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MTA board votes to approve new $15 toll to drive into Manhattan
- Animats 3y agoSo much for "return to office".
- riffic 3y agopublic transit is good.
- busterarm 3y agothe MTA experience is so bad that ridership is already way down and trending downwards.
- lxgr 3y agoBad compared to what? I take it four days a week and I would never trade it for having to drive a car myself.
- confoundcofound 3y agoThe stations are filthy, have poor accessibility, the signage is tattered, the PA systems almost never work, the ETAs are often wrong if they’re even offered. That’s aside from the not uncommon sights and smells of piss in the cars themselves. The bus system is a different crapshoot altogether. I find it interesting how often when people complain about how poor the experience is, there are those like you who seem to be quite content with maintaining a fairly low standard.
- lxgr 3y agoOh, don't get me wrong, I agree on all counts and it really is decades behind other (non-US) cities – but again, I'd take it over driving a car myself and having to worry about traffic and parking any day, congestion charge or not. I don't have a great idea for addressing all of these problems, but I strongly suspect that people who can afford it opting out of public transit in favor of cars would be even worse.
- jedberg 3y ago> I find it interesting how often when people complain about how poor the experience is, there are those like you who seem to be quite content with maintaining a fairly low standard. Those of us from outside Manhattan envy what you have because it's better than what we have. I was just in Manhattan last week and commenting to my friend how I didn't even need to look it up ahead of time -- I knew that I could get where I needed to go using the MTA. Can't say the same for pretty much any other city.
- busterarm 3y agoTwo years before I moved out of NYC I swore off the subway entirely in favor of walking, busses and ubers.
- tekla 3y agoLiterally incorrect. Please do any at all research before you say things that are completely wrong because you simply don't give a damn about reality. https://new.mta.info/agency/new-york-city-transit/subway-bus-ridership-2022 https://new.mta.info/agency/new-york-city-transit/subway-bus... Numbers are trending up incredibly quickly after Covid.
- squeaky-clean 3y agoCompared to during covid sure. But the article itself says ridership is at 58% of 2019 level. And that's from 2022, subways have gotten worse since then.
- busterarm 3y agoThis, exactly.
- kernal 3y ago>public transit is good. Is that with or without a concealed carry weapon?
- throwup238 3y agoDestructive devices license. Minimum artillery shell size: 150mm.
- bakies 3y agoso out of touch
- kernal 3y agoNYC has turned into Gotham City and Batman moved to Florida.
- bombcar 3y agoApparently you don't even need to bring your own, you can just take it from the guy attacking you.
- hanniabu 3y agoAh yes, let me sit on a train for 1.5 hours to travel 10 miles
- Zpalmtree 3y agoTaxing drivers is not improving public transit.
- riffic 3y agoHah, we all know the NYC experience is about bringing a personal automobile onto the island of Manhattan.
- shmatt 3y agoIf you're driving into Midtown you're already out $50 a day on parking, with no legal limits on the amount they're allowed to raise the prices 99% of the street parking is commercial only in the toll zone during office hours If anything this will force parking lot owners to lower prices as less people drive in
- nobody9999 3y agoFinally! It's still not enough (and don't get me started on the incredibly cheap double-parking fines!) Ride the bus, take the train. Don't make my city more smog filled, noisy and nasty.
- DaveExeter 3y ago[flagged]
- affinepplan 3y agothe poors are already off the road! they use the train or bus, which is cheaper, faster, and more environmentally friendly if you are wealthy enough to afford a car in NYC then you are wealthy enough to pay this toll
- busterarm 3y agoWho do you think does all of the jobs that require driving in Manhattan? Do you really believe it's wealthy people doing that by choice?
- affinepplan 3y agoif you're referring to rideshare and taxi drivers yes, these rates might rise. but it's the wealthy who are consuming these services. costs will obviously pass through to the rider (not be borne by driver)
- srndsnd 3y agoIf you're referring to the number of folks who work in the central business district of Manhattan but have no choice but to drive (given the enormous catchment area of MTA services), that number is vanishingly small, and congestion pricing does have low income discounts. If you're referring to those who drive taxis or cars-for-hire in Manhattan, yes, the idea is the cost should be borne by riders who choose those services instead of transit.
