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New York approves the first congestion toll in the US: $15 to enter Manhattan (english.elpais.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I live around this mess and I have mixed feelings about congestion pricing. I am for a congestion pricing scheme but the revenue should be shared among all transit agencies that travel in and out of NYC. Who the hell wants to travel into the city when PATH trains only come every 15-20 off peak and weekend hours? Why not beef up transit routes FIRST, and then implement the pricing?

The concept is a good idea. The execution is short sided and insular and I don’t see the MTA benefiting from any of this for at least a decade. That’s IF this money actually goes towards public transportation infrastructure.

I see this going the way of the mandatory 911 fee we all pay and then having almost none of that money going towards 911 service.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Are you saying every 15 minutes is too infrequent for off peak? Because that seems pretty frequent to me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Apologies, I was incorrect. The typical off peak day time schedule spreads out to about 20-30 wait times between rides. I do believe this to be a huge problem. They used to be more frequent.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Well the first time around this was to be introduced, there was a full toll rebate for NJ drivers, which caused the Port Authority (who run most things NJ-NY within 50 miles of Statue of Liberty, including PATH and the tunnels) to raise their tolls to the full price of the proposed fee ($8 roughly 15 years ago iirc). Thats why toll credit was a non starter for many remembering the PA’s actions the first time around, and ended up being limited to $5.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

We're still paying the price for Robert Moses's hatred of mass transit options. My personal opinion is that they should merge NY, NJ, and Connecticut systems

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Well, how long should the sides be in your opinion?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

This will create the demand that the market needs to act, it's just how the system works. There is no incentive to spend money until there is demand there to take up the additional space.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

you really wanna go crazy, make it electric only. that will cut some traffic back ;)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Hell yeah! Implement all the policies that favor the rich!

Seriously though $15 means nothing to the rich and electric cars are not an option for most people yet. As others have said, just make public transit better and cheaper.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Do both.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

You couldn't pay me to go to New York

[–] [email protected] -4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

My impression is that the folks supporting this (and other measures that make driving harder) are vocal but a minority, and the majority would be opposed except that it simply didn't take these issues into account while voting. (I know I didn't believe they'd actually manage to do this.) That's just based on talking to the people I know, not on any survey. I guess we'll see if actually having to pay the tolls pisses off enough people to change who gets elected next time...

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

It might piss people that they vote differently, but it doesn’t change the fact that cities bending over backwards to accommodate cars have historically downgraded the experience for people.