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NYC Congestion Pricing Tracker

361 points by gotmedium 2y ago

7e 2y ago
Great. Step two: NYC should force Lyft and Uber to buy taxi medallions for each car. There are way too many of idle cars trolling around, taking up space and polluting.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Related: NYC Congestion Pricing Set to Take Effect After Years of Delays https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42598936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42598936
freditup 2y ago
Note that it was snowy in NYC today, so people were likely dissuaded to drive by other factors than congestion pricing as well. It'll be interesting to see what impact there is as we get further along in the year. The dashboard is based off of Google Maps travel time data which I'm unsure of the exact accuracy. I imagine the city might also have other more direct metrics that can be used, such as the count of vehicles passing through the tunnels into the congestion zone.
- ortusdux 2y ago
  https://www.wired.com/story/99-phones-fake-google-maps-traffic-jam/ https://www.wired.com/story/99-phones-fake-google-maps-traff...
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    It's a neat little project but people aren't doing that on the regular so the data should be pretty good.
    - ortusdux 2y ago
      I do wonder how google handles edge cases, passengers, busses, etc. I've been in rideshares where the driver is using 4 phones - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/business/apps-uber-lyft-drivers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/business/apps-uber-lyft-d...
      - rtkwe 2y ago
        I think, at least the way I would approach the problem, would be to look at the speed or flow rate of the phones on a particular road as the primary signal. I believe Google has ways of detecting if the device is in a car/vehicle vs being carried for example so they could filter out "walking" phones. Then looking at the flow of devices alleviates the need to calculate the carrying capacity of a particular road. The speed/flow tells you want you're trying to measure more directly than trying to count phones and decide if that means a road is congested or not, to do that you'd need to develop a heuristic to estimate the capacity of roads which seems like you're unnecessarily ignoring the direct signal in favor of trying to calculate it from a noisier source.
- theamk 2y ago
  Note if you check "unaffected" routes (16 and 18), you'll see they had much smaller changes. Also, while simple metrics are cool, what commuters really care is how long it took to get from point A to point B, which is what this shows...
  - kylebenzle 2y ago
    You are correct, steveBK is incorrect.
- MisterTea 2y ago
  Snowy? That was a light dusting that I cleaned up with a broom.
  - johnkpaul 2y ago
    I think it was worse in suburban areas slightly outside of the city, at least on the NJ side. In western Bergen county, I had a bit over 1 inch and had to break out the shovel for the sidewalk.
    - MisterTea 2y ago
      Still though, an inch or two around here is not a big deal. I only really start complaining when I have to break out the snow blower.
  - dleink 2y ago
    I have a flexible commute that sometimes involves driving a car into the zone and if I see snow in the forecast I'll be less likely to be in the city with a car that day. I love congestion pricing, I will gladly pay $9 if it lowers traffic during peak hours. I also try to plan trips in the offpeak hours anyway. If you leave at 11pm you can get from shea stadium to Philly in an hour forty-five.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Right this dashboard won't be meaningful until 3/6/12 months out when any seasonality / weather related effects all average out.
dgfitz 2y ago
Someone gets shot outside a hotel, but damn it if we won’t figure out how to charge people more money.
- pornjizzer 2y ago
  [dead]
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    Sure as shit it fucking was.
  - inyourtenement 2y ago
    pornjizzer is offended by “damn it”?
    - blast 2y ago
      This is the funniest comment of its type that I've ever seen.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bsimpson 2y ago
  There probably isn't a public street in America that could prevent a random assassination. If the guy got shot visiting relatives in Park City, would you suggest that any contemporary public policy in Utah was bad?
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    I’d suggest not taxing the people of a city if they can’t be kept safe first.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      New Yorkers, and Manhattanites in particular, live longer than most of the world. This is due to mass transit, public healthcare and being phenomenally rich. Would also note that the shooter you’re referring to crossed into Manhattan with a gun purchased in another jurisdiction. This is a problem of other areas’ lawlessness crossing into New York as much as it’s a fantasy about cops being expected to thwart an active shooter on the spot.
timewizard 2y ago
Well, if you make the road a luxury, less people will be /able/ to use it. It's nice to see someone is measuring just how much luxury is being created here although I don't think these metrics are particularly useful outside of that goal.
- mlinhares 2y ago
  Driving and parking in NYC is already a luxury, there’s no poor person driving and parking there.
  - brettgriffin 2y ago
    There are like 400 housing developments in NYC for lower income folks. Saying that lower income folks don't drive in NYC is bananas.
    - woodruffw 2y ago
      The GP is incorrect, but using the absolute number of housing developments in NYC is also misleading (since NYC has lots of middle-income housing developments too). On average, personal drivers on NYC roads skew towards wealthier and suburban, whereas city dwellers of all demographics broadly ride the subway and other mass transit. Congestion pricing will certainly represent a cost for poorer New Yorkers, but it will disproportionately be shouldered by wealthier demographics that are often on the road by choice (e.g. choosing to commute by car from Long Island because the city has inadvertently subsidized doing so with free parking.)
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > There are like 400 housing developments in NYC for lower income folks. Saying that lower income folks don't drive in NYC is bananas. They’re not paying this.
      - brettgriffin 2y ago
        On the contrary, they are! ~30% of people entering Manhattan a day are lower income!
jmclnx 2y ago
Curious how that works ? Does one need an EXPass or is a bill sent out ? I am also wondering if other Cities will adopt this. Eventually I can see this or something like it be rolled out nationwide as EVs become more popular.
- surbas 2y ago
  Both Work, however cheaper if you have an EZ Pass.
- healsdata 2y ago
  Yup, it's EZPass. Either with a transponder or plate-by-mail
matthest 2y ago
Whether it's the government or corporations, big organizations are the problem. We need a small business revolution in this country. Side note: An economy made up of small businesses was Adam Smith's original vision (the godfather of capitalism). He also hated the idea of a corporation. What we have today really is very far from Adam Smith capitalism.
- boplicity 2y ago
  Maybe an interesting question: How can you have a big city without a large organization to logistically make it work? Especially if it has coherent and well-run transit, and similar services, such as garbage/sewer/power/water.
  - timewizard 2y ago
    > How can you have a big city without a large organization to logistically make it work? Is there a large cohesive logistical operation even present? It seems to me the city is divided into boroughs, precincts and "special offices" all with their own individual mandates and approaches due to the complications inherent in large organizations. > Especially if it has coherent and well-run transit Well run? Compared to what? > such as garbage/sewer/power/water. The municipality does offer these services but you can arrange to have them handled privately if you want. They still have to follow the law but they're allowed to operate in the cities "territory." If the city was such a logistical juggernaut then why would these options even be necessary or utilized? If the city stopped providing these services and turned it over entirely to private business would the city stop existing?
- robrenaud 2y ago
  Are the market dynamics such that effective small companies grow, and ineffective small companies shrink? Is this bad?
- theamk 2y ago
  There are plenty of small towns with small governments in the US, and most of them are much more affordable then NYC. I am going to assume that the most people who live in NYC are there exactly because they want big city (with correspondingly big government).
maxwellg 2y ago
I'm incredibly hopeful that NYC congestion pricing pays off in a big way - and that we start to see it in other cities across America. I really, really want congestion pricing in downtown SF. During rush hour, cars block the box and slow down busses, with cascading effects.
- gkoberger 2y ago
  While I agree with disliking the things you mentioned, could it be argued that adding barriers to entry for getting into the city will just increase WFH and hurt SF more? I can see a lot of people choosing to just stay home rather than take a bus – not everyone is close to MUNI or BART.
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    Fewer single-person-vehicles = more desirable ontime Bus/Tram throughput = more people who are close to MUNIBART taking MUNIBART. Then use tolls to improve and expand the mass transit services instead of only ever catering to the single-person-car-commuters. (ofc it takes more than ontime performance to sell people on mass transit, needs to be a safe environment at all hours of the day -- even if I can take BART into the city in the afternoon, if I don't feel safe taking it back at 10PM then I'm just going to drive both ways, to say nothing of the choice to stop running trains at midnight)
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Safety and schedule. I've never had a safety issue with taking commuter rail into Boston but taking it home from an evening event is basically a non-starter given how seldom it runs and how much longer it will take relative to driving even if I catch my train.
      - adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
        I'm very hopeful that Boston commuter rail gets electrified with the associated speed and frequency improvements soonish. the inner half of the commuter rail network is absolutely dense enough to be worth running service every 15 minutes on peak and every 30 off peak
comprambler 2y ago
Congestion pricing can work to dissuade individuals from living in the burbs, only if there is controls on real estate to deal with the influx of people moving inward. The other benefit is an increase of mass transit usage, which is a plus? I personally took a cab from Newark to Laguardia at MIDNIGHT and it took 40 min to cross into Manhattan to get to the Queens-Midtown tunnel. Just a new level of traffic. Was fun going in the MIB tunnel.
- woodruffw 2y ago
  Living in the suburbs is perfectly fine; I think a perfectly virtuous outcome here would be that people keep living in the suburbs if they wish, but have adequately funded suburban rail and bus transit into the city. An important piece of context is that NYC has some of the US's best suburban transit, including three different suburban rail systems (NJT, MNRR, LIRR) and one non-subway interurban rapid transit system (PATH).
  - nfRfqX5n 2y ago
    Problem is, none of the money from congestion pricing is shared with NJ transit/infra
    - woodruffw 2y ago
      That's because they turned it down[1]. New Jersey has decided that their strategy is going to be to dig their heels in and hope for a supportive administration, rather than plan for the next century of growth in the economic region that powers their state. [1]: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2024/12/18/nj-refusing-generous-congestion-pricing-lawsuit-ettlement-hochul-says https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2024/12/18/nj-refusing-generous-...
      - gotoeleven 2y ago
        Sweet lord have you ever tasted a peach grown in new jersey? What the hell is going on in that state.
jmyeet 2y ago
