I eventually moved to New England because it became clear that despite the city having good bones, the leadership (and many voters) were more interested in coming up with ways to make it convenient for drivers to drive and/or park in every neighborhood in the city than making it a pleasant place to live. The ghost of Robert Moses influences everything there.

So I was floored when it seemed like such an incompetently managed city as NYC was actually going to implement the obviously correct solution of charging money to allocate a scarce resource. What was less surprising was the fact that it was derailed by a state politician but only at the last minute and after hundreds of millions had already been spent.

I’ve looked at a bunch of different apartments this summer with my lease coming up, but I don’t think I want to deal with the noisy other parts of lower manhattan

Per car, per minute? Sure.

Per car, per trip? Not clear, but probably not. Per block, per day? Also not clear, but probably not.

Still, when living in NYC I felt constantly surrounded by car traffic, far more than other cities I've lived in.

And the construction, you can't deny the amount of construction going. A lot of it isn't even active work; contractors seemingly throw up scaffolding and let it sit forever because I guess the fines for letting scaffolding sit forever are cheaper than the costs of fixing crumbling masonry facades, so that is what is done. Don't get me started on the trash situation either, what an embarrassment that corrupt aspect of nyc life is.

Every time I fly into LAX from northern Canada I get a punch in the lungs - it's horrible. There must be some severe long-term health impacts.

What US city do you think does a better job?

My criticisms of NYC traffic aren't based on the throughput efficiency for drivers, but the impact on the people who live there.

At least when I was in NYC, every attempt to charge market rates for parking, improve daylighting at intersections, get people to stop parking on the sidewalks, build protected bike lanes, stop making mountains of garbage bags on the sidewalk, etc were all met with fierce resistance. (Though I gather from this thread that things have improved in the last ten years or so.)

While the pedestrian fatality counts in NYC are breaking records, just across the Hudson River you have Jersey City and Hoboken prioritizing safe, pleasant streets for residents and have achieved "Vision Zero" with no traffic deaths.

Hoboken's traffic fatalities have always been low or zero, even long before all the daylighting, because Hoboken is only 1 square mile with only a handful of entry/exit points. Quite simply, it's difficult for a car to get to a sufficient speed to kill someone there. But they can certainly cause non-fatal injuries on a regular basis, and they do. I saw quite a few out my window at the intersection closest to my home, and it took over seven years for the town to even add an extra stop sign there.

Part of the problem is Hoboken's weird fear of traffic lights. The busiest commercial street has them on every block, but the rest of the city only has a handful. Everywhere else, it's stop signs, usually only in one direction, which changes unpredictably between blocks.

Compare this to NYC outer-borough neighborhoods of similar density and character, like Astoria or Park Slope, where they put traffic lights on nearly every intersection. Much safer to be a pedestrian in those places because you have a pedestrian traffic signal telling you when it's safe to cross. In Hoboken you just have crosswalks which may or may not have a stop sign, and drivers who may or may not stop for you, and complete lack of traffic enforcement by authorities who don't care when cars fail to yield to pedestrians.

Oh, and about that busiest commercial street in Hoboken that actually has traffic lights: it didn't even have pedestrian signals until 2017, many decades later than pretty much every other busy place in the entire NYC metro area.

The commentary here is always focused on the strawman terrible people commuting to lower Manhattan, but there are a million reasons why convenient travel to or through Manhattan is needed.

It’s also unfair to characterize the governor of New York as “some politican”. The MTA and most river crossings are owned by public authorities controlled by the state, and the entirety of the system is dependent on New Jersey Transit and the multi-state Port Authority. Congestion pricing was a state initiative all along.

> The problem is other stakeholders live in the provinces.

Exactly. People who live in New York City often end up being beholden to the preferences of people who live outside the city.

There are downsides to the culture of localism in New England, but one nice thing is that cities and towns are typically able to prioritize the lives of their own residents which makes them nice places to live.

Greater Boston is a suburban hellscape. If traffic is your Kryptonite, beantown is worse in some dimensions.

NYC prospers today because it’s a regional hub. All of the business that required physical presence (shipping, industry, etc) is long gone.

Also note “the provinces” include NYC itself. I grew up in Queens, and congestion pricing certainly didn’t align with the needs of my relatives who live in the old neighborhood.

No doubt, but the question is to what degree the preferences of people who live in Queens should override the preferences of the people who live in Manhattan when it comes to deciding how to manage the streets of Manhattan.

> Greater Boston is a suburban hellscape. If traffic is your Kryptonite, beantown is worse in some dimensions.

For drivers, sure, it seems nearly as bad as NYC. I recall it being congested and confusing the few times I drove through Boston. Though it is nice that they buried some of the highways so you don't have to hear or see as much traffic downtown. But in general my concern is less about the impact on drivers than the impact on neighborhood residents, pedestrians, and cyclists. In some ways the Greater Boston area seems ahead of NYC in that regard.

