I've got a buddy who lives in NY- and trust me, owning a car in Manhattan is no joke. You can barely drive and use it, you must pay to park it everyday, and even if you dont use it, you must move it every week as to not get towed. It's a headache, it's a waste of space, and it actually burns a hole in your pocket.
it is pointless to have a car in manhattan. Also in most cases, the subway station is not far away. It is better just to take the train. It is faster and cheaper.
Its also like... a tragedy of the commons. every additional car on the streets means more congestion, pollution, and noise for everyone else. drivers should be required to pay for those negative externalities
Anyone who says there are no disincentives to driving in Manhattan has never driven in Manhattan. I suspect that the point of congestion pricing is to keep the riff-raff off the streets so that their "betters" can drive around more easily. Lest you think I'm just an embittered leftist, I've never in my life voted for a Democrat, but have voted for plenty of Republicans.
@@the0ne809 People dont like the subway for a reason there. Some of you need to get that other than jerking to the idea that public transportation is some holy amazing thing.
There's an important statistic you missed: Over 90% of people who commute into lower Manhattan do so by mass transit. All the furor over congestion pricing only serves the 10% who don't. Also, the congestion pricing toll would not be per trip, but per day, which would make it much easier to amortize into the cost of doing business for taxis, rideshares, delivery vehicles, and all the other vehicles which can be expected to make multiple trips into lower Manhattan every day.
There you go again, bringing facts into the discussion. Don't you know this is about car "drivers" (lessors and debtors, more like it) trying to rationalize their selfishness?
It's not just about commuters. In fact more to the point, it's going to be people delivering goods and services, which cannot be moved via public transport, who are affected the most. They're not gonna stop going because of congestion pricing, they'll just have to increase their prices, which get passed onto the consumer. The commuter side of this issue is frankly the least important.
@@Batmans_Pet_Goldfishit's a $9 charge per day. That's like a drop in the bucket for them. The commuter side is the biggest issue along with failing public transit
@@Batmans_Pet_Goldfish but with less other cars in the way, they'll be able to operate more efficiently and complete more jobs, earnings more income and offsetting the cost of the charges
I live in the downtown part of the congestion zone. I ride a bike. Usually around 430PM and later The streets leading to the Williamsburg Bridge, the Manhattan bridge and the Brooklyn bridge are packed with vehicles that drive like crazed animals with no regard for people trying to walk across or cyclists. They run red lights and act like they’re the only ones that matter. But since congestion pricing started, traffic has blissfully lifted. I am so happy congestion pricing has finally happened.
Thank the holidays for that, not congestion pricing. Commuter traffic has been unusually light since the new year but I expect we'll be back to the usual grind by the end of the month.
If you’re driving in the densest area of the densest city in the United States, then that’s a you problem tbh. You dont need a car in NYC, parking is already like 50 bucks an hour.
You couldn't pay me enough to own a car living in Lower Manhattan. Street sweeping, getting blocked for 30 minutes behind a garbage truck or a ConEd vehicle, asinine routes to get on a bridge or highway, road closures... etc. Literally cheaper AND faster to take a taxi everywhere than pay for a car + parking + gas + insurance even if I don't want to walk. Subway when there is traffic and rideshare/taxi at night is also faster. Hell literally walking is faster a lot of the time.
You will never catch me paying $20/day in parking. If you can afford that, are fine with the stupid long commute times, and paying tolls on top, that's a you problem. I can't manage spending $45+ a day AND commuting 1.5 hours one-way. Miss me with that shit
If you’re accurately predicting the narrators capacity comparisons to other states it might be time to pursue other interests, or at least follow along a little less
@@randommusic4567that’s how you go and kill off any semblance of nightlife my guy. also the roads will just fill and you’ll be right back where you started from yet even more reliant on cars
The MTA gets $8.5B from taxpayers, $6.9B from fares and tolls. Fares increasing to $3.00 in August. No amount of congestion pricing is going to fix the MTA as long as it allowed to remain corrupt and as long as it is allowed to mismanage its money. How much corruption has already been uncovered and is still allowed to continue to operate without a complete overhaul of its practices and policies.
The MTA has made some internal reforms that have seen its operating expenses drop, but they have a lot of expensive upgrades that they need to make for the system to continue working.
@@marioriveras A quick search will reveal countless news stores of MTA corruption going back decades. Even setting that aside, the org is horribly mismanaged. Last year they had to pull brand new train cars out of service for a raft of issues. Cars for which they massively overpaid. I don't understand who in their right mind would drive in New York City, but congestion pricing doesn't address any of the issues plaguing public transit.
nj and nyc need to build more ways for trains to go between them. george washington bridge was designed to support trains. replace 2 lanes with train tracks. this will easily increase the number of people who can enter and exit nyc. have the tracks go far into nj
The portal bridge/tunnel is being built as we speak..the problem is it was supposed to be a 4 track tunnel, it's only slated as a 2 track now. When completed the current PATH tunnel is getting shut down and completely renovated. Which puts us back a square one, until the renovated PATH reopens. Instead of 6 tracks when it's completed(many years out) its now 4 when completed(many years out). The train idea ,honestly ,on the GWB sounds terrible for two reasons 1)the bridge is wildy outdated and would need to be replaced and 2) there no rail infrastructure to support it. There was enough fighting and bureaucratic nonsense for the portal project that seeing the GWB be renovated with trains is something that won't happen in my lifetime. That and trying to connect new train systems into the old ones is a huge engineering nightmare. Love the idea and the positivity, but it's going to get worse before it gets better.
@ actually the c line was specifically designed to cross the gwb. you can literally see that the c line curves towards gwb. the original plan for gwb included support for train tracks for the future lower level. but they went with roads instead the gateway tunnel is a scam to add more congested lines. it does nothing to relieve bottlenecks and single point of failures that plagues the transit system. the tristate can not afford to implement nice to have projects like the gateway tunnel when the system is failing regularly because of the lack of alternative routes for trains
@@WillScrillzTheres plenty of lanes. You should travel to other large cities if the world. The US train system is so behind. Time to stop saying "we cant"
I think another factor is the public perception of the MTA itself. London can introduce the congestion pricing because people's perception of TfL is more positive. As compared to overall negative perception of MTA, NJ Transit, and LIRR.
@@shanerichards3014 I disagree that it's good... the public train/subway systems in nyc are 100+ years old and it really shows. Tokyo and even Europe are miles ahead, but nyc is unwilling to shut them down temporarily to do any overhaul on the transportation systems since they have become the lifeblood of the city.
Oh man, this guy hit the nail on the head. If there's some kind of guarantee that the MTA buses and trains will improve with the congestion pricing, I'm all in on it. But no one believes the MTA will get any better even with more money flowing in.
New Yorker here: The issue is that there is no plan to make public transit better. In London, they increased service when congestion pricing was implemented, thus giving a valid reason for the new toll. In NYC, there is no plan to increase service, instead there is a plan to INCREASE THE FARE to $3. Also, the mismanagement of MTA funds makes the public perception as another "poor people tax"
Fare that most people are not paying anyways, NYC just want to get more tax money to throw it down the burning fiscal hole call "NYC public transit", congestion pricing won't fix anything in NY.
@@AidanTheNub on top of that, there are huge transit deserts in Brooklyn and queens where it makes more sense for residents to drive into manhattan. One example was given on the news recently about a lady who lives near Avenue N in south Brooklyn where the nearest train is a 15 minute drive or a 40 minute walk. Shits crazyyy
That's not totally true. MTA has begun to implement plans to reroute busses in Brooklyn to decongest the roads, it's done a ton of improvements on the G line this past summer, has collaborated with Parks Department and the City in various neighborhood studies/projects for street and open-space improvements, etc. Your comment on MTA mismanagement of funds is valid, but to say they aren't planning anything is disingenuous.
Part of the problem is the potential time lag between improvements to public transportation and introduction of the fees. When London introduced congestion pricing, TfL was in pretty good shape so nearly everyone affected already had a good public transport alternative to driving (many might still drive, but park at the railway station instead of central London). NYC, it might be argued, is not in such a great position, there are still gaps in high quality coverage especially outside of NYC proper. So for a few years a significant number of people will probably have to choose between spending more money or enduring a significantly longer commute, and I can sympathise with that. Though I think there might still be challenges as improvements to complete coverage will likely need to include new subway lines especially to places like New Jersey, which is notoriously expensive in that region.
@@JL1 It's a bit of an unknown, based on the sluggish progress over the last couple of decades, it might take a very long time. There's also going to be some opposition from NYC residents who don't want money spent so commuters can afford to live in bigger houses in leafy NJ suburbs over spending on transport within the city itself.
In Manhattan, it's already far easier to get around by metro than by car. They're just scared suburban people who don't want to walk a flight of stairs. They should be paying to drive in the city. They should be paying a lot more.
@@Croz89 considering how much NY has been shrinking lately, I think it's slightly more of a precarious situation than you've put it. You run the risk of basically driving away the people who commute. NYC already is the fifth most expensive city to commute to in the country and this would shoot it up to number one. It could work, but it could also backfire horribly. But then there's the aspect that if the goal is to reduce congestion, won't the funding from it be reduced if that goal is achieved? I'm sure that's part of their calculations, but those people don't disappear, they start using public transport. Wouldn't that put more strain on public transportation services? That means the billion in revenue you'd get from it wouldn't be as valuable as people make it out to be. But that's not even the biggest problem. The biggest problem is commercial transportation of goods. They'll have to pay which will up their rates, causing the price of goods to go up. I could also see the delivery truck drivers going on strike over it. Frankly, applying the charge to truck drivers makes zero sense. Is the goal to get them to deliver through public transport? No, obviously not. But for some reason they have to pay _more_ than a commuter.
The overwhelming majority of commuters to Manhattan already get there by transit, and all the different regional rail and bus systems serving New York already have park and rides toward the outskirts of the city that could serve the few who do currently drive. It's also almost always faster that way- the trains don't have to deal with traffic, and especially coming from New Jersey, they can actually go significantly faster than even the posted highway speed limits, never mind the speed traffic actually manages to drive. The opposition is coming entirely from wealthy suburbanites who could easily afford the tolls and just don't want to be in the same vehicles as poor people.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but at least in Stockholm and also, I believe, London, didn’t they build more public parking outside of the congestion area making it easier for people who had no choice but to drive to then get close enough to use rapid transit? Because they aren’t doing that here in NYC.
2:13 is this a mistake? 140,000 enter manhattan by car but so my somehow 1 million enter manhattan south of 60th by automobile? Doors that mean 860,000+ enter by bus or did 140k mean to refer to a different transportation method?
@@shamusduffey4873same. Three times actually and I couldn’t make sense of it. He did change the term from Cars to automobile and that leave buses but that wouldn’t make sense.
He meant to say 1 million by transit. The ratio of people already commuting by transit is 10x the number that commute by car. The subways are the lions share of this, but commuter rail, busses, bikes, and ferries help too.
@@satakrionkryptomortis This is exactly how the Cross Bronx Expressway / I 95 was built passing thru the Bronx. Robert Moses screwed over a lot of people who lacked the wherewithal to fight him.
Funny you should say that because they literally removed lanes in Manhattan in recent years. I've witnessed all streets around me losing at least 1 lane, some of them lost 2 lanes. And now they are telling people it's too congested.
I've been driving in NYC for the first time this year, and it has been my worst driving experience so far. Horrible. The public transports are good only if you want to go to or from Manhattan. It takes ages to go from one side of Brooklyn to the other by bus. Lots of room for improvement.
In Staten Island, you pretty much need to have a car. Lots of folks drive to the ferry, take that into Manhattan, then use public transportation in Manhattan.
When I visited NYC from Regina in my Jeep back in 2018, I learned to park my car for free in the Dutch Kills/Astoria neighbourhood & walk the Queensboro Bridge to Manhattan. The walk was surprisingly pleasant. If I ever drive there again in the future, I'll just pack a folding bike or scooter in my car.
