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New York Approves Historic Congestion Pricing Plan—Here’s How It Works And What Cities Could Adopt It Next (www.forbes.com)

submitted 5 months ago by vividspecter@lemm.ee to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world

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[-] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 21 points 5 months ago

Try it for a year, and I would love to see many new projects get funded. This is why I don't mind Toronto building lots more transit over SOGR, once a network is established, congestion pricing can be tried all over North America to solve the perennial "how do we get transit to break even" complaint

[+] lilsolar@sh.itjust.works -12 points 5 months ago

Fuck no toronto does not need another tax on people driving in.

[-] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 26 points 5 months ago

Sure they do, so long as they have provided adequate alternatives like rail or other transit for people to use instead.

Cities shoild be built for people. If you want to pollute the city with your car, waste space parking it somehwhere all day, and participate in one of the most dangerous forms of transportation, then there should be a fee associated with that to cover the costs of maintaining the infrastructure, pay for the parking, and contribute some money to healthcare to cover pollution health impacts/injuries from roadways.

[-] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 months ago

I can understand the initial hesitation to more and more fees. If you've ever tried getting out from Front Street at 5pm on a weekday you'd wish for something like that.

Thing is that everyone inside and outside cars effectively subsidize the externalities of traffic. Everyone's wasted time, wasted gas money, health effects of breathing car emissions, noise, so on and so forth. Don't forget that every car on the road is being subsidized by taxpayers from road maintenance, gas tax subsidies, parking facilities in the suburbs, service delivery and upkeep to the far suburbs, so on and so forth.

I agree that Toronto's network is not quite as good as New York to really justify such a toll at this very moment but within 10 years I think it will be, and if it shows early signs of success then I think many cities around both Canada and the US will be quick to adopt it.

[-] lilsolar@sh.itjust.works 0 points 5 months ago

I understand and agree w ur statements abt torknto traffic - I go uoft and frequently have to commute dt.

But the truth is adding more tax will just line the pocket of useless beaurucrats. I doubt the money will be spent efficiently, as governments are known to be extremely tardy.

But the alternatives are garbage. The subway system is overloaded and there's been no investment for almost 25 years. The go train network is nice for 15 years ago, but not so much now. And even current investment is a prime example of beaurucratic inefficiency

More tax will also just lower the standard of living. Toronto is already expensive, and making it more expensive to "fix" the problem thay THEY created is like going back to an abusive husband, promising to be a better wife.

[+] Goun@lemmy.ml -30 points 5 months ago

This is just gonna limit how poor people move even more, pushing them into public transport while the wealthy keep doing whatever they want.

[-] nbailey@lemmy.ca 63 points 5 months ago

My dude, poor people are not driving in New York lmao

[-] Goun@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago

Lol touche. I have no idea, honestly, but there's always people with tighter budgets

[-] mikegioia@lemmy.ml 15 points 5 months ago

Why did you even post that if you had no clue what you were talking about?

[-] Goun@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I didn't say I don't know what I'm talking about, I said I don't know who drives there. Fees are harder to pay for people with less money, that applies everywhere, and I think that's not fair.

I don't get it why people get so mad at this shit, I'm just presenting my opinions into a discussion. I can be wrong, anyone can be wrong, what's the big deal with that?

Edit: typo. Man, fuck cars.

[-] romamix@lemmy.ml 42 points 5 months ago

Looks like the congestion fees will be used to cover the public transportation expenses, so wealthy people will be sponsoring the poor people transportation options.

[-] vividspecter@lemm.ee 19 points 5 months ago

And from what I recall there are discounts and some exceptions for poorer workers, albeit limited. Which it needs to be as pushing people to public and active transport is the point of the policy.

[-] oo1@kbin.social 7 points 5 months ago

If they do achieve less car traffic they may be able to dedicate more space to bus lanes making busses faster or more reliable for more people. Though I vaguely remember from tourist experience , busses seemed pretty good in manhatan at least north-south direction.

Maybe also give some separated space to other modes that can also be quite cheap, like bicycles.

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml -2 points 5 months ago

im not familiar with the city but i feel public transit would stay just as shitty?

i feel like this will be carbon tax all over again.

[-] thatgirlwasfire@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago

NYC practically has the best public transportation in America. Maybe by the standards of other countries it isn’t great, but there is a reason NYC has the lowest car ownership rate in the country.

[-] Goun@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 months ago

That's crazy, but kind of makes sense, you can go practically anywhere by public transport. How do you (or they) identify in a country that relies so much on drivers licences, tho?

[-] shortwavesurfer@monero.town 3 points 5 months ago

We have state ID cards for those who do not have a driver's license or cannot get one for whatever reason.

[-] Goun@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago

I've been only once to NYC, but I don't have particular complains about its public transport. How well it spends the money is gonna be hard to guess without looking at actual data.

I feel the same about Carbon tax, I guess time will tell.

[-] Goun@lemmy.ml -4 points 5 months ago

I mean, that's great, but isn't this still seggregating people?

Sorry, I'm not even familiar with how NY works, but as a generalization, I think that if you put a fee, you're not necessarily going to remove cars from the streets, but select what cars will be on the streets.

Or maybe this does work, it's been succesfully done on other fields, like tobacco consumption. Idk, I just feel like these things are unfair somehow, I hope it helps tho.

[-] Witchfire@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

NYC is very much public transit and bike focused. A very significant portion of people never even learn to drive. The only cars on the road are business, rich people, and ubers. Some parking spots have a higher income than many service workers.

Unfortunately, there's also next to zero enforcement of traffic laws so people get hit and killed by cars daily

[-] hamid@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

Poor people do not drive into Manhattan. Without congestion pricing it is too expensive.

[-] Goun@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah, that's good point. I was thinking more on relative "poorerness" rather than absolute, but maybe that's not even relevant?

[-] MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 5 months ago

already* too expensive ...

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

This an important concern for pretty much everywhere in the US , except NYC.

While I have to admit to being a tourist, not a resident, I do visit most years and would never take a car.

Actually, the one population that needs more attention here is through traffic. People who need to drive to get from somewhere on one side of NYC to get to somewhere on the other side, should have a better answer than paying congestion pricing. I understand they do currently contribute to congestion but maybe it just really needs a better way through that doesn’t

[-] ieatpwns@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago

Not really there’s still mass transit, or walking, or cycling, or being close to the stuff you need. I speak from experience, lived in nyc all my life. If anything it makes life easier as a pedestrian because there’s less useless traffic from people crossing over from eastern ny to the rest of the tristate area and back, so there’s more consistent mass transit.

this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024

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