I happened to be living in London when congestion pricing was brought in and the difference on day 1 in the West End was like night and day. I believe it's never gone back to the pre-congestion pricing levels. I fully expect similar in Manhattan. The social media response has been particularly interesting. Predictably, there are a lot of non-NYCers who simply object to the slightest inconvenience to driving in any form. These can be ignored. What's more interesting are how many native (or at least resident) New Yorkers who are against this. They tend to dress up the reasons for this (as people do) because it basically comes down to "I like to drive from Queens/Brooklyn into Manhattan". There's almost no reason for anyone to have to drive into Manhattan. It's almost all pure convenience. The funniest argument against this is "safety", the idea that the Subway is particularly unsafe. You know what's unsafe? Driving. Another complaint: drivers are paying for the roads. This is untrue anywhere in the US. Drivers only partially subsidize roads everywhere. And if we're going to talk about subsidies, how about free street parking... in Manhattan. Each parking space is like $500k-$1M on real estate. In a just world, a street parking pass would cost $500/month. The second interesting aspect is how long it takes to bring in something like this. In the modern form, it's been on the cards for what? A decade? Longer? Court challenges? A complicit governor blocking implementation? That resistance only ever goes in one direction. My only complaint is that the MTA should be free. Replace the $20 billion (or whatever it is) in fares with $20 billion in taxes on those earning $100k+ and on airport taxes. Save the cost of ticketing and enforcement. Stop spending $100M on deploying the National Guard (to recover $100k in fares). Public transit fares (that are going up to $3 this year) are a regressive tax on the people that the city cannot run without.
- tripper_27 2y ago
  Several EU cities have experimented with making public transport free, and people seem to really enjoy it. Also, as you so eloquently put it, it isn't clear that the cost for issuing and checking tickets is covered by the income from the tickets, and there are reasons why MTA tickets cannot be priced at the actual cost to cover the ticket compliance infrastructure -- with a nice analogy to the cost of parking vs value of parking real estate. What justifies the subsidy for on-street parking?
paxys 2y ago
While I'm sure congestion pricing will have a positive impact on traffic, I'd wait a little while longer to draw any conclusions, considering (1) the data is from a single day (2) lots of people aren't back from holiday travel and (3) there's a winter storm across the country and a decent amount of snow fell in Jersey/New York today, discouraging driving.
- occz 2y ago
  You can already extrapolate from the results from other cities who have implemented the policy, where it has been wildly successful at reducing congestion.
  - freejazz 2y ago
    I thought London's traffic returned to the same levels as prior to their congestion pricing?
    - evgen 2y ago
      It has not. Traffic levels are down 15-20% while number of visitors to the inside of the congestion zone has increased. Traffic speed inside the zone has also increased slightly. Overall, London's example shows that congestion pricing works as advertised.
    - eru 2y ago
      Singapore is probably the better model to look at? We had congestion pricing before London.
  - coding123 2y ago
    ... for rich people.
    - occz 2y ago
      Nope, it's been great for poorer people who take transit at higher rates than others, and congestion pricing funds useful transit expansions for them.
Workaccount2 2y ago
Note that a gimped version of congestion pricing was actually implemented, putting it closer to being an annoyance more than an actual deterrence. Originally it was meant to be $15, but was ultimately lowered to $9.
- paxys 2y ago
  Going from no congestion pricing to some congestion pricing is the biggest barrier, and that was overcome. Increasing it from here is going to be a lot easier, especially if residents realize the positive effects.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  It wasn't gimped, it was a PR play so the governor could claim to be saving citizens costs by 'lowering' it. Like when people buy things they otherwise wouldn't have because it was 'on sale' so they're really saving money if you think about it.
  - chimeracoder 2y ago
    > It wasn't gimped, it was a PR play so the governor could claim to be saving citizens costs by 'lowering' it. That doesn't make sense, because $15 was already the lower price that she fought for.
- chimeracoder 2y ago
  > Originally it was meant to be $15, but was ultimately lowered to $9. It was originally supposed to be $27. $15 was the lower price that Hochul fought for and issued a press release boasting that it was the correct price. Then she just unilaterally decided to cancel the entire program before bringing it back at $9.
yobid20 2y ago
Bad timing on the charts before and after. Coming back off holidays, delayed flights, and in the middle of massive snowstorms. The constant data is flawed and results irrelavant. You need to wait until the spring/summer and compare windows of time to previous years.
matt3210 2y ago
I like congestion pricing because it keeps poor people off the road so the middle can commute faster /sarcasm
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > it keeps poor people off the road so the middle can commute faster Poor people aren’t commuting into lower Manhattan by car.
- Qwertious 2y ago
  Poor people commute by bus/train, which is far higher capacity per lane and is also cheaper. Congestion pricing is a luxury tax. The only downside is tradies who need to move their heavy equipment around the city, except this might be a net-benefit for them because getting stuck in traffic costs them more money in the form of longer turnaround times.
  - kkkqkqkqkqlqlql 2y ago
    Regarding the tradies, could the cost of congestion pricing be tax-deductible or something like that?
    - TheCoelacanth 2y ago
      It likely would be, just like any other business expense.
supernova87a 2y ago
What I am interested to know but cannot find is: Are there are cameras inside the zone tracking cars to bill them if you are already in the zone, or if cameras only track entry to the zone? (i.e. cameras only on the border). If someone happens to evade the cameras, do they catch them eventually just by traveling within the zone? I believe London for example has internal zone cameras. The purpose being, first of all, to ensure that people do not somehow evade paying just by operating solely within the zone, defeating the purpose of reducing traffic. And secondly, to stop people from engaging in loophole seeking behavior. I hope that loopholes and people defrauding the system (license plate obscuration, etc) are quickly caught and penalized. You would hope that if a car enters or is detected with invalid plates, it triggers an automatic report to police nearby to follow up. Otherwise, like so many things (it seems now) we just throw our hands up at people who evade the rules and charge those who follow them. (my comment spurred by an NYT article about how people might scam the system)
- stereo 2y ago
  The cameras are only at the entrance.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  The number of people who entirely live and work and drive inside the zone is going to be vanishingly small in comparison to the people who transit the zone border so I'm not sure it's going to be that big of a deal.
  - supernova87a 2y ago
    I just wonder why they choose not to enforce this aspect of it when it can be a significant population (in a statistical sense) of the car traffic as well as revenue. Manhattan inside the highways is a big place. Maybe it's the cost of the cameras to be installed.
    - rtkwe 2y ago
      I wager they did a study to weigh the costs and came up with the inevitable answer that chasing down the tenth of a percent (a wild guess but I think it's at worst an order of magnitude off from the actual number) of cars that exist only within the congestion zone and never leave would cost more than you'd gain both in fees and second order effects. Especially the population of cars most likely to never or rarely leave are being charged on a per ride basis, cabs and rideshare vehicles like Uber etc. It's like all the efforts to drug test people on welfare, they cost vastly more than they save/recover.
throwaway48476 2y ago
There's a lot of interest in forcing people to use public transit but relatively little interest in making transit something people want to use. If people think they're going to be stabbed or assaulted they're not going to want to use it. Other countries don't have this problem and until the transit types realize this normal people are going to reject transit alltogether.
- supernova87a 2y ago
  The USA needs to work on: -- making the cost of employing a good staffing level of police more affordable (so that we can have more, everyday police doing a job as a neighborhood force and seen as a reliable presence against crime) -- more certain prosecution and penalties for quality of life crimes that we all pay for in seeing petty but significantly confidence-decreasing incidents that reduce our willingness to take public transport -- reducing the cost / increasing the frequency and usefulness of public transport services where you regard it equally as convenient as private vehicles You go to some other countries (less rich ones particularly) and buses have 2 crew, trains have multiple staff, taking fares, making sure rules are obeyed. Giving people confidence that this is something they want to ride on. Not a system where it looks like the station is half abandoned, was last cleaned about 2 years ago, and if you were mugged or even just reported a crazy ranting homeless person, they would shrug and tell you to phone it in.
  - rangestransform 2y ago
    Subways in nyc have 2 crew by union decree and I don’t think it’s helped public safety
  - pjc50 2y ago
    New York has an extraordinary level of police already. They're just bad at dealing with the actual problems. Including murdering a bystander in a totally unnecessary subway shooting.
- vvern 2y ago
  I don’t think in NYC it’s fair to argue that there’s relatively little interest in making transit something people want to use. We can debate about whether the efforts are effective, and certainly many aren’t. However there are vast sums invested in the MTA and a great many folks at the MTA who try to make it pleasant and safe. Additionally there have been added police and military presence in subway stations around the city for months (again, no comment on efficacy). All I’ll say is that there is a ton of interest from leadership on down in making the subway and buses work well for normal people and far more money then congestion pricing cost to implement or will bring in.
jgil 2y ago
It would be interesting to see the effect on average noise levels. Anecdotally, I have heard fewer honks from single unit trucks today.
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  Actually, I bet noise levels would be a really good proxy to measure the effect itself.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deadbabe 2y ago
Will companies compensate workers for having to pay congestion pricing just to get to work??
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Why? Do they pay you back for living two hours away, or driving an expensive gas guzzler that gets 5 mpg?
  - deadbabe 2y ago
    In a way, yes since a local employee will get higher salary than a remote worker. It could cost some people $40 a day just to get into and out of work. What will happen if you don’t compensate is people come to the office late and leave early to avoid the pricing, resulting in a loss of productivity.
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      > In a way, yes since a local employee will get higher salary than a remote worker. But you're asking for the local employees to have their entirely variable commute costs covered. That's very different. If I want to helicopter to work for $2k a day, should work cover it? If not, why is wanting to drive in a city with robust public transit options any different? People leaving work early is a fixable discipline issue.
seaofliberty 2y ago
[flagged]
- resters 2y ago
  What about people who work for a living making service calls who can make twice as many because they don't sit in traffic as long? What about poor people who may choose to carpool to save money but who get an extra hour of leisure time each day to spend with their kids? Meanwhile, if slightly wealthier people end up riding the subway, that will help a bit with public safety -- I lived in NYC a few years ago and never felt remotely in danger on the subway any time of day or night.
- SkipperCat 2y ago
  I’m a wall st bro and I work with a lot of other wall st bros. We all use the subway to get to our job in manhattan.