@@landongendur Well yea, the reality is very few people drive inside of New York. It’s predominantly taxis/ubers/lyfts and delivery trucks since everything has to come in from out of the city. Obviously some commuters too, but there really arent many joyriders in congestion zone. For the most part the purpose is to tax delivery trucks who will pass the cost to consumers and transfer that money for the MTA. Thats why trucks dont get charged once a day and instead get charged everytime they enter the zone. Its a tax that people wouldnt have voted for if they realized they were the victims but they though NJ drivers would be the ones paying LMAO
Something that I didn't hear mentioned is how will the MTA (which is mismanaged as it is), all of a sudden become competent with congestion pricing. Another thing is that during rush hour, the trains are already super crowded as it is with intervals that are too long. Sometimes you can't even get on the train and have to wait until the next one (which is usually 10-15 minutes). Even if a small number of people switch to taking the subway, the entire system will become super overwhelmed and I don't think that the average person trusts the MTA to deal with that problem since they already don't.
As a NYer, I've lived here for 30+ years. I don't trust the people managing the money. Even with the money they collected over the decades they we caught cooking the books and all the stations haven't been reinvested in. Chambers street has looked like a damned sewer for decades. Same Switches. Same Tunnels. Still no mass train management like on the 7 and L train lines. I've worked with countless of companies and none of them left their infrastructure and equipment fail. There are known choke points like Jay St Metro Tech or Hoyt Schermehorn that cause massive delays and they never get fixed. They want MORE money???
RUclips response template: Start with an unnecessary statement about who you are: * "As a _____" , or * "As someone who______", or * "As a ____, who has ____, I can confirm ____"
A big part of this is geography. As currently constructed, east-west traffic from LI to NJ (and vice versa) almost always result in someone driving right into lower/midtown Manhattan. Either the Lincoln Tunnel to the Midtown Tunnel or the Holland Tunnel to the East River bridges. Most cities partially solve that by building ring roads to divert traffic away from the city core. The problem is that NYC due to its island geography functionally has no ring road to divert traffic away from the city core. There have been plans in the past to do so, but they always require extremely expensive infrastructure to complete (like the Long Island Sound link). In turn, there are two routes that serves as "ring roads" around Manhattan but they are each very flawed. One is north via the Cross Bronx Expressway (GWB to NJ, Throngs Neck Bridge to LI) which already is one of the most congested routes in the USA and is both capacity constrained and obsolete from a freeway design philosophy. It can ill afford to pick up any diverted traffic. The 2nd route is south via the BQE to the VZ Bridge to the SIE. However, that will require going through the infamous BQE promenade section, a dangerously obsolete section (everyone agrees it will collapse soon, but NYC did nothing about it for 2+ and counting decades). NYC has actually closed 1 lane in each direction in order to kick the can down the road resulting in 24/7 congestion each way. That path also can ill afford to pick up any diverted traffic. With both routes north and south functionally blocked, the result is to drive into Manhattan. Take a person from Queens wanting to catch a flight in Newark, the answer is to cross Manhattan. Vice versa, someone from Newark wanting to catch a flight at LGA, the answer, drive into Manhattan. Not sure congestion charge will do anything that...
@@alehaim yeah moses wanted to bulldoze more of manhattan for interchange and highways, thank God they stopped him when they did. He almost ruined NYC.
I spotted the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge route on the map, but also that it would be a big detour for a lot of people. (Someone must go to Trenton ... but why?) I didn't appreciate the Brooklyn Promenade was in such bad shape - are there any good plans for fixing or rebuilding it?
I lived in NJ and Staten Island public transport takes me anywhere from 1hour 40 to 3 hours simply to get home. While in a car it can be done in 50 min. Moreover I have a bunch of friends and coworkers who live in Long Island/rockaway/ and southern bklyn who drive in because there there is a lack of public transport same thing with me in Staten Island. And please don’t say some stupid thing like “don’t work in Manhattan then” if that’s where all the jobs are. MTA is never fixed the QFMNR lines are always not working properly and all they do is increase the charge. Also the safety issue is a big factor. Some of you talk but don’t know what it’s like to take an hour train ride at night in the city and clearly thankfully never dealt with a situation where your life was threatened on public transport same thing
Same issue for residents of Westchester. At least they have access to north NYS and a bunch of other towns in Westchester. You guys on Staten Island are really getting squeezed by this.
As someone who currently lives in NJ and used to live in NYC, this is a good video in practice, and honestly I do agree with most of your points that you've mentioned on how congestion charges would reduce traffic. While I am also for congestion charges, there are some counterpoints that are to note (with solutions that would be unpopular with NY residents): 1. Public transportation in NYC, while better than most of the US, still lacks compared to the rest of the world. The main cause of this issue: Prices Are Too Low. No matter the time of day or the distance traveled, the cost to ride on the MTA remains around $3. Compared to London, Washington DC, and other areas, they lose out by not charging extra to riders based on the "rush hour" traffic. Of course, for NYC people, increasing this fare from $2.25 to $2.50 caused a massive uproar in the community, so I doubt they'd ever be able to implement this. But, (and I could be wrong) the average price in London or DC is around $6-8, and that's with less people traffic than the MTA has on a daily basis. 2. Public transportation outside NYC is in complete shambles, also due to a lack of funding. Amtrak + NJ Transit has had numerous issues during volatile weather temperatures as the systems are over 80 years old and haven't been modernized in this new climate. The trains don't run fast, and the busses are few and far in between, with numerous delays causing the perception of the transit system to be low among NJ and other NY folks. On top of that, the stations themselves are breaking down, flooding, or not in service due to the lack of funds that can be deployed to fix the infrastructure surrounding NYC. The solution is simple, put more money towards the city infrastructure. Residents may suffer in the short-term, but the long-term gains are immense. It's a bigger issue than a simple congestion pricing fix (although we still need that). If this passes, it helps improve the livelihoods for future generations, but it's tough to think that far ahead, which is where politicians should come in and help.
RUclips response template: Start with an unnecessary statement about who you are: * "As a _____" , or * "As someone who______", or * "As a ____, who has ____, I can confirm ____"
@rg1649 Well thats how you build credibility. What if I said “As someone who lived in Russia… and then talked about this issue”? Your response makes no sense and doesn’t even tackle my main points, which funny enough, are for people like you to read
The railroads aren’t being upgraded because the stupid “environmental impact studies” are expensive and time consuming making any perceived upgrades obsolete before they start construction. If they actually wanted to improve anything they would make proper use of Eminent Domain and push out the freeloading naysayers.
5:45 Trucks should not pay more. I get that they're bigger, but the mission is to reduce unnecessary traffic. Commuters in cars can shift to mass transit, delivery trucks don't have that option.
What about Uber? Shouldn't every person that Ubers pay a $9 per day surcharge as well? Ubers create way more congestion than regular private cars that go from point a to b only once or twice a day.
@@rrrglynnUber is much more efficient than private car ownership since they don't require parking, and they tend to have a higher occupancy as well. And any fees would of course be paid by the driver and passed on to the passengers.
@@the0ne809 You realise it's suffered from capacity issues long before the pandemic right? the capacity levels today are still more than it can handle especially with all the delayed and canceleld maintenance that happened because of the pandemic. 2019 was one of the worst years ever after constant increases in over capacity since 2007 even in 2020 the subway was over crowded just not as much as the previous year.
the only reason newyorkers like me dont agree with this plan is its charging us money to drive on roads we never have been charged on and without and improvement to infastructure just the government asking for more money for the same resources which they been doing for years obviously this you tuber is not from ny
Bro seriously Bronx to queens using the deegan and triboro was fucking amazing Less than 15 minutes easily I wish I could relive that and enjoy it under different circumstances obviously
4:18 he's gonna talk about making public transportation better, right? Right?!?!? Oh, he didn't... The solution is not to make it even harder for those that need to drive, the solution is to give them alternatives instead. NYC is the richest city in the world, why does the subway looks worse than in third world countries???
Spend all the time discuss how good congestion pricing is good without discussing cities‘ public transportations. Most recently safety concerns. Trash.
I am a NYC Paramedic, EMT/Paramedics make much less $$$ than Firefighters / PD / DOC / Sanitation... There are three EMS stations and several hospitals in the congestion zone most of us work over 12hrs days and live in outer boroughs as well as other counties and states... We donot have bunks to sleep at the station meaning driving home after our tours is a must... There are currently no provision emergency workers who have to travel into the congestion zone. Further more behind the scenes, prior to congestion pricing being paused by gov Huchol lots of the senior membership transferred out... An unfortunate consequence of congestion pricing will be that the three stations in the zone are looked upon as rookie locations where a member is forced to be there for a few months at a time this affects the public when your in a life threatening situation and all the rescuers are brand new...
Seeing those massive streets with - no bus/taxi/bike lanes, no tram lines, lots of on street parking and seeing comments on how the subway in NYC is terrible makes me think there is something more to it than just unwillingness to implement congestion pricing.
The real issue of “how much is your time stuck in traffic worth” in NYC specifically, because of how costly other items are. A $20 toll may not be a disincentive to drive when rent is $3500 per month, for example. To truly make a New Yorker question driving, it would have to be a nearly criminal amount. Here in Quito, we are a 490 year old city (obviously not designed with cars in mind) so there isn’t a ton of car space. We use a system based on the last digit of your license plate that says you can’t drive in the excluded zone on your certain day. Works pretty well without charging folks anything.
This is a good idea and certainly more equitable. Variable tolling might work too but like you said, it would be very expensive, but it would be an incentive to carpool.
As a resident of a bigger city closer than the NYC profile (São Paulo), that adopts this system, I can assure you this is insufficient. People usually buy another car or use the spouse's car. And used cars can be pretty affordable in US, far more than South America.
@@gohanssj48 cars here are way more expensive than elsewhere because of the tariffs on cars. We can’t print US dollars, so we have to protect the money supply.
They need to make the Subways CLEAN and SAFE if they want people to drive less. They don’t plan on doing that anytime soon. They’d rather milk money out of the regular folks and line their own pockets.
19:50 I don't continue to love paying for Nebula. I instead love having paid for the Lifetime subscription when it was first offered & instead never paying again.
I think the real problem is that you have 8.6 million people living in an area about 304 square miles. You can move everybody onto public transport and you're still going to have congestion. There's also the question of how you are going to get goods and services to feed that many people into the city. You can certainly put a rail siding next to every building in New York City, but I'd hate to see the NIMBY on that. 1. The Congestion Pricing might stop some congestion by forcing others to find different ways to drive into Manhattan. However, this is going to create congestion elsewhere. You're not really solving the problem, just moving it elsewhere. 2. You're also charging more to move goods and services into the city. This is going to get passed on to consumers. From my outside perspective, NYC is already expensive enough to live in. This will only make it more expensive. 3. From my outside perspective, NYC has a lot of other problems that need fixing, and I don't see either the city or the state spending that money on anything other than their own pet projects. Any through traffic going north on I-95 is forced across the George Washington Bridge and only the Cross Bronx Expressway. One way to fix that would be to build and actual bypass and get the through traffic out of NYC.
New Yorker here: the outer boroughs commuting via MTA is the worse especially the buses. What’s crazy taking the express bus RT cost more than me simply driving in
I lived and worked in NYC for a year during the pandemic, and Bloomberg's idea to tax people coming through Manhattan UNLESS they stayed only on FDR Drive... My god that would make FDR Drive so much more intolerable than it already is. It was built almost a century ago and the lanes are narrower than most modern cars, and it already is PTSD inducing going either 70 mph bumper to bumper, or dead stopped for hours for no apparent reason. Luckily google maps usually gives tourists goody routes through Manhattan first before getting to FDR and beyond, if everyone stayed on FDR, they'd have to do some kind of update to add more lanes..
I live in Stockholm. Or, on the outskirts of it. And the fee is minimal, annoying when I need to go through the city. But it general, very little traffic inside the city, and nice air... I cant imagine the air in NYC
You describe London as a success story for congestion pricing, but in the impact study you use that shows NYC sitting #1,, London is 3rd in the world with a slower average speed than NYC after almost 20 years of congestion pricing.
