7 ms·

Finally! 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

Finally! 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 ago
  the 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 ago
    Who 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 ago
      if 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 ago
      If 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.
      - lupusreal 3y ago
        I'm sure all the plumblers, electricians, etc (the people who actually do the hard work of making the city actually function) are taking all their tools and materials around town on the buses and subways.
        affinepplan 3y ago
        maybe they can make up for it with the revenue from being able to fit in another client instead of sitting in traffic for 2 hours
        lupusreal 3y ago
        Dubious.
      - busterarm 3y ago
        There is no "CBD" in Manhattan. It's a made up term created for this program to make the pill less bitter. Let's be real, it's half the fucking island and where mostly everyone in the city works and shops. That's no small number. It's everyone making deliveries to those businesses. It's every one doing manual labor jobs requiring tools. It's city workers on low salaries who have to live so far out in the boroughs where the MTA isn't even a good option to get to work anymore. The whole FDNY is losing their shit over this congestion pricing in particular because it hits them fairly hard.
        anyonecancode 3y ago
        > There is no "CBD" in Manhattan. It's a made up term created for this program to make the pill less bitter. Let's be real, it's half the fucking island and where mostly everyone in the city works and shops. That's no small number. But it's not half of the city. NYC is more than Manhattan.
        busterarm 3y ago
        I didn't say half the city, I said half the island. Nearly 2 million people commute into Manhattan to work.
  - reaperman 3y ago
    If that was strictly true then the toll wouldn't make any difference. I don't have a better solution for Manhattan, but I can recognize that fixed-fee tolls select for traffic with the "most disposable income" rather than the "most economically beneficial" traffic. Arguments can be made in places like Denver that high tolls means that those who have control over politics (who tend to be rich) won't feel much need to invest in additional road infrastructure, because their experience is that "the travel times are fine!". But they're using an up-to-$15-each-way toll road (E-470). Similar to how the TSA procedures would get reformed if everyone flying had to go through the same process (most importantly, including anyone taking private planes). But almost no one who has power to force changes actually goes through the TSA lines because they mostly take private chartered planes which don't have any TSA process.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      You have to align incentives with these things, and that can be tricky. For TSA something like "if you're in line an hour before your flight and you miss your flight, the TSA pays for your ticket unless they can prove you got through in less than 15 minutes" might do the trick. You'd have to work out the details.
  - talldatethrow 3y ago
    If you're wealthy enough to not notice this toll, then how would the toll even accomplish its goal of reducing traffic? By definition it's going to make people that notice +-$15 stop driving.
- mc32 3y ago
  Get Buttigieg on the horn. He’ll be all over it!
- andrewla 3y ago
  Boy is this being downvoted. Sorry to see that since this is very real. The "you can get half-price if you submit paperwork showing that you make less that $50k" is a joke. I think like many things in NYC there's a bimodality to it -- the only people who can drive are the people who can afford to drive, or the people who can't afford to not drive. This will price out the latter but not the former.
busterarm 3y ago
You can't move all of the freight that the city needs by rail. Enjoy paying more for everything you buy. And all this does is move more traffic to the outer boroughs (city leadership even acknowledges this will be a side effect).
- affinepplan 3y ago
  yeah I don't think any freight is being moved by (checks article) passenger cars
  - busterarm 3y ago
    check again: ```Who Will Pay: Most cars, trucks and taxi and Uber riders.```
    - affinepplan 3y ago
      in any case > Those tolls will be discounted by 75 percent at night, which is when most truck deliveries are made I would bet the value in time saved to a freight delivery business to be stuck in less traffic (composed primarily of passenger cars!) is well worth more than the toll paid
      - busterarm 3y ago
        > which is when most truck deliveries are made That's simply not true. Also congestion based pricing strategies have never reduced traffic anywhere they've been implemented. Go ask London.
        affinepplan 3y ago
        > Also congestion based pricing strategies have never reduced traffic anywhere they've been implemented this is so fragrantly incorrect I don't even know how to respond they absolutely have, including in London please engage with some of the published research instead of just guessing
TomK32 3y ago
London had the first full assessment in 1964 that something ought to be done about cars on the basis of congestion, but sadly those building roads had the upper hand for a few more decades.
cm2187 3y ago
NY isn't really smog filled. It is pretty windy and the straight broad streets ensure the wind flows. It's something that actually surprised me when I lived there. Trains, taxis and busses are also major contributors to the noise, along emergency services.
- asah 3y ago
  Compared with other places, NYC air could be a LOT better. Taxis are getting the conversion tax. Take and busses are by definition a tiny fraction of the impact.
kernal 3y ago
>Ride the bus, take the train. I hear they deployed the national guard in the NYC subway. Should commuters also be forced to take mandatory self defense classes?
- arcticbull 3y ago
  It's literally the most used subway system in the United States, and one of the most used in the world. It has an annual ridership of over two billion people. Rail is one of the safest ways of moving people. Out of the two billion rides in 2023 there were 88 deaths and 146 injuries. Same year, 238 people died and over 100,000 were injured on the road despite a similar share of commuters. So that would make driving at least 3X more dangerous by death toll, and 684X more dangerous by injury count. Should everyone be forced to wrap themselves in bubble wrap and wear a football helmet when in or anywhere close to a car?
  - kernal 3y ago
    I don't have to be concerned with being robbed, stabbed, beaten, abused, assaulted and pushed onto the train tracks in a car. In the NYC subway - you do.
    - arcticbull 3y ago
      Except the data (a) completely doesn't align with what you're saying and (b) you don't think your car gets broken into, and that those things can't happen to you on the street? You can't get pushed in front of a car? I suggest the burden of proof is on you to show the numbers, and tell us exactly how much riskier it is to take the train. It's not, at all, so it'll be hard to do, but I'm curious how you approach it. There were 500 carjackings in 2021. 15,000 car thefts last year. Significantly more car break-ins than that.
      - kernal 3y ago
        Of those 2 billion subway riders how many were killed when they departed the station to get to their final destination?
hanniabu 3y ago
> Ride the bus Have you not seen the busses? They're old and spewing tons of fumes
- jrockway 3y ago
  1 ton of fumes / 50 people is better than 0.1 ton of fumes for 1 person. The buses are being replaced over the next few years in the MTA capital plan anyway.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  Supposedly they will all be electric by 2040, which is much later than I was expecting [1]. So far just 60-75 buses in NYC are electric out of 5,800. That does not compare well with e.g. London, which currently has 950 electric buses out of 8,600. London plans to have all zero-emission buses by 2034 or 2030, depending on funding. Here in Copenhagen the aim is to have entirely electric buses in 2025, although that seems to be apply only to the inner city. Some routes in the suburbs will not change until 2030. [1] https://new.mta.info/project/zero-emission-bus-fleet https://new.mta.info/project/zero-emission-bus-fleet

