6 ms·

It still boggles my mind that, with a 15% car ownership rate, how NYC not only still allows cars, but subsidizes them with absolutely free parking on city stree

It still boggles my mind that, with a 15% car ownership rate, how NYC not only still allows cars, but subsidizes them with absolutely free parking on city streets. The real estate price for a single parking spot in NYC must be astronomical.

rtlfe 6y ago
If you go to any community board meeting, you'll hear old people rant for hours about how their cars are essential and bike are destroying the city. And for some reason, this is who politicians listen to.
- zip1234 6y ago
  Community board meetings in general are a problem that nobody has found a great solution to. Oddly enough, the pandemic has caused most of these to go virtual, which has nerfed a lot of the power of the highly motivated old people with too much time on their hands.
  - rtlfe 6y ago
    Honestly the easy solution is to ignore the CBs. Surveys show that the majority of people want more bus and bike lanes, so just build them and skip all of the "community input" aka "giving veto power to a small minority". https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-bike-lane-survey-data-siena-20210126-sszpyz77lzfpdaems4rhdbgaai-story.html https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-bike-lane-survey-dat...
    - irrational 6y ago
      A small minority who overwhelmingly votes and has lots of money. Of course the politicians listen to them.
    - hello_newman 6y ago
      Wow, the blatant hypocrisy of this comment. Imagine some cause or topic in your local government that you're passionate about and someone saying, "hey, let's just do what we want because f*ck what the other side thinks". If you don't like that a group of people have more perceived power than you in your local government then find a way to fix it ethically. Don't bypass local democracy just because you think it's easier to take a shortcut.
      - zucker42 6y ago
        Hmm, I think the problem the person you replied to sees is that sentiment community board meetings are not as good at measuring what the "average citizen" wants as opinion polls. Why do CB meetings have the moral high ground?
        disgruntledphd2 6y ago
        Because they are part of a local democratic infrastructure that is actually pretty good by global standards in the US.
        dijit 6y ago
        > that is actually pretty good by global standards in the US Citation needed. From a European perspective, it is not my impression that the local democratic system is good in any US city. But that could be my filter bubble, we only heard bad things because people shout the loudest about bad things.
        thehappypm 6y ago
        What are the main problems you think of local government? I'm curious what the perception is in Europe. American cities aren't the pretty, walkable, public-transit oriented cities you have in Europe but that doesn't mean they're failures either.
        disgruntledphd2 6y ago
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  Those are the people who vote.
tzs 6y ago
45% of NYC households own cars, which is probably more indicative of how many people use them than how many individuals own cars.
- jnsie 6y ago
  I found this staggering though it is accurate. It's less surprising (though no less accurate) when you consider how the numbers skew by borough: "Ownership is lowest in Manhattan, where only 22 percent of households own a car, while ownership is highest in Staten Island where cars are owned by 83 percent of all households. Queens (62 percent) is also above the city average, while the Bronx (40 percent) and Brooklyn (44 percent) look more like the city as a whole." https://edc.nyc/article/new-yorkers-and-their-cars https://edc.nyc/article/new-yorkers-and-their-cars

rtlfe 6y ago

If you go to any community board meeting, you'll hear old people rant for hours about how their cars are essential and bike are destroying the city. And for some reason, this is who politicians listen to.

zip1234 6y ago
Community board meetings in general are a problem that nobody has found a great solution to. Oddly enough, the pandemic has caused most of these to go virtual, which has nerfed a lot of the power of the highly motivated old people with too much time on their hands.
- rtlfe 6y ago
  Honestly the easy solution is to ignore the CBs. Surveys show that the majority of people want more bus and bike lanes, so just build them and skip all of the "community input" aka "giving veto power to a small minority". https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-bike-lane-survey-data-siena-20210126-sszpyz77lzfpdaems4rhdbgaai-story.html https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-bike-lane-survey-dat...
  - irrational 6y ago
    A small minority who overwhelmingly votes and has lots of money. Of course the politicians listen to them.
  - hello_newman 6y ago
    Wow, the blatant hypocrisy of this comment. Imagine some cause or topic in your local government that you're passionate about and someone saying, "hey, let's just do what we want because f*ck what the other side thinks". If you don't like that a group of people have more perceived power than you in your local government then find a way to fix it ethically. Don't bypass local democracy just because you think it's easier to take a shortcut.
    - zucker42 6y ago
      Hmm, I think the problem the person you replied to sees is that sentiment community board meetings are not as good at measuring what the "average citizen" wants as opinion polls. Why do CB meetings have the moral high ground?
      - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
        Because they are part of a local democratic infrastructure that is actually pretty good by global standards in the US.
        dijit 6y ago
        > that is actually pretty good by global standards in the US Citation needed. From a European perspective, it is not my impression that the local democratic system is good in any US city. But that could be my filter bubble, we only heard bad things because people shout the loudest about bad things.
        thehappypm 6y ago
        What are the main problems you think of local government? I'm curious what the perception is in Europe. American cities aren't the pretty, walkable, public-transit oriented cities you have in Europe but that doesn't mean they're failures either.
        disgruntledphd2 6y ago
colinmhayes 6y ago
Those are the people who vote.

tzs 6y ago

45% of NYC households own cars, which is probably more indicative of how many people use them than how many individuals own cars.

jnsie 6y ago
I found this staggering though it is accurate. It's less surprising (though no less accurate) when you consider how the numbers skew by borough: "Ownership is lowest in Manhattan, where only 22 percent of households own a car, while ownership is highest in Staten Island where cars are owned by 83 percent of all households. Queens (62 percent) is also above the city average, while the Bronx (40 percent) and Brooklyn (44 percent) look more like the city as a whole." https://edc.nyc/article/new-yorkers-and-their-cars https://edc.nyc/article/new-yorkers-and-their-cars