- moonshotideas 3y agohttps://archive.is/irMNh https://archive.is/irMNh
- thedigitalone 3y agohttps://ghostarchive.org/archive/NEoog https://ghostarchive.org/archive/NEoog
- mlavrent 3y agoThis is the right thing to do - it makes drivers pay for the externalities they produce (including pollution, congestion, noise). When a city grows as big as Manhattan has, drivers need to begin shouldering at least some of the costs they introduce to the city, instead of leaving residents dealing with those costs.
- willmadden 3y agoThey do, by buying things in Manhattan and paying an 8.8% sales tax. Now many of them won't.
- affinepplan 3y agooh the tragedy I would be willing to wager that the increased sales / foot traffic from one fewer car trying to make its loud and carcinogenic way through manhattan is well worth the decreased foot traffic from that car's passenger(s)
- snakeyjake 3y agoCongestion charges have been implemented in many global cities, including London, Milan, Singapore, and Stockholm. Many more cities have started severely restricting access to vehicles, turning many downtown areas that had previously been roads into pedestrian malls. Indeed, NYC has done this to many roads (parts of Fulton Street, Delancey Street, and both Broadway and Times Square). Do you have any evidence that those schemes have resulted in lower sale tax revenue for those locations?
- rsynnott 3y agoI'm honestly kind of shocked to discover that Manhattan's only getting one now. Like, taken on its own it is one of the densest large urban areas on earth. I'd assume driving in it is a fairly miserable experience, anyway; where on earth do people park?
- IncreasePosts 3y ago
- ydnaclementine 3y agoI appreciate the progress, but I want to know when this actually kicks in. Seems like there's yet another vote
- jkaplowitz 3y agoThis was the last MTA vote. The target implementation date is in June. The remaining prerequisites before that can happen are a Federal Highway Administration decision, which is expected to be a timely approval, and several lawsuits, any of which could delay or block this.
- tootie 3y agoAs far as I can tell, it's a done deal and the enforcement technology is already installed.
- TomK32 3y ago21 years of London's congestion charge and its effect will give New Yorkers a good idea on the effects to expected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge#Effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge#Effec... A bit embarrassing that Germany, the USA, Japan and Russia embassies are among those refusing to pay the toll... I'm very very curious how NYC will treat the British ambassador.
- voisin 3y agoLondon’s congestion charge is particularly annoying as (at least when I lived there in 2012-2013) it was very easy to take the wrong turn and be in the zone, not realize you were ever in it (even for a single block) and consequently not pay the fee in advance. If you don’t pay the fee the same day, they send you a bill for like 10x the amount. I found TfL to be a totally corrupt organization that was trying to obfuscate its rules to extract larger fees.
- TomK32 3y agoI'm a huge fan of bollards that retract for motorist with access, but that's be impractical in such a case. Bollards are simply more visible for the average motorist who doesn't bother to read signs. The Netherlands are far more advanced when it comes to designing roads so the road user visually understands "you enter a village and 80 km/h is not acceptable any more". I live in Linz in Austria, three years ago they turned a small passage into pedestrian only street and I still stop motorist and explain then that things have changed. Most just didn't see or understand the sign (which comes with an extra sign with a lot of exception obviously, for a 100m passage with no parking spaces or private garages). The city won't draw the "pedestrian zone" sign on the ground, I'm sure that would help a lot.
- Symbiote 3y agoChoosing a street at random, there are red "Congestion Charging © Central ZONE" signs on both sides of the road, as well as a huge painted © on the road lane for turning into the road. https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5168161,-0.1655445,3a,49.9y,25.04h,91.27t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s2CMOTTFX9lFYczUTBlKdIQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D2CMOTTFX9lFYczUTBlKdIQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D91.74228%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5168161,-0.1655445,3a,49.9y,...