Finally! 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 ago
the 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 ago
  Who 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 ago
    if 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 ago
    If 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.
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      I'm sure all the plumblers, electricians, etc (the people who actually do the hard work of making the city actually function) are taking all their tools and materials around town on the buses and subways.
      - affinepplan 3y ago
        maybe they can make up for it with the revenue from being able to fit in another client instead of sitting in traffic for 2 hours
        lupusreal 3y ago
        Dubious.
    - busterarm 3y ago
      There is no "CBD" in Manhattan. It's a made up term created for this program to make the pill less bitter. Let's be real, it's half the fucking island and where mostly everyone in the city works and shops. That's no small number. It's everyone making deliveries to those businesses. It's every one doing manual labor jobs requiring tools. It's city workers on low salaries who have to live so far out in the boroughs where the MTA isn't even a good option to get to work anymore. The whole FDNY is losing their shit over this congestion pricing in particular because it hits them fairly hard.
      - anyonecancode 3y ago
        > There is no "CBD" in Manhattan. It's a made up term created for this program to make the pill less bitter. Let's be real, it's half the fucking island and where mostly everyone in the city works and shops. That's no small number. But it's not half of the city. NYC is more than Manhattan.
        busterarm 3y ago
        I didn't say half the city, I said half the island. Nearly 2 million people commute into Manhattan to work.
- reaperman 3y ago
  If that was strictly true then the toll wouldn't make any difference. I don't have a better solution for Manhattan, but I can recognize that fixed-fee tolls select for traffic with the "most disposable income" rather than the "most economically beneficial" traffic. Arguments can be made in places like Denver that high tolls means that those who have control over politics (who tend to be rich) won't feel much need to invest in additional road infrastructure, because their experience is that "the travel times are fine!". But they're using an up-to-$15-each-way toll road (E-470). Similar to how the TSA procedures would get reformed if everyone flying had to go through the same process (most importantly, including anyone taking private planes). But almost no one who has power to force changes actually goes through the TSA lines because they mostly take private chartered planes which don't have any TSA process.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    You have to align incentives with these things, and that can be tricky. For TSA something like "if you're in line an hour before your flight and you miss your flight, the TSA pays for your ticket unless they can prove you got through in less than 15 minutes" might do the trick. You'd have to work out the details.
- talldatethrow 3y ago
  If you're wealthy enough to not notice this toll, then how would the toll even accomplish its goal of reducing traffic? By definition it's going to make people that notice +-$15 stop driving.
mc32 3y ago
Get Buttigieg on the horn. He’ll be all over it!
andrewla 3y ago
Boy is this being downvoted. Sorry to see that since this is very real. The "you can get half-price if you submit paperwork showing that you make less that $50k" is a joke. I think like many things in NYC there's a bimodality to it -- the only people who can drive are the people who can afford to drive, or the people who can't afford to not drive. This will price out the latter but not the former.

