this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024
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Fuck Cars

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 6 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 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.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 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.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 6 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

already* too expensive ...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 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