  - seaofliberty 2y ago
    Either you are lying or not good enough to drive car. What about White women? Are they going to take "subway" because there is congestion pricing? YOU are naive or in for big surprise.
- BobAliceInATree 2y ago
  You know what’s more unsafe in than the subway in NYC? Walking across a road in NYC. You sound like you don’t live in the area.
- alkonaut 2y ago
  > All congestion pricing does is dissuade people from driving That is true. And that is the point. Well, it also dissuades people from driving at specific times to even out traffic. > Subways are terrible and highly unsafe. Is this really true? Unsafe compared to what? To driving? > Do you think your average Wall St Bros and White women are going to take subway just because there is congestion pricing? I'd imagine everyone gets from a to b the quickest they can, regardless of income. No one would do 1h in a taxi if 20 minutes on a subway does it, even to Wall Street.
freen 2y ago
The harsh law of hacker news: For any topic outside of strict software development, the strength, viciousness and certitude of opinions expressed is inversely proportional to the level of knowledge about the subject. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/3/3/the-fundamental-global-law-of-road-congestion https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/3/3/the-fundamental...
- screye 2y ago
  Whiplash, every time. HN's takes on cars are shockingly bad. For a community as thoughtful as HN, their responses are (to use an insult provocatively) car brained. It's as if cities don't exist outside the US. The US is decades behind on urban infrastructure and governance. This means their policy debates in 2025 have been globally settled issues for decades with outcomes to back it up. Conjecture can't be an effective rebuttal to evidence.
  - coldpie 2y ago
    > HN's takes on cars are shockingly bad. For a community as thoughtful as HN, their responses are (to use an insult provocatively) car brained. Hm, as a big public-transit advocate coming here 5 hours after your comment, I actually thought the discussion is in pretty good shape. There's a handful of "cars only!" nuts, but they're a small minority. It seems the vibes around this topic are fairly positive, with lots of support for funding better public transit.
- throw4847285 2y ago
  It was shocking to read The Power Broker last year and learn that since 1940s at least, urban planners have been aware of induced demand. Caro even brings up congestion pricing as a proposal that was rejected not because it wouldn't solve then problem but because the entire urban planning infrastructure was built to deny that there was a problem.
  - asdff 2y ago
    And this is why we have traffic today per that theory. Demand were induced and in a lot of cases cities didn’t end up building key reliever routes. So those initiall routes were overcapacity potentially from day one in the city. It is also important to note that induced demand is not infinite. There is a point when there aren’t more drivers to actually get on the roads. We see this in some midwestern cities that had their full freeway plans built and didn’t experience significant growth after those plans were made. Those are “20 miles in 20 minutes” places any time of day for the most part.
shipscode 2y ago
Congestion pricing should really be referred to as a "lower manhattan driving tax" or similar. It's a misnomer to claim it to be "solving" congestion outside of rush hours like 7-10 and 3-7.
- BobAliceInATree 2y ago
  It’s not a tax.
  - asdff 2y ago
    It is if your drive is obligatory
neilv 2y ago
This seems to be selling use of the public roads to rich people (who can more easily afford the tolls). Isn't this a step backwards for social justice?
- alexchamberlain 2y ago
  An alternative take is that people who can only afford mass transit options (without even adding congestion pricing) are now on a level playing field with most commuters, and should experience a better commute less affected by traffic. (This assumes that the mass transit options are invested in, rather than overrun by people switching.)
- WillDaSilva 2y ago
  Not at all, since those who aren't rich primarily use public transit to get around this area, which benefits massively from reduced car traffic.
- nayuki 2y ago
  Do you know what it means to be rich? Serious question. It's not "having a lot of money". It's actually "having a lot of options". By definition, rich people will have more ways to get around than poor people. The rich can hire a limo, hop in a helicopter, and even take a trip to space. Is it a social injustice that not everyone can afford a limo, helicopter, or spaceship? I do not think it's bad to take steps to make driving an activity for richer people, to make it a luxury that it initially was when cars were invented. On the flip side of things, look at what the dream of mass-market affordable cars, free highways, and free parking have done to society: Swathes of land wasted for parking, low density cities that kill walking/cycling/transit, millions of people dying in car crashes, endless congestion and lane-widening.
  - neilv 2y ago
    > Do you know what it means to be rich? Serious question. A serious question that you immediately proceed to answer, with rhetoric that it's preferable for there to be only the relative few rich elite, who implicitly should enjoy all the luxuries possible in the world, but there should not be these luxuries for the lesser people, since our experiments in permitting the peasants to enjoy small amounts of society's wealth has been a disaster, encroaching upon the enjoyment of the rich, and making the poors uppity?
habosa 2y ago
The branding of congestion pricing has been so disastrous. It could have been separated into two very normal things: tolls and parking fees. Every city has those. NYC could have played with those knobs until they got mostly the same effect but there would have never been any nonsense about it being illegal or unconstitutional or whatever car advocates are saying. Even if this works, it will always be hated and fought by a large minority.
- hombre_fatal 2y ago
  Meh, car proponents fight against any concession. You’re proposal is no different. Consider how in these comments people are even mad about being unable to park their SUV in a crosswalk (new daylighting policy in SF). Just rip the bandage off already.
- freejazz 2y ago
  Yes, unlike congestion pricing, New Yorkers love increased tolls and paying even more for parking than they did last year.
kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
They don't indicate what the "average" data before Jan. 5 represents. January and February after week 1 have lighter traffic than the rest of the year. If the pre-congestion data extends beyond the winter season, including week 52 and week 1, it can't be meaningfully compared until more data is collected.
kittikitti 2y ago
Good, I was hit by a car in NYC while on a bike and it caused a fracture. If this reduces congestion, then I support it because I could have easily died. However, this was accompanied by hikes in public transit pricing. I don't think transit officials are acting in good faith when it comes to their moral arguments and just want to justify raising taxes for the poor.
- mr_00ff00 2y ago
  The people paying the congestion fees are the rich that live in the suburbs and drive into the city.
  - stemlord 2y ago
    It is expected that fees will also be passed down to non-wealthy locals by services whose vehicles need to utilize these roads as well-- they will raise their prices
    - mr_00ff00 2y ago
      You are wealthy if you are using private car services like that. Most normal New Yorkers use the subway
      - stemlord 2y ago
        You don't understand: plumbers, electricians, facade repair, any business that requires wholesale goods shipped to them in a truck are all things that will ultimately pass the cost to normal people. Increased cost of living will help ensure every last "normal New Yorker" is squeezed out of the area
- chimeracoder 2y ago
  > However, this was accompanied by hikes in public transit pricing. It was not. Public transit pricing is completely independent and did not change with the implementation of congestion pricing. > I don't think transit officials are acting in good faith when it comes to their moral arguments and just want to justify raising taxes for the poor. The only person who has acted in bad faith is Kathy Hochul, who bent over backwards to water down the policy by having poorer people subsidize wealthy car commuters.
dralley 2y ago
Fantastic. That's step one, now fix the public transit, and make it safer and cleaner, so that people actually enjoy using it consistently rather than just needing to do so. Do that and NYC will be a much, much nicer city to live in.
- fuzzylightbulb 2y ago
  That is literally what the money is for
  - CSMastermind 2y ago
    When I lived in NYC I paid huge amounts of money in taxes and as far as I can tell got very little for my money. Until they can start using their enormous existing budget wisely I don't see any reason they should be given more money.
    - CPLX 2y ago
      > as far as I can tell got very little for my money You literally lived in the greatest city in the history of world civilization. Sorry it didn't work out for you.
      - steveBK123 2y ago
        Tokyo is pretty nice
      - Aspos 2y ago
        You seriously think NYC is the greatest city in the history of world civilization? Or is it sarcasm? I am asking this as NYC resident.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        tokioyoyo 2y ago
Beefin 2y ago
congestion pricing doesn't work. its simply a shrug for the wealthy, and reduces money for lower income.
throwaway984393 2y ago
[dead]
oldnetguy 2y ago
This doesn't show the number of cars and traffic within the area. The real test will be the amount of traffic within the zone
Lanolderen 2y ago
I wish people would focus more on scooters and motorcycles than moving people in busses. Coming from a place with decent and cheap public transport, no one likes it. It'll never be as fast, you'll always be closed in a bacteria greenhouse with strangers, there will always be crazies, it'll never have the exact path you need, you don't have as much control over it.. For the past year I've been commuting on a motorcycle with no car and even with snow it's surprisingly fine. Maintenance is cheap since it's much more DIY friendly, I get back from work up to 65-70% faster than cars, usually 35-40% (rush hour), I average 5,8-6,1 l/100 without trying to save fuel.. It's very comfy if you're not in a location where winters are particularly harsh. But at that point freezing your ass off at a bus station waiting to get in the bacteria greenhouse isn't great either.
- alamortsubite 2y ago
  You're way overplaying the dangers of "crazies" and "the bacteria greenhouse" with respect to travel by motorcycle or scooter (or even automobile). I agree with your point that we should encourage these modes of transportation over cars, but I'd add it will be electric bikes that finally turn the tide on traffic congestion in cities (and all the other great benefits that come with doing that). Just don't tell the electric bike people that they're essentially riding motorcycles.
  - Lanolderen 2y ago
    I mean, I'm definitely biased but I've been sick once since ~2015 and that was Covid I caught at a large anniversary celebration. Before that I was <18 and would get sick every winter in my opinion due to people caughing all around me on the bus for 45 minutes per direction. With crazies it's not that bad. I remember the bus getting pulled over once by a car with people with pipes/bats who beat a grandpa for getting in an argument with one of the guys prior. That was the only actually violent occurance over thousands of rides, however I still have yet to feel as threatened with a personal vehicle. With a car I could have rammed the fuck out of them or ran them over, with a bike I could have been gone in a second, when the bus driver stops and opens the front door you're just stuck. Again, realistically it's mostly crazy homeless people who pose no threat but I prefer to have some control at least. My issue with electric bicycles is: If limited they don't fit with pedestrians or cars so you need to complicate infrastructure. Good for going to the post office but not as a daily since they're just not fast enough. Lovely for old people and to an extent kids. If not limited they are less tested motorcycles with usually shitty tires and brakes, no ABS, TC, etc with pedals to fulful some potentially existing legal loophole since there's no way you're doing anything close to the motor output manually yet since you feel inclined to pedal gear becomes problematic. I still have yet to try an electric motorcycle but I'd guess the little electric scooters would be great for commuting. I'm guessing an electric scooter that can do 100-140kmh would be the utility sweet spot. You'd be able to go everywhere and charge for pennies with minimal maintenance. You'd also get the scooter benefits of improved road muck/weather protection and actual underseat storage.