- jmyeet 3y agoI fully support reducing car traffic in Manhattan. Free street parking in particular needs to go. Why we're subsidizing car ownership when you live in Manhattan is absolutely beyond me. Walk down any street in Greenwich Village and look at how expensive the cars are parked on the street. That's what we're subsidizing. But there's a problem: the 3 airports (JFK, LaGuardia and Neward) have fairly terrible transit options. So to get from Midtown to JFK, you need to get on the E line, get off at Jamaica and then catch the AirTrain. If you're at Termiannl 8, the AirTrain part takes like 20-25 minutes by itself. And it's expensive. If you don't happen to be on that line you first need to get to it. Alternatively you can get to Penn STation and catch the LIRR to Jamaica and still take the AirTrain. So you migh tneed to take 3 trains. Why are the transit options awful? Because airports make too much money from parking and no government is going to mandate or pay for good transit options. There should really be an express train from JFK into Grand Central and Penn Station (and ideally across the Hudson into New Jersey). Ubers and taxis will be paying this $15 charge so that will bring the cost to pretty close to $100 each way from Midtown to JFK. NYC already tacks on a lot of taxes and fees onto Ubers making them so incredibly expensive. I can remember trips 10 years ago that were $16 that are now closer to $40. If you buy a parking space for your car in Manhattan it's realistically going to cost $300/month, minimum. Possibly $500+/month. Street parking should cost $20/day, minimum. And in an ideal world, the Subway would also be free. So while I support this, it's glossing over huge systemic problems and inequity and doing nothing to the massive gifts we continue to give the already wealthy. If you're coming or going with a lot of luggage this is incredibly unwieldy
- srndsnd 3y agoHugely agree on transit access to the airport, but it has gotten somewhat better. The GCT Madison connection has enabled another connection to Jamaica for the JFK AirTrain alongside LIRR and the E-train. And no longer do you need a separate MetroCard, as the Port Authority has finally modernized with contactless payments. And the Q60 bus serving LGA also couldn't be easier. It picks up from a clearly designated spot on the lower level and drops you off right at Jackson Heights for E and 7 access. Could there be a direct rail connection a la O'Hare? Yes, and there should be.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
- srndsnd 3y agoGreat, now expand it to all of Manhattan, instead of just 60th and below. And while they're at it, build the QueensLink so people actually take transit instead of just turning it into a park so that it can never be built. It boggles my mind how unable NYC seems to be able to invest it its largest comparative advantage to every other city in the country: its density and transit access.
- xnx 3y agoDo we know why they went with a system based strictly on a zone instead of based on the congestion level in that zone? It seems a fee based on congestion levels would maximize use of the roads by encouraging more use at off hours.
- lxgr 3y ago> a fee based on congestion levels would maximize use of the roads by encouraging more use at off hours. Assuming that's the goal, which I don't think it is (at least not by itself). Changing people's habits in favor of public transit and other options would be the real long-term win, not them doing their car-based trips in the middle of the night.
- goodSteveramos 3y ago>Changing people's habits in favor of public transit If that is what this is about then why dont they spend money making the public transit options better? There are dozens of unbuilt subway lines, areas with poor or no public transit and large amounts of crime all of which making a car a far superior choice. Taxing the car until people put up with an inferior transit service is not an improvement.
- arcticbull 3y agoMore ridership demand and more taxes on car owners means more money to build transit. Also a more vocal group of people demanding it.
- goodSteveramos 3y agoWhy should the people who have been underserved for decades be the ones to bear a disproportionate amount of the cost of building new services?
- arcticbull 3y agoThey're dramatically over-served. Cars are a luxury. They've been afforded free roads, free parking and free externalities for like a hundred years. Free ride's over.
- iooi 3y agoFor how progressive HN seems to be I'm surprised at all the support this is getting here. At the end of the day this about as regressive a tax as you can make. And the whole point of this tax is to fund the most mismanaged organization in NYC -- the MTA.
- voisin 3y agoI concur. The amount, like certain Scandinavian speeding tickets, should go up with income. A billionaire living in CT shouldn’t pay the same as a plumber living in an outer borough. Also, why not have a different cost between EV and ICE vehicle, as the externalities in terms of air quality differ markedly.
- nayuki 3y agoWhen it comes to air quality, EVs still generate tire dust.
- IncreasePosts 3y agoProbably not very much at ~15 mph, which is about as fast as traffic can get in lower manhattan.
- voisin 3y agoWhat portion of air quality impact from vehicles is due to tire dust versus exhaust fumes?
- IncreasePosts 3y agoIf you provide a low cost for poorer people to drive in, then more poorer people might start driving in since traffic will be better, which negates the purpose of the congestion zone.
- nayuki 3y agoThat's an interesting angle. And then poorer people will host taxi services for richer people. Oops, cars are fungible, which means charging based on the user's income will not work.