Sorry but this statement is not true. Compare NYC today vs 1980s or earlier. There are more bike lanes, parks, walking paths than ever before. Roads in Manhattan are narrowed frequently to allow more pedestrians.

The west side highway is amazing for biking, I love it. Just because it is not Copenhagen or Amsterdam doesn't mean progress isn't made.

source: Lived in Manhattan for 20+ years. Own a car, bike regularly and walk to work.

That's wonderful to hear! I lived in NYC for the better part of a decade and was a big supporter of orgs like Transportation Alternatives and their work with the DOT to advocate for road diets.

At least when I lived there the painted bike lanes were a running joke and more dangerous than just taking a car lane because every block there was at least one taxi or truck blocking the bike lane. And in cases where there was physical separation you had to contend with moped drivers riding at unsafe speeds. The Queensboro Bridge bike path was dangerously overcrowded and every year they claimed they'd open another lane; it looks like that's still "just around the corner" https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2024/04/08/first-look-the-dot-fi... but I wouldn't hold my breath. The Queensbridge Greenway shared use path became a muddy parking lot soon after it opened and it seems like they're still struggling to keep cars off it. NYPD still seems more enthusiastic about ticketing cyclists than drivers who park illegally.

I didn't mean to imply that the NYC bike/ped folks haven't notched some wins. And I used to tell myself that as bad as it was, other US cities were worse for cyclists and pedestrians. But that wasn't true and every time I go back to visit friends and family I'm still grateful when we leave.

Now all they need to do is calm traffic on the transverses...

But compared to other world-class cities they have (had?) this weird car-shaped blind spot where every neighborhood and park was filled with cars and most people don't care.

EVs due to the simplicity of the drivetrain (which is already engineered for various electric motor sizes since we've been using them for 100+ years in 1000s of applications) can be adapted quickly and cost effectively to many different vehicle sizes and platforms:

- electric hand scooter - maybe this has happened already, but the mini micro kids scooter design seems ideal to human application. more stable, turns well, better balanced. It folds up and is totally hand-portable when you get to your destination, so no locking up. Modern battery performance should be able to do dozens of miles at 10-15mph if necessary.

These can be almost effortlessly carried into a subway car.

- electric bike - as anyone who has been to the netherlands, this encompasses a wide range, from a simple bike to various cargo carrying versions and basic trailers. The downside of the electric bike is securing it at the destination, but theoretically secured parking should be a lot more compact for a bike.

- electric vespa/moped - the big difference here is speed and danger. In a city, I argue this is right at the line of being too big and dangerous. It can't be adjacent to pedestrians or bicycles, needs to be in dedicated car lanes, but its kind of too small. These can go faster, carry more, and are more secure since they are harder to make off with.

- electric motorcycles/trikes - like mopeds but bigger/faster still

- electric K-cars/golf carts - this is where there is a big empty spot in US vehicles. You can see them starting to develop with side-by-sides, but an urban electric golf cart or similarly sized vehicle is tremendously useful and much more compact and cheap to make in theory. I would argue that outside of specifically permitted deliveries, nobody should have a vehicle larger than this in Manhattan.

IMO these are the big three that cities need to start planning to adapt to, and big vehicles are strictly for special situations. A "golf cart on steroids" can really pull quite a lot given EV motors ability to produce torque.

I lived in downtown Minneapolis for quite a while, it was amazing how much a bicycle shrunk the city once the snow melted. Anything under 4 miles of distance wasn't worth taking a car, because the parking delay and walk-to-destination removed any time advantage.

e-bikes and e-hand scooters are like that, but expand the accessibility to a far bigger age range and fitness level.

An e-handscooter that is portable takes a subway system and expands the radius/distance accessible from the base stations by a factor of 3 to 10. With a e-scooter you carry off the subway, you can easily go 1-2 miles from the station, weather permitting.

Finally, e-scooters are QUIET and CLEAN. Which when people get used to them will really highlight how much ICEs stink and are loud, and will turn them into pariahs socially. When that happens tipping point wise who knows.

Savvy point that's often missed in these discussions. I'm on the boards of two buildings in Manhattan and see these invisible "taxes" all the time.

Lot of mechanisms setup to punish & tax buildings but not to facilitate the timely curing of whatever they are fining you over.

One favorite was after an elevator incident a few years ago, the city passed some new law that required mostly software updates to elevators. It was essentially an update to prevent elevator repairmen from overriding the safety mechanism preventing motion when the door is open. So putting a safety on the safety.

However of course there are only like 2 companies in the city and they colluded on how much they'd charge. So in effect it was a $10k per elevator tax on every residential building in the city. Not huge in the grand scheme of things, but in my condo that was a random 4% of budget blown away at the stroke of a pen. And they do this all the time.