That's ignoring the fact that - with very few exceptions - there are no multi-lane roads in Central London, as there simply isn't the physical space. A much lower proportion of London's surface area is occupied by roads than in comparable cities around the world - which makes it a very pleasant place to walk, but a very bad place to drive. Traffic congestion in the City of London and the City of Westminster was recorded back to at least the 1800s - and is a big part of why the London Underground exists at all. The Congestion Charge dramatically improved traffic flows, from barely faster than walking to merely bad. The fee is certainly not a perfect solution, but it did make sure that potential drivers consider whether they really *need* to drive in the city centre... London also has a good and relatively cheap bus service, so rather than the poorest suffering from increased travel costs, they typically benefit the most from policies that reduce driving and increase traffic speed (buses become more reliable and potentially cheaper to operate, allowing fares to be frozen for longer).
Yes but the number of cars altogether has significantly dropped. More space has been taken from the cars and given to pedestrians, cyclists, and buses. Congestion pricing is misleading in that it isn’t going to reduce traffic speeds but rather it is reducing the number of cars and the space they take up on the roads.
The car-suburb movement was a bit of what we'd today call a (short-sighted) social justice movement. It was a way for middle- and working-class white Americans to have easy access to jobs and services downtown with only the price of a car. So now we're in an unsustainable situation where ending car commute subsidies really will harm working-class suburbanites in the short-term, and it WILL be painful.
There are a couple of issues that this video ignores. One while it mentions the cars proportion of daily commuters has gone down, daily ride shares have gone up, NYC has regulatory means to control the number of taxis (and ride share services) with the medallion system. Instead NYC politicians have effectively been paid to look the other way while the ride share services operated essentially pirate cabs and never competed for medallions in the first place. The cab drivers who did pay the enormous prices for a medallion went bankrupt (they had their fares regulated by the city and the ride shares did not) . Then during the De Blasio admin, you had the then mayor rip up half the lanes for bicyclists (effectively ripping up the space that a million drivers used to benefit 64K largely affluent male bike riders ) . At the same time that same admin chose to do nothing about the increasing crime in the subway. Many refuse to use the subway at all due to fear. That is one of the main reasons ride share services have gone up in the city. They will pay much higher uber fees rather than take the subway or buses. This is basically manufacturing the crisis so that they can justify the tax increase which the electorate emphatically doesn't want until the MTA shows they can actually cut down on the enormous waste, the 700 million a year fare evasions, and the many fraudulent overtime rates which many MTA employees claiming when in reality they aren't on the job. The other thing that the video doesn't mention is that the reduction in congestion pricing for London and the other cities was only temporary. Today and for several years London congestion is already higher than pre pricing levels. Again daily commuting cars largely replaced by ride share traffic inside the city.
Bike lanes are a good thing, it gives transportation options for ppl outside the subway and cars/ubers, bike riders are not just affluent,many are delivery drivers, citi bike users, commuters like myself, bike users would increases if bike lane infrastructure increased, bike lanes actually reduce traffic as the yt channel not just bikes explains in almost all his videos
The amount of people that do not realize that in order to improve public transit you have to introduce money into the system. This plan both introduces new taxes that add money to public transit and also encourages people to take public transit- adding more money to the system. This also reduces noise pollution, which given NYC’s DOE “E-designation” system will allow for new residential buildings to be cheaper because of the lower need for robust windows
My only concern with programs like this is that it needs to come backed up with adequate public transportation, including long-distance transportation (many people live outside of cities and drive into them). Where I live, public transportation options are so useless that me using them to get to work would turn a 30 minute commute into a 2 hour commute, and that still includes a 15 minute personal vehicle drive to the nearest bus stop (so I'd be spending 2 hours to save 15 minutes of driving). Granted, I'm in Phoenix, which is a bit of an anomaly, but it is an issue in any city. I'm mistrustful of even programs like the original proposal of 100% of revenue going towards public transportation, because the way US governments work means they'll most likely just divert the same amount from the regular funding, so that the overall funding remains the same and nothing changes. In AZ, we had a public referendum that passed which added a tax onto incomes over $200,000 which went to schools, and after it passed our government simply diverted an equal amount of money from school budgets into other things. I don't see any guarantee that the same wouldn't happen with public transportation, and local governments would just treat it as a revenue source.
BTW, this pricing means that there is no way to drive from Manhattan to Queens without paying the toll. Part of the RFK bridge goes under the toll zone for 1 minute, which means that drivers using it have to pay the entire fee every single time.
Watching this from Ft. Lee NJ - i can see the Galaxy towers in Guttenburg NJ and see all of Manhattan from where i'm sitting. I travel into and out of NYC a few times a week and just getting to the bridge (~1.5 miles) from where i live can either be 5min drive or a 70min drive depending on when i leave. once on the bridge it moves but slow. another issue is that the bridge connects into the cross bronx expressway in the Bronx and that backs up too.
There's something profoundly interesting about traffic studies to me. One of the most interesting was a book that advocated for far fewer traffic signs to improve road safety.
Oh yeah, I agree. I like observing how entire systems function… like NATS (the system of airplane tracks that get planes across the Atlantic). One of my grad school profs had worked on the team that designed the New Jersey side tolls for the GW (number and position of the lanes and how far out from the bridge they should be).
As someone that lived in North Dakota and now lives in south Minnesota, I can comfortably say that just the shots of all the signage alone would be enough to cause me a sensory meltdown. Me and almost a hundred thousand other residents are used to flying through lower midtown at 40, maybe 45 if we felt daring, then 25 to 30 once we crossed the bridge over the railyard into downtown. Crawling along at 10mph is foreign to me, and a terrible use of gas.
@@tylerwalsh7840 no, for city streets less signs is actually safer - signs or not, it is both highly inadvisable and illegal to run over people. Less certainty over who has right of way is better for safety, as drivers need to be more careful. Plus you still have the last clear chance doctrine so even if you have right of way you are still obliged to try avoid an accident if you have a clear chance to do so ...
I agree with this program. You do not need a car to get around New York City. You do not need a car to get to new york city from new jersey or the southeast part of pennsylvania. You don't need a car to get to new york city from its suburbs. You can easily take the bus or the train to get into new york city from these locations, but people are so stuck in their ways.They do not want to change anythings. Get out of your car.Take the train or the bus to work and you'll be fine.
Something important to note is that more people would feel incentivized to commute via public transportation if it was perceptibly safer and more comfortable to do so. I'm not talking about the actual statistics of violence on public transportation because what influences people's decision is more-so what they perceive and experience rather than what they're told the numbers are.
a lot of the "feeling unsafe" is online propaganda scaring people. i'm a young woman in brooklyn and routinely take the subway all over the city, sometimes deep into 3,4 am. it's completely totally fine.
@@beepboopsloane and i've lived here for 20 years. i'm just saying there are tons of mentally unwell people who will scream at you, follow you, etc. there are creepy men who will stare you down on the subway, especially if you are a woman. just the other day, an innocent woman was burned to death on the subway. i don't think subways are as scary as people make them out to be, but to say it's completely and totally fine and people only feel unsafe due to online propaganda is being willingfully ignorant of the actual issues that the MTA has, especially when it comes to the security of the people riding the subway. conditions can and should improve. edit: they should improve especially they're going to keep raising the subway fare and toll pricing!!!
@ I hear what you're saying. the thing is the more people that take the subways the safer they become. In my decade of living here i've been involved in one (1) incident. A man punched me in the head on the 5 train in the bronx. But guess what happened? Another man immediately stood up and the attacker meekly walked to the other side of the train alone. I switched cars and all was well. There's definitely problems with the subway and problems with unwell passengers. But the fearmongering out there actively makes the problem worse
This video is well produced, but out of touch. Credit to you for mentioning a few counter arguments, but you failed to bring up how this shifts traffic and air pollution to lower income areas ringing the congestion zone. Well and good to address the real issues raised here, but a bad break for people already struggling with some of the highest rents in the world, higher food costs than most of the country, and a notoriously corrupt MTA that hasn't been able to handle peak commuter loads either before or after COVID and STILL just hiked the fare. Now you want to advocate sticking them with worse air and traffic and an even more packed and delayed train commute so people's Uber's go faster? Not saying something like this shouldn't be done, but the method and timing is pretty bad here. How long are the less fortunate supposed to shoulder this?
Neo-liberals abhor the poor. The pollution is a feature, not a bug. They want us to choke on the fumes, so we can't pass on our pittances of inheritances to our children. They believe poor people having children, is a sign that poor people have no morals. Because "who would bring a child into a world of pollution?!?"
Who would have thought charging $8 and $21 per vehicle per day wouldn't be popular with politicians and government officials. I'm from London and ULEZ and Congestion charges money raised, doesn't do anything good for public transport or people in general. Money just gets stolen and divided between shareholders
This isn't about reducing congestion. It's just about creating another revenue stream for the MTA. And maybe the MTA wouldn't be so strapped for cash if they did a better job at preventing rampant fare evasion. Hardly needs fancy tech. Just an officer or two and a high fine.
They have both of those you suggested, but it still goes on! They need to bring back the “Iron Maiden” turnstiles…you can’t jump over them! And get rid of the brain dead , dead weight that is the corrupt MTA management!
MTA is greedy af raise fares and don’t improve service in anyway. They also give $100 fines for fare evasion to people who can’t afford $2.90. It’s a huge waste of police resources and primarily targets the poorest New Yorkers.
@@eraj1001 i agree with the greedy and don't improve service part but then again they do need money to run. Idk how much profit is in that $3 but at least I get to move around the city without a car.
from my house in Jersey to Columbus Circle, is forty-five minutes, without traffic. if i use public transportation. it's two buses and about 15 minute walk from Port Authority to Columbus Circle. the first bus takes me a half hour to get, to the second bus. Second bus takes an hour into Manhattan. That's 45 min vs 105 min. Min wage in Jersey is $15. After accounting for gas, parking, and tolls, I'd always be better off paying the congestion pricing. What would need to be charged to not make it worth my while, would cost the city more than it could afford. because every dollar of that congestion charging, is a dollar I don't spend in the city. every dollar not spent in the city is jobs lost. Next part. I can cheat the system. first, i get as close to kalambus circle as i can without paying the congested pricing, walk a block, and get into another car. A cab an Uber etc.
New yorker here, bus lane implementation was a massive precedent to the current congestion issue, removing a lane from most major roads effectively contributed to the massive congestion we experience now. Congestion is inevitable. Congestion pricing is seemingly inevitable. However in its current state, this is just putting a band-aid on top of a band-aid
I'm sorry but I don't know a single working class preson who drives into lower manhattan, let alone someone who makes $15 an hour, you can't even afford the insurance or parking when making $15 a hour.
Take a cab, you can meet a working class person each time, or just swing by the 7th precinct. Go to any of the many hundreds of schools. All those incomes do not enable a person to live anywhere near where they work. Some even live in PA. This is an elaborate and cruel tax on working class people/salaries. The wealthy won’t bat an eye. Just adds to the dystopian wealth gap.
I'm fine with the toll. It definitely is far more expensive to drive in NYC but to me it's worth it. You can't put a price on peace and having your own little bit of personal space in this dense city.
as far as many are concerned, its either using the money to improve the world's largest (unless otherwise stated) subway network, or at worst... you get the idea...
Part of the problem is the MTA is fucking terrible at even managing the current budget they have. Public transport in NYC is unsafe its a fact. The MTA has had Billions of dollars of Allocation and they haven't done anything with it.
Roughly $2,700 a year tax to drive. One toll. If I worked there I'd charge cost plus on tolls and tickets for my work truck. It's an expense just like others you have to make a profit on. No doubt it's rolled into their plumber's bills. I worked a job in a zoned parking area and the customer paid around $15,000 over 6 months for our tickets. We got cost for them but should have marked them up. I like NYC but I never moved there because you need a fortune to have anything like space for a shop or a car.
Paying additional fees on public roads is simply not acceptable. If your taxes paid for the road, it must be accesible to all. If it takes toll money, it must be a private road. Without any taxes, espacially not a single dime of federal funds that are then used to not benefit anybody from the union visiting. It's like NYC financing a zoo in Texas that then takes tickets for NYC visitors. As you yourself said, it's a tax to bully out poor people. Tax the poor, benefit the rich, bully everyone who does not have F you money to shove others off the road. Plus all the surveillance that comes with it. It won't take a week before NYPD takes all data to solve whatever crime. Oh, and the people that get the money are corrupt and won't fix a thing.