steveBK123 2y ago
I think the biggest thing CP is going to do in NYC is end toll shopping. There were previously some pretty obvious arbs available to people trying to get off LI. The biggest policy failure of CP though to me is that they left taxi/uber relatively unscathed. Often the majority of traffic is taxi/uber, so make the surcharge on them a fraction of what individual drivers pay is kind of nonsensical. Are we trying to minimize traffic (so tax call cars) or parking (so tax taxi/uber less since they don't have to park in Manhattan?). It smells of lobbying mostly.
- gregshap 2y ago
  The uber/taxi fee is charged per ride, whereas private passenger cars pay once per day. Seems like a reasonable tradeoff.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwawaymaths 2y ago
    if the passenger car pays once a day, it's only generating one unit of congestion.
    - steveBK123 2y ago
      And further, if I am already paying $50 fare to take an Uber, a $1.50 toll is not deterring me or reducing my usage at all. It is less than the rounding error on the tip I give the driver. I probably won't even notice it amongst the 5 line items of fees, taxes, surcharges, etc on the digital receipt.
      - Spooky23 2y ago
        This is where the dogma gets in the way of reality. Uber and cabs are the glue that fills the gaps that public transit has left unfilled for decades. The policy goal is to reduce congestion by discouraging personal vehicles in the zone and generate revenue for transportation as a whole, not to turn the city into a pedestrian park. The state took an approach that does that without nuking the city. Based on the fact that nobody seems to be giddy about this, I’d say they did a decent job at that. If the crazy transit nuts are happy and the angry Jersey people are happy, something went wrong.
n144q 2y ago
I just love how everyone suddenly becomes transportation experts in this thread and pour out their opinions that are purely based on their anecdotes and beliefs but nothing else.
- echoangle 2y ago
  That's what happens with every single internet discussion to be fair.
- kitd 2y ago
  I just love how everyone suddenly becomes <insert_controversial_topic> experts <everywhere_on_social_media> and pour out their opinions that are purely based on their anecdotes and beliefs but nothing else. FIFY. It's all the rage, you know ... Tbh, most so-called "rational thinkers" are as emotional as "mouth breathers" if prodded sufficiently.
- CPLX 2y ago
  Is there some other way to participate in online discussion forums besides sharing ones own anecdotes and beliefs?
jdlyga 2y ago
Taking the bus from Weehawken into midtown is super smooth now. It's a super cold Tuesday, but normally it's a honking mess.
- awkward 2y ago
  The subway was insane. Could be the snow, though.
  - wnolens 2y ago
    Yea, not sure if it was a post-holiday thing or weather thing, but shit the trains have been rammed.
gradschool 2y ago
Congestion charging started in London in 2003. I'm skeptical about the justification that it's intended to disincentivize unnecessary driving because people who drive frequently get a bulk discount rather than a surcharge as one might expect if that were the actual intention. A bulk discount is more indicative of a policy intended to maximize revenue. I'm also skeptical about the justification that it's intended to reduce pollution because the discount for electric cars is ending this year. I have a moral issue with it as well because the roads are financed by everyone's taxes. Around the time the charge was starting it was easy to find supporters for it on tv chat shows but I never met one in real life. I assume there are some but that they support it in a naive attempt to keep anyone poorer than them off the road. Otherwise, the supporter's problem of too much congestion would be easily solved by not driving. The charge has tripled since its introduction so maybe there's an element of poetic justice in it for some of them.
- gruez 2y ago
  >I have a moral issue with it as well because the roads are financed by everyone's taxes Mind elaborating on how this is a "moral issue"? Public transit is funded by "everyone's taxes" as well, but you still have to pay a fare to use it. Do you get similarly aggrieved? >Around the time the charge was starting it was easy to find supporters for it on tv chat shows but I never met one in real life. It's trivial to find polls that show a non-negligible level of support for the charge. eg. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/gla/page/0,9067,897312,00.html https://www.theguardian.com/politics/gla/page/0,9067,897312,... or https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/how-london-and-stockholm-made-congestion-pricing-politics-work https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/how-london-and-stockho.... Just because your small circle of friends don't support it, doesn't mean they don't exist.
  - gradschool 2y ago
    Your points are well taken. I wasn't aware of the Guardian poll and I stand corrected about my implication that the charge lacks public support. With regard to the moral issue, I have less of a problem with tickets that are paying for something like running a train, or for that matter a bridge toll paying off the bonds that enabled the bridge to be built. I have more of a problem with someone demanding money for nothing. I haven't heard it claimed even by its supporters that road maintenance depends on the congestion charge. To my knowledge the main justification has always been that the charge funds the payer's behavior modification. Is it for the payer's own good? Is it for the greater good? You may well differ, but something about that doesn't sit right with me however noble, especially when it pertains to law abiding citizens acting within their rights.
settrans 2y ago
Although marginally better traffic might be a side effect of congestion pricing, its primary effect is a wealth transfer from lower- and middle-class residents of Manhattan, who must buy goods locally at higher prices, to MTA contractors and their labor unions, who already make construction on the New York subway far and away the most expensive in the world. Where is the congestion pricing tracker that measures the higher cost of groceries to working-class lower Manhattan residents?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- tmvphil 2y ago
  Why would groceries be more expensive? Do you think a $25 fee makes any difference to a delivery truck loaded with $10k of products?
  - settrans 2y ago
    Not only are delivery vehicles levied an additional toll of up to $32.40 under congestion pricing, but every employee, service provider and vendor who travels by car is also assessed the fee.
    - dml2135 2y ago
      I don't even understand the scenario you're talking about now -- are you referring to a delivery driver that would be driving their personal vehicle to work in the congestion zone? And then getting on a delivery truck, which would then need to exit the congestion zone and re-enter in order to itself be charged a fee? How many people do you think the scenario above applies to, in the real world?
tonymet 2y ago
in a short amount of time , commute times will recover to baselines, or worse, the city will waste the additional revenue , the residents will be poorer , and leaders will pat themselves on be back. Expresslanes made commute times worse . Little of the revenue went to the roads . Few of the roads were fixed .
elahd 2y ago
This is great, but I'd be more interested in seeing how congestion pricing impacts travel times for buses, specifically, (within and around the congestion zone, including express routes from the outer boroughs), as well as overall transit ridership. @gotmedium, would you consider integrating: 1. MTA's Bus Time feed: https://bustime.mta.info/wiki/Developers/Index https://bustime.mta.info/wiki/Developers/Index and 2. MTA bus/MNRR/LIRR/Access-A-Ride ridership feed: https://data.ny.gov/Transportation/MTA-Daily-Ridership-Data-Beginning-2020/vxuj-8kew/about_data https://data.ny.gov/Transportation/MTA-Daily-Ridership-Data-... 3. Equivalent feeds for city-connected NJ transit services.
blehn 2y ago
1. The data is obviously flawed, but if there's anything to speculate from it, it's that the actual congestion in lower Manhattan isn't affected that much. 2. So the success of this policy really depends on how much additional revenue it's bringing in for the city and the MTA. The $9 increase needs to significantly offset the loss in toll revenue from the decrease in drivers. 3. There are so many other simple policies that would benefit quality of life in NYC: - Daylighting — Don't allow cars and trucks to park at the corners of intersections. Huge safety benefits. - Metered parking everywhere. Why is NYC giving away the most valuable real estate in the world for free? Would be a huge revenue stream while discouraging car ownership in Manhattan. - Close more streets to car traffic. This is already true on 14th street and it's fantastic. Close Houston, 34th, 42nd, 59th, 125th. This would make buses much more efficient and further discourage passenger car usage
- ihuman 2y ago
  > So the success of this policy really depends on how much additional revenue it's bringing in for the city and the MTA. I thought the point of the policy is to get people to use the train instead of cars, freeing up the roads for people that actually need it?
  - bluGill 2y ago
    There are several points. Some want it to get people to not drive, but work from home or drive elsewhere instead is fine with them. Some want it to get more people on transit. Some want it to fund transit expansion. You can belong to more than one of the above groups. Nobody belongs to them all.
    - barnabee 2y ago
      > Nobody belongs to them all. Why not? IMO, ideally: - Some people work from home or drive elsewhere - Others take transit instead of driving - The remainder pay a fee that they didn't previously, which can fund more transit
      - 2y ago
hnpolicestate 2y ago
[flagged]
- bensonperry 2y ago
  License plate concealers are illegal in NYS. Being able to read license plates is critical for identifying vehicles involved in crimes. I hope you are eventually caught and punished!
  - hnpolicestate 2y ago
    No see I believe the people who created speed/red light cameras and congestion pricing are the criminals. I punish them by concealing my plate. Illegitimate system.
    - pyth0 2y ago
      You cannot opt out of laws you don't like, at least not legally. This just sounds like selfishness.
user3939382 2y ago
If NYC subways weren’t freezing/boiling, filthy, moldy, infested with rats and mice, and dangerous, maybe you wouldn’t have to brow beat people into using them.
pimlottc 2y ago
The name is rather confusing. I thought this "Pricing Tracker" was going to be tracking the pricing of the congestion toll (implying that it changes dynamically throughout the day), but what it's actually tracking is commute time. Something like "Congestion Pricing Impact Tracker" would be clearer.
magic_smoke_ee 2y ago
1. The graph doesn't work on desktop. It keeps endlessly animating in the data values flyover at a given point. 2. Congestion pricing, more generally, is ivory tower social engineering (economic discrimination like toll lanes) and a disproportionate tax on the working poor. It would be fairer if it were progressively taxed based on income.
- scrose 2y ago
  Where is this mythical “working poor” that drives into midtown Manhattan everyday for work? Do you have any stats whatsoever on the number of people who would be impacted? Maybe even a salary range you consider to be “working poor”?
  - magic_smoke_ee 2y ago
    Whataboutism FUD. Nice try.
tamaharbor 2y ago
I think it would be interesting to include the George Washington and Verrazano Bridges as they would be alternative routes.
skeeks 2y ago
Mouse-over over the chart is broken (scrollbar shown and hidden again and again). I believe you dont need to set x-overflow-auto on the div where the scrollbars appear.
Aaronstotle 2y ago
I did a bike ride on Saturday and passed the Port Authority terminal on my way home and it was very packed. When I rode by yesterday afternoon I noticed it was significantly less crowded. I think its attributed to the fact that it was a weekday and the weather was worse, however I would like to think the pricing had some effect. Time will tell!

