5 ms·

The problem of congestion is addressed most efficiently through road use taxes that affect all drivers - not just ride sharing services. If cities want to encou

by ttul 4y ago

The problem of congestion is addressed most efficiently through road use taxes that affect all drivers - not just ride sharing services. If cities want to encourage transit use, they must make driving a car more costly and using transit relatively less costly.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
glitchc 4y ago
A carrot works better than a stick every time. If publuc transit is faster from source to destination, some people will flock to it. If faster and cheaper, many will flock to it. Incentivizing people with time, money and/or experience is far more effective than punitive measures.
- Steltek 4y ago
  The problem is that drivers perceive removing the existing carrots as applying a stick. If private car owners paid the full cost, transit would be a no brainer. How much public land is devoted to cars? How many DOT employees have jobs only to maintain traffic signals and pave roads?
- gfaster 4y ago
  The problem is that, at least in the U.S., we have been giving carrot after carrot to car owners in every conceivable way. We've frozen gas taxes, built highways into downtowns, mandated parking on all new construction, zoned to create the ideal environment for cars, and created a trillion-dollar nationalized highway network. Now, when people advocate for public transit carrots, those carrots have to compete with a century of driving carrots and the momentum that this status quo has.
- leetcrew 4y ago
  maybe this is just my american myopia, but this seems like an unrealistic goal, at least outside of the densest urban centers. I lived in northern virginia for a while, literally 100 feet away from a stop on one of the best public transit systems in the US. inside DC sure, the metro was about as fast as an uber, or even faster for some routes / times of day. but starting from across the river, it often took twice as long by metro. I honestly don't see how they could make transit better than uber without running trains so often as to negate the efficiency advantage of bulk transport. as an engineer, it kinda seems like people are expecting the latency of a synchronous request/reply service, but combined with the throughput of a batch job. surprise! you can't (usually) have both. imo both point-to-point and mass transit have their place. but people are always going to prefer point-to-point when it's economic for them. congestion pricing seems like a reasonable way to preserve the low latency characteristics of point-to-point, while nudging people to use the batch job when it's sufficient for their needs.
  - glitchc 4y ago
    Indeed, it's not possible to achieve this goal with transit once the city is planned around urban sprawl. It's too difficult. In Virginia, Tyson's Corner is a great example of this. What should be a high density urban environment with great public transit is anything but. It has to be taken into consideration when the city is originally planned.
brk 4y ago
IMO, transit also needs to be clean, reliable, and crime-free if you want to actually see it utilized. Otherwise you are just pushing poor people to an unsafe and inferior transit option that adds other challenges and issues. Like being constantly late for a job when your unreliable transit system leaves them stranded regularly.
- Eleison23 4y ago
  It's funny about that. Our transit system began an initiative just a bit before COVID-19, aimed at cleaning up the bums and criminals. So most people are not able to hang out on the train or bus, they're hustled off at the nearest stop. What effect that did have is that the train and bus is more empty, but all the bus stops and train stations are clogged with people literally camping out. There is nowhere to sit and wait, because the stop owner either removed the seating or someone is sleeping/camping on the benches already. Every stop is full of skeezy people who have nowhere to go and aren't boarding the bus. So perhaps the perception of clean/reliable/safe has increased aboard the bus, but it has plummeted at the locations where it really counts: the stops and stations where I spend the most time. I feel notably unsafe when waiting for a bus and there's nothing to be done about there, and there's no recourse because nobody's in charge there (the city will point the finger at transit and transit will point the finger back at the city. LEOs won't touch it because it's not a priority.)
  - brk 4y ago
    Interesting, what city is that in? FWIW, I was describing the end to end transit experience. Moving undesirables from a bus or train to a waiting area is not really solving the problem. Similarly, having waiting/boarding areas that are overly exposed to the elements, particularly where it gets cold, rainy, or snowy is also not going to encourage someone to trade their car for public transit.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  I think the perception with crime on the subway has much more to do with the fact that poor people use the subway, moreso than a danger of subways for poor people. Crime is certainly up, but still you're looking at 1 in a million or less odds to be victim of violent crime on the subway. And anti-social behavior will problem actually go down as a proportion when there are more people on the subway.
vorpalhex 4y ago
The yellow vests can come back out. You can't just punish people into taking the bus. The years I commuted by bus were terrible. It took 90 mins of bus to replace 40 mins of driving. The buses were extremely crowded (forced standing for 60 mins is unpleasant) and at times dangerous (particularly coming home late at night).

by ttul 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

glitchc 4y ago

A carrot works better than a stick every time. If publuc transit is faster from source to destination, some people will flock to it. If faster and cheaper, many will flock to it. Incentivizing people with time, money and/or experience is far more effective than punitive measures.