- nerdjon 3y agoMaybe we can finally inch closer to having a city in the US that doesn't bow down to car owners and actually cares about the health of the people that live there? Maybe even carless unless absolutely necessary (disability related) and emergency services. Even in Urban areas there seems to be a vocal minority that don't want to give up their cars and any inconvenience to them is attacked. In Boston we are shutting down some streets in the summer and car drivers love to complain about how much worse driving is. Which it being worse to drive is a positive to me, as someone who actually lives here and does not own a car.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sp332 3y agoNYC shuts down streets too. https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/openstreets.shtml https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/openstreets.sh...
- afavour 3y agoNot enough of them and nowhere near often enough. And they’re rolling back many of the programs that do exist.
- udkl 3y agoWhy are two wheelers not popular in denser cities in the US ? Is it due to inclemental weather ? Is it cultural ? In most of Asia where dense cities are the norm, 2 wheelers are the preferred way of daily transportation, and it works very well.
- npace12 3y agoSo does that mean now that the Lincoln and Holland Tunnel will be +$15? That'd cost like $35 to enter Manhattan from Jersey City.
- andrewla 3y agoApparently if you use any tolled access route you get a $5 discount on the congestion fee.
- etrautmann 3y agothere's a partial abatement of $5 for crossing in from a tunnel? not exactly clear yet but that's what TFA suggests.
- ascagnel_ 3y agoNot quite -- roughly $25, depending on when you cross and whether or not you have EZ Pass. + ~$15 toll + $15 congestion charge - $5 congestion charge toll abatement https://www.panynj.gov/bridges-tunnels/en/tolls.html https://www.panynj.gov/bridges-tunnels/en/tolls.html
- _rend 3y agoAs a former NYC resident, and as someone whose family still lives and works in the city, I'm curious to see how this'll distribute traffic patterns throughout Manhattan. If you live in the outer boroughs like my family does, getting into certain areas in Manhattan via public transit can be difficult, and time consuming — significantly more so than getting in by car. My dad is an on-call doctor; getting to his hospital by car takes ~15 minutes, but ~60–90 via public transit. His patients don't have the luxury of waiting for him to take the bus. His hospital is outside of this zone, but I imagine that paying $15 every time he got called in would be extraordinarily frustrating. My mom does work within this zone, also in places not easily reachable by public transit. I suspect that she, like many others, will still commute into Manhattan, park in areas outside of the zone, then take public transit into it — which will increase congestion in those areas. It'll be interesting to watch for the lead-on effects. I sympathize entirely with the desire to reduce traffic in the city, but man, for people who live far from work and can't easily commute any other way, what a pain.
- wnolens 3y ago$15 is a cheap Manhattan lunch. Financially, a doctor won't notice it. Presuming that it will be implemented like every other road toll, it will be auto-paid without noticing, too.
- mtalantikite 3y agoI'd also assume the hospital would reimburse the $15 toll. That's like what they charge for a Tylenol.
- talldatethrow 3y agoI think hospitals should charge a $600 an hour fee for stepping inside their multimillion dollar buildings staffed with multimillion dollar salaried people, and charge market rate for products. That would make more sense to people. We somehow expect access to their facilities for free 24/7, yet get annoyed when they pass the billing through items we know the price of. They should charge an entrance fee like Disney land or a hotel room per hour and then be more reasonable on the Tylenol.
- rappatic 3y agoAs someone who lives in the NYC metropolitan area, the problem here isn't with the idea of congestion pricing, it's with the public transit system. Public transit options to travel between Midtown and Brooklyn, or Staten Island and downtown, etc. are sorely lacking, as are options to get into the city from places not well served by the MTA trains. The subways and buses are unreliable at best. Once those are fixed, I'd embrace congestion pricing. Until then, the toll only hurts people who can't easily afford to pay: it's no coincidence that those people live in the places where it's less convenient to get into Manhattan. They're stuck either paying the extra few grand each year or spending an extra hour every day on the mediocre transit system. Once NYC (*including* the other four boroughs, not just Manhattan itself) gets its public transit on par with London, Copenhagen, etc., I'll embrace the congestion pricing.
