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43K fewer drivers on Manhattan roads after congestion pricing turned on
- whatever1 2y ago[flagged]
- drawkward 2y ago[Citation pending]
- syndicatedjelly 2y agoDid they arrive in town sequentially as well?
- BenFranklin100 2y agoThis comment is a good example of the type of narrow minded progressive thinking that has held back good public policy like congestion pricing and carbon taxes. Both of these programs are criticized as being regressive. The criticism neglects to take into consideration the society wide benefits like more efficient bus travel or cleaner air that preferentially help the less well off.
- whatever1 2y agoWhy not lottery my dude (based on dob, license plate, whatever) ? Didn’t I equally pay for the infrastructure? I would argue that I paid even more than the millionaires, because I cannnot cheat on my taxes.
- bdzr 2y agoOh god. Didn't they try to do something like this in Mexico City and it resulted in no change? Clever policy is always rife with unintended consequences; prices are good.
- whatever1 2y agoThis is how China and most Europe does it for their big cities. Identical effectiveness minus the regressivity for the poor. If the city wants to buy more buses they can always send higher tax bills to their residents
- lokar 2y agoNot true. The rich just get extra car with different plates.
- BenFranklin100 2y agoYou paid far less. The top half of American pay almost 98% of federal taxes. The top 10% pay nearly three quarters. The American tax system is very progressive. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-irs-income-taxes-who-pays-the-most-and-least/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-irs-income-taxes-who-pays-t...
- whatever1 2y agoYou have it wrong. You are grouping in that top 10% the millionaires/billionaires who pay nothing with the 6-figure W2 workhorses who cannot hide anything.
- affinepplan 2y agothe people who most strongly value $9 over a drive into lower Manhattan, to be more accurate
- knowitnone 2y ago[flagged]
- redandblack 2y agothis is totally true - subsidizing the rich by the poor I always thought congestion pricing was always mis-priced, and it should be tied to income/wealth. The only way to do this is to let the poor apply and get free electronic tokens and get that missing 43k back. fyi - my MD can easily manage a 10x the mid-town tolls
- jefftk 2y ago> I always thought congestion pricing was always mis-priced, and it should be tied to income/wealth. NYC has a low-income discount system: https://new.mta.info/tolls/congestion-relief-zone/discounts-exemptions/low-income-discount-plan https://new.mta.info/tolls/congestion-relief-zone/discounts-... But also, the money is going to fund public transit, which disproportionately benefits poorer people.
- breadwinner 2y agoShould everything be tied to income/wealth? Taxes and college tuition are already tied to income/wealth. Why not food, housing, travel, clothes, healthcare, even drinking water? At that point wealth will stop to have any meaning.
- mensetmanusman 2y agoYes, e ink displays in the super market following you around with prices dependent on how many bitcoins in your cold wallet.
- redandblack 2y agoYes - if we financialize all public services, then it makes sense to use income/wealth to subsidize (re-distribute to be more precise) the poor. I remember reading a few weeks back that UK is getting the railroads back to public ownership - not sure if that is true, but would like to hear from UK readers on the impact of financialization (aka privatizing) of public utilities. I am not a fan of public ownership - but a supported of public subsidies for utilities - transport / electricity / heat / water and in this case roads
- drawkward 2y ago[flagged]
- nwellinghoff 2y agoThis seems to be the goto method for most cities now. Got something that isn’t working anymore or the public needs more of it? Just start charging for it and make it a revenue source!
- drawkward 2y ago[Citation Needed]
- xyst 2y agoWhat a joke. Urban areas have been gutted so suburbanites can travel by car, park their metal death box, and travel back to their shitty home for decades. Urban areas have also been subsidizing roads mostly used by suburban assholes. Then when those same roads need repair, guess who the burden falls on (it’s not the suburbanite living in shitville county)
- cake_robot 2y agoInternalizing externalities is good, actually.
- jefftk 2y agoWhen I see things like: > Bus speeds also increased after the tolls were turned on. The Manhattan-bound B39 bus, which crosses the Williamsburg Bridge, ran 28% faster compared to a similar January week last year. Other buses like the SIM24 and and the M50 saw increases in speeds, as well. I wonder how much cherry picking there is. Did they give the B39 because it's the most improved? Or for some other reason (especially busy?) (Generally strongly in favor of congestion pricing)
- btheunissen 2y agoI wouldn’t be surprised if this was across the board for buses into lower Manhattan/around bridges into Manhattan. When living in cities I usually use both buses and trains but when living in NYC I tried to avoid buses when possible as you are at the behest of an insane amount of traffic usually; meaning you can’t reliably be places on time if you are using the bus.
