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When I saw London doing that, I expected cities in the US to start that. I am surprised it took so long. I expected this because of the push of toll roads to

by jmclnx 3y ago

When I saw London doing that, I expected cities in the US to start that. I am surprised it took so long. I expected this because of the push of toll roads to make people use EZPASS. Depending upon the City, I think this makes sense. But, in the US, I wonder if this will cause another mass migration of people out to the suburbs ? In the US, people are more addicted to their SUVs than heron addicts are to their drug.

stefan_ 3y ago
Migration to cities is whats causing this. When it was just black people homes you had to bulldoze to build your freeway straight to downtown there was obviously no concern. Now that people living downtown are rich and powerful they are starting to wonder why a huge chunk of prime space is reserved for storage of suburbian commuter metal boxes.
- LeanderK 3y ago
  not only this, it just decreases quality of life in the downtown. You want less space for cars, less traffic, less noise, less pollution, less parking and more bike lanes, public spaces, space for outside dining on former parking places etc.
milsorgen 3y ago
You sir, know nothing of heroin and it's work.
- beebeepka 3y ago
  Or maybe you underestimate the addiction to cars? Because I've seen plenty of both and I find the comparison apt
bobthepanda 3y ago
London has it relatively easy; the only layer of government above it is the national one. Cities in the US are creatures of their respective states, and the swing votes in states are usually the suburban voters who would be most impacted by a charge like this. —- It also helps that TfL has a track record of delivering many miles of projects and a future expansion plan. MTA is planning on using this to keep the lights on for another five years, at which point a new source of money has to be found to pay for capital investment. (The plan is currently to bond out the future congestion revenue to pay for today’s capital investments.)
- cronix 3y ago
  There's also the county government layer that cities must adhere to in addition to state/national.
  - bpye 3y ago
    London and unitary authorities don't have a county above them.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      I assumed that was in the context of the US. Country governments in the US vary a lot in how powerful they are from being mostly a judicial unit or organization to being pretty powerful (e.g. parishes in Louisiana).
      - bobthepanda 3y ago
        New York City, which is implementing this, is a bit of a weird case in that it actually sits above the counties, not below them. New York's five boroughs are technically five counties.
  - SllX 3y ago
    Hmm, depends a lot on the State. You can generally make two generalizations about local governments in the United States: they are local governments and you can’t make any other generalizations about them because everything depends on the State and sometimes a locality’s specific circumstances. In California, municipalities do not adhere to the counties they are in, the county is a legal subdivision of the State which might also have a charter and cities are municipal corporations with a monopoly on the land use within their cities. School districts are also a form of local government here, as are special purpose districts like BART. In some parts of New England, and I’m not going to go into specifics because when I looked into this more than 10 years ago this had changed or some States were changing it, the State is divided into counties and the counties were divided into townships which are the basis of the New England township system. Somewhere in there, there are also cities, and Maine has a couple of severely underpopulated places designated as Plantations. So, congestion pricing in the US: NYC, LA, San Francisco and probably Seattle absolutely have the power to this if they wanted to, although I’ll say for San Francisco that would have made a lot more sense to try before the pandemic than now, cuz now, well now downtown is dead so what would it really do? Fairly certain Boston could as well. Everywhere else, I’m less certain, like in Texas I’m fairly certain cities there could, but I’m also fairly certain the Texan legislature under their own laws has the power to step in and go “No. None of that. Shame on you.”
dataviz1000 3y ago
Mass migration to Statin Island, Brooklyn, and Flushing. I've been interested in cities with rail trails and the like. For example, San Antonio with the many mile extension of the Riverwalk along the San Antonio river and Atlanta with the Belt Line have created non motorized vehicle corridors through the respective cities which have spurred incredible amounts of mixed use development for miles on each side of the walking, peddle biking pathways. The most expensive real estate butting the pathway with bars, restaurants, yoga studies in the lower levels of the new buildings and with less and less expensive real estate pushing away from the sides of the path ways out words. Rather than having concentration of wealth at a circular center, the concentration is linear which has a side effect of having lower income house available in closer proximity to the wealthy areas.