361 points by gotmedium 2y ago

7e 2y ago

Great. Step two: NYC should force Lyft and Uber to buy taxi medallions for each car. There are way too many of idle cars trolling around, taking up space and polluting.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Related: NYC Congestion Pricing Set to Take Effect After Years of Delays https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42598936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42598936

freditup 2y ago

Note that it was snowy in NYC today, so people were likely dissuaded to drive by other factors than congestion pricing as well. It'll be interesting to see what impact there is as we get further along in the year. The dashboard is based off of Google Maps travel time data which I'm unsure of the exact accuracy. I imagine the city might also have other more direct metrics that can be used, such as the count of vehicles passing through the tunnels into the congestion zone.

ortusdux 2y ago
https://www.wired.com/story/99-phones-fake-google-maps-traffic-jam/ https://www.wired.com/story/99-phones-fake-google-maps-traff...
- rtkwe 2y ago
  It's a neat little project but people aren't doing that on the regular so the data should be pretty good.
  - ortusdux 2y ago
    I do wonder how google handles edge cases, passengers, busses, etc. I've been in rideshares where the driver is using 4 phones - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/business/apps-uber-lyft-drivers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/business/apps-uber-lyft-d...
    - rtkwe 2y ago
      I think, at least the way I would approach the problem, would be to look at the speed or flow rate of the phones on a particular road as the primary signal. I believe Google has ways of detecting if the device is in a car/vehicle vs being carried for example so they could filter out "walking" phones. Then looking at the flow of devices alleviates the need to calculate the carrying capacity of a particular road. The speed/flow tells you want you're trying to measure more directly than trying to count phones and decide if that means a road is congested or not, to do that you'd need to develop a heuristic to estimate the capacity of roads which seems like you're unnecessarily ignoring the direct signal in favor of trying to calculate it from a noisier source.
theamk 2y ago
Note if you check "unaffected" routes (16 and 18), you'll see they had much smaller changes. Also, while simple metrics are cool, what commuters really care is how long it took to get from point A to point B, which is what this shows...
- kylebenzle 2y ago
  You are correct, steveBK is incorrect.
MisterTea 2y ago
Snowy? That was a light dusting that I cleaned up with a broom.
- johnkpaul 2y ago
  I think it was worse in suburban areas slightly outside of the city, at least on the NJ side. In western Bergen county, I had a bit over 1 inch and had to break out the shovel for the sidewalk.
  - MisterTea 2y ago
    Still though, an inch or two around here is not a big deal. I only really start complaining when I have to break out the snow blower.
- dleink 2y ago
  I have a flexible commute that sometimes involves driving a car into the zone and if I see snow in the forecast I'll be less likely to be in the city with a car that day. I love congestion pricing, I will gladly pay $9 if it lowers traffic during peak hours. I also try to plan trips in the offpeak hours anyway. If you leave at 11pm you can get from shea stadium to Philly in an hour forty-five.
steveBK123 2y ago
Right this dashboard won't be meaningful until 3/6/12 months out when any seasonality / weather related effects all average out.

dgfitz 2y ago

Someone gets shot outside a hotel, but damn it if we won’t figure out how to charge people more money.

pornjizzer 2y ago
[dead]
- dgfitz 2y ago
  Sure as shit it fucking was.
- inyourtenement 2y ago
  pornjizzer is offended by “damn it”?
  - blast 2y ago
    This is the funniest comment of its type that I've ever seen.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bsimpson 2y ago
There probably isn't a public street in America that could prevent a random assassination. If the guy got shot visiting relatives in Park City, would you suggest that any contemporary public policy in Utah was bad?
- dgfitz 2y ago
  I’d suggest not taxing the people of a city if they can’t be kept safe first.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    New Yorkers, and Manhattanites in particular, live longer than most of the world. This is due to mass transit, public healthcare and being phenomenally rich. Would also note that the shooter you’re referring to crossed into Manhattan with a gun purchased in another jurisdiction. This is a problem of other areas’ lawlessness crossing into New York as much as it’s a fantasy about cops being expected to thwart an active shooter on the spot.

timewizard 2y ago

Well, if you make the road a luxury, less people will be /able/ to use it. It's nice to see someone is measuring just how much luxury is being created here although I don't think these metrics are particularly useful outside of that goal.

mlinhares 2y ago
Driving and parking in NYC is already a luxury, there’s no poor person driving and parking there.
- brettgriffin 2y ago
  There are like 400 housing developments in NYC for lower income folks. Saying that lower income folks don't drive in NYC is bananas.
  - woodruffw 2y ago
    The GP is incorrect, but using the absolute number of housing developments in NYC is also misleading (since NYC has lots of middle-income housing developments too). On average, personal drivers on NYC roads skew towards wealthier and suburban, whereas city dwellers of all demographics broadly ride the subway and other mass transit. Congestion pricing will certainly represent a cost for poorer New Yorkers, but it will disproportionately be shouldered by wealthier demographics that are often on the road by choice (e.g. choosing to commute by car from Long Island because the city has inadvertently subsidized doing so with free parking.)
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > There are like 400 housing developments in NYC for lower income folks. Saying that lower income folks don't drive in NYC is bananas. They’re not paying this.
    - brettgriffin 2y ago
      On the contrary, they are! ~30% of people entering Manhattan a day are lower income!

jmclnx 2y ago

Curious how that works ? Does one need an EXPass or is a bill sent out ? I am also wondering if other Cities will adopt this. Eventually I can see this or something like it be rolled out nationwide as EVs become more popular.

surbas 2y ago
Both Work, however cheaper if you have an EZ Pass.
healsdata 2y ago
Yup, it's EZPass. Either with a transponder or plate-by-mail

matthest 2y ago

Whether it's the government or corporations, big organizations are the problem. We need a small business revolution in this country. Side note: An economy made up of small businesses was Adam Smith's original vision (the godfather of capitalism). He also hated the idea of a corporation. What we have today really is very far from Adam Smith capitalism.

boplicity 2y ago
Maybe an interesting question: How can you have a big city without a large organization to logistically make it work? Especially if it has coherent and well-run transit, and similar services, such as garbage/sewer/power/water.
- timewizard 2y ago
  > How can you have a big city without a large organization to logistically make it work? Is there a large cohesive logistical operation even present? It seems to me the city is divided into boroughs, precincts and "special offices" all with their own individual mandates and approaches due to the complications inherent in large organizations. > Especially if it has coherent and well-run transit Well run? Compared to what? > such as garbage/sewer/power/water. The municipality does offer these services but you can arrange to have them handled privately if you want. They still have to follow the law but they're allowed to operate in the cities "territory." If the city was such a logistical juggernaut then why would these options even be necessary or utilized? If the city stopped providing these services and turned it over entirely to private business would the city stop existing?
robrenaud 2y ago
Are the market dynamics such that effective small companies grow, and ineffective small companies shrink? Is this bad?
theamk 2y ago
There are plenty of small towns with small governments in the US, and most of them are much more affordable then NYC. I am going to assume that the most people who live in NYC are there exactly because they want big city (with correspondingly big government).

maxwellg 2y ago

I'm incredibly hopeful that NYC congestion pricing pays off in a big way - and that we start to see it in other cities across America. I really, really want congestion pricing in downtown SF. During rush hour, cars block the box and slow down busses, with cascading effects.

gkoberger 2y ago
While I agree with disliking the things you mentioned, could it be argued that adding barriers to entry for getting into the city will just increase WFH and hurt SF more? I can see a lot of people choosing to just stay home rather than take a bus – not everyone is close to MUNI or BART.
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  Fewer single-person-vehicles = more desirable ontime Bus/Tram throughput = more people who are close to MUNIBART taking MUNIBART. Then use tolls to improve and expand the mass transit services instead of only ever catering to the single-person-car-commuters. (ofc it takes more than ontime performance to sell people on mass transit, needs to be a safe environment at all hours of the day -- even if I can take BART into the city in the afternoon, if I don't feel safe taking it back at 10PM then I'm just going to drive both ways, to say nothing of the choice to stop running trains at midnight)
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Safety and schedule. I've never had a safety issue with taking commuter rail into Boston but taking it home from an evening event is basically a non-starter given how seldom it runs and how much longer it will take relative to driving even if I catch my train.
    - adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
      I'm very hopeful that Boston commuter rail gets electrified with the associated speed and frequency improvements soonish. the inner half of the commuter rail network is absolutely dense enough to be worth running service every 15 minutes on peak and every 30 off peak

comprambler 2y ago

Congestion pricing can work to dissuade individuals from living in the burbs, only if there is controls on real estate to deal with the influx of people moving inward. The other benefit is an increase of mass transit usage, which is a plus? I personally took a cab from Newark to Laguardia at MIDNIGHT and it took 40 min to cross into Manhattan to get to the Queens-Midtown tunnel. Just a new level of traffic. Was fun going in the MIB tunnel.

woodruffw 2y ago
Living in the suburbs is perfectly fine; I think a perfectly virtuous outcome here would be that people keep living in the suburbs if they wish, but have adequately funded suburban rail and bus transit into the city. An important piece of context is that NYC has some of the US's best suburban transit, including three different suburban rail systems (NJT, MNRR, LIRR) and one non-subway interurban rapid transit system (PATH).
- nfRfqX5n 2y ago
  Problem is, none of the money from congestion pricing is shared with NJ transit/infra
  - woodruffw 2y ago
    That's because they turned it down[1]. New Jersey has decided that their strategy is going to be to dig their heels in and hope for a supportive administration, rather than plan for the next century of growth in the economic region that powers their state. [1]: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2024/12/18/nj-refusing-generous-congestion-pricing-lawsuit-ettlement-hochul-says https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2024/12/18/nj-refusing-generous-...
    - gotoeleven 2y ago
      Sweet lord have you ever tasted a peach grown in new jersey? What the hell is going on in that state.