Public transportation is funded by taxes yet riders still pay fares. New York is under no obligation to cater to the people who make the city more polluted and dangerous. Federal funds are constantly used for regional projects that only directly benefit that region, that's what government is for. New York pays for more in taxes than it receives back, so right now every NY resident is paying to subsidize a red state.
The roads belong to the residents of New York City and they have decided to implement congestion pricing. LI, NJ... their taxes did not fund those roads.
I never understand how the cabbies make any money. 40% of the vehicles in Manhattan are rideshares, and they get a break with the new toll. All of the trucks bringing in our food, however, do not. Congestion won't go away with the new tolls. I suspect its just another 20$ for the MTA to buy scratch tickets with.
Further compounding, the issue is the fact that for the millions of people who live on Long Island, your only option to get off the island is to drive through the city!
@@Vevxo As of the 2020 U.S. census, Long Island had a population of 8,063,232 people. You want 8 million people to take one bridge to get off the island?
I don't think adding an additional change to a city that has one of the highest costs of living in the world is a good idea It will increase the price of all goods via delivery trucks. The MTA already wastes hundreds of millions a year can't it spend the money it gets more efficiently
This video's filmmakers and producers sound like a mouthpiece for congestion pricing. There are a few flaws that I noticed. 1st, is the fact that there's more and skewer traffic due to less diving lanes and more bike and pedestrian lanes. 2nd is that they say it's to curb pollution, but other location would suffer, making the cars that drive elsewhere pollute those areas instead. 3rd, there is a huge mismanagement issue with the MTA, the department tasked with overseeing the program. 4th, there are no plans to upgrade the public transit system or even make it safer (I'm sure you've all followed the recent news regarding nyc subway crimes). 5th, the public already gets taxed enough, driving on a public road, already paid by public funds, shouldn't incur any more costs. Seems to me like this is just another money grab by the government to line their pockets with excessive, no-show overtime projects. Not to mention that making deliveries of goods in the area more expensive to deliver, thus raising prices on such goods. In turn inferring such costs to consumers.
59st Bridge (Ed Koch) and Brooklyn Bridge were the bridges of the working class who'd drive into and out of Manhattan. The city despises people who save money and work for a living.
Did you watch the video? The cost of traffic is far greater than any toll. Delivery driver's value of time was quoted at $100-$200 per hour. Even a time savings of 15 minutes per day would cover the toll. The MTA could dump all of that toll money into the Hudson and congestion pricing would still be a net benefit.
Imagine trying to drive from Brooklyn to New Jersey for work, where there’s definitely not trains all over, and paying $9 a day plus $18 for the holland tunnel EVERY DAY. I’ve turned down jobs in Jersey just because it wouldn’t be worth it solely because of the tolls. It’s ridiculous
@@traplover6357 This comment makes no sense. I live in NJ and also wish there were better transit to New York. I'm not even that far and it takes me 3 trains to get to my downtown job. I don't even look at jobs in Brooklyn because of how long the commute would be. It's about a job to make a living not entitlement.
Believe me, it’s all just another form of taxation. It starts out as a congestion charge only, to drive into a certain area. Then, comes the Low Emissions Zone, which surrounds the congestion area, and then, when people get used to that, ultra low emissions zone comes along, when the City needs more tax money. When politicians tell you it’s for the good of the people, don’t believe them. They don’t care less about environment or congestion. It’s one hundred percent revenue collection, and it’s the poor and less well off that carry that burden, as usual!! 😞
I’m late, but to me, the problem is that nobody WANTS to be driving down there. I don’t see it realistically reducing traffic, because anyone driving there already has no other choice. Anybody who has any other way to get there is already doing that. I guess I could be wrong, but New York seems unique to London in many ways here.
I have 2 issues with congestion charging (and I cycle to work): 1) No viable alternatives. 2) Wealth inequality. They could be fixed by charging a rate tied to your income... Which would also generate more income. And either exempting, or having limited numbers of passes per month for essential trips (eg the supermarket) or people not served by the public transport network. Public transport (or preferably, active travel) needs to be made easier and quicker than driving.
So here in NJ, congestion pricing is pretty much universally hated. One of our gubernatorial hopefuls has already started putting billboards outside the Holland Tunnel and on the Turnpike that say “No Congestion Pricing.” I think one reason it’s so unpopular in Jersey is that there isn’t any talk of paring it with improvements to mass transit. The idea is to just dump the money into the MTA, but the Port Authority controls the GWB, Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the bus depots at 175th and 42nd street, the PATH train, and Penn Station. So basically, NYC is saying “we’re going to force you to use crumbling infrastructure and overworked overcrowded busses and trains, and we’re going to take your money to pay for people to commute from the outer boroughs.”
I live in NJ, and I don’t really get all of the hate for congestion pricing. People who drive from NJ are already paying tolls that go to defray the cost of the congestion pricing. And there are plans in the work to improve the port authority terminal and build two additional tunnels into manhattan that will primarily be used by NJ transit and Amtrak. If those projects get canceled, it will be because of funding. Congestion pricing can help make sure that doesn’t happen. I take the bus every day and spend 2-3 hours commuting. The bus can be fast but it is not when it has to sit in traffic. If you look at the statistics, the vast majority of people who commute from NJ into manhattan do so by bus and rail already, and congestion pricing will help them.
@ I used to work in Brooklyn and commute by bus into the city, and yes it was 2-3 hours but the sitting in traffic wasn’t the issue. The issue was that some busses were already full and would just bypass my stop, so at least an hour of that commute was “waiting for an empty enough bus.” When I moved to central Jersey, I started driving in because it was only an hour and my car wasn’t going to leave without me. I think that’s the source of a lot of the resistance, it’s not that people want to drive into the city, it’s that there is no plan to make NJ Transit suck less in the immediate, and all the money is going into the MTA.
People who live in New Jersey get all the benefits of working in Manhattan but take on almost none of the burden of living in nyc. NYC can’t keep having this traveling dollar and expect things like the MTA to get better
@@El_Guapo98 Agreed entirely. If you come into NYC from New Jersey, make your money, leave, and then go spend it in NJ, you are degrading the roads and contributing to congestion without giving anything back
well, maybe there's a deal to be worked out. if an NJ driver pays congestion pricing to enter the city, maybe some (or all?) of that money should go back to NJ transit? seems straightforward to me.
The unique problem with Manhattan is that drivers are already taxed with tolls on most bridges and all tunnels. The tolls are some of the highest in the country. How is that for alleged cheap travel into the city? And where are all the billions of $ going?
🤔 Nothing for nothing, if they implement “Congestion Pricing”, they should eliminate the toll on the Brooklyn Battery tunnel which gives you access to both the Westside drive,and FDR.
I feel the same way about driving in NYC that I feel like driving in Paris, you couldn't pay me enough to do it on a regular basis. Unless you have mobility issues that prevent you from using public transit (and trust me wearing even a boot on NYC public transit is a pain) you simply don't need to do it.
There’s just too many people on RUclips who aren’t from New York or don’t live in New York who try to over logic their way into justifying congestion pricing. You forgot to mention that congestion pricing will effectively push pollution to low income neighborhoods in the south Bronx causing more asthma for people that can’t afford healthcare. Another thing is MTA has been known for mishandling the funds that could’ve paid for better transit and now the average working man will have to be in charge of fronting the cost of improved transit that MTA has always had money for. On top of that, businesses in the central business district will suffer because of delivery costs rising as delivery trucks will transfer the cost of paying a $21 toll on the consumer. Prices of goods and services will go up for everyone whether you drive or not because repair trucks, delivery, etc. will add that tolling that they pay daily to their costs. Also, the biggest thing out of all of this, nyc road infrastructure is too far gone. There will be heavy traffic with or without tolling. This is a cash grab!
@ fewer people driving doesn’t mean fewer people driving in the entirety of New York City 🤦🏿♂️. It’s clear you don’t understand the geography of nyc. The central business district is only the lower part of manhattan. It’s going to push people in Jersey to take the George Washington bridge because that’s how you get into manhattan without getting into the central business district. Politicians in fort lee New Jersey (the part that the bridge starts in) are worried about constant congestion piling up there. This will also cause (like I was saying earlier) congestion on the cross Bronx expressway and other highways in the Bronx because of all the traffic that will be trying to avoid the central business district… therefore causing more pollution. This is part of an environmental study that was done about the impacts congestion pricing will have on nyc. The worst part is they said they would use some of the congestion money to donate to places that will treat asthma (rough summary) which basically means that the MTA KNOWS this will happen and don’t care enough to stop it.
@@TFrills it’s because they don’t live in New York, and since the video is well edited it’s pretty convincing. I mean, tbh if I didn’t live in New York and I saw this video, I’d probably be pro-congestion pricing too
He didn’t even mention how now having to pay. The toll prices will go up because it’s more expensive to get in the city and it’s not gonna help with the congestion at all. You’ve tried this back when horses were in the city. They tried everything to get horses off the streets because they were making a mess. They made fine and they kept upping them and ultimately you know what ended up fixing it what’s the invention of the automobile not government not money so this is gonna have the same effect it won’t be fixed until someone comes through way with a new wave of transportation it’ll just make you mad increase pricing and drive people out of the city and in other states
No, he’s saying the few from NJ to Manhattan would include the new congestion pricing. Or in other words, the NJ commuters already pay a congestion pricing
While I don't think congestion pricing is a bad thing - I don't see why they don't first enact other measures like community parking and actually enforcing traffic laws. Many many cities will only allow street parking for people who have plates registered in that city, DC is a great example of this. So if you want to park there you have to find paid parking. Meanwhile in NYC I'd say 1 in 3 cars have plates from other states. Additionally, if NYC is trying to find new sources of revenue, how about enforcing "don't block the box" again. Now cars just sit under red lights and in cross walks blocking traffic in all directions every day. They've installed cameras for automated ticketing of speeding and running red lights (in a few token areas) yet automation hasn't reduced that workforce. Funny how that happens.
Two ideas that would help: 1) “All Stop, All Walk” red lights. The inability to turn due to pedestrian traffic creates massive grid lock. Tokyo figured this out and allowing people to cross diagonally with an All Stop intersection improved pedestrian efficiency and safety; while doing the same for car flow. 2) A NYC bypass tunnel from NJ and CT to Long Island. Having to go through Manhattan to get to L.I. from NJ or CT is a congestion nightmare.
@@rafborreroSouth Florida is a joke in terms of public transportation and pedestrian infrastructure. I can't even walk to the Publix half a mile away without worrying about getting run over.
Congestion pricing fails to take into account the disparity in the value of the dollar per individual. So a wealthy person can decide fifty dollar congestion pricing is acceptable for their bar hopping evening directly contributes to pricing out a family who may not have the time to adjust to the change in pricing or the resources to do so. Let's not pretend like the funds will get put into actually maintaining an upkeeping of a modern infrastructure. It's just gonna create another class-based system of halves and have nots. Admittedly, if you harm few enough people in this way, most people will accept those people as collateral damage.
@anonymousman9824 If you're talking autonomous vehicle, maybe. There's so many issues with current public transportation models that it would solve. Including congestion through efficiency, operational cost, safety, reliability, accessibility, and long-term infrastructure savings just to rattle off a few. I think my big contention here is that we don't have the public motivation now to actually fund programs for the disenfranchised beyond being performative. So i have little faith that the revenue generated will be used to help address the problems the policies created. You could just fund them now by raising the upper ends of the tax bracket and earmarking funds for transport that, in theory, would also help congestion.
@jvees7916 I won't have to, don't live inside a major city and own cars. I just enjoy the topics of public infrastructure and policies, economics. 🤷♂️
I have been stuck in Newark multiple times because NJ transit was not running or the path was not running at the time. It does not make sense to shame people who get stranded when service is not adequate in Jersey or New York. For many people, ubering or driving is the only way to get home. It’s like we’re being punished for trying to get home and punished for trying to be productive. It never ends. And I can’t even afford to uber.
Then fix NJ Transit! Stop making Jersey's problems New Yorkers problems. NJ Transit and PATH get far less funding per rider than the MTA does... Of course the service is shit as a result
Less than 10% of people coming into Manhattan for work, commute by car. Also, cabs will only have to pay an additional $0.75 per trip. NJ Path being as bad as it is, is still better than driving to/from lower Manhattan on most days. When NJ Path is bad, take a cab.