- ng12 3y ago> between Midtown and Brooklyn I don't follow. There are relatively few neighborhoods in Brooklyn without train access to Midtown (though those do tend to be the most car centric).
- tombert 3y agoI take the trains all the time in Brooklyn, and live here, but the person you're responding to isn't completely wrong; there's a fairly large patch of north Brooklyn/lower Queens that has pretty bad train coverage. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Official_New_York_City_Subway_Map_2013_vc.jpg/640px-Official_New_York_City_Subway_Map_2013_vc.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Of... Also, in Brooklyn, there's a lot of places that do have train coverage in the most technical sense, but that means they have exactly one line near them. This is fine, but it can be annoying if that line is your main mode of transport and it gets shut down for whatever reason. When I lived in Manhattan, even in the less-covered Washington Heights, it was comparatively easy to find another train nearby if the train I was planning to take was down. In Brooklyn, unless you're near the more metro-ey hubs, you might just be out of luck (or just take the bus).
- 3y ago
- andrewstuart 3y agoSo driving to Manhattan is for the rich?
- galdosdi 3y agoSo what else is new?
- bilbo0s 3y agoHasn't it always been? Not a lot of poor people parking in Manhattan. No one's dumb enough to pay those 8 dollar an hour garage parking fees below 59th. And you will have to park in a garage, the only question is whether you do it right away, or drive around for half an hour looking for an alternative first.
- grardb 3y agoIt should be.
- busterarm 3y agoNot being pushed onto the tracks is also for the rich.
- invig 3y agoAmazing to watch some here try and justify another tax that hurts poor people and deprives them of access to opportunity, that doesn't impact rich people.
- ericyd 3y agoIn most cities I would agree, but NYC has the best transit in the country by a huge margin. Genuine question: are there lots of people in NYC and surrounding area who must drive into the city for work and don't have convenient alternatives available? This would be true in most places in the US but I'm not sure about NY. Of course, your underlying point is still valid that the effects of such a tax will not be felt equally across class lines, and that is not ideal in my opinion either.
- galdosdi 3y agoGenuine answer as a former New Yorker: No. You can get in and out more easily by transit than by car already. It's a luxury. Driving in Manhattan is already expensive many ways anyhow - bridge/tunnel tolls to enter any way other than from the Bronx along slow inconvenient local streets - parking costs a lot of money, or a lot of time and hassle (and in fact is prohibitive, like as in you won't find free parking even after circling for an hour, in much of manhattan for much of the day) - if you're an average american driver from the suburbs or further afield, who is not used to big city driving, you will probably find it very stressful until you practice a lot - opportunity cost: transit is already great, so there's no compelling reason usually
- wwarner 3y agoAgree with everything you said except "transit is already great". Subway could be greatly improved, and taxing congestion is one way to address that.
- galdosdi 3y agoYeah, true, great is too strong a word. But, it is great _compared_ to driving, in terms of point A to point B on time performance, other than very late at night, which is the only time you can get around faster in a car (but will likely still struggle with parking)
- eigenvalue 3y agoThis is the sort of thing that makes me really want to just move out of NYC for good. They want to force you into the subway, but then they also refuse to lock up violent psychopaths who get arrested dozens of times a year for violent crimes in the subway system. It's a tax on people who value personal safety for themselves and their families, so they can shovel more money into the broken public transportation system that is never on time and which can't offer even basic safety to passengers.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fooker 3y agoWhy is taxing people the only solution? Why not do it the other way? Pay people to take public transport-i.e. make it free and even incentivize it by adding on other perks. The US has a huge inefficiency issue, tax money is not used effectively, and a good fraction goes into carefully designed money laundering scams. More tax money here is like eating more to avoid stress.
- ethanbond 3y agoHow much could they possibly pay people to use public transit that would have anywhere near the same effect magnitude? > The US has a huge inefficiency issue, tax money is not used effectively, and a good fraction goes into carefully designed money laundering scams. More tax money here is like eating more to avoid stress Citation needed
- fooker 3y ago>How much could they possibly How much more could they possibly tax people before fixing root causes instead of symptoms? >Citation needed https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/wb_government_effectiveness/ https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/wb_government_effe...
- margalabargala 3y agoThe US is near the top of that list ahead of (for example) the UK and France. Also, this is an arbitrary all-in-one measurement of "government effectiveness", not something that in any way states "Many US government schemes are in fact elaborate money laundering".
