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> One ride on MTA costs around $20. ? The subway is $3 and the most expensive bus is I think $7.xx [0], and those are without bulk purchase (e.g., monthly pass

by mmooss 7mo ago

> One ride on MTA costs around $20. ? The subway is $3 and the most expensive bus is I think $7.xx [0], and those are without bulk purchase (e.g., monthly passes) or discounts (seniors, etc.). Do you mean something like the Long Island Railroad? That goes out to the suburbs; it's not much part of NYC density. > The average US commute is 40 miles (both ways) Do you mean 80 mi total? The IRS milage depreciation number and is now 70 cents/mile [1] and doesn't include insurance. I'm not sure it includes overall depreciation of the car's value due to age (i.e., excluding milage?). 40 mi daily would be $28/day, 80 mi $56/day. > Easily. Look at Houston, TX. Then compare the cost of real estate between Houston and NYC. I suggest to look at the average square footage of residences. Square footage in NYC is smaller, of course, which has the side effect of density. Overall people far prefer NYC to Houston (based on supply and demand and prices). I'm not sure what your point is beyond that? Do you mean Houston has as many commuters as NYC? Obviously that's not true. LA might be an example of something approaching NYC scale without much public transit. [0] https://www.mta.info/fares-tolls https://www.mta.info/fares-tolls [1] https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/blog/calculating-vehicle-depreciation/#what-is-the-standard-mileage-rate https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/blog/calculating-vehicle-depr...

cyberax 7mo ago
> The subway is $3 It's a lie. The true cost is around $20, and with capital expenses of new construction, it's closer to $30. Although pricing the capital construction cost is always tricky. You just don't see the true cost in the _ticket_ price, because productive citizens in suburbs are forced to subsidize inner-city transit through taxes. You can compute the true cost of a ride by trivially dividing the total yearly budget by the total number of trips. > Do you mean 80 mi total? No, 40 miles of total driving within a day. > Square footage in NYC is smaller, of course, which has the side effect of density. Overall people far prefer NYC to Houston No. People don't so much _choose_ as are forced to stay in NYC by economics mercilessly crushing them into dense shoebox-sized apartments.
- kemotep 7mo ago
  Is it possible to calculate how much free at time of use roads are? How much of the tax bill goes towards that? If we are going to talk about how much the cost of public transportation such as trains or buses are covered by taxes it would only be fair to look at roads and personal vehicles too.
  - cyberax 7mo ago
    > Is it possible to calculate how much free at time of use roads are? It actually is! It's a statistic that is tracked by the Census. It turns out, that the majority of road maintenance is paid directly by user fees: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-infrastructure-spending/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-infrastructur... > If we are going to talk about how much the cost of public transportation such as trains or buses are covered by taxes it would only be fair to look at roads and personal vehicles too. Absolutely! I agree that we should be pricing pollution and other negative externalities. But in addition, we should fairly price the all public services. And people who need public assistance should just get money. And of course, we should be penalizing density pollution. There's no reason to build high-rise offices, and we should be demolishing them by now (except for historically-significant buildings).
- mmooss 7mo ago
  > productive citizens in suburbs are forced to subsidize inner-city transit through taxes. Could you say specifically what you mean? People in NYC pay state taxes for things that happen in the suburbs and upstate, and around the country and in other parts of the world. That's part of living in a community. NYC is also an incredible economic (and cultural and ...) engine without which, most of those suburbs and the jobs of the suburbanites wouldn't exist. (Also, the MTA runs to the suburbs.) > It's a lie. I provided a cite. Maybe you can do better on HN than this sad attempt at aggression. > The true cost is around $20 We were talking about the cost to individuals of transportation. The subway costs $3 per trip, before any discounts. > People don't so much _choose_ as are forced to stay in NYC by economics mercilessly crushing them into dense shoebox-sized apartments. You'll have to provide some evidence. The data says people pay a lot of money to live in NYC, in tiny apartments. Many of people I know would love to live there if they could afford it. People love to visit from all over the world. People buy homes there who could afford to live anywhere. There are songs about it, you might have heard. Most of what you have is just aggressive words - 'lie', 'forced'. What do you have against NYC? Did someone run over your toes at an intersection? And if you don't like it, why insist everyone else must think and feel the same as you?
  - cyberax 7mo ago
    > NYC is also an incredible economic (and cultural and ...) engine without which, most of those suburbs and the jobs of the suburbanites wouldn't exist. (Also, the MTA runs to the suburbs.) I was speaking more in general. In other cities, the dense inner cores are overwhelmingly subsidized by the suburbs and/or urban villages ("suburb within a city"). This can be easily seen if you look at the _personal_ income tax stats. > NYC is also an incredible economic (and cultural and ...) engine without which, most of those suburbs and the jobs of the suburbanites wouldn't exist. Or maybe not having an endless pit of generational despair would have ensured that other states had better economics, resulting in less polarization and the true golden age for the US? If you want to talk about "would haves", I can also invent tons of scenarios. > We were talking about the cost to individuals of transportation. The subway costs $3 per trip, before any discounts. We can also sponsor every car owner to the tune of $500 a month, and they would also have 3$ trips, before any discounts. See? Money comes out of somewhere, and by allocating funds towards unproductive transit, we move them away from better projects. Money is a proxy for the natural and human resources, and they're not unlimited. > You'll have to provide some evidence. The data says people pay a lot of money to live in NYC, in tiny apartments. Look at your argument backwards: what is forcing people to cram into tiny apartments that cost more than mansions just a few hours away? The answer is simple: jobs. The runaway density pollution resulted in economy that is forcing people to migrate to be in proximity to ever-densifying city cores. They don't have a choice, just like you couldn't chose not to breathe toxic smoke back in the industrial era. > Most of what you have is just aggressive words - 'lie', 'forced'. What do you have against NYC? I'm using exactly the same language as urbanists. They force that vocabulary on the unsuspecting people, framing discussions in their favor simply by chosing words. Why shouldn't I?