We had to do facade inspections and the city institutes all sorts of rules & fines around it, but then we ran into a stubborn neighbor with axe to grind with sponsor disallowing access on adjacent side for our scaffolding. City of course does nothing to force compliance by neighbor, it's your problem. Eventually had to be paid off in some manner.

Very much city of no.

Condo board fights are nasty, personal and 24/7. Most of your neighbors are quietly happy with the operation of the building, and 2-5% of your neighbors are insane.

We dealt with everything from threats of lawsuits and complaints filed with the state, repeat 1000 word complaint emails, texts on nights & weekends, a group running a shadow building wide mailing list to complain & collaborate on deposing existing board, etc.

The biggest complainers were not people who had leaks or actual problems. Actual problems are easily resolved, and BAU for building management.

Instead it was people who wanted to lobby furniture replaced yet again, or were unhappy with the fading paint on the back side of the building no one sees from the street. Generally they were underemployed and/or mid-divorce. These peoples problems can never be solved.

The best part of getting off the board was watching a few of these nuts get on the board and start fighting each other instead of bothering me.

But I will say, here in NYC at least, the first thing boards and mgmt companies do is setup systems to efficiently handle these squeaky wheels so theydon't overwhelm everyone's time, energy or emotional capacity.

On the plus side, I've learned a lot about general mgmt, policy and communication; learned how certain hardware systems work; and I've made a couple of solid business connections from it. My tenant is thrilled. And great stories!!!

The default response to government inaction is typically a) the citizen can't do whatever thing they're trying to do without violating the law, and b) nothing bad happens to the bureaucrats not doing their jobs. If those two things inverted you'd see government become more efficient overnight.

https://xkcd.com/325/ - "You can do this one in every 30 times and still have 97% positive feedback."

We ended up burning through the contingency because this project started right at the beginning of COVID. Parts and labor suddenly became scarce.

Something that stood out to me: there's been a marked decline in state and local funding for NYCT since before COVID. I wasn't fully aware of just how much the city and state had independently cut back: it looks like NYCT part of MTA alone is receiving $3B less per year than it was in 2019.

Congestion pricing is sound policy regardless, but this hammers home the perception that NYS treats the MTA (and NYCT in particular) as a financial sponge that can be squeezed for spare change whenever a boondoggle needs funding somewhere else.

I'm all for funding mass transit.

But the city is not using MTA revenue to pay for other things.

Take a look at the third image in the post: both state and local funding from the MTA have been reduced in recent years, dating back to the FY before COVID.

Similarly, here’s an example of the state using MTA as a piggy bank for upstate ski resorts[1].

[1]: https://jalopnik.com/new-york-mta-gave-millions-to-bail-out-...

I've gotta point out though, the writing in that article is truly abhorrent. This is the weird Frankenstein of The Onion and Gawker that was picked up by private equity, right? The web is a better place without this style of publication, I think.

I'd encourage you to get your news somewhere else my friend :) This reporting makes Buzzfeed look Pulitzer worthy.

(I happen to agree it's a fairly minor scandal. It's intended to be demonstrative of the MTA's inability to protect its budget.)

That ended, in part, because the MTA received a huge operating boost from federal COVID funds, which are now (4 years later) running dry. So we haven't seen the return to the 2017 subway yet, but we almost certainly will if essential maintenance and system improvements are once again deferred to keep the lights on. As with everything about public infrastructure: the best and cheapest time to fund infrastructure is before it breaks. If the subway is allowed to continue to fall into disrepair, it'll only cost us more down the road.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%932021_New_York_Cit...

Notably, NYC congestion pricing does not affect the highways into the city: if you take a highway into the city and stay on the highway, you won't be charged. The charge is only for entering the city grid, where the (reasonable) argument is that the transportation system is more than sufficient and the traffic, noise, and tailpipe emissions of your car do more harm to local residents than they fairly benefit you.

That's technically true, but it ignores the fact that both the Lincoln Tunnel (495) and Holland Tunnel (78) require you to enter the city grid. With the way the congestion pricing was designed, if you take either of those tunnels, there's no way to avoid the congestion pricing fee -- this was confirmed multiple times in FAQs and Q+A's.

I'm mostly in favor of congestion pricing, but I really think they need to figure out a better solution for that tunnel issue.

So the only relevant congestion for this specific issue is between the tunnels and the highways. Manhattan residents living near the tunnels know what they're signing up for. The tunnels opened in 1927 and 1937. The traffic isn't exactly a new problem.

Also, the parts of NJ in question (where the tunnels are closer than bridges) are largely urban in character. You make it sound like people are coming from some far-away leafy suburb, that's not the case for the majority of this population.

Any congestion pricing plan which ignores that problem is going to be met with mass outrage, to an extent that will swing elections against incumbents. Especially when said incumbents promote this "no charge if you stay on highways" BS without explaining the fine print.

Again, I'm saying this as someone who only ever takes public transit and is generally in favor of congestion pricing as a concept.

