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> I was floored at how _well_ NYC traffic moves in comparison My criticisms of NYC traffic aren't based on the throughput efficiency for drivers, but the impac

> I was floored at how _well_ NYC traffic moves in comparison My criticisms of NYC traffic aren't based on the throughput efficiency for drivers, but the impact on the people who live there. At least when I was in NYC, every attempt to charge market rates for parking, improve daylighting at intersections, get people to stop parking on the sidewalks, build protected bike lanes, stop making mountains of garbage bags on the sidewalk, etc were all met with fierce resistance. (Though I gather from this thread that things have improved in the last ten years or so.) While the pedestrian fatality counts in NYC are breaking records, just across the Hudson River you have Jersey City and Hoboken prioritizing safe, pleasant streets for residents and have achieved "Vision Zero" with no traffic deaths.

evanelias 2y ago
Hoboken's "Vision Zero" commitment is a total joke. It was basically a long-running PR campaign by the sketchy mayor ahead of his (failed) US congressional run. I lived in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Hoboken each for multiple years, and Hoboken is by far the most hazardous place to be a pedestrian I've ever lived. If you don't believe me, search on Hoboken's subreddit and you'll see tons of people saying the exact same thing. Hoboken's traffic fatalities have always been low or zero, even long before all the daylighting, because Hoboken is only 1 square mile with only a handful of entry/exit points. Quite simply, it's difficult for a car to get to a sufficient speed to kill someone there. But they can certainly cause non-fatal injuries on a regular basis, and they do. I saw quite a few out my window at the intersection closest to my home, and it took over seven years for the town to even add an extra stop sign there. Part of the problem is Hoboken's weird fear of traffic lights. The busiest commercial street has them on every block, but the rest of the city only has a handful. Everywhere else, it's stop signs, usually only in one direction, which changes unpredictably between blocks. Compare this to NYC outer-borough neighborhoods of similar density and character, like Astoria or Park Slope, where they put traffic lights on nearly every intersection. Much safer to be a pedestrian in those places because you have a pedestrian traffic signal telling you when it's safe to cross. In Hoboken you just have crosswalks which may or may not have a stop sign, and drivers who may or may not stop for you, and complete lack of traffic enforcement by authorities who don't care when cars fail to yield to pedestrians. Oh, and about that busiest commercial street in Hoboken that actually has traffic lights: it didn't even have pedestrian signals until 2017, many decades later than pretty much every other busy place in the entire NYC metro area.

evanelias 2y ago

Hoboken's "Vision Zero" commitment is a total joke. It was basically a long-running PR campaign by the sketchy mayor ahead of his (failed) US congressional run. I lived in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Hoboken each for multiple years, and Hoboken is by far the most hazardous place to be a pedestrian I've ever lived. If you don't believe me, search on Hoboken's subreddit and you'll see tons of people saying the exact same thing. Hoboken's traffic fatalities have always been low or zero, even long before all the daylighting, because Hoboken is only 1 square mile with only a handful of entry/exit points. Quite simply, it's difficult for a car to get to a sufficient speed to kill someone there. But they can certainly cause non-fatal injuries on a regular basis, and they do. I saw quite a few out my window at the intersection closest to my home, and it took over seven years for the town to even add an extra stop sign there. Part of the problem is Hoboken's weird fear of traffic lights. The busiest commercial street has them on every block, but the rest of the city only has a handful. Everywhere else, it's stop signs, usually only in one direction, which changes unpredictably between blocks. Compare this to NYC outer-borough neighborhoods of similar density and character, like Astoria or Park Slope, where they put traffic lights on nearly every intersection. Much safer to be a pedestrian in those places because you have a pedestrian traffic signal telling you when it's safe to cross. In Hoboken you just have crosswalks which may or may not have a stop sign, and drivers who may or may not stop for you, and complete lack of traffic enforcement by authorities who don't care when cars fail to yield to pedestrians. Oh, and about that busiest commercial street in Hoboken that actually has traffic lights: it didn't even have pedestrian signals until 2017, many decades later than pretty much every other busy place in the entire NYC metro area.