See the Congestion Pricing Tracker for day by day measurements of the impact on congestion.
inb4 the supreme court rules that congestion charging is unconstitutional and furthermore that public transport, too, is unconstitutional.
“Ladies and gentleman of the committee, I put it to you: thousands, perhaps millions, of American songwriters have written about missing their truck. How many have written about missing the bus? I rest my case.”
Counterpoint, “the wheels on the bus in fact, go round and round.”
Congestion pricing is such a good idea everywhere there is rock solid public transit alternatives. Where there’s not, it just becomes a tax on the poor.
bicycles are good too, though maybe not for the longer distances that you would put congestion taxes on
Can be good. I ride my bike when I can, but my area IS NOT built for it, so it actually pretty risky. Heck some normal routes for me would probably get me stopped by the cops for recklessness.
If you can afford a car, you can afford an e-bike, even a cargo e-bike. Cars are luxuries compared to bicycles. Never forget that.
I don’t know where you live, but that’s just not true in large swaths of America. The other options add multiple hours round trip anywhere and in many parts of the US it’s not an option.
My work is currently a 20 minute drive down a freeway going 60 mph. There is no bus to take that route. There isn’t even a connection, or a transfer, the only other option would be a cab.
Fortunately, places like this aren’t likely to need congestion pricing
indeed
I’m just talking basic economics. A car costs 10x what an e-bike does. A car is, by any logical definition of the word, a luxury purchase compared to an e-bike. You just live in an area where you’ve decided that everyone needs to get around in luxury vehicles, and you’ve built that into your infrastructure. This would be like building all of our infrastructure to only accommodate stretch limos, and then trying to argue that limos are a necessity. It’s comically absurd. It’s a clown world.
You just live in an area where you’ve decided that everyone needs to get around in luxury vehicles, and you’ve built that into your infrastructure.
I did not decide that. The cold hard reality is that my work and my home are 15 miles (24km) apart. That’s a 1.5 hour bike ride, 3 hours round trip. You are absolutely right about costs, but I have NO option to bus, I cannot bike that daily, none of my coworkers live next to me.
I want more public transport. I would rather live with just a single car in my household that we use solely for large trips and moving large amounts of stuff. God knows it would be cheaper. I’d like that. I can’t feasibly do it.
Maybe if you live somewhere it doesn’t snow
No, it’s about having the infrastructure for it. And even car infrastructure is a huge luxury compared to bike infrastructure. It costs cities 10x to support one car commute as it does to support 1 bike commute.
Most people just live in areas that demand that luxury transportation be the only form of transportation. That doesn’t mean cars suddenly are no longer luxuries, simply because your area chose to make practical transportation options impossible. You can pass a law making stretch limos the only road legal vehicle. That won’t change the fact that stretch limos are ridiculous luxury vehicles.
Even in contries where there’s good public transport that’s not really the case. My aunt lives in a town 40min from where I live, and she wakes up at 4am to go work at a factory 10mins from where she lives. There’s no public transport at that hour and no, an ebike is not a viable solution for those roads.
I’m all in for having big parking spaces outside of cities so people load off their cars and then use public transport, but in the countryside that’s just not viable.
That sounds like an infrastructure problem. If you built roads that were only accessible by literal monster trucks, would you try to pretend that monster trucks are suddenly practical necessities instead of ridiculous extravagances? Your aunt just lives in an area where they decided that it’s OK to require people to make a big luxury purchase just in order to get around. It may be necessary to buy a big luxury in some areas, but that doesn’t mean cars suddenly become the transportation of the working class.
You have to have to be suffering from a severe case of motornormativity to believe the clown math that a $2k purchase is a luxury while a $40k purchase is a necessity.
This is not the US, there are no monster trucks. It’s just a place in Spain where several towns are near each other and the factory is in-between so people go by car. We live surrounded by mountains my dude, it’s not an infrastructure choice.
Motornormativity holy shit you really have not stepped a foot outside cities huh.
I don’t have a car but good fucking luck telling factory workers that their car is a luxury lmao.
It’s not an assumption that town people in my region need a car for work 90% of the time, it’s a fucking reality of their lives. It’s you who is assuming that people can let go of their cars easily.
Idk what I’m doing answering to you honestly, all you answered was a Wikipedia link disregarding all the realities that conflict with your argument. I hope you grow up, have a good day.
I take it you’ve never been outside a big city in Texas, California, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Wyoming, Minnesota, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Et Cetera.
I’m only listing places I’ve been. An e-bike would just not cut it, especially if you have small children. There are places you can not go without getting on a freeway, and there is NO WAY IN HELL I’m putting a small child on the freeway or highway on a bike.
