This is great. People complaining on social media aren’t New Yorkers. We have the best mass transit in the nation. Fuck cars. What we want are more bike and footpaths and less time at the crosswalk.
Best in the nation does not mean it is good. A great deal of NYC is not sufficiently covered
The fee is only for downtown Manhattan. Literally every subway line in Manhattan runs through downtown.
But not all parts of nyc are covered by a subway (outer queens, parts of eastern brooklyn, most of staten island [arguably all of it]). NJ isnt covered at all except for PATH, which is limited. If you live in nyc and work in new jersey, this is a new tax (either in time or money). If you live in parts of nyc that are a two fare zone, this is a new burden as well.
All subway upgrades this century so far have been centered in new stations in manhattan, which is already densely covered; train lines need to be added and extended to all parts of the city that dont have coverage whatsoever.
The amount of crying and screaming around this has been insane. On IG, you'd think from the comments that downtown Manhattan is a mecca of families and small businesses, and not the Financial District.
Personally I dont understand why they dont just remove all the street parking spots.
That and establish maximum parking spots per building. Building has legal occupancy for 2000 people? Max 1% parking spots means theyre not allowed to have more than 20 car parking spots for the entire building.
The point is to make cars the slowest, most expense, and most difficult mode of transport. Make it hell so that nobody would want to drive a car there because its miserable.
There are a lot of two fare zones in the city limits. I understand the desire some people have to turn nyc into big amsterdam, but nyc is substantially larger than that city with substanitally less interconectedness. Hell, Holland is a country barely bigger than the NYC metropolitan area.
If people had good reliable transit available, they would use it. The reality is that they do not. People who think nyc does either are not from there, or live in the privilged part that has tons of transit options.
You cant force people, you have to offer better options. I agree, if cars were the slowest option people wouldnt use them. Guess what? They arent. Three bus transfers are. This is ignoring anyone who needs to travel outaide of the city limits as well.
I have to nitpick slightly; Holland is not a country. Amsterdam is in the North Holland province of the Netherlands.
Source: I'm on the train from Amsterdam to my home in Nijmegen, Netherlands, which is not a part of either Holland.
Thanks for clarifying. I forgot its not interchangable for the Netherlands.
NYC has great transit. Are you from Staten Island or what?
You've described the opposite of how the US likes to do things
Last year I lived in an apartment who had about 40 parking spaces, 2 for each of 20 units. This complex was in a highrise which had around 80 vacant units, but due to minimum parking availability laws in my area they had to leave most units vacant.
My city is (obviously) plagued with an unhousing epidemic as the artificial restrictions like this (the landlord problem too 🙄) continue to drive property prices up (my unit was a 400sqft studio for $1.2k after fees, that's $3 a square foot in a nation where $1/sqft is standard).
That would invovle upgrading the subway to actually handle capacity along with a circular route, but that is currently beyond the capability of any American public transport development lol.
There is one downside that I don’t think people consider enough when discussing congestion pricing:
Trucks will now find alternate routes that will hurt poorer neighborhoods.
Example: In order to go between New Jersey and Long Island, some trucks traditionally take routes through Manhattan as it is geographically faster to go crosstown than to detour north or south.
In order to drive from New Jersey to Long Island, to avoid the new congestion pricing trucks will most likely take the George Washington Bridge, drive through the South Bronx, and come down into Queens via the Throggs Neck, Whitestone, or RFK Bridges.
The South Bronx is about to absorb a LOT more of that traffic. Anyone taking the Major Deegan or Bruckner during rush hour knows it’s already beyond fucked with traffic.
Now, the traditionally poorer residents of the South Bronx are about to experience more air pollution, more noise, more road repairs, and majorly slower travel time anywhere.
Congestion pricing doesn’t remove the traffic, it just re-routes it into poorer neighborhoods.
(NOTE: I am a NYC car owner and still for congestion pricing. NYC should be way more pedestrian and bike friendly and while this program has downsides, it is a step in the right direction.)
Apply it to areas you want fewer people driving. Don’t exclude poorer neighborhoods.
Economically, this is not an either or. It will both reduce AND divert traffic. Some will choose to pay, some will choose an alternate route, some will choose alternate forms of transport.
Agreed. The next phases should keep expanding the zone until there is an equilibrium across all the travel routes.
Counter point. If the congestion pricing extended all the way through The Bronx, Queens, and The Mt. Vernon or Mt. Hebron (I honestly forgot which one is just north of The Bronx, and which one is upstate. Didn't live there for very long.) area, this wouldn't be an issue for any of the boroughs.