- jen20 3y ago
  “Statin Island” is funnier than perhaps you realize!
mattlondon 3y ago
I worked on the technical implementation of one of the London Congestion Charge contracts many years ago. It was a huuuuuuge loss for IBM to implement, but I think their position was "we make a loss here, but then just need to do a search-and-replace for "London" to New York/Paris/Tokyo/Los Angeles and profit!" (I.e. no significant extra development). Suffice to say that didn't happen - it was built with zero customisation in mind. I personally blame it on the insistence that SAP was to be used for processing payments etc.
- ricktdotorg 3y ago
  interesting! where did the SAP requirement originate? uk.gov not IBM?
  - mattlondon 3y ago
    I think it was from the client.
mortenjorck 3y ago
A huge part of of why London could pull it off is the exceptional state of the Underground. It’s not hard to wean off cars when the alternative is a clean, fast, modern train a short walk away. NYC is going to have an uphill battle getting the MTA to anywhere near that level, and the MTA itself is already leagues ahead of any other transit system in the US. I would love to see London-tier transit in the United States, but until our bureaucracies can solve about a dozen or so hard problems, plans like this will remain all stick, no carrot.
- whack 3y ago
  I've taken both the Underground and the MTA and you're overstating the difference. Aesthetically, the Underground is far better, no question. But most commuters are focused on functionality. And functionally the MTA is just as good, if not better. The trains run extremely frequently - every few minutes during the day on weekdays. The parallel local-express tracks give the MTA a big speed advantage. And the inside of the MTA trains are extremely spacious compared to the Underground.
  - Reason077 3y ago
    > ”MTA trains are extremely spacious compared to the Underground” Depends what line you’re talking about. Deep tube lines are indeed pretty small due to the narrow tubes they run in. But the sub-surface lines (District, Circle, Metropolitan, etc) are comparable to NYC subway dimensions. And have you tried our new 200m long Elizabeth line trains?
  - muh_gradle 3y ago
    I live in NYC, have taken the tube when I lived in London. I've also lived in other cities like Seoul, Tokyo with superior public transportation. The "aesthetics" aspect that you describe is an incredible understatement. The nearest MTA station is covered in feces and used syringes and I'm not exaggerating. Trains are constantly late. Apparently building a barrier and a gate on the platform is a 10 year, trillion dollar project. I have to put my back to a wall because I'm worried some crazy person will push me onto the track. Yeah, I wouldn't concur with the statement on MTA being so functional.
Spooky23 3y ago
It’s going to kill the city. It’s just going to push businesses out at a bad time. This doesn’t have anything to do with traffic - it’s a way to try to extract more money for the MTA. Money won’t fix the MTA’s money woes; the unions will just slurp any available cash.
- Jolter 3y ago
  I suppose you have a better idea for financing the investments, instead of congestion tax?
  - miley_cyrus 3y ago
    He's saying it's not going to finance any "investments" - the extra money is just going to the unions.
    - xen2xen1 3y ago
      Hasn't the state also been directly taking money meant for mass transit in general for years?
      - Spooky23 3y ago
        Lol no. The State through various schemes has been propping up the MTA for years. The bridges and tunnels (rightly) subsidize the mass transit. The state also imposed an additional sales tax for people 100 miles away to raise more revenue. The MTA’s woes are death from a thousand cuts.
    - Jolter 3y ago
      I’d love to hear more about that. US unions seem broken in such interesting ways. Are they generally seen as a cost driver, apart from working to raise salaries and pensions?
  - Spooky23 3y ago
    Few ideas: Structure the fares to charge a premium for low volume riders. Work two days a week? Pay for 5. Collect fares. Raise bridge tolls. Drop construction cost drivers. Change liability laws, reduce MWBE requirements, mandated staffing levels, etc. There’s lots of potential areas. Just politically expensive to do.
Reason077 3y ago
> “But, in the US, I wonder if this will cause another mass migration of people out to the suburbs ?” If anything, I’d say the opposite is true in London. Reduced traffic levels and cleaner air are making the centre a more desirable place to be than ever. If only it were more affordable!