by mmooss 7mo ago

cyberax 7mo ago

> The subway is $3 It's a lie. The true cost is around $20, and with capital expenses of new construction, it's closer to $30. Although pricing the capital construction cost is always tricky. You just don't see the true cost in the _ticket_ price, because productive citizens in suburbs are forced to subsidize inner-city transit through taxes. You can compute the true cost of a ride by trivially dividing the total yearly budget by the total number of trips. > Do you mean 80 mi total? No, 40 miles of total driving within a day. > Square footage in NYC is smaller, of course, which has the side effect of density. Overall people far prefer NYC to Houston No. People don't so much _choose_ as are forced to stay in NYC by economics mercilessly crushing them into dense shoebox-sized apartments.

kemotep 7mo ago
Is it possible to calculate how much free at time of use roads are? How much of the tax bill goes towards that? If we are going to talk about how much the cost of public transportation such as trains or buses are covered by taxes it would only be fair to look at roads and personal vehicles too.
- cyberax 7mo ago
  > Is it possible to calculate how much free at time of use roads are? It actually is! It's a statistic that is tracked by the Census. It turns out, that the majority of road maintenance is paid directly by user fees: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-infrastructure-spending/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-infrastructur... > If we are going to talk about how much the cost of public transportation such as trains or buses are covered by taxes it would only be fair to look at roads and personal vehicles too. Absolutely! I agree that we should be pricing pollution and other negative externalities. But in addition, we should fairly price the all public services. And people who need public assistance should just get money. And of course, we should be penalizing density pollution. There's no reason to build high-rise offices, and we should be demolishing them by now (except for historically-significant buildings).
mmooss 7mo ago
> productive citizens in suburbs are forced to subsidize inner-city transit through taxes. Could you say specifically what you mean? People in NYC pay state taxes for things that happen in the suburbs and upstate, and around the country and in other parts of the world. That's part of living in a community. NYC is also an incredible economic (and cultural and ...) engine without which, most of those suburbs and the jobs of the suburbanites wouldn't exist. (Also, the MTA runs to the suburbs.) > It's a lie. I provided a cite. Maybe you can do better on HN than this sad attempt at aggression. > The true cost is around $20 We were talking about the cost to individuals of transportation. The subway costs $3 per trip, before any discounts. > People don't so much _choose_ as are forced to stay in NYC by economics mercilessly crushing them into dense shoebox-sized apartments. You'll have to provide some evidence. The data says people pay a lot of money to live in NYC, in tiny apartments. Many of people I know would love to live there if they could afford it. People love to visit from all over the world. People buy homes there who could afford to live anywhere. There are songs about it, you might have heard. Most of what you have is just aggressive words - 'lie', 'forced'. What do you have against NYC? Did someone run over your toes at an intersection? And if you don't like it, why insist everyone else must think and feel the same as you?
- cyberax 7mo ago
  > NYC is also an incredible economic (and cultural and ...) engine without which, most of those suburbs and the jobs of the suburbanites wouldn't exist. (Also, the MTA runs to the suburbs.) I was speaking more in general. In other cities, the dense inner cores are overwhelmingly subsidized by the suburbs and/or urban villages ("suburb within a city"). This can be easily seen if you look at the _personal_ income tax stats. > NYC is also an incredible economic (and cultural and ...) engine without which, most of those suburbs and the jobs of the suburbanites wouldn't exist. Or maybe not having an endless pit of generational despair would have ensured that other states had better economics, resulting in less polarization and the true golden age for the US? If you want to talk about "would haves", I can also invent tons of scenarios. > We were talking about the cost to individuals of transportation. The subway costs $3 per trip, before any discounts. We can also sponsor every car owner to the tune of $500 a month, and they would also have 3$ trips, before any discounts. See? Money comes out of somewhere, and by allocating funds towards unproductive transit, we move them away from better projects. Money is a proxy for the natural and human resources, and they're not unlimited. > You'll have to provide some evidence. The data says people pay a lot of money to live in NYC, in tiny apartments. Look at your argument backwards: what is forcing people to cram into tiny apartments that cost more than mansions just a few hours away? The answer is simple: jobs. The runaway density pollution resulted in economy that is forcing people to migrate to be in proximity to ever-densifying city cores. They don't have a choice, just like you couldn't chose not to breathe toxic smoke back in the industrial era. > Most of what you have is just aggressive words - 'lie', 'forced'. What do you have against NYC? I'm using exactly the same language as urbanists. They force that vocabulary on the unsuspecting people, framing discussions in their favor simply by chosing words. Why shouldn't I?