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- esotericimpl 3y ago[dead]
- jdeibele 3y agoSomeone who shows up frequently in my Twitter feed takes pictures of cars where they've put mud or leaves on the license plate to obscure the characters. Also they scrape paint off, put a Back the Blue sticker on one or two characters, use a reflective license plate cover, etc. Almost always there's something that identifies the driver as a city employee, often a police officer. It would be interesting to know if they'll crack down on that behavior while fighting congestion.
- dtnewman 3y agoPersonally, I would like to see more dedicated bus lanes. I traveled to Vancouver a few years ago where dedicated bus lanes are ubiquitous, and the decision to take public transit instead of a taxi was easy because the buses got me where I needed to go much faster. Make dedicated bus lanes in and out of the city and you’ll start to even wealthy people ditching their cars for commutes because the buses will be much faster.
- dublinben 3y agoWhy not both?
- bashtoni 3y agoI think it says a lot about how our society is so hugely car centric that the idea of charging people to drive on a road is hugely controversial, but the idea of making people pay to travel on a train is accepted without a thought.
- probablynish 3y agoThis is not really a fair comparison - even without a congestion toll, people have to pay to drive on a road. They need to buy the car, pay for its maintenance, fill it with gas, pay for insurance, pay annual registration fees to help maintain the roads. Presumably some of the money from buying a train ticket goes into doing the equivalent things: purchasing and maintaining the trains, etc. Not saying the implicit subsidies/taxes on each mode of transport is equal, but it doesn't seem to be as simple as 'one is paid and the other is free'.
- acdha 3y agoMost of the things you mentioned only benefit the car owner, and they can choose to adjust them based on their need and budget. This is about the cost to other people for your choices: if you buy an SUV, you get the positive effect of feeling more macho but the people whose health is at greater risk as a direct consequence of that decision aren’t consulted. This kind of thing allows those communities to provide the negative feedback required to keep a system stable.
- Zpalmtree 3y agoYou're clearly not arguing in good faith when you suggest the only reason people buy an SUV is to feel macho. You know women own them too?
- acdha 3y agoYes, for the same reasons – the desire to feel strong and powerful isn’t exclusive to men! That product class has a higher profit margin so car companies have been running a marketing campaign for decades promoting them as powerful, safe, etc. to get buyers to pay extra.
- binarymax 3y agoI wish this came with some stats on how many cars per day this will effect and what percent of total traffic in the zone that is.
- wolverine876 3y agoThe congestion tax works by keeping poor people off the roads of Manhatten. Who else is deterred by it? $15 is nothing to wealthier people; their only objection will be spending the time processing the payment. But if you are making minimum wage, it's a calculation. Fees are regressive taxes. If you are poor, you are effectively not welcome south of 60th street; that's for the rich people. If the city wants to raise revenue, how about a tax where the wealthy make an equal sacrifice. If they want to reduce congestion, how about having global businesses like Uber bid on road capacity. Don't forget the fundamentals that made the US and NY great: All are created equal, the American dream, the land of opportunity, democratic equality, equality under the law. Manhatten is (and NYC more generally is) in many ways more than this being turned into an island for the wealthy.
- senda 3y agoI mean is the goal to be fair or to reduce congestion?
- wolverine876 3y agoFairness is a requirement. 'Liberty and justice for all'.
- acdha 3y agoThat’s why there’s an excellent transit system. If you’re poor, nobody is giving you a car, insurance, parking, fuel, and maintenance for “fairness”.
- Zpalmtree 3y agoIndeed, with all the taxes it is no longer affordable.
- wolverine876 3y ago> If you’re poor, nobody is giving you a car, insurance, parking, fuel, and maintenance for “fairness”. Nobody is saying to give it to them. But fairness is that they have equal access to the roads. The idea that wealthy people have more access to public roads is really an abomination in the US. You're free to suggest public transit, but they need to be free to make their own choices, completely disregarding what you - incredibly - think they should do.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- anon291 3y agoI'm as conservative as they come and this decision makes the most sense in my mind. There is no natural right to drive a car. Streets are public properties to be used how 'the public' (that is 'the government' sees fit). It is absolutely within the right of the city to tax cars. The law is not obviously immoral as all data (and my own experience) indicate that new york city is most easily traversed by subway and bus, and it has a long history of a robust public transit system. Governments need to choose where to spend tax money and the market results show that, even before this tax, residents preferred transit. Thus it makes sense to deprioritize private autos for transit. People who want to own cars should live somewhere other than manhattan (my goodness... are people really so dense these days that this needs to be spelled out for them?)