by jmclnx 3y ago

stefan_ 3y ago

Migration to cities is whats causing this. When it was just black people homes you had to bulldoze to build your freeway straight to downtown there was obviously no concern. Now that people living downtown are rich and powerful they are starting to wonder why a huge chunk of prime space is reserved for storage of suburbian commuter metal boxes.

LeanderK 3y ago
not only this, it just decreases quality of life in the downtown. You want less space for cars, less traffic, less noise, less pollution, less parking and more bike lanes, public spaces, space for outside dining on former parking places etc.

milsorgen 3y ago

You sir, know nothing of heroin and it's work.

beebeepka 3y ago
Or maybe you underestimate the addiction to cars? Because I've seen plenty of both and I find the comparison apt

bobthepanda 3y ago

London has it relatively easy; the only layer of government above it is the national one. Cities in the US are creatures of their respective states, and the swing votes in states are usually the suburban voters who would be most impacted by a charge like this. —- It also helps that TfL has a track record of delivering many miles of projects and a future expansion plan. MTA is planning on using this to keep the lights on for another five years, at which point a new source of money has to be found to pay for capital investment. (The plan is currently to bond out the future congestion revenue to pay for today’s capital investments.)

cronix 3y ago
There's also the county government layer that cities must adhere to in addition to state/national.
- bpye 3y ago
  London and unitary authorities don't have a county above them.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I assumed that was in the context of the US. Country governments in the US vary a lot in how powerful they are from being mostly a judicial unit or organization to being pretty powerful (e.g. parishes in Louisiana).
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      New York City, which is implementing this, is a bit of a weird case in that it actually sits above the counties, not below them. New York's five boroughs are technically five counties.
- SllX 3y ago
  Hmm, depends a lot on the State. You can generally make two generalizations about local governments in the United States: they are local governments and you can’t make any other generalizations about them because everything depends on the State and sometimes a locality’s specific circumstances. In California, municipalities do not adhere to the counties they are in, the county is a legal subdivision of the State which might also have a charter and cities are municipal corporations with a monopoly on the land use within their cities. School districts are also a form of local government here, as are special purpose districts like BART. In some parts of New England, and I’m not going to go into specifics because when I looked into this more than 10 years ago this had changed or some States were changing it, the State is divided into counties and the counties were divided into townships which are the basis of the New England township system. Somewhere in there, there are also cities, and Maine has a couple of severely underpopulated places designated as Plantations. So, congestion pricing in the US: NYC, LA, San Francisco and probably Seattle absolutely have the power to this if they wanted to, although I’ll say for San Francisco that would have made a lot more sense to try before the pandemic than now, cuz now, well now downtown is dead so what would it really do? Fairly certain Boston could as well. Everywhere else, I’m less certain, like in Texas I’m fairly certain cities there could, but I’m also fairly certain the Texan legislature under their own laws has the power to step in and go “No. None of that. Shame on you.”

dataviz1000 3y ago

Mass migration to Statin Island, Brooklyn, and Flushing. I've been interested in cities with rail trails and the like. For example, San Antonio with the many mile extension of the Riverwalk along the San Antonio river and Atlanta with the Belt Line have created non motorized vehicle corridors through the respective cities which have spurred incredible amounts of mixed use development for miles on each side of the walking, peddle biking pathways. The most expensive real estate butting the pathway with bars, restaurants, yoga studies in the lower levels of the new buildings and with less and less expensive real estate pushing away from the sides of the path ways out words. Rather than having concentration of wealth at a circular center, the concentration is linear which has a side effect of having lower income house available in closer proximity to the wealthy areas.

jen20 3y ago
“Statin Island” is funnier than perhaps you realize!