jmyeet 2y ago

I happened to be living in London when congestion pricing was brought in and the difference on day 1 in the West End was like night and day. I believe it's never gone back to the pre-congestion pricing levels. I fully expect similar in Manhattan. The social media response has been particularly interesting. Predictably, there are a lot of non-NYCers who simply object to the slightest inconvenience to driving in any form. These can be ignored. What's more interesting are how many native (or at least resident) New Yorkers who are against this. They tend to dress up the reasons for this (as people do) because it basically comes down to "I like to drive from Queens/Brooklyn into Manhattan". There's almost no reason for anyone to have to drive into Manhattan. It's almost all pure convenience. The funniest argument against this is "safety", the idea that the Subway is particularly unsafe. You know what's unsafe? Driving. Another complaint: drivers are paying for the roads. This is untrue anywhere in the US. Drivers only partially subsidize roads everywhere. And if we're going to talk about subsidies, how about free street parking... in Manhattan. Each parking space is like $500k-$1M on real estate. In a just world, a street parking pass would cost $500/month. The second interesting aspect is how long it takes to bring in something like this. In the modern form, it's been on the cards for what? A decade? Longer? Court challenges? A complicit governor blocking implementation? That resistance only ever goes in one direction. My only complaint is that the MTA should be free. Replace the $20 billion (or whatever it is) in fares with $20 billion in taxes on those earning $100k+ and on airport taxes. Save the cost of ticketing and enforcement. Stop spending $100M on deploying the National Guard (to recover $100k in fares). Public transit fares (that are going up to $3 this year) are a regressive tax on the people that the city cannot run without.

tripper_27 2y ago
Several EU cities have experimented with making public transport free, and people seem to really enjoy it. Also, as you so eloquently put it, it isn't clear that the cost for issuing and checking tickets is covered by the income from the tickets, and there are reasons why MTA tickets cannot be priced at the actual cost to cover the ticket compliance infrastructure -- with a nice analogy to the cost of parking vs value of parking real estate. What justifies the subsidy for on-street parking?

paxys 2y ago

While I'm sure congestion pricing will have a positive impact on traffic, I'd wait a little while longer to draw any conclusions, considering (1) the data is from a single day (2) lots of people aren't back from holiday travel and (3) there's a winter storm across the country and a decent amount of snow fell in Jersey/New York today, discouraging driving.

occz 2y ago
You can already extrapolate from the results from other cities who have implemented the policy, where it has been wildly successful at reducing congestion.
- freejazz 2y ago
  I thought London's traffic returned to the same levels as prior to their congestion pricing?
  - evgen 2y ago
    It has not. Traffic levels are down 15-20% while number of visitors to the inside of the congestion zone has increased. Traffic speed inside the zone has also increased slightly. Overall, London's example shows that congestion pricing works as advertised.
  - eru 2y ago
    Singapore is probably the better model to look at? We had congestion pricing before London.
- coding123 2y ago
  ... for rich people.
  - occz 2y ago
    Nope, it's been great for poorer people who take transit at higher rates than others, and congestion pricing funds useful transit expansions for them.

Workaccount2 2y ago

Note that a gimped version of congestion pricing was actually implemented, putting it closer to being an annoyance more than an actual deterrence. Originally it was meant to be $15, but was ultimately lowered to $9.

paxys 2y ago
Going from no congestion pricing to some congestion pricing is the biggest barrier, and that was overcome. Increasing it from here is going to be a lot easier, especially if residents realize the positive effects.
throwaway48476 2y ago
It wasn't gimped, it was a PR play so the governor could claim to be saving citizens costs by 'lowering' it. Like when people buy things they otherwise wouldn't have because it was 'on sale' so they're really saving money if you think about it.
- chimeracoder 2y ago
  > It wasn't gimped, it was a PR play so the governor could claim to be saving citizens costs by 'lowering' it. That doesn't make sense, because $15 was already the lower price that she fought for.
chimeracoder 2y ago
> Originally it was meant to be $15, but was ultimately lowered to $9. It was originally supposed to be $27. $15 was the lower price that Hochul fought for and issued a press release boasting that it was the correct price. Then she just unilaterally decided to cancel the entire program before bringing it back at $9.

yobid20 2y ago

Bad timing on the charts before and after. Coming back off holidays, delayed flights, and in the middle of massive snowstorms. The constant data is flawed and results irrelavant. You need to wait until the spring/summer and compare windows of time to previous years.

matt3210 2y ago

I like congestion pricing because it keeps poor people off the road so the middle can commute faster /sarcasm

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> it keeps poor people off the road so the middle can commute faster Poor people aren’t commuting into lower Manhattan by car.
Qwertious 2y ago
Poor people commute by bus/train, which is far higher capacity per lane and is also cheaper. Congestion pricing is a luxury tax. The only downside is tradies who need to move their heavy equipment around the city, except this might be a net-benefit for them because getting stuck in traffic costs them more money in the form of longer turnaround times.
- kkkqkqkqkqlqlql 2y ago
  Regarding the tradies, could the cost of congestion pricing be tax-deductible or something like that?
  - TheCoelacanth 2y ago
    It likely would be, just like any other business expense.

supernova87a 2y ago

What I am interested to know but cannot find is: Are there are cameras inside the zone tracking cars to bill them if you are already in the zone, or if cameras only track entry to the zone? (i.e. cameras only on the border). If someone happens to evade the cameras, do they catch them eventually just by traveling within the zone? I believe London for example has internal zone cameras. The purpose being, first of all, to ensure that people do not somehow evade paying just by operating solely within the zone, defeating the purpose of reducing traffic. And secondly, to stop people from engaging in loophole seeking behavior. I hope that loopholes and people defrauding the system (license plate obscuration, etc) are quickly caught and penalized. You would hope that if a car enters or is detected with invalid plates, it triggers an automatic report to police nearby to follow up. Otherwise, like so many things (it seems now) we just throw our hands up at people who evade the rules and charge those who follow them. (my comment spurred by an NYT article about how people might scam the system)

stereo 2y ago
The cameras are only at the entrance.
rtkwe 2y ago
The number of people who entirely live and work and drive inside the zone is going to be vanishingly small in comparison to the people who transit the zone border so I'm not sure it's going to be that big of a deal.
- supernova87a 2y ago
  I just wonder why they choose not to enforce this aspect of it when it can be a significant population (in a statistical sense) of the car traffic as well as revenue. Manhattan inside the highways is a big place. Maybe it's the cost of the cameras to be installed.
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    I wager they did a study to weigh the costs and came up with the inevitable answer that chasing down the tenth of a percent (a wild guess but I think it's at worst an order of magnitude off from the actual number) of cars that exist only within the congestion zone and never leave would cost more than you'd gain both in fees and second order effects. Especially the population of cars most likely to never or rarely leave are being charged on a per ride basis, cabs and rideshare vehicles like Uber etc. It's like all the efforts to drug test people on welfare, they cost vastly more than they save/recover.

throwaway48476 2y ago

There's a lot of interest in forcing people to use public transit but relatively little interest in making transit something people want to use. If people think they're going to be stabbed or assaulted they're not going to want to use it. Other countries don't have this problem and until the transit types realize this normal people are going to reject transit alltogether.

supernova87a 2y ago
The USA needs to work on: -- making the cost of employing a good staffing level of police more affordable (so that we can have more, everyday police doing a job as a neighborhood force and seen as a reliable presence against crime) -- more certain prosecution and penalties for quality of life crimes that we all pay for in seeing petty but significantly confidence-decreasing incidents that reduce our willingness to take public transport -- reducing the cost / increasing the frequency and usefulness of public transport services where you regard it equally as convenient as private vehicles You go to some other countries (less rich ones particularly) and buses have 2 crew, trains have multiple staff, taking fares, making sure rules are obeyed. Giving people confidence that this is something they want to ride on. Not a system where it looks like the station is half abandoned, was last cleaned about 2 years ago, and if you were mugged or even just reported a crazy ranting homeless person, they would shrug and tell you to phone it in.
- rangestransform 2y ago
  Subways in nyc have 2 crew by union decree and I don’t think it’s helped public safety
- pjc50 2y ago
  New York has an extraordinary level of police already. They're just bad at dealing with the actual problems. Including murdering a bystander in a totally unnecessary subway shooting.
vvern 2y ago
I don’t think in NYC it’s fair to argue that there’s relatively little interest in making transit something people want to use. We can debate about whether the efforts are effective, and certainly many aren’t. However there are vast sums invested in the MTA and a great many folks at the MTA who try to make it pleasant and safe. Additionally there have been added police and military presence in subway stations around the city for months (again, no comment on efficacy). All I’ll say is that there is a ton of interest from leadership on down in making the subway and buses work well for normal people and far more money then congestion pricing cost to implement or will bring in.

jgil 2y ago

It would be interesting to see the effect on average noise levels. Anecdotally, I have heard fewer honks from single unit trucks today.

bongodongobob 2y ago
Actually, I bet noise levels would be a really good proxy to measure the effect itself.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deadbabe 2y ago

Will companies compensate workers for having to pay congestion pricing just to get to work??

ceejayoz 2y ago
Why? Do they pay you back for living two hours away, or driving an expensive gas guzzler that gets 5 mpg?
- deadbabe 2y ago
  In a way, yes since a local employee will get higher salary than a remote worker. It could cost some people $40 a day just to get into and out of work. What will happen if you don’t compensate is people come to the office late and leave early to avoid the pricing, resulting in a loss of productivity.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    > In a way, yes since a local employee will get higher salary than a remote worker. But you're asking for the local employees to have their entirely variable commute costs covered. That's very different. If I want to helicopter to work for $2k a day, should work cover it? If not, why is wanting to drive in a city with robust public transit options any different? People leaving work early is a fixable discipline issue.

seaofliberty 2y ago

[flagged]

resters 2y ago
What about people who work for a living making service calls who can make twice as many because they don't sit in traffic as long? What about poor people who may choose to carpool to save money but who get an extra hour of leisure time each day to spend with their kids? Meanwhile, if slightly wealthier people end up riding the subway, that will help a bit with public safety -- I lived in NYC a few years ago and never felt remotely in danger on the subway any time of day or night.
SkipperCat 2y ago
I’m a wall st bro and I work with a lot of other wall st bros. We all use the subway to get to our job in manhattan.
- seaofliberty 2y ago
  Either you are lying or not good enough to drive car. What about White women? Are they going to take "subway" because there is congestion pricing? YOU are naive or in for big surprise.
BobAliceInATree 2y ago
You know what’s more unsafe in than the subway in NYC? Walking across a road in NYC. You sound like you don’t live in the area.
alkonaut 2y ago
> All congestion pricing does is dissuade people from driving That is true. And that is the point. Well, it also dissuades people from driving at specific times to even out traffic. > Subways are terrible and highly unsafe. Is this really true? Unsafe compared to what? To driving? > Do you think your average Wall St Bros and White women are going to take subway just because there is congestion pricing? I'd imagine everyone gets from a to b the quickest they can, regardless of income. No one would do 1h in a taxi if 20 minutes on a subway does it, even to Wall Street.