Personally I always take public transit into NYC, but I can completely understand why it isn't a reasonable option for many people. Especially when both NJT rail and Amtrak have daily meltdowns whenever the temperature is above average.

Edit to add: I'm completely puzzled by your comment about "traffic from Florida to Boston or Albany". Boston is on the I-95 corridor, which means going over the GWB -- there's already no reason for any sane driver to enter the congestion zone for that route. And routes to Albany don't need to cross the Hudson at all. I don't see how congestion pricing or these two tunnels have any connection to those routes.

Anyway, my overall point here is that the upthread comment of "if you take a highway into the city and stay on the highway, you won't be charged" is true but worthless, because for one million people here there's no way to actually do that without driving massively out of your way to a bridge crossing.

The through traffic comment was a response to my original comment that a person wanted to use the Hudson River tunnels to pass through NYC onto their destination. I picked the Varanzono bridge route as the southern route around the city and 87 for the northern route. I usually go further north than the GWB to crossover.

The massively out of your way I might prefer to NYC city traffic.

Which parent comment are you referring to? I don't see any talking about non-NYC destinations besides yours.

In any case, the only highways that are exempt are the West Side Highway and the FDR. These are the only highways in the zone. And generally you don't take either of those highways for anything other than "local traffic" as you said. So I'm just not understanding your point about routes outside of NYC, that doesn't make any sense in the context of congestion pricing and the exempted highways in the first place.

My comment was that travelers not going to Manhattan should choose a route that avoids the tunnels.

I'm only now beginning to understand the point you are trying to make is that political outrage makes good policies tougher. I thought this sub-thread was regarding driving into Manhattan to get somewhere else is inconvenient and adding extra costs makes sense.

How so? The toll rate is identical between the Lincoln Tunnel, the Holland tunnel, the George Washington Bridge, the Bayonne Bridge, the Goethals Bridge, and the Outerbridge Crossing: https://www.panynj.gov/bridges-tunnels/en/tolls.html

The GWB can be done without a toll, but if you're shopping for a cheaper route to avoid the Verrazzano toll it's likely way out of your way.

Ideally the toll structure should incentivize through traffic to stay on highways and out of the most gridlocked streets in the country, and I'm saying this as a longtime car owner in Brooklyn who has driven through the Holland Tunnel hundreds of times. Manhattan streets are a tragedy of the commons in action.

But even with congestion pricing, assuming a same-day round-trip with a non-NY EZ-Pass, the combined cost of (Holland or Lincoln Tunnel toll + congestion pricing toll) is still a bit less than the cost of (Goethals or Bayonne Bridge toll + Verrazzano Bridge toll)... because the Verrazzano charges in both directions. So even congestion pricing doesn't fix those incentives :/

It has played out in other cities, there is only one way for it to play out.

It's okay if you disagree with the facts, but it's fairly easy to understand how pricing people out is a poor attempt at a solution, but solves the problem by brute force anyway.

>where the (reasonable) argument is that the transportation system is more than sufficient and the traffic, noise, and tailpipe emissions of your car do more harm to local residents than they fairly benefit you.

Yes. I never said that less cars is not beneficial. I understand this, that's why I said what I said.

There's no such thing as "fairly benefiting from other residents"...

You're still not solving the problem by slapping a $ figure to the entrance of cars. It's just a lazy and bad solution.

It's really nice to be able to pay for better facilities _when you need them_. The person who is late for a flight or a job interview, or who just found out their kid got hurt at school and is heading to the hospital, benefits massively from congestion pricing. They have the ability to access faster transportation when they need it, and to choose the slower alternative when they don't.

You can create bus and emergency lanes you know, with less detriment.

Where it fails is an Uber/taxi drivers add a lot more congestion than an average person and the fees don’t get adjusted for this issue.

Externalities are one of the thornier issues and making those prices clear to people is how we get people to decide whether they actually want to pay the full price of a good or service.

Artificial, organic, lab grown or otherwise - does the price of a good or service capture the cost of its production.

No, it's a good solution to negative externalities. In the status quo, drivers do not bear the full cost of driving (noise, pollution, opportunity cost of time lost in traffic). Congestion pricing address that by imposting a fee equal to the societal cost of those externalities.

It's not a good solution in any sense of the word. There are reasons we don't charge for some things. Do you charge people extra who use their entire bin on bin day?

It's weird how many people here are not smart enough to realise how backwards this solution is.

>"convert an urban highway into a beautiful linear park and waterway"

They converted an inner urban highway and other highways in the sky (in the immediate city centre) to walking paths while adding extra highways to the pool further out from the city centre. Removing the inner highways added to congestion, adding the outer highways reduced congestion.

They did not add congestion charges and the city handles it fine. They are not stupid like a lot of people here are.

You may or may not be stupid. I don't know.

Do you have anything to reply? I think you're running afoul of guidelines too.