- nfRfqX5n 3y agoit sucks as an NJ resident that none of this money will be going to help the people commuting to NYC via public transit
- busterarm 3y agoAt least the Port Authority runs their shit lightyears better than the MTA. Even when it's bad, the PATH is better than the MTA on its best day.
- endisneigh 3y agoWhy a fixed cost? Should be proportional to income, or car, whichever is higher. Funny to see people defending regressive taxations. And yes I think parking tickets and most other fines should also be proportional.
- listenallyall 3y agoI think this is a bit like Ticketmaster trying to claw back some profit from scalpers. Every car commuter into the city needs a parking spot. Therefore parking garages benefit from the natural demand outstripping supply. And as driving demand rises further, garages can raise their rates (and they most definitely have.) $15 extra dollars per day to drive will reduce the demand, in turn lowering garage prices. Not saying they will drop by exactly $15 but the point is, an external party was able to benefit from the high demand, and now at least some of that goes to the city instead.
- objektif 3y agoThis is sadly another money grab by MTA. People somehow think this will help the public transportation. I would bet all my money on the opposite. Most likely nothing will improve. May be it will be spent on the pensions of many MTA workers who spend their days doing nothing.
- Daz1 3y agoMore money to funnel into the unions
- SuperNinKenDo 3y agoIt's probably the right thing to do, from visiting NYC it seemed to me that people driving in was creating enourmous negative externalities, though I'm sure there's positives as well. I hope that they use some of that money to improve public transport options though... We were staying in Montclair, a stone's throw from a train station, and trying to use public transport to get to and from NYC was flabbergasting. Some days it was just effectively impossible. I realised how spoilt I've been living where I am (Victoria, Australia). The regional services into and out of Melbourne here are excellent by comparison, and we have waaaay less population density outside of the city. And NYC is famous in America for its public transport!l infrastructure! Apologies if the article addresses how the money will be spent, I couldn't open it directly or via any of the archive links provided, so I am just bouncing of the title and my own strong impressions from my visit.
- nunez 3y agoNYC has _always_ needed this. Staten Island and upper Queens/Bronx aside, the city is just not designed for driving and it never will be (at least not without completely altering the city's core). Having lived there forever, my gut tells me that the _vast majority_ of people who commute into work by car can be served by the (comparatively excellent, but still lacking) MTA and NJ Transit.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- speedylight 3y agoHmm spend $15 or ride a subway that needs the national guard to be safe?
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- xyzelement 3y agoDriving into NYC is already a massively expensive pain in the ass and nobody does it for shits and giggles. The only people deterred from driving by this will be the working poor (think doorman who needs to be at work 5 am and lives in outer queens. Might be a 20 minute drive or an hour bus+train ride - that's the kind of people that might hesitate at $15 a day extra) Everybody else either HAS to drive for whatever reason and will suck up the extra $15 or is too rich to care. It's a pretty naked money grab by the city precisely because demand is kind of inelastic. You can imagine anything else being taxed in the same way. If the government decided to raise money by making your cell plan cost 3X, you'd grumble but pay (it's not like you're gonna give up your phone) It's not a great reason to tax.
- Invictus0 3y agoBefore I read this comment, I thought the tax was a good idea, but honestly this changed my mind. NYC is a rich man's city; $15 isn't going to dissuade anyone but the poorest folks. Rip out parking spaces instead
- xyzelement 3y agoLol have you ever been into the city? What parking spaces?
- polygamous_bat 3y agoFree street side parking, I imagine? I would like to see that.
- xyzelement 3y agoThat literally doesn’t exist in Manhattan during busy times.