@@gahandi They are paying a payroll tax to the MTA. PATH is far better run than the MTA, cleaner and in a better state of repair, NJTransit is about the same as the MTA but they have less money. It's a patronage pit. NY already strong arms cross state workers, during COVID NY was not entitled to the income tax yet they got to keep it. Jersey can pay for their trains when they get a fair deal from NY. People in NY love the income tax they collect from NJ residents. If NYC can get away with the congestion tax watch jersey turn around and come up with taxes and fees which hit NYC, it's a slippery slope.
I've got a buddy who lives in NY- and trust me, owning a car in Manhattan is no joke. You can barely drive and use it, you must pay to park it everyday, and even if you dont use it, you must move it every week as to not get towed. It's a headache, it's a waste of space, and it actually burns a hole in your pocket.
it is pointless to have a car in manhattan. Also in most cases, the subway station is not far away. It is better just to take the train. It is faster and cheaper.
Its also like... a tragedy of the commons. every additional car on the streets means more congestion, pollution, and noise for everyone else. drivers should be required to pay for those negative externalities
Anyone who says there are no disincentives to driving in Manhattan has never driven in Manhattan. I suspect that the point of congestion pricing is to keep the riff-raff off the streets so that their "betters" can drive around more easily. Lest you think I'm just an embittered leftist, I've never in my life voted for a Democrat, but have voted for plenty of Republicans.
@@the0ne809 People dont like the subway for a reason there. Some of you need to get that other than jerking to the idea that public transportation is some holy amazing thing.
congestion pricing more targets people coming from outside of NYC. we're the ones that cant afford rent in the central bussiness district
There's an important statistic you missed: Over 90% of people who commute into lower Manhattan do so by mass transit. All the furor over congestion pricing only serves the 10% who don't.
Also, the congestion pricing toll would not be per trip, but per day, which would make it much easier to amortize into the cost of doing business for taxis, rideshares, delivery vehicles, and all the other vehicles which can be expected to make multiple trips into lower Manhattan every day.
There you go again, bringing facts into the discussion. Don't you know this is about car "drivers" (lessors and debtors, more like it) trying to rationalize their selfishness?
It's not just about commuters. In fact more to the point, it's going to be people delivering goods and services, which cannot be moved via public transport, who are affected the most. They're not gonna stop going because of congestion pricing, they'll just have to increase their prices, which get passed onto the consumer. The commuter side of this issue is frankly the least important.
@@Batmans_Pet_Goldfishit's a $9 charge per day. That's like a drop in the bucket for them. The commuter side is the biggest issue along with failing public transit
@@Batmans_Pet_Goldfish but with less other cars in the way, they'll be able to operate more efficiently and complete more jobs, earnings more income and offsetting the cost of the charges
Agreed, failed video for sure.
I live in the downtown part of the congestion zone. I ride a bike. Usually around 430PM and later The streets leading to the Williamsburg Bridge, the Manhattan bridge and the Brooklyn bridge are packed with vehicles that drive like crazed animals with no regard for people trying to walk across or cyclists. They run red lights and act like they’re the only ones that matter. But since congestion pricing started, traffic has blissfully lifted. I am so happy congestion pricing has finally happened.
THATS BS BECAUSE I LIVE ON DELANCY AND NOTHING AT ALL HAS CHANGED!
Thank the holidays for that, not congestion pricing. Commuter traffic has been unusually light since the new year but I expect we'll be back to the usual grind by the end of the month.
There’s a prohibition on honking in Manhattan? Sure didn’t seem like it when I was there 😂
People actually used to obey it for a while
you can still honk if there is a legitimate reason to do so
Like everything else in this city - rules only on paper
Signs of $200.00 fines were visible in certain spots on the island, but we never paid attention to 'em. Go ahead-n-try enforcing it! Fuggedaboudit.
Similar rules have been struck down in other states, it's a free speech issue.
If you’re driving in the densest area of the densest city in the United States, then that’s a you problem tbh. You dont need a car in NYC, parking is already like 50 bucks an hour.
You couldn't pay me enough to own a car living in Lower Manhattan. Street sweeping, getting blocked for 30 minutes behind a garbage truck or a ConEd vehicle, asinine routes to get on a bridge or highway, road closures... etc. Literally cheaper AND faster to take a taxi everywhere than pay for a car + parking + gas + insurance even if I don't want to walk. Subway when there is traffic and rideshare/taxi at night is also faster. Hell literally walking is faster a lot of the time.
its not $50 an hour plenty of places are about $20 a day. dont listen to that hochul and liber non sense
Ironically parking is free in alot of Manhattan.
You will never catch me paying $20/day in parking. If you can afford that, are fine with the stupid long commute times, and paying tolls on top, that's a you problem. I can't manage spending $45+ a day AND commuting 1.5 hours one-way. Miss me with that shit
Densest* sorry to be that guy :P
Not me in Vermont thinking wow that’s more people than we have in the whole state.. only to have him say it.
it was pretty predictable 😂
"not me"
If you’re accurately predicting the narrators capacity comparisons to other states it might be time to pursue other interests, or at least follow along a little less
@@annaturgeon83 I'm from New Zealand, heard him use us over the years too 😂
who the hell would want to live in vermont?
"The only solution to car traffic is viable alternatives to driving!"
Double decker roads
@@randommusic4567that’s how you go and kill off any semblance of nightlife my guy. also the roads will just fill and you’ll be right back where you started from yet even more reliant on cars
NYC is full of them
Spotted the other nerd. NJB would have a stroke watching this video.
Public transportation system, which NY has. Majority of people use that already.
The MTA gets $8.5B from taxpayers, $6.9B from fares and tolls. Fares increasing to $3.00 in August. No amount of congestion pricing is going to fix the MTA as long as it allowed to remain corrupt and as long as it is allowed to mismanage its money. How much corruption has already been uncovered and is still allowed to continue to operate without a complete overhaul of its practices and policies.
You are assuming they aren’t already doing a good job on that. Do you have any source regarding that the MTA is wasting any money?
@@marioriverasit’s just obvious corporate greed
The MTA has made some internal reforms that have seen its operating expenses drop, but they have a lot of expensive upgrades that they need to make for the system to continue working.
I'd have to agree, because LIRR will be 18 bucks on peaks in August. Also congestion prices are going up. It won't stay at $9.
@@marioriveras A quick search will reveal countless news stores of MTA corruption going back decades. Even setting that aside, the org is horribly mismanaged. Last year they had to pull brand new train cars out of service for a raft of issues. Cars for which they massively overpaid.
I don't understand who in their right mind would drive in New York City, but congestion pricing doesn't address any of the issues plaguing public transit.
nj and nyc need to build more ways for trains to go between them. george washington bridge was designed to support trains. replace 2 lanes with train tracks. this will easily increase the number of people who can enter and exit nyc. have the tracks go far into nj
The portal bridge/tunnel is being built as we speak..the problem is it was supposed to be a 4 track tunnel, it's only slated as a 2 track now. When completed the current PATH tunnel is getting shut down and completely renovated. Which puts us back a square one, until the renovated PATH reopens. Instead of 6 tracks when it's completed(many years out) its now 4 when completed(many years out). The train idea ,honestly ,on the GWB sounds terrible for two reasons 1)the bridge is wildy outdated and would need to be replaced and 2) there no rail infrastructure to support it. There was enough fighting and bureaucratic nonsense for the portal project that seeing the GWB be renovated with trains is something that won't happen in my lifetime. That and trying to connect new train systems into the old ones is a huge engineering nightmare. Love the idea and the positivity, but it's going to get worse before it gets better.
@ actually the c line was specifically designed to cross the gwb. you can literally see that the c line curves towards gwb. the original plan for gwb included support for train tracks for the future lower level. but they went with roads instead
the gateway tunnel is a scam to add more congested lines. it does nothing to relieve bottlenecks and single point of failures that plagues the transit system.
the tristate can not afford to implement nice to have projects like the gateway tunnel when the system is failing regularly because of the lack of alternative routes for trains
that comment shows you know jack shit about nyc mass transit
Lmao so I guess you dont like eating food or buying products💀
@@WillScrillzTheres plenty of lanes. You should travel to other large cities if the world. The US train system is so behind. Time to stop saying "we cant"
4:55 Mayor Ed Koch looked at banning cars completely, so we named a car bridge after him 😂😂😂
Koch
Crotch
@@DRIFTWORKSINC hahahaha
::chef’s kiss::
@@DRIFTWORKSINC mayor Ed Crotch
I think another factor is the public perception of the MTA itself. London can introduce the congestion pricing because people's perception of TfL is more positive. As compared to overall negative perception of MTA, NJ Transit, and LIRR.
Agreed, the MTA could definitely be better and more transparent with the train times but its pretty good with all things considered.
@@shanerichards3014 I disagree that it's good... the public train/subway systems in nyc are 100+ years old and it really shows.
Tokyo and even Europe are miles ahead, but nyc is unwilling to shut them down temporarily to do any overhaul on the transportation systems since they have become the lifeblood of the city.
Oh man, this guy hit the nail on the head. If there's some kind of guarantee that the MTA buses and trains will improve with the congestion pricing, I'm all in on it. But no one believes the MTA will get any better even with more money flowing in.
@@Updupthe money generated directly affects MTA. It was to pay for the capital expenditures for 2025 forward.
@@carolscott2131 It's a chicken and the egg scenario. Does the MTA suck because it's underfunded or is it underfunded because it sucks?
New Yorker here: The issue is that there is no plan to make public transit better. In London, they increased service when congestion pricing was implemented, thus giving a valid reason for the new toll. In NYC, there is no plan to increase service, instead there is a plan to INCREASE THE FARE to $3. Also, the mismanagement of MTA funds makes the public perception as another "poor people tax"
Fare that most people are not paying anyways, NYC just want to get more tax money to throw it down the burning fiscal hole call "NYC public transit", congestion pricing won't fix anything in NY.
@@AidanTheNub on top of that, there are huge transit deserts in Brooklyn and queens where it makes more sense for residents to drive into manhattan. One example was given on the news recently about a lady who lives near Avenue N in south Brooklyn where the nearest train is a 15 minute drive or a 40 minute walk. Shits crazyyy
@@BernellJonesIIWow. It’s hard to imagine a 40 minute walk to transit in NYC.
I never would have guessed there was a desert that big in the city.
That's not totally true. MTA has begun to implement plans to reroute busses in Brooklyn to decongest the roads, it's done a ton of improvements on the G line this past summer, has collaborated with Parks Department and the City in various neighborhood studies/projects for street and open-space improvements, etc. Your comment on MTA mismanagement of funds is valid, but to say they aren't planning anything is disingenuous.
@@piedpiper1172 yeah, it’s insane
You must have used every available stock footage of Newyork for this
I think I saw San Francisco in there…NYC has no cable cars.
@@JustherefortheLOLZ Roosevelt Island Tramway....?
@@JustherefortheLOLZ Ever seen Spider-Man? We have a cable car system for Roosevelt Island. It wasn't made up for the movie.
A gondola and a streetcar are two different things. Why are so many things called "cable cars?" Why are so many things called "gondolas?"
Thats ok, he doesnt need to go broke making this.
Part of the problem is the potential time lag between improvements to public transportation and introduction of the fees. When London introduced congestion pricing, TfL was in pretty good shape so nearly everyone affected already had a good public transport alternative to driving (many might still drive, but park at the railway station instead of central London). NYC, it might be argued, is not in such a great position, there are still gaps in high quality coverage especially outside of NYC proper. So for a few years a significant number of people will probably have to choose between spending more money or enduring a significantly longer commute, and I can sympathise with that. Though I think there might still be challenges as improvements to complete coverage will likely need to include new subway lines especially to places like New Jersey, which is notoriously expensive in that region.
I agree, this is one of the biggest counter points to the whole argument. I guess in the long-term though, it’s much better.
@@JL1 It's a bit of an unknown, based on the sluggish progress over the last couple of decades, it might take a very long time. There's also going to be some opposition from NYC residents who don't want money spent so commuters can afford to live in bigger houses in leafy NJ suburbs over spending on transport within the city itself.
In Manhattan, it's already far easier to get around by metro than by car. They're just scared suburban people who don't want to walk a flight of stairs. They should be paying to drive in the city. They should be paying a lot more.
