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NYC had those medallion limits on purpose though, because the primary goal was limiting congestion. Manhattan is a tiny island with a small amount of road space

NYC had those medallion limits on purpose though, because the primary goal was limiting congestion. Manhattan is a tiny island with a small amount of road space, and taxis or Ubers roving around contribute significantly more congestion than a commuter parking their car for most of the day. And yellow cabs in effect mostly travel in Manhattan. The sharp rise in Ubers is correlated with an 8% decrease in Manhattan traffic speeds. Which affects not only them but car commuters, bus commuters, residents, deliveries, etc. https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2015/07/22/ubers-own-data-reveals-it-slows-manhattan-traffic-9-percent https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2015/07/22/ubers-own-data-reveal...

6D794163636F756 3y ago
As with any sufficiently complex system, simple solutions fail to take into account knock on effects. As such, I'm curious about what impact that decreased traffic speed had. Did it reduce traffic deaths? Did it increase deaths in ambulances? Was it uniform or were/are there areas that are at a 50% decrease and more at 1%? One issue I think we are seeing is that we, as tech workers, are super excited to fix the immediate problems. We have the skillset and it's really engaging! But we will often miss the forest for the trees and then double down on our solution being the solution instead of one part of the solution. All this to say, thank you for discussing the traffic slowdown caused by increased cars. It's a side effect I hadn't been considering before.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  Ironically traffic speeds in New York are measured using yellow cabs since they drive around constantly and are required to have GPS. I think one of the biggest impacts has been on the sustainability of the transit services. For all road users, slower speeds require you to maintain more labor and vehicles out to maintain SLAs/frequencies, or to increase waits. For bus users in particular, it starts a vicious cycle because of several additional factors * some baseline amount of people will just switch to rideshare instead of buses, reducing revenues and decreasing traffic speeds since buses are more space-efficient than cars * with less revenues and less ridership, there is pressure to cut service to be more "efficient" at spending money * with poorer services, more people switch to rideshare, further reducing revenues and decreasing traffic speeds Manhattan bus ridership entered this negative spiral and fell 23% https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/21/decline-in-nyc-bus-ridership-concentrated-in-manhattan-and-brooklyn https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/21/decline-in-nyc-bus-ri... --- Now what level of congestion is 'acceptable' is mostly based on comparing to other cities, and how the electorate is feeling. That being said, the political pressure was so strong that NYC had already implemented congestion charges on rideshare and taxis, and is currently implementing tolling in Manhattan to try and reduce car numbers. Uber actually came out in support of it. https://www.uber.com/blog/new-york/uber-supports-congestion-pricing/ https://www.uber.com/blog/new-york/uber-supports-congestion-...
mjr00 3y ago
> NYC had those medallion limits on purpose though, because the primary goal was limiting congestion. Medallion limits exist primarily to maintain and/or increase the value of existing medallions. Other reasons given were just propaganda by existing medallion owners.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  NYC has bad traffic, and more cabs/ubers/etc cause traffic waiting around for fares by driving around, is hardly controversial or propaganda.
ymolodtsov 3y ago
It still limited supply while the demand was way more dynamic, which Uber was able to accommodate.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  The question is, do cities have an obligation to meet all supply if their residents don’t want to? People want all kinds of things that often contradict. Now NYC is introducing congestion charging on all vehicle trips in Manhattan to try and restore traffic.

6D794163636F756 3y ago

As with any sufficiently complex system, simple solutions fail to take into account knock on effects. As such, I'm curious about what impact that decreased traffic speed had. Did it reduce traffic deaths? Did it increase deaths in ambulances? Was it uniform or were/are there areas that are at a 50% decrease and more at 1%? One issue I think we are seeing is that we, as tech workers, are super excited to fix the immediate problems. We have the skillset and it's really engaging! But we will often miss the forest for the trees and then double down on our solution being the solution instead of one part of the solution. All this to say, thank you for discussing the traffic slowdown caused by increased cars. It's a side effect I hadn't been considering before.

bobthepanda 3y ago
Ironically traffic speeds in New York are measured using yellow cabs since they drive around constantly and are required to have GPS. I think one of the biggest impacts has been on the sustainability of the transit services. For all road users, slower speeds require you to maintain more labor and vehicles out to maintain SLAs/frequencies, or to increase waits. For bus users in particular, it starts a vicious cycle because of several additional factors * some baseline amount of people will just switch to rideshare instead of buses, reducing revenues and decreasing traffic speeds since buses are more space-efficient than cars * with less revenues and less ridership, there is pressure to cut service to be more "efficient" at spending money * with poorer services, more people switch to rideshare, further reducing revenues and decreasing traffic speeds Manhattan bus ridership entered this negative spiral and fell 23% https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/21/decline-in-nyc-bus-ridership-concentrated-in-manhattan-and-brooklyn https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/21/decline-in-nyc-bus-ri... --- Now what level of congestion is 'acceptable' is mostly based on comparing to other cities, and how the electorate is feeling. That being said, the political pressure was so strong that NYC had already implemented congestion charges on rideshare and taxis, and is currently implementing tolling in Manhattan to try and reduce car numbers. Uber actually came out in support of it. https://www.uber.com/blog/new-york/uber-supports-congestion-pricing/ https://www.uber.com/blog/new-york/uber-supports-congestion-...

mjr00 3y ago

> NYC had those medallion limits on purpose though, because the primary goal was limiting congestion. Medallion limits exist primarily to maintain and/or increase the value of existing medallions. Other reasons given were just propaganda by existing medallion owners.

bobthepanda 3y ago
NYC has bad traffic, and more cabs/ubers/etc cause traffic waiting around for fares by driving around, is hardly controversial or propaganda.

ymolodtsov 3y ago

It still limited supply while the demand was way more dynamic, which Uber was able to accommodate.

bobthepanda 3y ago
The question is, do cities have an obligation to meet all supply if their residents don’t want to? People want all kinds of things that often contradict. Now NYC is introducing congestion charging on all vehicle trips in Manhattan to try and restore traffic.