- jon_richards 2y agoI like the theory of traffic that basically says traffic will always make the best mode of transportation as bad as the second best. The problem with buses is that car traffic can never be bad enough to make cars worse than buses. Buses are doomed to always be worse than cars unless they have dedicated lanes or parking is unbearable. So cars slow down to equal the metro system, bikes, ferries, etc. A dedicated bus lane can speed up cars more than another car lane because it pulls traffic off the road until driving convenience equals bus convenience.
- post-it 2y agoI parse it as implying that B39 had the highest percentage improvement.
- nine_k 2y agoI think B39 is a good example of an improvement most affected by the congestion pricing. It's a very short route, with very few stops, and the principal part of the route being the Williamsburg bridge. The rest of both Brooklyn and Manhattan traffic affects it rather little. I think that "cherry-picking" is when you find outliers and show them off pretending they are typical examples. What I would call this is maybe a "poster child": a specially chosen example where the result is most dramatic and clearly seen.
- fuckyah 2y ago[dead]
- etchalon 2y ago"We made something more expensive to do and you'll never believe that fewer people did it!"
- buzzy_hacker 2y agoYou joke, but critics were literally saying this. Stuff like "it's only $9, people will just ignore that and continue to drive"
- nomel 2y agoTo be fair, they were mostly right, since 93% continued to drive. This is commute tax for the wealthy, and a time tax for lower income people. B39 only crosses the bridge, so there's waiting/transfer on both sides. Commute is generally 2-5x more time by public transport there, with all the stops.
- adgjlsfhk1 2y agoThe key point is that traffic is basically exponential in number of cars. Roads have a capacity below which there's almost no traffic, and above which capacity stays constant (or goes down). The amount of traffic in a city without congestion charging is the amount caused by the last couple percent of drivers most willing to wait in traffic. By introducing a fee that switches the decision for that small group of people, everyone else's commute gets a noticeably shorter (including all the people that were taking the bus previously).
- nomel 2y agoYes, by dramatically increasing the commute time of the poor, we can reduce the commute time of the wealthier, and give the city revenue in the process. Morals aside, this is the desired function of the fee. Morals in place, I think making B39 free, funded by the fee, would have been a nice move.
- Ajedi32 2y ago
- Over2Chars 2y agoBrilliant for many reasons. I hope we see a lot more of this.
- iambateman 2y agoSome numbers don’t make sense here… They’re saying a 7% reduction is 43k cars, which infers 550k daily trips into the city. But they think they can make $500M/year. At $9 per trip, that’s only 150k tolls daily. (500M / 365 / $9). In any case, I’m glad it seems to be working. Congestion pricing has the potential to do a lot of good in this country.
- nine_k 2y agoThere is a number of driver categories that pay somehow less to enter. Also I suppose they predict that the number of daily trips will keep going down, and so will the revenue with it.
- Over2Chars 2y agoyou mean implies not infers. You infer, they imply.
- hackernewds 2y agoNot driving is gonna make the drivers happier? A lot of good, depends on who you are really
- addicted 2y ago$9 is for personal vehicles. Cabs get charged per trip with no limit. Delivery trucks get charged a higher amount and I don’t believe (I’m not sure on this) they have a daily cap, so they can also be charged multiple times.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago$500M/year was the magical thinking that applies any time the NY government wants to create a tax. The revenue projected is always huge so they can spend big somewhere else while pretending to be revenue neutral. The soda tax had the same ridiculous overestimation.
- wk_end 2y agoIf I’m reading OP’s math correctly, you’ve got it backwards. They’re saying NYC should be in practice making significantly more than $500M/yr.
- xyst 2y agoIn addition to the obvious improvements to pedestrian safety with less vehicles on the road. Air quality in these areas is going to improve vastly. This needs to be implemented in every major metropolitan area.
- Over2Chars 2y agoSan Francisco "thought about it" as far back as 2019 and couldn't get their act together to pull it off: https://www.sfcta.org/downtown https://www.sfcta.org/downtown I'm guessing that Uber and other car based services all threatened to stop funding their re-election campaigns if they did it.
- bpye 2y agoVancouver, BC is another city that considered it - but the incumbent mayor lost the last election, partly due to the issue.
- Over2Chars 2y agoThat's quite unfortunate. I'm sure the voters can contemplate their victory when they're sitting in a traffic jam.
- apothegm 2y agoHopefully this means improved response times for emergency vehicles, which have been pretty bad and getting worse due to traffic. I imagine we’ll start to see data in that in a couple months.
- Breza 2y agoI hadn't thought about this part. I work with healthcare data for a living. I'll have to keep an eye out for changes once the 2025 records come across my desk.
- sergiotapia 2y ago[flagged]
- nine_k 2y agoThe number of traffic deaths is far higher than of victims of any psychos.