The plan was structured in a way that it would affect every resident of the city via higher prices on goods and services, surcharges on delivery, taxis, construction, etc. Setting aside the issue of local residents with cars (which I could care less about), the planners refused to make sensible carve-outs for things like cargo trucks, construction vehicles, and so on. They could have done it, they just didn't. It was about maximizing revenue for the MTA, not about making sensible policy.

Maybe the fees would be small when amortized over a truck full of groceries or a tanker full of oil, but that didn't change the fact that it was a regressive tax on everyone who lives here, and taxes here are already amongst the highest in the country. This stuff adds up.

I find the math on that claim highly dubious. The toll for a truck is set to be $36 at peak times. $9 non peak. And they get up to $20 credit towards that when travelling through one of the tunnels, as many do. When I think about the amount of goods that can be carried in a truck and divide the $36 minus $20 or $9 across all those items… how much are we really talking about here?

I ask the question earnestly because I don’t know, but at a cursory glance it just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. Some drivers might even be quite happy to pay if it means they don’t spend hours stuck in traffic!

You're just repeating the last part of what I wrote -- that the taxes would be low when amortized over a large number of items -- but ignoring the rest. The point is, New York does this all the time: yesterday a surcharge on food delivery, today a "congestion tax", tomorrow a "global warming fee" on electricity consumption, a "save the whales" fee on straws, or whatever else. The number of sneaky fees and surcharges and social-engineering taxes in NYC is enough to make even the most ardent liberal begin to resist. Eventually, you're paying $25 for a hamburger and wondering why you can't find staff for your store.

Look, I have no problem with taxes. Just be honest. Don't sneak them in and lie about them and pretend that they're punishment for New Jersey car commuters when most of the revenue will come from the people who live here, directly or indirectly. If the people want to vote in another billion-dollar sales tax for the MTA, great. Go for it.

Of course there's a long way to go before visible changes happen. the US is extremely car-dependent after all, and public transportation does not organically expand with more demand for it. and without alternatives people will just pay it.

but this doesn't necessarily make it a bad tax. other changes can build on it.

I don’t personally see the congestion charge as dishonest. You can see it as a quasi-tax, certainly, but provisions like off peaking pricing and credit for using the tunnels means that it has positive side effects a straightforward tax wouldn’t.

In my book, negative externalities are worse than taxes. If we agree that a car driving in Lower Manhattan inflicts a non-trivial cost on everyone else, then not taxing it leads to socially inefficient outcomes.

Effectively, locals are paying a price either way - either by having their bus moving slower, inhaling fumes, etc, or by buying goods and services that reflect congestion pricing. The difference is that congestion pricing aligns incentives - for instance, delivery drivers may choose to travel to Manhattan during the off-peak hours whereas in the status quo they do not care at all about inconveniencing others.

Thought experiment: If we could somehow ban private residential use of all cars and only allow "work" vehicles, there would be no congestion and no tax.

It would also increase the incentive for people to play games like claiming their personal car as a "work vehicle", throwing a little advertising decal on the side, things like that.

By any data available that’s entirely backwards. Cars in the CBD are disproportionately driven by the affluent, transit is disproportionately taken by the poor.

(I love social medi... sorry HN oops how can I get this wrong, the quality of discussion is so high! :)

[1]: https://wellango.github.io/posts/2021/06/who-owns-cars-in-ny...

In the end not much will change, people who would have takes transit will end up takin transit, people who have to drive will drive, they just will pay additional tax.

How so? If a taxi used to take 20 minutes and $20 and now it takes 15 minutes and $18 the demand for that form of transport will go up.

If you see demand for cabs increasing + congestion pricing revenue of $1.5bln that means more traffic and more paying drivers

[1]: https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-new-york-traffic-manhat...

Stop sanitising killing people.

You can save the pearl-clutching hyperbole.

We already pay a congestion tax on all of these things, it just takes the form of paying for the labor of someone sitting in traffic. It's not obvious at all to me that the cost of the tax will be less than the gain on the labor cost.

What I know, without doubt, is that the plan didn't make any reasonable exclusions for residents, so it was de facto an additional tax. Would such a tax reduce marginal wait time cost by more than the price of the tax? Golly, that would be convenient for proponents, wouldn't it?

Regardless, even if you believe this, you still have to deal with the counterfactual of a world where we do the whole congestion fee thing, but exclude obvious categories of essential vehicles, like delivery trucks, construction, etc. That would be better, smarter, and more aligned with the stated goals of the system.

If the person has their own business then they can easily afford the daily $15. Skilled trades and the owners of those companies make very good wages in NYC.

I see plenty of blue collar workers on the MTA. Its one of the fastest ways to get around Manhattan and much cheaper than paying for parking.

A lot of NYC residents can easily afford extra $15 (their incomes are like 6 figures) why not just spread the tax to everyone to make it more equitable? And more revenue for MTA

It isn’t though, is it? What percentage of poor blue collar workers in the outer boroughs drive into the CBD of Manhattan for work on a regular basis? Very few. The cost of parking already makes it prohibitive for most. If they work as e.g. an electrician they’re already passing the parking fee onto their customer. Congestion charge will be the same.

