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posted by martyb on Tuesday April 02 2019, @09:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-possible-misuse-of-the-data dept.

Phys.org:

After years of debate, New York state has adopted congestion pricing to deal with traffic problems in New York City. Starting in 2021, fees will be imposed on all vehicles entering a pricing zone that covers lower Manhattan, from 60th Street at the southern edge of Central Park to the southernmost tip of the island.

This approach has succeeded in cities including London, Singapore and Stockholm. For scholars like me who focus on urban issues, New York's decision is welcome news. Properly used, congestion pricing can make crowded cities safer, cleaner and easier for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians to navigate.

The details matter, including the size and timing of charges and the area that they cover. Congestion charges also raises equity issues, since rich people are best able to move closer to work or change their schedules to avoid the steepest costs.

Are congestion pricing plans the wave of the future in American cities?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @01:07AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 04 2019, @01:07AM (#824313)

    However, I don't see turning Manhattan into a place where you have to have more spare money to drive as a reasonable solution. There are all kinds of people out there; some of them will find this a negligible load, some won't. Public spaces, IMHO, should be aimed at the public. Not the wealthy.

    It's not, and never has been, about advantaging wealthier people. It's about the smog, the traffic and the incredibly overcrowded streets filled with cars that has a negative effect on the quality of life for people who *live* there. Shall we prioritize visitors to your town over the residents too?

    NYC, as you obviously know, is not some sort of theme park for suburbanites to come and play. That said, many do, and that's just fine. And there exists an enormous infrastructure (trains and buses) to bring those folks in and out of NYC.

    It's an actual city where people live and work. Are you suggesting that the people who live in NYC should be made to suffer through insane traffic congestion for the benefit of the bridge and tunnel crowd [wikipedia.org]?

    What's more, the *50 mile* radius around NYC has a full 10% (~30,000,000) of the US population living within it. Within that 50 mile radius, there is, as I mentioned, a *huge* infrastructure for moving folks in and out of NYC.

    Out where you were in Eastern PA, you could always (and still can), drive to a NJ Transit station and park (for free, no less) and get into NYC without clogging up the streets. Or you could go to Philadelphia and clog up *their* streets.

    Just to make sure I understand, your argument is that since there are folks who can't *conveniently* get mass transit into NYC near their homes nearly 100 miles away, the residents of NYC should have to deal with traffic congestion that essentially makes much of midtown and downtown Manhattan a parking lot for a good portion of each day.

    Is that about the size of it?

    Thankfully, most NYers disagree with you, and I will be much happier once the congestion pricing plan goes into effect.