- HDThoreaun 2y agoYou have Manhattan traffic death numbers?
- nine_k 2y agoYes. They are basically zero: https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/traffic-data/traffic-fatalities.page https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/traffic-data/traffic-fat... Citywide car fatalities were like 12 / year. Subway fatalities, from crime or otherwise, seem too rare to have actual stats; I found only one article saying about a fatal attack in March 2024, and none for prior years. In general, crime on the subway seems rather low, though apparently growing: https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/how-rare-is-crime-on-the-subway https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/how-rare-is-crime-on-t...
- HDThoreaun 2y agoAt the end of the day this is a political problem. People care more about feeling safe than actually being safe. Random acts of violence make people feel extremely unsafe in a war that car accidents just don’t.
- jakelazaroff 2y agoThat is year to date. There are on average around 250 traffic fatalities per year city-wide: https://archive.is/2025.01.03-112032/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/01/nyregion/walkable-new-york-city-became-deadlier-for-pedestrians-in-2024.html https://archive.is/2025.01.03-112032/https://www.nytimes.com... Meanwhile, there have been around 50 murders on the subway, total, since 2020.
- jmward01 2y agoRoads in cities are such a waste of space. A long time ago I did a quick survey of SF and found something like 20% of the land was dedicated to cars. Some articles from people here that talk about this [1] [2] [3]. That is the most subsidized land on the planet but people don't think of it that way. They think roads are free so any tax to use them is wrong. That space could be helping out the city in so many ways but instead it is just ugly pavement. Yes we need some roads, but cars driving in the heart of downtown as normal transit? It boggles my mind how dumb that is. Raise this tax until basically nobody is using the roads then rip most of them up except maintenance corridors and put that land to use. [1] https://www.sfmta.com/press-releases/sfmta-completes-citywide-census-street-parking-spaces https://www.sfmta.com/press-releases/sfmta-completes-citywid... [2]https://thehill.com/changing-america/resilience/smart-cities/4162455-paved-paradise-maps-show-how-much-of-us-cities-are-parking-lots/ https://thehill.com/changing-america/resilience/smart-cities... [3] https://sf.streetsblog.org/2014/11/03/study-quantifies-how-unbalanced-sfs-car-centric-streets-are https://sf.streetsblog.org/2014/11/03/study-quantifies-how-u...
- throwaway984393 2y ago[dead]
- devvvvvvv 2y ago[dead]
- vlovich123 2y agoYou’re not incorrect per se, but it’s important to note that deliveries into downtown would be important for it to be a thriving destination for shopping, residential or business. Not to mention space for heavy equipment to come in to do repairs and construction. Minimal maintenance corridors may not be enough. You also need public transit options into it as well as transportation solutions for “out of towners” who descend onto downtown for some event (eg public parking lots outside the city that has public transit to the event). It can be an easier and more politically popular idea to just use streets to solve this problem at the individual level even if less efficient rather than requiring efficient central management planning by the government. And just to be clear, I’m a fan of the changes SF is making, just highlighting some of the challenges, not to mention that SF isn’t going quite so far as to rip up existing streets with the exception of the latest vote where the entire city basically voted against the will of the outer sunset to convert the highway to a park and not just closed on the weekends as it’s been since COVID (increasing maintenance costs due to erosion are another huge reason it’s a good idea).
- dottjt 2y agoI think an issue with this kind of policy (not necessarily in Manhattan) but in other cities is that often there is no alternative other than to drive to the city. For example, my partner needs radiation for her cancer and the hospital is located in the city. There is no other option than to drive. I feel like this type of policy negatively affects people in this situation, with no other alternative.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 2y agoI'm sorry to hear your partner needs cancer treatment. But also, you can still use the roads.
- lostdog 2y agoA $9 congestion charge is probably a huge help to you. For just $9 per visit, you get much lower traffic and easier parking. Your very high priority trip is easier because lots of lower priority trips either didn't happen, or used transit instead.
- dottjt 2y agoNot if you're poor. $9 daily would be quite a lot for poor people, especially since radiation is daily. Furthermore you often have no choice but to use paid hospital parking due to mobility issues, as opposed to cheaper parking near the hospital.
- redserk 2y ago
- shipscode 2y agoComparing to previous Januarys seems dishonest given the vast number of layoffs that have occurred over the past year. Doesn't appear as though they're controlling for this number at all..
- necubi 2y agoWhat vast number of layoffs? The national layoff rate is currently 1.1%, which is lower than the the pre-pandemic average [0]. The NYS layoff rate is 0.5% which is one of the lowest in the country. [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDR https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDR [1] https://www.bls.gov/charts/state-job-openings-and-labor-turnover/state-layoffs-and-discharges-rates.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/state-job-openings-and-labor-turn...