But yeah, sure, there will be a small number of people affected that way. But orders of magnitude more poor blue collar workers would benefit from better public transit. You can’t run a city by vetoing anything that has a negative effect to someone. Nothing will ever get done.

Just pick the good policies instead of the bad dummy!

Right now, you have Group A: people who are ok with some members of their city getting to deal with congestion, so that they can have cheaper goods.

Group B: The people who deal with the effects of congestion, who have to find a ways to have their needs met.

as mentioned: >Setting aside the issue of local residents with cars (which I could care less about), >someone who lives here and doesn't own a car

The status quo should suit you.

That said, the inefficiency caused due to congestion, ends up affecting both group A and group B. This will add to costs, in either wait times / Delays, wastage, wear and tear, pollution etc.

Those costs are borne by you, but not associated with congestion.

It's much easier to solve the problem like a brute and attack people and say they're wrong when they point out the nature of the solve.

It's not even about money, if it were about the usage of power, food, travel, etc. it'd also be terrible. If you were to convince people they can't eat meat because it's wrong and then offer a solution as bad as "just become vegetarian", it'd also be laughable... but of course people would attack anyone pointing it out.

I live in London they brought it in and it's been ok overall. It doesn't stop congestion but reduces it a bit. For commuters it's probably a bit better as they mostly use the train/bus etc and benefit from less traffic. For workmen needing to deliver and fix things it's a bit of a pain. For me living in the center I'd probably take the plus of less traffic over the minus of getting a plumber to visit being expensive.

Re the tax grab - yeah but they have to get tax money from somewhere to pay for services and the like.

The one thing that has been bothering me about NYC congestion toll is I figured there was be a cut in the fares for subways and rail to entice more riders. But I don't see that mentioned; just for capital projects it seems.

That being said, NYCT's fare ($2.90 without zones or times) is markedly cheaper than even the cheaper London Underground off-peak same-zone fare. I don't particularly want to pay more for the subway, but the fare also really hasn't kept up with inflation.

[1]: https://omny.info/fares

If driving is so bad, and public transit is so convenient, why are people still driving?

People like this author write from a position of "people are stupid; they don't know what's good for them, so let me enlighten them". It's this assumption that is stupid.

People want the most convenience in their lives. If you want them to use public transit, make the public transit more convenient and cheaper than driving! I mean, take a look at a city like Tokyo. How many people drive there? Almost everyone takes public transit, putting NYC to shame. There is no need to drive in Tokyo! As a tourist, a 3-day all-you-can-travel subway pass costs less than $10, which is < $3.50/day and subway stations are every couple of blocks. How's that for convenience?

Instead of trying to tax the people into complying with your desires, make them want to do so of their own free will!

But that's exactly what they did in Tokyo: owning a car (and finding a place to park it!) is so expensive that few resort to it. I've probably been in a private car in Tokyo only once. Whereas in NYC car costs are socialized (Manhattan street parking is quite cheap when you can get it; you don't need to prove you have parking in order to own one, etc) while public transit is not.

Yes there's a phase transition issue (driving in suburbs is easier than driving in the city, but there's little incentive to transition from one to the other. Congestion charges do exactly what you suggest: make public transit cheaper than driving, and provide the funds to improve public transit.

In the Netherlands for example, lots of people go by car to Work, because that’s relatively far away; but then they’ll use their bike or transport for everything else. Stuff like groceries, dentist visits, meeting friends, going to the gym, etc. because all those things are within (their district of) the city.

I think we feel the pain of waiting for a subway, and think boy it would be so much easier to drive, but few people think while they're working an extra <period of time> a week to pay for their car+parking+insurance+maintenance+... boy would it be nice to not have to own a car.

That is what the top level post was objecting too. If the theory relies on everyone being consistently wrong, then perhaps it isnt properly accounting to the benefits of cars and inconvenience of public transportation as it exists today.

I dont think anyone is challenging the idea that cars are expensive, or people would prefer something else, provided it is actually better.

A smart person may get frustrated when the subway is 5-10 minutes late every day and take a car instead. They have 5-10 minutes that they're dwelling almost exclusively on the lateness of the subway.

That same person may get frustrated when they work n+1 hours per week because they own a car, but will not associate that frustration + time loss with their mode of transportation because they're focusing on work for that hour instead of sitting at a subway station waiting for the train.

It's not that they're too stupid to address the trade off, they just aren't addressing the trade off because they're spending the time that they had been wasting waiting for the subway at work / driving, and don't have the time to reflect on the inconvenience compared to when waiting for the subway you're forced to dwell on the idea that you're waiting.

Seems pretty thin to me. I dont think people are so cognitively busy that they never have time to ponder things like the tradeoff.