@@Croz89 considering how much NY has been shrinking lately, I think it's slightly more of a precarious situation than you've put it. You run the risk of basically driving away the people who commute. NYC already is the fifth most expensive city to commute to in the country and this would shoot it up to number one. It could work, but it could also backfire horribly.
But then there's the aspect that if the goal is to reduce congestion, won't the funding from it be reduced if that goal is achieved? I'm sure that's part of their calculations, but those people don't disappear, they start using public transport. Wouldn't that put more strain on public transportation services? That means the billion in revenue you'd get from it wouldn't be as valuable as people make it out to be.
But that's not even the biggest problem. The biggest problem is commercial transportation of goods. They'll have to pay which will up their rates, causing the price of goods to go up. I could also see the delivery truck drivers going on strike over it.
Frankly, applying the charge to truck drivers makes zero sense. Is the goal to get them to deliver through public transport? No, obviously not. But for some reason they have to pay _more_ than a commuter.
The overwhelming majority of commuters to Manhattan already get there by transit, and all the different regional rail and bus systems serving New York already have park and rides toward the outskirts of the city that could serve the few who do currently drive. It's also almost always faster that way- the trains don't have to deal with traffic, and especially coming from New Jersey, they can actually go significantly faster than even the posted highway speed limits, never mind the speed traffic actually manages to drive. The opposition is coming entirely from wealthy suburbanites who could easily afford the tolls and just don't want to be in the same vehicles as poor people.
A solid Futurama joke was Fry saying that nobody ever drove in New York because there were too many cars.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but at least in Stockholm and also, I believe, London, didn’t they build more public parking outside of the congestion area making it easier for people who had no choice but to drive to then get close enough to use rapid transit? Because they aren’t doing that here in NYC.
Our agencies are so corrupt here that if you told the MTA to build a parking garage, they’d ask for billions of dollars to make it
do you think there’s not enough parking? The USA is drowning in parking, and that includes New York City.
2:13 is this a mistake? 140,000 enter manhattan by car but so my somehow 1 million enter manhattan south of 60th by automobile? Doors that mean 860,000+ enter by bus or did 140k mean to refer to a different transportation method?
I replayed those sentences like five times...
@@shamusduffey4873same. Three times actually and I couldn’t make sense of it. He did change the term from Cars to automobile and that leave buses but that wouldn’t make sense.
I think he mentioned public transportation
There's also Taxis, and I'm betting that people going in and out get counted multiple times
He meant to say 1 million by transit. The ratio of people already commuting by transit is 10x the number that commute by car. The subways are the lions share of this, but commuter rail, busses, bikes, and ferries help too.
Just one more lane (tunnel bro).
correct. lets bulldoze some blocks to set up a highway as well. just to be sure. and make it like 5 lanes each way.
There is a tunnel. It's called the subway
@@satakrionkryptomortis*Robert Moses has entered the chat*
@@satakrionkryptomortis This is exactly how the Cross Bronx Expressway / I 95 was built passing thru the Bronx. Robert Moses screwed over a lot of people who lacked the wherewithal to fight him.
Funny you should say that because they literally removed lanes in Manhattan in recent years. I've witnessed all streets around me losing at least 1 lane, some of them lost 2 lanes. And now they are telling people it's too congested.
I've been driving in NYC for the first time this year, and it has been my worst driving experience so far. Horrible. The public transports are good only if you want to go to or from Manhattan. It takes ages to go from one side of Brooklyn to the other by bus. Lots of room for improvement.
dude, I grew up in NY and I can tell you- just take the train.... buses have also gotten better with the new bus lanes they are adding
In Staten Island, you pretty much need to have a car. Lots of folks drive to the ferry, take that into Manhattan, then use public transportation in Manhattan.
Solution: don't drive, walk or use to the train
The IBX should help traveling across Brooklyn, though it will still be a few years til its available.
Or, you know, actually use public transport and don't expect the rest of everyone else to accomodate your space-hogging gas guzzler.
hello I want to start investing, but i am unsure where to start, do you have any advice or contacts for assistance?
It is prudent to seek expert advice when creating a solid financial portfolio due to its complexities
Naomi's distinctive strength is her pragmatic approach,, Setting her apart from other brokers who often set unrealistic goals and fail to deliver.
So you all know her too? Her success story is everywhere.
If someone is straightforward and skilled in their work, people will always recommend them. I appreciate her honesty,,
It is wise to seek professional guidance when building a strong financial portfolio due to its complexity.
Some come by car and others come by automobile?
I noticed this too. I assume one was supposed to be public transit?
Some may even use horseless carriages
Bus, van, truck etc.
@@kieronparr3403 Skateboard, Rascal, water buffalo, witch's broom...
@@MonkeyJedi99 Ah yes, we should all use our water buffaloes. We do all have them, but yours is fast and mine is slow 😮💨
When I visited NYC from Regina in my Jeep back in 2018, I learned to park my car for free in the Dutch Kills/Astoria neighbourhood & walk the Queensboro Bridge to Manhattan.
The walk was surprisingly pleasant. If I ever drive there again in the future, I'll just pack a folding bike or scooter in my car.
@@landongendur Well yea, the reality is very few people drive inside of New York. It’s predominantly taxis/ubers/lyfts and delivery trucks since everything has to come in from out of the city. Obviously some commuters too, but there really arent many joyriders in congestion zone.
For the most part the purpose is to tax delivery trucks who will pass the cost to consumers and transfer that money for the MTA. Thats why trucks dont get charged once a day and instead get charged everytime they enter the zone. Its a tax that people wouldnt have voted for if they realized they were the victims but they though NJ drivers would be the ones paying LMAO
Yeah let me just bike over the Manhattan bridge when it's 17 degrees out so the rich can zoom by without traffic.
@@mavensbaseball or ride a bus, subway, train. I heard they have AC on them
@@mavensbaseball "There's no bad weather, only bad clothes" -every German/Dutch/Nordic person
Something that I didn't hear mentioned is how will the MTA (which is mismanaged as it is), all of a sudden become competent with congestion pricing. Another thing is that during rush hour, the trains are already super crowded as it is with intervals that are too long. Sometimes you can't even get on the train and have to wait until the next one (which is usually 10-15 minutes). Even if a small number of people switch to taking the subway, the entire system will become super overwhelmed and I don't think that the average person trusts the MTA to deal with that problem since they already don't.
All revenue from congestion pricing goes back into the MTA which needs billions to be renovated
Why would you have train every 10 minutes at rush hours? I have seen much smaller cities than NYC which manage to do it every 5 or so.
every 15 minutes in rush hours? I am used to 3 max 4 minutes
Uptown A always takes an insane amount of time between trains
I was on the subway today and the 4/5 comes every 3 mins… IDK what you’re talking about!
As a NYer, I've lived here for 30+ years. I don't trust the people managing the money. Even with the money they collected over the decades they we caught cooking the books and all the stations haven't been reinvested in. Chambers street has looked like a damned sewer for decades. Same Switches. Same Tunnels. Still no mass train management like on the 7 and L train lines. I've worked with countless of companies and none of them left their infrastructure and equipment fail. There are known choke points like Jay St Metro Tech or Hoyt Schermehorn that cause massive delays and they never get fixed. They want MORE money???
RUclips response template:
Start with an unnecessary statement about who you are:
* "As a _____" , or
* "As someone who______", or
* "As a ____, who has ____, I can confirm ____"
@@rg1649It does tell you that the guy isn't a rando but actually has some experience with it tho?
no one fixing that hopefully trump can. but yeah they still need money.
How many billions every year? Yet every single year they claim that more money will fix it… 😂 A sucker’s born every minute.
The goal of congestion pricing is to reduce traffic. The MTA could light that pile of money on fire and it would still reduce traffic.
“Southern end of the island” while showing footage of the GWB lol
A big part of this is geography. As currently constructed, east-west traffic from LI to NJ (and vice versa) almost always result in someone driving right into lower/midtown Manhattan. Either the Lincoln Tunnel to the Midtown Tunnel or the Holland Tunnel to the East River bridges.
Most cities partially solve that by building ring roads to divert traffic away from the city core. The problem is that NYC due to its island geography functionally has no ring road to divert traffic away from the city core. There have been plans in the past to do so, but they always require extremely expensive infrastructure to complete (like the Long Island Sound link).
In turn, there are two routes that serves as "ring roads" around Manhattan but they are each very flawed. One is north via the Cross Bronx Expressway (GWB to NJ, Throngs Neck Bridge to LI) which already is one of the most congested routes in the USA and is both capacity constrained and obsolete from a freeway design philosophy. It can ill afford to pick up any diverted traffic. The 2nd route is south via the BQE to the VZ Bridge to the SIE. However, that will require going through the infamous BQE promenade section, a dangerously obsolete section (everyone agrees it will collapse soon, but NYC did nothing about it for 2+ and counting decades). NYC has actually closed 1 lane in each direction in order to kick the can down the road resulting in 24/7 congestion each way. That path also can ill afford to pick up any diverted traffic.
With both routes north and south functionally blocked, the result is to drive into Manhattan. Take a person from Queens wanting to catch a flight in Newark, the answer is to cross Manhattan. Vice versa, someone from Newark wanting to catch a flight at LGA, the answer, drive into Manhattan. Not sure congestion charge will do anything that...
It's just the nature of cars in dense urban areas. It's nothing special about Manhattan.
Robert Moses tried his hand in this and it got shot down
@@alehaim yeah moses wanted to bulldoze more of manhattan for interchange and highways, thank God they stopped him when they did. He almost ruined NYC.
I spotted the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge route on the map, but also that it would be a big detour for a lot of people. (Someone must go to Trenton ... but why?) I didn't appreciate the Brooklyn Promenade was in such bad shape - are there any good plans for fixing or rebuilding it?
@@oldunion indeed, moses was a prick
0:52 Three-legged dog.
?
with a ballsack
Dog balls on wendover before gta 6
Totally saw this immediately
@@DameOfDiamonds as prophesised
NYC subway is grim. If they could make public transportation less post apocalyptic maybe more would like to ride
10:48 INNIT 🏴☕️
😂😂😂😂
You on one
Londoners: *first time eh?*
God bless the bladerunners
At least your local government didn’t run Andy Byford out of town.
9:46: random dude running over the freeway 😂
Modern Dante going though the circles of concrete hell
Straight line mission
Instantly thought of micheal Douglas in falling down 😂
There is a bus stop on the side he's running to, for buses crossing the GW Bridge into NY 😆
@@jvohanianor get into a carpooling car (back in the good old days)
I lived in NJ and Staten Island public transport takes me anywhere from 1hour 40 to 3 hours simply to get home. While in a car it can be done in 50 min. Moreover I have a bunch of friends and coworkers who live in Long Island/rockaway/ and southern bklyn who drive in because there there is a lack of public transport same thing with me in Staten Island. And please don’t say some stupid thing like “don’t work in Manhattan then” if that’s where all the jobs are. MTA is never fixed the QFMNR lines are always not working properly and all they do is increase the charge. Also the safety issue is a big factor. Some of you talk but don’t know what it’s like to take an hour train ride at night in the city and clearly thankfully never dealt with a situation where your life was threatened on public transport same thing
Same issue for residents of Westchester. At least they have access to north NYS and a bunch of other towns in Westchester. You guys on Staten Island are really getting squeezed by this.
As someone who currently lives in NJ and used to live in NYC, this is a good video in practice, and honestly I do agree with most of your points that you've mentioned on how congestion charges would reduce traffic. While I am also for congestion charges, there are some counterpoints that are to note (with solutions that would be unpopular with NY residents):
1. Public transportation in NYC, while better than most of the US, still lacks compared to the rest of the world. The main cause of this issue: Prices Are Too Low. No matter the time of day or the distance traveled, the cost to ride on the MTA remains around $3. Compared to London, Washington DC, and other areas, they lose out by not charging extra to riders based on the "rush hour" traffic. Of course, for NYC people, increasing this fare from $2.25 to $2.50 caused a massive uproar in the community, so I doubt they'd ever be able to implement this. But, (and I could be wrong) the average price in London or DC is around $6-8, and that's with less people traffic than the MTA has on a daily basis.