- afavour 3y ago> Driving into NYC is already a massively expensive pain in the ass and nobody does it for shits and giggles. Plenty of rich people drive into the city because they don’t want to take public transit. I know some! > think doorman who needs to be at work 5 am and lives in outer queens I don’t doubt there will be people like this but the data shows that car owners are notably richer than the average NYC resident. The working poor of NYC by and large do not own cars. And among those that do own cars the number that drive into Manhattan daily for work is already small (because how could they afford to park? How does this doorman?) And to take your example specifically, I have to imagine there are alternatives. Like driving to parking near Manhattan then jumping on the subway for the last part. If they aren’t doing it already parking garages will be even more incentivised by congestion charging.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- xyst 3y agoGood. Hope the tolls paid by the suburban assholes pay for the ongoing maintenance.
- TibbityFlanders 3y ago[dead]
- MaggieL 3y ago[flagged]
- angusturner 3y agoSorry, but I cannot get past the fact that so many Americans openly refer to undocumented migrants as "illegals". What is really dystopian is focusing blame onto immigrants instead of the economic and political elite.
- MaggieL 3y ago> Sorry, but I cannot get past the fact that so many Americans openly refer to undocumented migrants as "illegals". > It's because their presence in our country is not legal. In fact the full term in our law is "illegal alien", Genesis even wrote a song with that title. "Undocumented" is a euphemism coined by leftists to try to make illegal status seem trivial and unimportant. It's propaganda
- defrost 3y agoThe term appears to be "alien" .. Title 8—Aliens and Nationality CHAPTER I—DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY SUBCHAPTER B—IMMIGRATION REGULATIONS PART 214—NONIMMIGRANT CLASSES https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/8/214.2 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/8/214.2 makes NO use of the term "illegal alien" Searching that Title 8 returns hits on constructs such as "aliens who illegally" but NO hits on "illegal alien". Undocumented aliens are not always illegally within the USofA, they have alien status and lack documentation. They may or may not have entered illegally, they may have applied for recognition and been passed in. See, also: https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/legal-documents/FINAL_criminalizing_undocumented_immigrants_issue_brief_PUBLIC_VERSION.pdf https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/legal-documents/FINA...
- switch007 3y ago"The congestion charge initially contributed to reducing the level of car traffic in inner London. However, the regained space was quickly filled by taxis and other service vehicles, which benefit from exemptions. Cars and taxis represent about three-quarters of London’s road traffic. The number of miles driven by cars and taxis has progressively decreased by about 6% or 1 billion vehicle miles since 2000; in turn, the traffic of light commercial vehicles increased by 1 billion vehicle miles. Overall, the level of London’s road transport has thus remained fairly stable over the past two decades, ranging around 20 billion vehicle miles per year. The road pricing schemes are an important instrument for raising additional income for greening London’s transport system. According to the Annual Report and Statement of Accounts 2021/22 of Transport for London, congestion charge net revenues reached £307 million in 2021/22. The ULEZ and LEZ generated a net income of £111 million and £34 million in 2021/22, respectively." https://www.oecd.org/climate-action/ipac/practices/london-s-congestion-charge-and-its-low-emission-zones-c6cd48e9/ https://www.oecd.org/climate-action/ipac/practices/london-s-... Take from that what you will
- perryizgr8 3y agoThe only real solution to these problems (congestion, lack of parking, etc.) is to build (roads, bridges, flyovers, buildings, car parks, skyscrapers) like mad. But it seems most western countries have forgotten how to do that.
- occz 3y agoBuilding car infrastructure will not solve this problem, it will only serve to worsen it. The only medicine is improving the actually efficient alternatives in the form of transit and cycling infrastructure. NYC already has the best transit in the U.S, but there's clearly room for improvement. As for cycling infrastructure, this can only serve to help.
- Sparkyte 3y agoI have a fairly complicated feeling about this. I know it is essential but without properly planning traffic in/out/around the area it will quickly become an island. Not that it isn't already. I mean in the logistics of things. Lack of secondary routes and things will make it uncomfortable.
- Dowwie 3y agoThe bike riding enthusiasts in the HN community approve of the measure, assuming it will address congestion problems. Increasing tolls isn't about addressing externalities of traffic. People are desperately seeking sources of money to fund growing deficits.
- __lbracket__ 3y agotime to move to texas !
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoWorks where archive.is is blocked or if ghostarchive.org is having problems: https://web.archive.org/web/20240328082420/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/nyregion/nyc-congestion-pricing-tolls-mta.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240328082420/https://www.nytim...