My experience is people think about the tradeoff very often. When they are in traffic, when they paying for their car, changing those tires, ect.

Got a lot better from 90s thru about 2010 or so and has been reverting since. Remember the "Summer of Hell" in 2017 which just sort of slowly faded into the COVID transit issues and now we are here with budget shortfalls. Hard to see it getting materially better before it gets worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017–2021_New_York_City_transi...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

I was curious so I looked this up.

Tokyo transit ridership is 3.46B / year

Tokyo population is ~39M (Urban figure on Wikipedia)

NYC transit ridership is 1.81B / year

NYC population is ~19.5M (Urban figure on Wikipedia)

In terms of ridership / population, NYC is actually higher (93.17 vs. 88.47)

40 million passengers (counted twice if transferring between operators) use the rail system daily (14.6 billion annually) with the subway representing 22% of that figure with 8.66 million using it daily. [1]

1. http://www.mlit.go.jp/kisha/kisha07/01/010330_3/01.pdf

Re the reality check, though, I wonder if this is going to be one of the no-questions-asked positives from AI. If, every time someone makes a claim that's not, but can be quantified, similar to what you just did with these ridership and population stats, an AI umpire would cite the stats behind the claim to better-educate the audience about the reality. Of course this assumes a non-biased "AI," but it seems like something that could become a reality sooner than later. I experience this multiple times per day, on HN a lot, where people make claims and I'm like "is that really true?" And I'm not being an ass; I'm always genuinely asking the question to make sure I'm getting properly educated.

P.s. I just typed "is Tokyo more transit friendly than New York City?" into 3.5 (yes, I'm still on 3.5. Some of us HN folks are actually tech laggards!). I won't paste the answer here since no one will read the comment given its absurd length, but your human answer is better, and more to the point, than 3.5 (+1 for humanity, I guess).

I fact check myself all the time too, often when I realize a "fact" in my brain isn't really a fact, it's just an intuition, or when I can't remember where I learned something and I question its validity. My wife and I both frequently pause conversations with "Hang on, let me fact check myself on that [because it might be BS and I don't want to spread misinformation]".

So I can't help but verify it when I read something that sounds true, intuitively, but I'm not certain.

So charge drivers for the actual value/cost of the land they park on, the lanes they drive on, the maintenance and infrastructure for the roads, the safety risk posed to those outside of cars, and the gaseous and noise pollution caused to others?

Sounds good to me. We can call it a "congestion charge" or something.

Public transportation needs to become more affordable first. I would have happily taken the train if it was comparable in cost.

But, I guess I am the minority case.

You can fit four adults in a small plane that costs $150/hr to run and goes roughly 150 miles an hour - or a dollar a mile.

It doesn't take that much of a charge for four people on a train to equal that.

And cars are way, way cheaper.

This is why we have HOV lanes that lower or make tolls free.

But also, if you take the subway regularly, there are multi-use and unlimited passes, students get free metrocards for weekdays, and so on.

Collecting revenue and making driving worse is easy (the stick).

But the carrot of actually making timely, meaningful improvements in transit is hard (the carrot) and no one believes its really going to happen.

You can't summarize the world with "People want the most convenience in their lives" and use that to explain or justify the state of things.

A couple examples: Cars compete with public transit and are highly subsidized. "Roads" are a public transportation method that doesn't have to be profitable in people's minds. But "Public transit" does. There's so much more and the information is readily available.

Unless you live in New Jersey, a short hop across the river from Manhattan but might as well be on the moon as far as the subway is concerned. The NYC Subway is great where it has service, but has for years neglected to expand into areas where the people live. Queens is also terribly underserved. There are bus options, but they get stuck in the same traffic that makes driving so miserable.

This starts compounding, because those pockets still need to get to work, etc, making it harder to get new transit in later.

Paradoxically you almost need to tax the locations that don't have access to public transit to pay for public transit, so the pricing inequality goes away.

> If you want them to use public transit, make the public transit more convenient and cheaper than driving!

Yup. I live in south Queens which is mostly suburban and a lot of people drive around. I'm two blocks from the A train so driving to Manhattan is pointless when I have a 30 min express subway ride. But if I wanted to go to the nearest Microcenter in Kew Gardens it's 20 minutes by car and an hour by bus, each way, with a transfer - guess what mode of transport I'm taking...

Your position is that NYC should, at the cost of the average resident, make it easier for outsiders to drive into the core of Manhattan at a time when physical proximity for business is becoming less and less important.

I do agree this particular program was a dumb idea that advocates tried to push through with the COVID nadir in traffic and office occupancy.

… do you have any idea of the costs that are associated with owning and operating a vehicle in Tokyo?

They made it very, very inconvenient to drive.

But a car? Parking it? Tolls? Insurance? To drive around in traffic going no where fast?

You're daydreaming.