2. Public transportation outside NYC is in complete shambles, also due to a lack of funding. Amtrak + NJ Transit has had numerous issues during volatile weather temperatures as the systems are over 80 years old and haven't been modernized in this new climate. The trains don't run fast, and the busses are few and far in between, with numerous delays causing the perception of the transit system to be low among NJ and other NY folks. On top of that, the stations themselves are breaking down, flooding, or not in service due to the lack of funds that can be deployed to fix the infrastructure surrounding NYC.
The solution is simple, put more money towards the city infrastructure. Residents may suffer in the short-term, but the long-term gains are immense. It's a bigger issue than a simple congestion pricing fix (although we still need that). If this passes, it helps improve the livelihoods for future generations, but it's tough to think that far ahead, which is where politicians should come in and help.
RUclips response template:
Start with an unnecessary statement about who you are:
* "As a _____" , or
* "As someone who______", or
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@rg1649 Well thats how you build credibility. What if I said “As someone who lived in Russia… and then talked about this issue”? Your response makes no sense and doesn’t even tackle my main points, which funny enough, are for people like you to read
I dunno I don’t think the fare needs raising, we just need to use the money we already have better
The railroads aren’t being upgraded because the stupid “environmental impact studies” are expensive and time consuming making any perceived upgrades obsolete before they start construction. If they actually wanted to improve anything they would make proper use of Eminent Domain and push out the freeloading naysayers.
5:45 Trucks should not pay more. I get that they're bigger, but the mission is to reduce unnecessary traffic. Commuters in cars can shift to mass transit, delivery trucks don't have that option.
It's 75% cheaper at night. It is to encourage night-time deliveries
@ oh ok that would make more sense
What about Uber? Shouldn't every person that Ubers pay a $9 per day surcharge as well? Ubers create way more congestion than regular private cars that go from point a to b only once or twice a day.
@@rrrglynnUber is much more efficient than private car ownership since they don't require parking, and they tend to have a higher occupancy as well. And any fees would of course be paid by the driver and passed on to the passengers.
@theajayyy and the service industry? Everyone love to hate on blue Collar
My family grew up in Westchester. My sister now drives in Manhattan. I think to her, you're crazy. I'm taking the subway. 😂
The subway is already beyond it's safe capacity levels it couldn't handle a 10%+ increase in daily passenger numbers.
@@Ushio01 what are you talking about? It is at 75% 2019 capacity. It hasn't gone back to normal since covid hit.
@@the0ne809 You realise it's suffered from capacity issues long before the pandemic right? the capacity levels today are still more than it can handle especially with all the delayed and canceleld maintenance that happened because of the pandemic.
2019 was one of the worst years ever after constant increases in over capacity since 2007 even in 2020 the subway was over crowded just not as much as the previous year.
@@Ushio01 not all lines are the same. the worse line is the 4/5 because the second line avenue hasn't been built yet. Man, I live here.
@@Ushio01 Source: trust me bro.
the only reason newyorkers like me dont agree with this plan is its charging us money to drive on roads we never have been charged on and without and improvement to infastructure just the government asking for more money for the same resources which they been doing for years obviously this you tuber is not from ny
Driving into nyc during 2021 was a dream. Going 60mph through the Lincoln tunnel and being in lower manhattan was like being in southern NJ.
Bro seriously
Bronx to queens using the deegan and triboro was fucking amazing
Less than 15 minutes easily
I wish I could relive that and enjoy it under different circumstances obviously
16:18 "That's assuming they all get through in the same light cycle" - Haven't you ever seen TRON? Everyone gets their own light cycle!
NYC should unilaterally implement congestion pricing.
People can't even operate e-bikes safely, can you imagine the carnage if they had TRON light-cycles?
@@dimitriosfotopoulos3689 Self-solving problem.
@@dimitriosfotopoulos3689 i think people should play more snake to prepare for this.
@@dimitriosfotopoulos3689 I'd imagine it'd look like Burnout 3, but in very slow motion
4:18 he's gonna talk about making public transportation better, right? Right?!?!?
Oh, he didn't...
The solution is not to make it even harder for those that need to drive, the solution is to give them alternatives instead. NYC is the richest city in the world, why does the subway looks worse than in third world countries???
Spend all the time discuss how good congestion pricing is good without discussing cities‘ public transportations. Most recently safety concerns. Trash.
Lost me at Eliot “Spritzer”. I thought you knew your stuff. 😂
Well he IS a spritzer, if his past behavior is anything to go by, but his name is Spitzer.
they outsource everything now. Probably an AI script and he just reads it, then they pat someone to put stock footage together.
I am a NYC Paramedic, EMT/Paramedics make much less $$$ than Firefighters / PD / DOC / Sanitation... There are three EMS stations and several hospitals in the congestion zone most of us work over 12hrs days and live in outer boroughs as well as other counties and states... We donot have bunks to sleep at the station meaning driving home after our tours is a must... There are currently no provision emergency workers who have to travel into the congestion zone.
Further more behind the scenes, prior to congestion pricing being paused by gov Huchol lots of the senior membership transferred out... An unfortunate consequence of congestion pricing will be that the three stations in the zone are looked upon as rookie locations where a member is forced to be there for a few months at a time this affects the public when your in a life threatening situation and all the rescuers are brand new...
MTA dgaf
If I was having a stroke, I'd take a rookie arriving in 14 minutes over a senior paramedic arriving in 15.
Seeing those massive streets with - no bus/taxi/bike lanes, no tram lines, lots of on street parking and seeing comments on how the subway in NYC is terrible makes me think there is something more to it than just unwillingness to implement congestion pricing.
The real issue of “how much is your time stuck in traffic worth” in NYC specifically, because of how costly other items are. A $20 toll may not be a disincentive to drive when rent is $3500 per month, for example. To truly make a New Yorker question driving, it would have to be a nearly criminal amount. Here in Quito, we are a 490 year old city (obviously not designed with cars in mind) so there isn’t a ton of car space. We use a system based on the last digit of your license plate that says you can’t drive in the excluded zone on your certain day. Works pretty well without charging folks anything.
I've heard if this before. The wealthy just buy multiple cars and yet again benefit the most.
This is a good idea and certainly more equitable. Variable tolling might work too but like you said, it would be very expensive, but it would be an incentive to carpool.
As a resident of a bigger city closer than the NYC profile (São Paulo), that adopts this system, I can assure you this is insufficient. People usually buy another car or use the spouse's car. And used cars can be pretty affordable in US, far more than South America.
@@gohanssj48 cars here are way more expensive than elsewhere because of the tariffs on cars. We can’t print US dollars, so we have to protect the money supply.
They need to make the Subways CLEAN and SAFE if they want people to drive less. They don’t plan on doing that anytime soon. They’d rather milk money out of the regular folks and line their own pockets.
19:50 I don't continue to love paying for Nebula. I instead love having paid for the Lifetime subscription when it was first offered & instead never paying again.
I think the real problem is that you have 8.6 million people living in an area about 304 square miles. You can move everybody onto public transport and you're still going to have congestion. There's also the question of how you are going to get goods and services to feed that many people into the city. You can certainly put a rail siding next to every building in New York City, but I'd hate to see the NIMBY on that.
1. The Congestion Pricing might stop some congestion by forcing others to find different ways to drive into Manhattan. However, this is going to create congestion elsewhere. You're not really solving the problem, just moving it elsewhere.
2. You're also charging more to move goods and services into the city. This is going to get passed on to consumers. From my outside perspective, NYC is already expensive enough to live in. This will only make it more expensive.
3. From my outside perspective, NYC has a lot of other problems that need fixing, and I don't see either the city or the state spending that money on anything other than their own pet projects. Any through traffic going north on I-95 is forced across the George Washington Bridge and only the Cross Bronx Expressway. One way to fix that would be to build and actual bypass and get the through traffic out of NYC.
IT HAPPENED GUYS!!! JAN 5 WOOHOOO!!!
New Yorker here: the outer boroughs commuting via MTA is the worse especially the buses. What’s crazy taking the express bus RT cost more than me simply driving in
I lived and worked in NYC for a year during the pandemic, and Bloomberg's idea to tax people coming through Manhattan UNLESS they stayed only on FDR Drive... My god that would make FDR Drive so much more intolerable than it already is. It was built almost a century ago and the lanes are narrower than most modern cars, and it already is PTSD inducing going either 70 mph bumper to bumper, or dead stopped for hours for no apparent reason. Luckily google maps usually gives tourists goody routes through Manhattan first before getting to FDR and beyond, if everyone stayed on FDR, they'd have to do some kind of update to add more lanes..
I live in Stockholm. Or, on the outskirts of it. And the fee is minimal, annoying when I need to go through the city. But it general, very little traffic inside the city, and nice air... I cant imagine the air in NYC
The air is fine.
@@TOyaniranu sure about that?
@@TOyaniran The air in NY is actually surprisingly good, maybe the rain helps. LA is where it's gross and dusty and smells like cars.
@@adamhlali8106 NY air is actually pretty good.
Air quality in NYC isn't honestly as bad as you expect, but the smells are something else.
This is why we need remote work I despise commuting
You describe London as a success story for congestion pricing, but in the impact study you use that shows NYC sitting #1,, London is 3rd in the world with a slower average speed than NYC after almost 20 years of congestion pricing.
Maybe it was worse before the congestion pricing?
That's ignoring the fact that - with very few exceptions - there are no multi-lane roads in Central London, as there simply isn't the physical space. A much lower proportion of London's surface area is occupied by roads than in comparable cities around the world - which makes it a very pleasant place to walk, but a very bad place to drive.
Traffic congestion in the City of London and the City of Westminster was recorded back to at least the 1800s - and is a big part of why the London Underground exists at all. The Congestion Charge dramatically improved traffic flows, from barely faster than walking to merely bad. The fee is certainly not a perfect solution, but it did make sure that potential drivers consider whether they really *need* to drive in the city centre...
London also has a good and relatively cheap bus service, so rather than the poorest suffering from increased travel costs, they typically benefit the most from policies that reduce driving and increase traffic speed (buses become more reliable and potentially cheaper to operate, allowing fares to be frozen for longer).
@@peeky44 When I went to Mexico City I noticed much of the city was massive roads compared to Europeans cities like London.
So, basically same people driving, more founding for the gov, sounds like a plus to me even if not perfect
Yes but the number of cars altogether has significantly dropped. More space has been taken from the cars and given to pedestrians, cyclists, and buses. Congestion pricing is misleading in that it isn’t going to reduce traffic speeds but rather it is reducing the number of cars and the space they take up on the roads.
The car-suburb movement was a bit of what we'd today call a (short-sighted) social justice movement. It was a way for middle- and working-class white Americans to have easy access to jobs and services downtown with only the price of a car. So now we're in an unsustainable situation where ending car commute subsidies really will harm working-class suburbanites in the short-term, and it WILL be painful.
There are a couple of issues that this video ignores. One while it mentions the cars proportion of daily commuters has gone down, daily ride shares have gone up, NYC has regulatory means to control the number of taxis (and ride share services) with the medallion system. Instead NYC politicians have effectively been paid to look the other way while the ride share services operated essentially pirate cabs and never competed for medallions in the first place. The cab drivers who did pay the enormous prices for a medallion went bankrupt (they had their fares regulated by the city and the ride shares did not) . Then during the De Blasio admin, you had the then mayor rip up half the lanes for bicyclists (effectively ripping up the space that a million drivers used to benefit 64K largely affluent male bike riders ) .
At the same time that same admin chose to do nothing about the increasing crime in the subway. Many refuse to use the subway at all due to fear. That is one of the main reasons ride share services have gone up in the city. They will pay much higher uber fees rather than take the subway or buses. This is basically manufacturing the crisis so that they can justify the tax increase which the electorate emphatically doesn't want until the MTA shows they can actually cut down on the enormous waste, the 700 million a year fare evasions, and the many fraudulent overtime rates which many MTA employees claiming when in reality they aren't on the job.
The other thing that the video doesn't mention is that the reduction in congestion pricing for London and the other cities was only temporary. Today and for several years London congestion is already higher than pre pricing levels. Again daily commuting cars largely replaced by ride share traffic inside the city.