freen 2y ago

The harsh law of hacker news: For any topic outside of strict software development, the strength, viciousness and certitude of opinions expressed is inversely proportional to the level of knowledge about the subject. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/3/3/the-fundamental-global-law-of-road-congestion https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/3/3/the-fundamental...

screye 2y ago
Whiplash, every time. HN's takes on cars are shockingly bad. For a community as thoughtful as HN, their responses are (to use an insult provocatively) car brained. It's as if cities don't exist outside the US. The US is decades behind on urban infrastructure and governance. This means their policy debates in 2025 have been globally settled issues for decades with outcomes to back it up. Conjecture can't be an effective rebuttal to evidence.
- coldpie 2y ago
  > HN's takes on cars are shockingly bad. For a community as thoughtful as HN, their responses are (to use an insult provocatively) car brained. Hm, as a big public-transit advocate coming here 5 hours after your comment, I actually thought the discussion is in pretty good shape. There's a handful of "cars only!" nuts, but they're a small minority. It seems the vibes around this topic are fairly positive, with lots of support for funding better public transit.
throw4847285 2y ago
It was shocking to read The Power Broker last year and learn that since 1940s at least, urban planners have been aware of induced demand. Caro even brings up congestion pricing as a proposal that was rejected not because it wouldn't solve then problem but because the entire urban planning infrastructure was built to deny that there was a problem.
- asdff 2y ago
  And this is why we have traffic today per that theory. Demand were induced and in a lot of cases cities didn’t end up building key reliever routes. So those initiall routes were overcapacity potentially from day one in the city. It is also important to note that induced demand is not infinite. There is a point when there aren’t more drivers to actually get on the roads. We see this in some midwestern cities that had their full freeway plans built and didn’t experience significant growth after those plans were made. Those are “20 miles in 20 minutes” places any time of day for the most part.

shipscode 2y ago

Congestion pricing should really be referred to as a "lower manhattan driving tax" or similar. It's a misnomer to claim it to be "solving" congestion outside of rush hours like 7-10 and 3-7.

BobAliceInATree 2y ago
It’s not a tax.
- asdff 2y ago
  It is if your drive is obligatory

neilv 2y ago

This seems to be selling use of the public roads to rich people (who can more easily afford the tolls). Isn't this a step backwards for social justice?

alexchamberlain 2y ago
An alternative take is that people who can only afford mass transit options (without even adding congestion pricing) are now on a level playing field with most commuters, and should experience a better commute less affected by traffic. (This assumes that the mass transit options are invested in, rather than overrun by people switching.)
WillDaSilva 2y ago
Not at all, since those who aren't rich primarily use public transit to get around this area, which benefits massively from reduced car traffic.
nayuki 2y ago
Do you know what it means to be rich? Serious question. It's not "having a lot of money". It's actually "having a lot of options". By definition, rich people will have more ways to get around than poor people. The rich can hire a limo, hop in a helicopter, and even take a trip to space. Is it a social injustice that not everyone can afford a limo, helicopter, or spaceship? I do not think it's bad to take steps to make driving an activity for richer people, to make it a luxury that it initially was when cars were invented. On the flip side of things, look at what the dream of mass-market affordable cars, free highways, and free parking have done to society: Swathes of land wasted for parking, low density cities that kill walking/cycling/transit, millions of people dying in car crashes, endless congestion and lane-widening.
- neilv 2y ago
  > Do you know what it means to be rich? Serious question. A serious question that you immediately proceed to answer, with rhetoric that it's preferable for there to be only the relative few rich elite, who implicitly should enjoy all the luxuries possible in the world, but there should not be these luxuries for the lesser people, since our experiments in permitting the peasants to enjoy small amounts of society's wealth has been a disaster, encroaching upon the enjoyment of the rich, and making the poors uppity?

habosa 2y ago

The branding of congestion pricing has been so disastrous. It could have been separated into two very normal things: tolls and parking fees. Every city has those. NYC could have played with those knobs until they got mostly the same effect but there would have never been any nonsense about it being illegal or unconstitutional or whatever car advocates are saying. Even if this works, it will always be hated and fought by a large minority.

hombre_fatal 2y ago
Meh, car proponents fight against any concession. You’re proposal is no different. Consider how in these comments people are even mad about being unable to park their SUV in a crosswalk (new daylighting policy in SF). Just rip the bandage off already.
freejazz 2y ago
Yes, unlike congestion pricing, New Yorkers love increased tolls and paying even more for parking than they did last year.

kevin_thibedeau 2y ago

They don't indicate what the "average" data before Jan. 5 represents. January and February after week 1 have lighter traffic than the rest of the year. If the pre-congestion data extends beyond the winter season, including week 52 and week 1, it can't be meaningfully compared until more data is collected.

kittikitti 2y ago

Good, I was hit by a car in NYC while on a bike and it caused a fracture. If this reduces congestion, then I support it because I could have easily died. However, this was accompanied by hikes in public transit pricing. I don't think transit officials are acting in good faith when it comes to their moral arguments and just want to justify raising taxes for the poor.

mr_00ff00 2y ago
The people paying the congestion fees are the rich that live in the suburbs and drive into the city.
- stemlord 2y ago
  It is expected that fees will also be passed down to non-wealthy locals by services whose vehicles need to utilize these roads as well-- they will raise their prices
  - mr_00ff00 2y ago
    You are wealthy if you are using private car services like that. Most normal New Yorkers use the subway
    - stemlord 2y ago
      You don't understand: plumbers, electricians, facade repair, any business that requires wholesale goods shipped to them in a truck are all things that will ultimately pass the cost to normal people. Increased cost of living will help ensure every last "normal New Yorker" is squeezed out of the area
chimeracoder 2y ago
> However, this was accompanied by hikes in public transit pricing. It was not. Public transit pricing is completely independent and did not change with the implementation of congestion pricing. > I don't think transit officials are acting in good faith when it comes to their moral arguments and just want to justify raising taxes for the poor. The only person who has acted in bad faith is Kathy Hochul, who bent over backwards to water down the policy by having poorer people subsidize wealthy car commuters.

dralley 2y ago

Fantastic. That's step one, now fix the public transit, and make it safer and cleaner, so that people actually enjoy using it consistently rather than just needing to do so. Do that and NYC will be a much, much nicer city to live in.

fuzzylightbulb 2y ago
That is literally what the money is for
- CSMastermind 2y ago
  When I lived in NYC I paid huge amounts of money in taxes and as far as I can tell got very little for my money. Until they can start using their enormous existing budget wisely I don't see any reason they should be given more money.
  - CPLX 2y ago
    > as far as I can tell got very little for my money You literally lived in the greatest city in the history of world civilization. Sorry it didn't work out for you.
    - steveBK123 2y ago
      Tokyo is pretty nice
    - Aspos 2y ago
      You seriously think NYC is the greatest city in the history of world civilization? Or is it sarcasm? I am asking this as NYC resident.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - tokioyoyo 2y ago

Beefin 2y ago

congestion pricing doesn't work. its simply a shrug for the wealthy, and reduces money for lower income.

throwaway984393 2y ago

[dead]

oldnetguy 2y ago

This doesn't show the number of cars and traffic within the area. The real test will be the amount of traffic within the zone

Lanolderen 2y ago

I wish people would focus more on scooters and motorcycles than moving people in busses. Coming from a place with decent and cheap public transport, no one likes it. It'll never be as fast, you'll always be closed in a bacteria greenhouse with strangers, there will always be crazies, it'll never have the exact path you need, you don't have as much control over it.. For the past year I've been commuting on a motorcycle with no car and even with snow it's surprisingly fine. Maintenance is cheap since it's much more DIY friendly, I get back from work up to 65-70% faster than cars, usually 35-40% (rush hour), I average 5,8-6,1 l/100 without trying to save fuel.. It's very comfy if you're not in a location where winters are particularly harsh. But at that point freezing your ass off at a bus station waiting to get in the bacteria greenhouse isn't great either.

alamortsubite 2y ago
You're way overplaying the dangers of "crazies" and "the bacteria greenhouse" with respect to travel by motorcycle or scooter (or even automobile). I agree with your point that we should encourage these modes of transportation over cars, but I'd add it will be electric bikes that finally turn the tide on traffic congestion in cities (and all the other great benefits that come with doing that). Just don't tell the electric bike people that they're essentially riding motorcycles.
- Lanolderen 2y ago
  I mean, I'm definitely biased but I've been sick once since ~2015 and that was Covid I caught at a large anniversary celebration. Before that I was <18 and would get sick every winter in my opinion due to people caughing all around me on the bus for 45 minutes per direction. With crazies it's not that bad. I remember the bus getting pulled over once by a car with people with pipes/bats who beat a grandpa for getting in an argument with one of the guys prior. That was the only actually violent occurance over thousands of rides, however I still have yet to feel as threatened with a personal vehicle. With a car I could have rammed the fuck out of them or ran them over, with a bike I could have been gone in a second, when the bus driver stops and opens the front door you're just stuck. Again, realistically it's mostly crazy homeless people who pose no threat but I prefer to have some control at least. My issue with electric bicycles is: If limited they don't fit with pedestrians or cars so you need to complicate infrastructure. Good for going to the post office but not as a daily since they're just not fast enough. Lovely for old people and to an extent kids. If not limited they are less tested motorcycles with usually shitty tires and brakes, no ABS, TC, etc with pedals to fulful some potentially existing legal loophole since there's no way you're doing anything close to the motor output manually yet since you feel inclined to pedal gear becomes problematic. I still have yet to try an electric motorcycle but I'd guess the little electric scooters would be great for commuting. I'm guessing an electric scooter that can do 100-140kmh would be the utility sweet spot. You'd be able to go everywhere and charge for pennies with minimal maintenance. You'd also get the scooter benefits of improved road muck/weather protection and actual underseat storage.