Definitely agree. It needs to be implemented in a way that won’t punish the adjacent communities unfairly.
If other areas of NYC have too much congestion, maybe they should have congestion pricing too…
This is great work by the city leadership. It's taken decades to get this system in place and the city sorely needs it.
Congestion charges work. It's not a new thing nor an untried approach to mitigating extreme congestion from unfettered use of the city streets.
The weird part about all of this, to me anyway, is that tools and congestion charges are very much an economic and Libertarian style solution, but strangely conservatives often fight them tooth and nail. Isn't their whole schtick that the market driven solutions are best? The city owns the streets. The use of the streets are in high demand. So, the city puts a price on a resource. That's just econ basics.
Libertarians have no underlying principles other than doing whatever they want with no consequences.
100%. Knew a Libertarian. Conversations about anything rooted in reality or logic were like pulling teeth.
They thought people and businesses would pay to be connected to roads, and each one would pay for the upkeep of their own segment. They wouldn't charge anyone to use their roads, because they'd recoup the costs from businesses.
Highways would be built through...uh, charity? Or maybe it was big businesses that'd need to ship goods across them. Every highway would be a toll highway, and it'd be beautiful. It'd be cheaper than paying taxes...
/majorEyeRoll
They don't have any idea how cost-effective taxes are, compared to paying private companies individually for every single shared resource. It's the same for healthcare, education, etc.: to pay the government for a decent nonprofit service is always better value.
"But governments waste so much money!"
And so do private organizations.
But in addition to wasting money, they also pay CEOs 10x as much, pay the middle class workers 1/2 as much (meaning worse jobs in your communities), and charge people at least 2x as much. Because they have shareholders to feed!
Perhaps my memory is bad, but as far as I can recall, they jettisoned all ideology after the Tea Party (funded by Libertarian billionaires) fizzled. So, pretty much about the time Obama took office. It's mostly racism and tribal identity now.
I think they just whittled down their ideology into the most privileged and selfish extreme. They do believe the insane things they spout like "tax is theft."
I think you're right that the rank-and-file libertarians don't really think their ideology through or educate themselves on its flaws or alternatives, because it really is about identity. I'm pretty convinced that it always has been though. Conservative ideology is based on hierarchy, and they think the right outcomes result from having the proper social stratification— this is usually wealth-based.
Just a slight correction to your post - it isn’t NYC leadership per se. The final call is made by the NY State governor as the MTA is regulated on the state level.
I will never understand why someone would rather drive into nyc vs a bus or train. The morning rush hour drive through the tunnel is one of the most insane things to waste your time doing.
Some people don’t have permanent job sites, some people have to bring with them heavy equipment, some work odd hours. Public transportation is great if you have a 9-5 desk job.
That small niche of people can simply pay the toll to drive into NYC
That just ends up being a tax on blue collars and shift workers.
I don’t do it a lot but there are times when I just cannot take public transit - like when I need to bring packages to my relatives. Or like this week when I need to bring my cat to the animal hospital in Manhattan. It’s very difficult to bring my cat to her appointment by public transit or Uber/Lyft/Taxi.
My rare driving into the zone is negligible but every car on the road contributes to the traffic.
Sit in traffic and then pay money to park their car. I suspect those who drive into the city won’t change their habits. Another $50 an week isn’t a big deal for them.
I’ve met people who said they enjoy traffic because it’s time they get to be alone and in silence/away from their kids. I’ve also met people who have a superiority complex and look down on us common folk who take public transit.
I've had people ask how I make nurse money (not a lot, but more than nursing assistant money) and still take the bus. Like saving money and not wanting to deal with other drivers are things only people in poverty do.
Fees vary by vehicle type, with trucks and buses paying higher rates.
I would have thought that single occupant cars should be paying the higher fees, and mass transportation like busses should pay lower fees.
School and commuter buses are exempt. But if your local church is trying to drive a shuttle bus into Manhattan, it is going to face a charge
Thanks. That makes more sense.
Also, assuming the charge is roughly proportional to the size of the vehicle, a bus would still have a lower charge per person than a car, unless you're just driving around an empty bus
Ok, but that’s still better than each of them coming in, in their own cars.
And cheaper than everyone driving their own cars
I would not want to drive in New York.
Kansas City is nowhere near as dense as NYC, but I still get frustrated driving downtown around there, especially if there's construction.
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