mattlondon 3y ago

I worked on the technical implementation of one of the London Congestion Charge contracts many years ago. It was a huuuuuuge loss for IBM to implement, but I think their position was "we make a loss here, but then just need to do a search-and-replace for "London" to New York/Paris/Tokyo/Los Angeles and profit!" (I.e. no significant extra development). Suffice to say that didn't happen - it was built with zero customisation in mind. I personally blame it on the insistence that SAP was to be used for processing payments etc.

ricktdotorg 3y ago
interesting! where did the SAP requirement originate? uk.gov not IBM?
- mattlondon 3y ago
  I think it was from the client.

mortenjorck 3y ago

A huge part of of why London could pull it off is the exceptional state of the Underground. It’s not hard to wean off cars when the alternative is a clean, fast, modern train a short walk away. NYC is going to have an uphill battle getting the MTA to anywhere near that level, and the MTA itself is already leagues ahead of any other transit system in the US. I would love to see London-tier transit in the United States, but until our bureaucracies can solve about a dozen or so hard problems, plans like this will remain all stick, no carrot.

whack 3y ago
I've taken both the Underground and the MTA and you're overstating the difference. Aesthetically, the Underground is far better, no question. But most commuters are focused on functionality. And functionally the MTA is just as good, if not better. The trains run extremely frequently - every few minutes during the day on weekdays. The parallel local-express tracks give the MTA a big speed advantage. And the inside of the MTA trains are extremely spacious compared to the Underground.
- Reason077 3y ago
  > ”MTA trains are extremely spacious compared to the Underground” Depends what line you’re talking about. Deep tube lines are indeed pretty small due to the narrow tubes they run in. But the sub-surface lines (District, Circle, Metropolitan, etc) are comparable to NYC subway dimensions. And have you tried our new 200m long Elizabeth line trains?
- muh_gradle 3y ago
  I live in NYC, have taken the tube when I lived in London. I've also lived in other cities like Seoul, Tokyo with superior public transportation. The "aesthetics" aspect that you describe is an incredible understatement. The nearest MTA station is covered in feces and used syringes and I'm not exaggerating. Trains are constantly late. Apparently building a barrier and a gate on the platform is a 10 year, trillion dollar project. I have to put my back to a wall because I'm worried some crazy person will push me onto the track. Yeah, I wouldn't concur with the statement on MTA being so functional.

Spooky23 3y ago

It’s going to kill the city. It’s just going to push businesses out at a bad time. This doesn’t have anything to do with traffic - it’s a way to try to extract more money for the MTA. Money won’t fix the MTA’s money woes; the unions will just slurp any available cash.

Jolter 3y ago
I suppose you have a better idea for financing the investments, instead of congestion tax?
- miley_cyrus 3y ago
  He's saying it's not going to finance any "investments" - the extra money is just going to the unions.
  - xen2xen1 3y ago
    Hasn't the state also been directly taking money meant for mass transit in general for years?
    - Spooky23 3y ago
      Lol no. The State through various schemes has been propping up the MTA for years. The bridges and tunnels (rightly) subsidize the mass transit. The state also imposed an additional sales tax for people 100 miles away to raise more revenue. The MTA’s woes are death from a thousand cuts.
  - Jolter 3y ago
    I’d love to hear more about that. US unions seem broken in such interesting ways. Are they generally seen as a cost driver, apart from working to raise salaries and pensions?
- Spooky23 3y ago
  Few ideas: Structure the fares to charge a premium for low volume riders. Work two days a week? Pay for 5. Collect fares. Raise bridge tolls. Drop construction cost drivers. Change liability laws, reduce MWBE requirements, mandated staffing levels, etc. There’s lots of potential areas. Just politically expensive to do.

Reason077 3y ago

> “But, in the US, I wonder if this will cause another mass migration of people out to the suburbs ?” If anything, I’d say the opposite is true in London. Reduced traffic levels and cleaner air are making the centre a more desirable place to be than ever. If only it were more affordable!