steveBK123 2y ago

I think the biggest thing CP is going to do in NYC is end toll shopping. There were previously some pretty obvious arbs available to people trying to get off LI. The biggest policy failure of CP though to me is that they left taxi/uber relatively unscathed. Often the majority of traffic is taxi/uber, so make the surcharge on them a fraction of what individual drivers pay is kind of nonsensical. Are we trying to minimize traffic (so tax call cars) or parking (so tax taxi/uber less since they don't have to park in Manhattan?). It smells of lobbying mostly.

gregshap 2y ago
The uber/taxi fee is charged per ride, whereas private passenger cars pay once per day. Seems like a reasonable tradeoff.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  if the passenger car pays once a day, it's only generating one unit of congestion.
  - steveBK123 2y ago
    And further, if I am already paying $50 fare to take an Uber, a $1.50 toll is not deterring me or reducing my usage at all. It is less than the rounding error on the tip I give the driver. I probably won't even notice it amongst the 5 line items of fees, taxes, surcharges, etc on the digital receipt.
    - Spooky23 2y ago
      This is where the dogma gets in the way of reality. Uber and cabs are the glue that fills the gaps that public transit has left unfilled for decades. The policy goal is to reduce congestion by discouraging personal vehicles in the zone and generate revenue for transportation as a whole, not to turn the city into a pedestrian park. The state took an approach that does that without nuking the city. Based on the fact that nobody seems to be giddy about this, I’d say they did a decent job at that. If the crazy transit nuts are happy and the angry Jersey people are happy, something went wrong.

n144q 2y ago

I just love how everyone suddenly becomes transportation experts in this thread and pour out their opinions that are purely based on their anecdotes and beliefs but nothing else.

echoangle 2y ago
That's what happens with every single internet discussion to be fair.
kitd 2y ago
I just love how everyone suddenly becomes <insert_controversial_topic> experts <everywhere_on_social_media> and pour out their opinions that are purely based on their anecdotes and beliefs but nothing else. FIFY. It's all the rage, you know ... Tbh, most so-called "rational thinkers" are as emotional as "mouth breathers" if prodded sufficiently.
CPLX 2y ago
Is there some other way to participate in online discussion forums besides sharing ones own anecdotes and beliefs?

jdlyga 2y ago

Taking the bus from Weehawken into midtown is super smooth now. It's a super cold Tuesday, but normally it's a honking mess.

awkward 2y ago
The subway was insane. Could be the snow, though.
- wnolens 2y ago
  Yea, not sure if it was a post-holiday thing or weather thing, but shit the trains have been rammed.

gradschool 2y ago

Congestion charging started in London in 2003. I'm skeptical about the justification that it's intended to disincentivize unnecessary driving because people who drive frequently get a bulk discount rather than a surcharge as one might expect if that were the actual intention. A bulk discount is more indicative of a policy intended to maximize revenue. I'm also skeptical about the justification that it's intended to reduce pollution because the discount for electric cars is ending this year. I have a moral issue with it as well because the roads are financed by everyone's taxes. Around the time the charge was starting it was easy to find supporters for it on tv chat shows but I never met one in real life. I assume there are some but that they support it in a naive attempt to keep anyone poorer than them off the road. Otherwise, the supporter's problem of too much congestion would be easily solved by not driving. The charge has tripled since its introduction so maybe there's an element of poetic justice in it for some of them.

gruez 2y ago
>I have a moral issue with it as well because the roads are financed by everyone's taxes Mind elaborating on how this is a "moral issue"? Public transit is funded by "everyone's taxes" as well, but you still have to pay a fare to use it. Do you get similarly aggrieved? >Around the time the charge was starting it was easy to find supporters for it on tv chat shows but I never met one in real life. It's trivial to find polls that show a non-negligible level of support for the charge. eg. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/gla/page/0,9067,897312,00.html https://www.theguardian.com/politics/gla/page/0,9067,897312,... or https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/how-london-and-stockholm-made-congestion-pricing-politics-work https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/how-london-and-stockho.... Just because your small circle of friends don't support it, doesn't mean they don't exist.
- gradschool 2y ago
  Your points are well taken. I wasn't aware of the Guardian poll and I stand corrected about my implication that the charge lacks public support. With regard to the moral issue, I have less of a problem with tickets that are paying for something like running a train, or for that matter a bridge toll paying off the bonds that enabled the bridge to be built. I have more of a problem with someone demanding money for nothing. I haven't heard it claimed even by its supporters that road maintenance depends on the congestion charge. To my knowledge the main justification has always been that the charge funds the payer's behavior modification. Is it for the payer's own good? Is it for the greater good? You may well differ, but something about that doesn't sit right with me however noble, especially when it pertains to law abiding citizens acting within their rights.

settrans 2y ago

Although marginally better traffic might be a side effect of congestion pricing, its primary effect is a wealth transfer from lower- and middle-class residents of Manhattan, who must buy goods locally at higher prices, to MTA contractors and their labor unions, who already make construction on the New York subway far and away the most expensive in the world. Where is the congestion pricing tracker that measures the higher cost of groceries to working-class lower Manhattan residents?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tmvphil 2y ago
Why would groceries be more expensive? Do you think a $25 fee makes any difference to a delivery truck loaded with $10k of products?
- settrans 2y ago
  Not only are delivery vehicles levied an additional toll of up to $32.40 under congestion pricing, but every employee, service provider and vendor who travels by car is also assessed the fee.
  - dml2135 2y ago
    I don't even understand the scenario you're talking about now -- are you referring to a delivery driver that would be driving their personal vehicle to work in the congestion zone? And then getting on a delivery truck, which would then need to exit the congestion zone and re-enter in order to itself be charged a fee? How many people do you think the scenario above applies to, in the real world?

tonymet 2y ago

in a short amount of time , commute times will recover to baselines, or worse, the city will waste the additional revenue , the residents will be poorer , and leaders will pat themselves on be back. Expresslanes made commute times worse . Little of the revenue went to the roads . Few of the roads were fixed .

elahd 2y ago

This is great, but I'd be more interested in seeing how congestion pricing impacts travel times for buses, specifically, (within and around the congestion zone, including express routes from the outer boroughs), as well as overall transit ridership. @gotmedium, would you consider integrating: 1. MTA's Bus Time feed: https://bustime.mta.info/wiki/Developers/Index https://bustime.mta.info/wiki/Developers/Index and 2. MTA bus/MNRR/LIRR/Access-A-Ride ridership feed: https://data.ny.gov/Transportation/MTA-Daily-Ridership-Data-Beginning-2020/vxuj-8kew/about_data https://data.ny.gov/Transportation/MTA-Daily-Ridership-Data-... 3. Equivalent feeds for city-connected NJ transit services.

blehn 2y ago

1. The data is obviously flawed, but if there's anything to speculate from it, it's that the actual congestion in lower Manhattan isn't affected that much. 2. So the success of this policy really depends on how much additional revenue it's bringing in for the city and the MTA. The $9 increase needs to significantly offset the loss in toll revenue from the decrease in drivers. 3. There are so many other simple policies that would benefit quality of life in NYC: - Daylighting — Don't allow cars and trucks to park at the corners of intersections. Huge safety benefits. - Metered parking everywhere. Why is NYC giving away the most valuable real estate in the world for free? Would be a huge revenue stream while discouraging car ownership in Manhattan. - Close more streets to car traffic. This is already true on 14th street and it's fantastic. Close Houston, 34th, 42nd, 59th, 125th. This would make buses much more efficient and further discourage passenger car usage

ihuman 2y ago
> So the success of this policy really depends on how much additional revenue it's bringing in for the city and the MTA. I thought the point of the policy is to get people to use the train instead of cars, freeing up the roads for people that actually need it?
- bluGill 2y ago
  There are several points. Some want it to get people to not drive, but work from home or drive elsewhere instead is fine with them. Some want it to get more people on transit. Some want it to fund transit expansion. You can belong to more than one of the above groups. Nobody belongs to them all.
  - barnabee 2y ago
    > Nobody belongs to them all. Why not? IMO, ideally: - Some people work from home or drive elsewhere - Others take transit instead of driving - The remainder pay a fee that they didn't previously, which can fund more transit
    - 2y ago

hnpolicestate 2y ago

[flagged]

bensonperry 2y ago
License plate concealers are illegal in NYS. Being able to read license plates is critical for identifying vehicles involved in crimes. I hope you are eventually caught and punished!
- hnpolicestate 2y ago
  No see I believe the people who created speed/red light cameras and congestion pricing are the criminals. I punish them by concealing my plate. Illegitimate system.
  - pyth0 2y ago
    You cannot opt out of laws you don't like, at least not legally. This just sounds like selfishness.

user3939382 2y ago

If NYC subways weren’t freezing/boiling, filthy, moldy, infested with rats and mice, and dangerous, maybe you wouldn’t have to brow beat people into using them.

pimlottc 2y ago

The name is rather confusing. I thought this "Pricing Tracker" was going to be tracking the pricing of the congestion toll (implying that it changes dynamically throughout the day), but what it's actually tracking is commute time. Something like "Congestion Pricing Impact Tracker" would be clearer.

magic_smoke_ee 2y ago

1. The graph doesn't work on desktop. It keeps endlessly animating in the data values flyover at a given point. 2. Congestion pricing, more generally, is ivory tower social engineering (economic discrimination like toll lanes) and a disproportionate tax on the working poor. It would be fairer if it were progressively taxed based on income.

scrose 2y ago
Where is this mythical “working poor” that drives into midtown Manhattan everyday for work? Do you have any stats whatsoever on the number of people who would be impacted? Maybe even a salary range you consider to be “working poor”?
- magic_smoke_ee 2y ago
  Whataboutism FUD. Nice try.

tamaharbor 2y ago

I think it would be interesting to include the George Washington and Verrazano Bridges as they would be alternative routes.

skeeks 2y ago

Mouse-over over the chart is broken (scrollbar shown and hidden again and again). I believe you dont need to set x-overflow-auto on the div where the scrollbars appear.

Aaronstotle 2y ago

I did a bike ride on Saturday and passed the Port Authority terminal on my way home and it was very packed. When I rode by yesterday afternoon I noticed it was significantly less crowded. I think its attributed to the fact that it was a weekday and the weather was worse, however I would like to think the pricing had some effect. Time will tell!