busterarm 3y ago

You can't move all of the freight that the city needs by rail. Enjoy paying more for everything you buy. And all this does is move more traffic to the outer boroughs (city leadership even acknowledges this will be a side effect).

affinepplan 3y ago
yeah I don't think any freight is being moved by (checks article) passenger cars
- busterarm 3y ago
  check again: ```Who Will Pay: Most cars, trucks and taxi and Uber riders.```
  - affinepplan 3y ago
    in any case > Those tolls will be discounted by 75 percent at night, which is when most truck deliveries are made I would bet the value in time saved to a freight delivery business to be stuck in less traffic (composed primarily of passenger cars!) is well worth more than the toll paid
    - busterarm 3y ago
      > which is when most truck deliveries are made That's simply not true. Also congestion based pricing strategies have never reduced traffic anywhere they've been implemented. Go ask London.
      - affinepplan 3y ago
        > Also congestion based pricing strategies have never reduced traffic anywhere they've been implemented this is so fragrantly incorrect I don't even know how to respond they absolutely have, including in London please engage with some of the published research instead of just guessing

TomK32 3y ago

London had the first full assessment in 1964 that something ought to be done about cars on the basis of congestion, but sadly those building roads had the upper hand for a few more decades.

cm2187 3y ago

NY isn't really smog filled. It is pretty windy and the straight broad streets ensure the wind flows. It's something that actually surprised me when I lived there. Trains, taxis and busses are also major contributors to the noise, along emergency services.

asah 3y ago
Compared with other places, NYC air could be a LOT better. Taxis are getting the conversion tax. Take and busses are by definition a tiny fraction of the impact.

kernal 3y ago

>Ride the bus, take the train. I hear they deployed the national guard in the NYC subway. Should commuters also be forced to take mandatory self defense classes?

arcticbull 3y ago
It's literally the most used subway system in the United States, and one of the most used in the world. It has an annual ridership of over two billion people. Rail is one of the safest ways of moving people. Out of the two billion rides in 2023 there were 88 deaths and 146 injuries. Same year, 238 people died and over 100,000 were injured on the road despite a similar share of commuters. So that would make driving at least 3X more dangerous by death toll, and 684X more dangerous by injury count. Should everyone be forced to wrap themselves in bubble wrap and wear a football helmet when in or anywhere close to a car?
- kernal 3y ago
  I don't have to be concerned with being robbed, stabbed, beaten, abused, assaulted and pushed onto the train tracks in a car. In the NYC subway - you do.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    Except the data (a) completely doesn't align with what you're saying and (b) you don't think your car gets broken into, and that those things can't happen to you on the street? You can't get pushed in front of a car? I suggest the burden of proof is on you to show the numbers, and tell us exactly how much riskier it is to take the train. It's not, at all, so it'll be hard to do, but I'm curious how you approach it. There were 500 carjackings in 2021. 15,000 car thefts last year. Significantly more car break-ins than that.
    - kernal 3y ago
      Of those 2 billion subway riders how many were killed when they departed the station to get to their final destination?

hanniabu 3y ago

> Ride the bus Have you not seen the busses? They're old and spewing tons of fumes

jrockway 3y ago
1 ton of fumes / 50 people is better than 0.1 ton of fumes for 1 person. The buses are being replaced over the next few years in the MTA capital plan anyway.
Symbiote 3y ago
Supposedly they will all be electric by 2040, which is much later than I was expecting [1]. So far just 60-75 buses in NYC are electric out of 5,800. That does not compare well with e.g. London, which currently has 950 electric buses out of 8,600. London plans to have all zero-emission buses by 2034 or 2030, depending on funding. Here in Copenhagen the aim is to have entirely electric buses in 2025, although that seems to be apply only to the inner city. Some routes in the suburbs will not change until 2030. [1] https://new.mta.info/project/zero-emission-bus-fleet https://new.mta.info/project/zero-emission-bus-fleet