals (meant for visually impaired, also alert those who are looking at their phones), bike lanes (meant for cyclists, improve the conditions for pedestrians and residents too), .... The list goes on and on where minor improvements in infrastructure design create massive improvements in public spaces.
      - brownbat 7y ago
        The "miniscule minority" served by ramps includes pregnant women, the elderly, anyone with so much as a twisted ankle or pushing a stroller. I'm raising this in the context of the elimination of cars. The current infrastructure pushes a lot of people into taxis. So if you eliminate cars you either have to expand accommodations or just declare the island inhospitable to anyone that doesn't pass a fitness test. You can support effectively restricting the wealthiest hub of our largest city to just people who are like you and in your life situation, but it's not going to be a widely held position.

mobilefriendly 7y ago

This isn't an actual argument against severely limiting cars. Most of the people traveling the super-region already use the subway or buses. That will become easier and more efficient without private cars.

badfrog 7y ago
> Most of the people traveling the super-region already use the subway or buses. That only works well if your origin or destination is in Manhattan. To go from Union City NJ to Belmont Park on a weekend is a 45 minute drive or > 90 minutes on transit consisting of bus, subway, LIRR, another bus. There are similar examples even within NYC, like Red Hook to Jackson Heights.
ThomPete 7y ago
How will it become more efficient to force more people onto the trains? You haven't traveled with the L train recently.

geofft 7y ago

I work in Manhattan and live in Brooklyn, and my office overlooks the Holland Tunnel (connection to New Jersey). Roads are a backlogged mess every evening, where "evening" on Friday seems to start at noon. Traffic cops are in a half-dozen intersections around the Holland Tunnel entrance manually restricting flow and more importantly rerouting cars to keep all the possible entrance routes roughly balanced. The vast majority of this traffic is from Manhattan - otherwise it wouldn't be spread across so many routes. If you want to designate a cars-ok route in Manhattan between the Battery Tunnel (to Brooklyn) and the Holland Tunnel and let that back up, you could do that and it would be less of a mess than the status quo: it would stay on West Side Highway out of the way and it would have less traffic. One time I took a taxi from Newark to my home in Brooklyn, and the taxi driver dropped me off right after getting out of the Holland Tunnel (next to a subway stop) saying he didn't want to deal with more traffic. There is no effective vehicular link between New Jersey and Brooklyn right now. There is a moderately effective link between each of those and Manhattan, that's it.

melling 7y ago
We need a lot more subways. And they need to extend into NJ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Subway_Extension
- brownbat 7y ago
  And more of them should be accessible by wheelchair. Currently it's only around one in five stations.
  - mruts 7y ago
    Sounds fine too me. I’m not saying there should be no wheelchair accessible stations, but seeing that they are a miniscule minority, I don’t think that my tax dollars be paying to make everything accessible to them. It’s not possible, anyways, without incurring massive costs. Imagine what would happen to rents if the government mandated that all apartments and houses to be wheelchair accessible. It would be a total disaster.
    - SECProto 7y ago
      Subway stations in many systems around the world are accessible. It doesn't take much for a minimum viable product - drop a 5m diameter tube for a single elevator from street level down to platform level, put separate ticket gates on it. Impact on surface infrastructure is much less than that 5m. Retrofit it in a few stations a year over the next couple decades. Your take seems rather shallow. Accessible infrastructure includes curb cuts (originally designed for wheelchairs, also make sidewalks useable by the elderly, strollers, etc who have issues with a 6" step), audible crossing signals (meant for visually impaired, also alert those who are looking at their phones), bike lanes (meant for cyclists, improve the conditions for pedestrians and residents too), .... The list goes on and on where minor improvements in infrastructure design create massive improvements in public spaces.
    - brownbat 7y ago
      The "miniscule minority" served by ramps includes pregnant women, the elderly, anyone with so much as a twisted ankle or pushing a stroller. I'm raising this in the context of the elimination of cars. The current infrastructure pushes a lot of people into taxis. So if you eliminate cars you either have to expand accommodations or just declare the island inhospitable to anyone that doesn't pass a fitness test. You can support effectively restricting the wealthiest hub of our largest city to just people who are like you and in your life situation, but it's not going to be a widely held position.