Why are you talking about infrastructure? You’re changing the subject. Obviously the infrastructure needs to support them, just as cars are pretty damn useless without good road infrastructure. But cars are objectively an order of magnitude more complex and expensive than e-bikes. Cars are a luxury, bicycles are a utility. The key problem is that many cities are built to require you to use the luxury means of travel instead of the affordable utilitarian ones.
Naw, we are talking about the same thing. I bring up infrastructure, as many have, because that’s the reality of the situation. The entire continental United States is built for cars, and that’s not changing anytime soon. The reality is that cars are necessary, and at this time, it is near impossible and a safety hazard for most americans to try and use bikes due to the hostile road infrastructure in place.
It is NOT economically more feasible here, at this time, and unless the investors that have put billions of dollars into lobbying for car-dependent cities suddenly want to default on their near-hundred year investment, it isn’t going to happen.
Outstanding move on NYC’s part.
Prior to this going live there was a lot of talk about how congestion will simply move from one place to another. I don’t know new york so can’t name places but it was regarding commuters using a street or bridge that is now under congestion charge so they will flow an alternative route through roads that aren’t designed for the additional traffic.
Is that now the case?
Some people may be inclined to go up and over Central Park to get to the other side without paying the $9. That likely only affects uptown residents. I can’t imagine anyone driving around the park from midtown to avoid the fee.
The only legitimate concerns I’ve read are from contractors with tools and small businesses who deliver. They should be offered exceptions if walking or mass transit are unrealistic options. You’re not riding the subway with acetylene tanks or delivering fresh meat on Metro North. Other than that, I love it.
The other concern I’ve heard, and has not been brought up in this thread yet, is the lobbying influence from rideshare companies to pass the congestion laws.
It’s arguable that ride share vehicles are a better traffic density alternative to single rider personal vehicles, but there are pretty clear downsides to consider as well.
Source:
You can be self interested and still accidentally be on the right side of an issue. It doesn’t spark joy, but I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater on this. It’s still a win, imo.
sure, but you can also deliver those with lighter vehicles that don’t cause traffic. Congestion is congestion.
Of all the things on Reddit, I miss remindmebot the most. They tried to kill it numerous times but it survived like a roach in radiation. On lemmy, I find an interesting question and have to set a timer for myself. This is the most first-world of problems, but I’m still moderately upset every time
@RemindMe@programming.dev 1 year pls
Good luck. The bot hasn’t sent a message in almost a year.
@remindme@mstdn.social 10 days
@remindme@mstdn.social 10 minutes
@bdonvr Ok, I will remind you on Monday Jan 20, 2025 at 12:08 PM PST.
Unsure, I don’t live in NYC. However, I can say that this will encourage many more people to take transit, which is good. Plus, I don’t doubt that the tolled routes will still see active use by millions as they’re still the fastest way to and from work.
deleted by creator
We’ve been seeing a lot of anecdotal posting on Xitter of people who were skeptics or in opposition to this suddenly realizing that they just gained an hour or more per day because the traffic has been significantly reduced. So even some regular people (i.e. not the wealthy) who have to drive in NYC because of their job are realizing that there’s a cost benefit even if they do pay for the congestion pricing.
I REALLY wish they’d implement that in my home city of Montréal, Québec. We’re facing huge traffic congestion because of construction. It’s so bad it’s actually costing lives due to driver impatience.
Downtown Toronto too, please. This last year was the first time I have seen multiple emergency vehicles not being able to get to their destinations because of traffic gridlock. It’s insane.
It’s because of everyone being forced back into the office to help “reinvigorate the downtown core” and to help landlords cover real estate costs
Wait until the elevated highway collapses
Dude Montreal is currently insanity. You couldn’t pay me to drive there. Lovely city otherwise
Yeah. I live in Montreal and try to avoid driving anywhere if I can help it. That’s why I got a place near a metro station not too far from downtown. I have bus routes that go to all the nice places in 20-30 minutes. And my neighborhood is awesome. Everything I need is walking distance and it’s a cool place in the summer with lots of activities, bars, restaurants, specialty stores, etc.
Does anyone have a good before screenshot of the same map view / area? I want to stitch together a before shot before I share so that people not from the area can get an idea of the change and not just immediately think “oh well my small town has traffic and it looks like that so what’s the big deal”
Good.
…if it isn’t the bridge I said I’d cross… Wait, not going to pay that congestion charge.
Hilarious, a move that was proven to work in Istanbul was avoided… Because…?
Widening roads makes money and adds more cars that also makes more money. If you fix the problem, how are you gonna keep milking it?
Your silly trains, busses and bikes aren’t going to pay for the yacht.
What time was this pic taken?
What’s the situation in NYC with regards to the Return to Office bullshit? Surely this development will give clear heads another logical argument for continued working from home, right?
Wonderful news for people with porches or flexible schedules.
Is this the least full Times Square has been after COVID? Cam