Taxi/Uber when needed and subway the other 90%. I'm two blocks from the subway with coffee and a diner on the way there. Man, it's awesome. I'm annoyed def some days more than others at the mta, but this is a no-brainer.

Gd it America! Not everything can be low cost now/today and have long term soundness ... there are too many cars polluting too much in too small of an area going nowhere fast. As a would be business operator of the city, I damn near have a moral imperative to make some cash on that imbalance.

I've spent many a $25 going 2 miles or less (say when raining) in a yellow cab. I always feel half stupid for paying it given how slow it is to move two lousy miles.

That's like saying that since land closer to Central Park is worth more than land further away, that we should demolish Central Park and replace it with more apartments. Property in NYC would be worthless if there weren't roads you could use to reach it.

Most of the people who go to Manhattan get there by subway, bus, bike or walking (especially the people who have to work for a living), at a fraction of the space cost of those using cars. Access to property is certainly an important part of making that property valuable (hence why property around stations is worth more), but Manhattan spends far too much (in space) on roads for the amount of access throughput it gets in return.

Perhaps academics or NYC can analyze and publish data from Uber/Lyft on average rideshare occupancy by time of day and GPS location, e.g. what percentage of time is spent driving around empty (consuming energy, polluting), carrying a paid passenger, or parked in an area close to expected customers.

(But at the same time: I don't think anybody has claimed that it's a panacea. Congestion pricing can be both good policy and still have gaps.)

There's always the opportunity for street/sector level surveillance via automated license plate readers. Your favorite neighborhood or street has too many cars? Impose quotas, vary the quota by time/season that only a computer can decipher, then sell "Fast Pass" exceptions to generate more revenue. Win for neo-feudal middleman, without brand licensing fees for the "environment" that justified a new digital on-demand toll economy.

(I also don’t think anybody would describe Manhattan’s CBD as their favorite neighborhood.)

Try a web search for geo-fencing, which is closely coupled to modern technology for enforcement of geo boundaries that are not gated by a physical barrier.

Manhattan Central Business District (CBD) is defined as "Manhattan south of and inclusive of 60th St" excluding some through-traffic highways.

> don't think anybody would described Manhattan’s CBD as their favorite neighborhood

It includes neighborhoods such as these, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Manhattan_neighborhood...

  Chelsea
  Chinatown
  Flatiron
  Greenwich Village
  Koreatown
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side
  NoLita
  SoHo
  Tribeca

Only after thorough and deep cleanup it would gain taxpayer trust and be on a get-well plan to be more sustainable financially.

It would still operate in maintenance mode in the interim, while going through restructuring, NYC has no lack of financial restructuring professionals in downtown

Time to break these regulatory capture for the public good and benefit of taxpayer, not the organized mob

At least I would love to see the discourse in oublic and honest communication about actual issue and its root causes. Not some bogus “congestion”.

There are actual people with names that have caused the mess

In Melbourne, Australia, the state-run Public Transport Corporation was an MTA-style mess and the trains in particular were notorious for delays. In 2009, the operating contract was handed over to the company behind the Hong Kong Metro, and punctuality has ratcheted up from the low 80s to the mid-90s; not quite HK-style 99%, but still a marked improvement, all on the same crusty old infra.

https://www.metrotrains.com.au/metro-performance/

People are freaked out about inflation and the prices of everything rising and I think they're very sensitive to anything that is going to add more expenses. Even in Ithaca, NY apartment dwellers have developed a consciousness that rising property taxes are going to get tacked on to their rent.

In terms of national politics, Democrats feel vulnerable, and I think Democrats everywhere feel pressure to drop unpopular policies that could affect them nationally. For that matter the rest of New York is rich in competitive House seats that could go either way.

Now we just see a probably illegal power grab by an executive which kills a bunch of popular and needed projects while very publicly demonstrating that Democrats can’t fucking deliver.

https://scri.siena.edu/2019/03/18/2-3-of-voters-say-amazon-c...

More recently

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/poll-congestion-pric...

they found 23% of people opposed the decision to suspend, and about 45% of voters supported it and that support was not very different for D's, R's and I's.

But it's not a new concept, and it turns out that people like being able to drive easily, having quieter streets, and tax money for other services. Once you go from fear of the unknown to seeing the results a lot of policies get more popular and in every other example we have that absolutely applies to congestion pricing.

And again, my point is that it will remain unpopular until it’s implemented, but it will almost certainly become popular once it’s put in place.

All you’re saying is that they turned what would probably be a non-issue by the election into something that people will remember and be upset about. That seems like a horrible political strategy.

I know I for one am much more likely to vote for a democracy supporting Republican (if they exist at this point) because of shit like this, and you’re articles says they won’t even get benefit from cancelling it

It is not so much that I think they should have banned or not banned nuclear energy but that the process they went through to do it was damaging to legitimacy.

In summary, Governor Hochul has now pissed off both opponents to congestion pricing, and also supporters of it. It was a terrible move, politically.