- jeffbee 2y ago"Private sector jobs in New York City rose by 79,800 over-the-year to 4,236,900 in November 2024." Amazing what people believe.
- bberenberg 2y agoNumber of employed people rose in NYC over the last year[0] if I’m reading the stats correctly. [0] - https://dol.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2024/12/nychist.xlsx https://dol.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2024/12/nychist.xl...
- jeffbee 2y agoYou are reading it correctly. There have never been more jobs in NY than there are right now. The unfortunately problem is that it appears all of the extra people are employed in making shit up and posting it on the Internet. "Vice President in Charge of Charlie Brown's Hoes" or similar roles.
- gorgoiler 2y agoAs a thought experiment let’s take a technocratic moonshot: air traffic control but for 500k surface vehicles on 100k blocks. Pricing reduces congestion, but only indirectly, and only in aggregate over the area to which it applies. Where is your ambition, hackers?! NYC could take this whole idea to the next level — level of hell, I’m sure some would think — and require that every vehicle needs a real time permit to be in motion on a block-by-block basis. Permits are available only when the streets have capacity for another vehicle. When you park up, your permit gets released. When you want to get back on the road you join the back of the line for a new real-time permit to drive. Stop lights could hold back traffic from entering congested areas. If you want to enter an area and it is full up, you have to sit and wait for another car to leave that cell. The central system manages the queues fairly: if a car exits the West boundary then you can enter on the East boundary if you were next in line. It sounds like misery but honestly if the goal of any congestion policy is to ensure that traffic density never exceeds a given threshold, isn’t using globally coordinated block-level traffic control the ultimate way to achieve that goal? The whole thing also sounds like a dream — again, possibly a fever dream — to implement and fine tune. NetEng has some transferable skills in this domain which could come in handy. Slightly tongue-in-cheek, but also slightly hang on this is a great idea.
- ventoffreshair 2y ago[flagged]
- ventoffreshair 2y ago[flagged]
- Muromec 2y agoBruh...
- lokar 2y agoIt costs $500-1k a month to park a car in Manhattan
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ETH_start 2y agoCongestion pricing means less traffic so the bus can get to your destination faster. Right now there is no incentive to use the bus, so people don't. Everyone drives and everyone is worse off as a result of the greater traffic.
- ventoffreshair 2y agoAre you for real? No one, literally no one out of choice travels by the BUS. If people are traveling by the bus, MTA, they know and expect delays. Congestion prices won't fix anything.
- ETH_start 2y agoA bus ride in a congestion pricing scheme will almost certainly be faster than a car ride in a congestion-pricing-free scheme. The point you're missing is that congestion pricing massively reduces traffic.
- karaterobot 2y ago
- brink 2y ago[flagged]
- ciabattabread 2y agoIt was also really cold in NYC last week.
- etrautmann 2y agowouldn't that increase driving relative to other forms of transportation?
- ciabattabread 2y agoCold encourages suburbanites to stay in their warm home instead of going on a night out.
- etrautmann 2y agoI would imagine that’s a tiny portion of the total traffic in midtown?
- etrautmann 2y agoIt's incredibly noticeable while biking. My commute through midtown is so much more pleasant now - it's insane.
- ETH_start 2y agoFewer drivers and less traffic can actually lead to more people being on the roads, because high-capacity vehicles like busses — which can efficiently pay the congestion pricing charges — are more usable when there is less traffic and faster commute times, so more people are likely to utilize them.
- senectus1 2y agoit amazes me that so many of the comments for this all seem to assume everyone has common sense.
- meandave 2y agoI live at a _very_ loud and busy intersection in downtown manhattan, it's usually gridlocked every day from 4pm - 7pm at least. That hasn't happened once since congestion pricing kicked in (I'm enjoying the relative quiet, but I do sort of miss the chaos). The first two days, everything was covered in snow down here. I wonder how much this will hold up into summertime. As an unrelated aside a new bmw sedan driving the wrong way on mulberry street intentionally ran into me at a crosswalk today. So don't let your guard down lol
- daft_pink 2y agoI’m curious what the real impact of this is as it only shows what the reduction in people entering the district is and not a reduction in traffic rates on any given street. I’m surprised that they are allowed to have these rules as it appears to give preferential treatment to non-residents who don’t live in a district vs residents who live in a district, which runs counter to general principles that roads in America that are funded by all of our tax dollars should treat drivers equally and not offer preferential treatment to residents.
- ethics13 2y agoI was skeptical that this would work (I still am), but I would love for this to be the trend and welcome it. My most considerable curiosity is we're talking 9 dollars. Were the people who opted out of driving in on the fence due to this breaking their bank?