Steltek 4y ago
The problem is that drivers perceive removing the existing carrots as applying a stick. If private car owners paid the full cost, transit would be a no brainer. How much public land is devoted to cars? How many DOT employees have jobs only to maintain traffic signals and pave roads?
gfaster 4y ago
The problem is that, at least in the U.S., we have been giving carrot after carrot to car owners in every conceivable way. We've frozen gas taxes, built highways into downtowns, mandated parking on all new construction, zoned to create the ideal environment for cars, and created a trillion-dollar nationalized highway network. Now, when people advocate for public transit carrots, those carrots have to compete with a century of driving carrots and the momentum that this status quo has.
leetcrew 4y ago
maybe this is just my american myopia, but this seems like an unrealistic goal, at least outside of the densest urban centers. I lived in northern virginia for a while, literally 100 feet away from a stop on one of the best public transit systems in the US. inside DC sure, the metro was about as fast as an uber, or even faster for some routes / times of day. but starting from across the river, it often took twice as long by metro. I honestly don't see how they could make transit better than uber without running trains so often as to negate the efficiency advantage of bulk transport. as an engineer, it kinda seems like people are expecting the latency of a synchronous request/reply service, but combined with the throughput of a batch job. surprise! you can't (usually) have both. imo both point-to-point and mass transit have their place. but people are always going to prefer point-to-point when it's economic for them. congestion pricing seems like a reasonable way to preserve the low latency characteristics of point-to-point, while nudging people to use the batch job when it's sufficient for their needs.
- glitchc 4y ago
  Indeed, it's not possible to achieve this goal with transit once the city is planned around urban sprawl. It's too difficult. In Virginia, Tyson's Corner is a great example of this. What should be a high density urban environment with great public transit is anything but. It has to be taken into consideration when the city is originally planned.

brk 4y ago

IMO, transit also needs to be clean, reliable, and crime-free if you want to actually see it utilized. Otherwise you are just pushing poor people to an unsafe and inferior transit option that adds other challenges and issues. Like being constantly late for a job when your unreliable transit system leaves them stranded regularly.

Eleison23 4y ago
It's funny about that. Our transit system began an initiative just a bit before COVID-19, aimed at cleaning up the bums and criminals. So most people are not able to hang out on the train or bus, they're hustled off at the nearest stop. What effect that did have is that the train and bus is more empty, but all the bus stops and train stations are clogged with people literally camping out. There is nowhere to sit and wait, because the stop owner either removed the seating or someone is sleeping/camping on the benches already. Every stop is full of skeezy people who have nowhere to go and aren't boarding the bus. So perhaps the perception of clean/reliable/safe has increased aboard the bus, but it has plummeted at the locations where it really counts: the stops and stations where I spend the most time. I feel notably unsafe when waiting for a bus and there's nothing to be done about there, and there's no recourse because nobody's in charge there (the city will point the finger at transit and transit will point the finger back at the city. LEOs won't touch it because it's not a priority.)
- brk 4y ago
  Interesting, what city is that in? FWIW, I was describing the end to end transit experience. Moving undesirables from a bus or train to a waiting area is not really solving the problem. Similarly, having waiting/boarding areas that are overly exposed to the elements, particularly where it gets cold, rainy, or snowy is also not going to encourage someone to trade their car for public transit.
whimsicalism 4y ago
I think the perception with crime on the subway has much more to do with the fact that poor people use the subway, moreso than a danger of subways for poor people. Crime is certainly up, but still you're looking at 1 in a million or less odds to be victim of violent crime on the subway. And anti-social behavior will problem actually go down as a proportion when there are more people on the subway.

vorpalhex 4y ago

The yellow vests can come back out. You can't just punish people into taking the bus. The years I commuted by bus were terrible. It took 90 mins of bus to replace 40 mins of driving. The buses were extremely crowded (forced standing for 60 mins is unpleasant) and at times dangerous (particularly coming home late at night).