Bike lanes are a good thing, it gives transportation options for ppl outside the subway and cars/ubers, bike riders are not just affluent,many are delivery drivers, citi bike users, commuters like myself, bike users would increases if bike lane infrastructure increased, bike lanes actually reduce traffic as the yt channel not just bikes explains in almost all his videos
The amount of people that do not realize that in order to improve public transit you have to introduce money into the system. This plan both introduces new taxes that add money to public transit and also encourages people to take public transit- adding more money to the system. This also reduces noise pollution, which given NYC’s DOE “E-designation” system will allow for new residential buildings to be cheaper because of the lower need for robust windows
My only concern with programs like this is that it needs to come backed up with adequate public transportation, including long-distance transportation (many people live outside of cities and drive into them). Where I live, public transportation options are so useless that me using them to get to work would turn a 30 minute commute into a 2 hour commute, and that still includes a 15 minute personal vehicle drive to the nearest bus stop (so I'd be spending 2 hours to save 15 minutes of driving). Granted, I'm in Phoenix, which is a bit of an anomaly, but it is an issue in any city.
I'm mistrustful of even programs like the original proposal of 100% of revenue going towards public transportation, because the way US governments work means they'll most likely just divert the same amount from the regular funding, so that the overall funding remains the same and nothing changes. In AZ, we had a public referendum that passed which added a tax onto incomes over $200,000 which went to schools, and after it passed our government simply diverted an equal amount of money from school budgets into other things. I don't see any guarantee that the same wouldn't happen with public transportation, and local governments would just treat it as a revenue source.
BTW, this pricing means that there is no way to drive from Manhattan to Queens without paying the toll. Part of the RFK bridge goes under the toll zone for 1 minute, which means that drivers using it have to pay the entire fee every single time.
Watching this from Ft. Lee NJ - i can see the Galaxy towers in Guttenburg NJ and see all of Manhattan from where i'm sitting. I travel into and out of NYC a few times a week and just getting to the bridge (~1.5 miles) from where i live can either be 5min drive or a 70min drive depending on when i leave. once on the bridge it moves but slow. another issue is that the bridge connects into the cross bronx expressway in the Bronx and that backs up too.
There's something profoundly interesting about traffic studies to me. One of the most interesting was a book that advocated for far fewer traffic signs to improve road safety.
For highways yes
Oh yeah, I agree. I like observing how entire systems function… like NATS (the system of airplane tracks that get planes across the Atlantic). One of my grad school profs had worked on the team that designed the New Jersey side tolls for the GW (number and position of the lanes and how far out from the bridge they should be).
I like the "fewer lanes = less cars", but so many people have a hard time accepting it.
As someone that lived in North Dakota and now lives in south Minnesota, I can comfortably say that just the shots of all the signage alone would be enough to cause me a sensory meltdown. Me and almost a hundred thousand other residents are used to flying through lower midtown at 40, maybe 45 if we felt daring, then 25 to 30 once we crossed the bridge over the railyard into downtown. Crawling along at 10mph is foreign to me, and a terrible use of gas.
@@tylerwalsh7840 no, for city streets less signs is actually safer - signs or not, it is both highly inadvisable and illegal to run over people. Less certainty over who has right of way is better for safety, as drivers need to be more careful.
Plus you still have the last clear chance doctrine so even if you have right of way you are still obliged to try avoid an accident if you have a clear chance to do so ...
"Taxis excempt"
And taxis flood the street from curb to curb.
"What you subsidize, you get more of"
Yupp
Yeah, I foresee people afraid of public transportation simply hiring a taxi... especially when driverless taxis become available.
I agree with this program. You do not need a car to get around New York City. You do not need a car to get to new york city from new jersey or the southeast part of pennsylvania. You don't need a car to get to new york city from its suburbs. You can easily take the bus or the train to get into new york city from these locations, but people are so stuck in their ways.They do not want to change anythings. Get out of your car.Take the train or the bus to work and you'll be fine.
Something important to note is that more people would feel incentivized to commute via public transportation if it was perceptibly safer and more comfortable to do so. I'm not talking about the actual statistics of violence on public transportation because what influences people's decision is more-so what they perceive and experience rather than what they're told the numbers are.
a lot of the "feeling unsafe" is online propaganda scaring people. i'm a young woman in brooklyn and routinely take the subway all over the city, sometimes deep into 3,4 am. it's completely totally fine.
@@beepboopsloane well maybe it's because you're from a rich area in Brooklyn. bronx-bound trains can get pretty scary, especially at night
@@jejune33 i lived in the bronx for 5 years...
@@beepboopsloane and i've lived here for 20 years. i'm just saying there are tons of mentally unwell people who will scream at you, follow you, etc. there are creepy men who will stare you down on the subway, especially if you are a woman. just the other day, an innocent woman was burned to death on the subway.
i don't think subways are as scary as people make them out to be, but to say it's completely and totally fine and people only feel unsafe due to online propaganda is being willingfully ignorant of the actual issues that the MTA has, especially when it comes to the security of the people riding the subway. conditions can and should improve.
edit: they should improve especially they're going to keep raising the subway fare and toll pricing!!!
@ I hear what you're saying. the thing is the more people that take the subways the safer they become. In my decade of living here i've been involved in one (1) incident. A man punched me in the head on the 5 train in the bronx. But guess what happened? Another man immediately stood up and the attacker meekly walked to the other side of the train alone. I switched cars and all was well.
There's definitely problems with the subway and problems with unwell passengers. But the fearmongering out there actively makes the problem worse
The Stuttering Skater has proven that it's faster to roller blade across New York than drive. By a considerable margin.
This video is well produced, but out of touch. Credit to you for mentioning a few counter arguments, but you failed to bring up how this shifts traffic and air pollution to lower income areas ringing the congestion zone. Well and good to address the real issues raised here, but a bad break for people already struggling with some of the highest rents in the world, higher food costs than most of the country, and a notoriously corrupt MTA that hasn't been able to handle peak commuter loads either before or after COVID and STILL just hiked the fare.
Now you want to advocate sticking them with worse air and traffic and an even more packed and delayed train commute so people's Uber's go faster?
Not saying something like this shouldn't be done, but the method and timing is pretty bad here. How long are the less fortunate supposed to shoulder this?
Neo-liberals abhor the poor. The pollution is a feature, not a bug. They want us to choke on the fumes, so we can't pass on our pittances of inheritances to our children.
They believe poor people having children, is a sign that poor people have no morals. Because "who would bring a child into a world of pollution?!?"
Who would have thought charging $8 and $21 per vehicle per day wouldn't be popular with politicians and government officials.
I'm from London and ULEZ and Congestion charges money raised, doesn't do anything good for public transport or people in general. Money just gets stolen and divided between shareholders
urbanplanadvisor AI fixes this. NYC congestion pricing battle overview.
This isn't about reducing congestion. It's just about creating another revenue stream for the MTA. And maybe the MTA wouldn't be so strapped for cash if they did a better job at preventing rampant fare evasion. Hardly needs fancy tech. Just an officer or two and a high fine.
They have both of those you suggested, but it still goes on!
They need to bring back the “Iron Maiden” turnstiles…you can’t jump over them!
And get rid of the brain dead , dead weight that is the corrupt MTA management!
MTA is greedy af raise fares and don’t improve service in anyway. They also give $100 fines for fare evasion to people who can’t afford $2.90. It’s a huge waste of police resources and primarily targets the poorest New Yorkers.
@@eraj1001 i agree with the greedy and don't improve service part but then again they do need money to run. Idk how much profit is in that $3 but at least I get to move around the city without a car.
@@lavablader6949 8 million people paying $3 twice a day they making close to $50m a day
from my house in Jersey to Columbus Circle, is forty-five minutes, without traffic. if i use public transportation. it's two buses and about 15 minute walk from Port Authority to Columbus Circle. the first bus takes me a half hour to get, to the second bus. Second bus takes an hour into Manhattan. That's 45 min vs 105 min. Min wage in Jersey is $15. After accounting for gas, parking, and tolls, I'd always be better off paying the congestion pricing. What would need to be charged to not make it worth my while, would cost the city more than it could afford.
because every dollar of that congestion charging, is a dollar I don't spend in the city. every dollar not spent in the city is jobs lost.
Next part.
I can cheat the system.
first, i get as close to kalambus circle as i can without paying the congested pricing, walk a block, and get into another car. A cab an Uber etc.
You are right errbody will just park in Uptown, and bus in. Uptown will begin needing congestion pricing too.
@@MbisonBalrogNO ONE NEEDS CONGESTION PRICING
The real problem is the congestion pricing was too low. Price has to be dynamic to ensure optimal utilization, otherwise its just a toll.
New yorker here, bus lane implementation was a massive precedent to the current congestion issue, removing a lane from most major roads effectively contributed to the massive congestion we experience now.
Congestion is inevitable.
Congestion pricing is seemingly inevitable.
However in its current state, this is just putting a band-aid on top of a band-aid
I'm sorry but I don't know a single working class preson who drives into lower manhattan, let alone someone who makes $15 an hour, you can't even afford the insurance or parking when making $15 a hour.
You absolutely can afford both. I drive into lower Manhattan.
Take a cab, you can meet a working class person each time, or just swing by the 7th precinct. Go to any of the many hundreds of schools. All those incomes do not enable a person to live anywhere near where they work. Some even live in PA. This is an elaborate and cruel tax on working class people/salaries. The wealthy won’t bat an eye. Just adds to the dystopian wealth gap.
@@SisyphusJP yes, but are those working-class people driving in, or are they taking rail/buses?
@@andrew8501 read what I wrote above ^ please 🙏
What about the food carts in his video? They all drive into Manhattan.
I'm fine with the toll. It definitely is far more expensive to drive in NYC but to me it's worth it. You can't put a price on peace and having your own little bit of personal space in this dense city.
In denser urban areas, public transportation must be made more attractive than cars for most. Congestion pricing seems like a great way to get there.
as far as many are concerned, its either using the money to improve the world's largest (unless otherwise stated) subway network, or at worst... you get the idea...
Need mass public transit like Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore.
You can't have that with a multiethnic society. New Yorkers have chosen repeatedly to have that instead of a safe and clean city.
Nothing about how this will kill so many businesses that make communities special and are on their last leg since Covid
Toll from NJ went from $3, $8 , $12 , $20. Did that decrease number of traffic from coming into manhattan?
Compared to what it would be without the toll increase - yes, yes it definitely did.
@@zen1647 Nope didn't change it
@@zen1647we can tell you’re not from around here
it probably did decrease but opposite is true that is population increase and nyc is more populated
Part of the problem is the MTA is fucking terrible at even managing the current budget they have. Public transport in NYC is unsafe its a fact. The MTA has had Billions of dollars of Allocation and they haven't done anything with it.
Roughly $2,700 a year tax to drive. One toll.
If I worked there I'd charge cost plus on tolls and tickets for my work truck. It's an expense just like others you have to make a profit on. No doubt it's rolled into their plumber's bills.
I worked a job in a zoned parking area and the customer paid around $15,000 over 6 months for our tickets. We got cost for them but should have marked them up.
I like NYC but I never moved there because you need a fortune to have anything like space for a shop or a car.
Paying additional fees on public roads is simply not acceptable. If your taxes paid for the road, it must be accesible to all. If it takes toll money, it must be a private road. Without any taxes, espacially not a single dime of federal funds that are then used to not benefit anybody from the union visiting. It's like NYC financing a zoo in Texas that then takes tickets for NYC visitors.
As you yourself said, it's a tax to bully out poor people. Tax the poor, benefit the rich, bully everyone who does not have F you money to shove others off the road. Plus all the surveillance that comes with it. It won't take a week before NYPD takes all data to solve whatever crime. Oh, and the people that get the money are corrupt and won't fix a thing.
Public transportation is funded by taxes yet riders still pay fares. New York is under no obligation to cater to the people who make the city more polluted and dangerous. Federal funds are constantly used for regional projects that only directly benefit that region, that's what government is for. New York pays for more in taxes than it receives back, so right now every NY resident is paying to subsidize a red state.
The roads belong to the residents of New York City and they have decided to implement congestion pricing. LI, NJ... their taxes did not fund those roads.
I never understand how the cabbies make any money. 40% of the vehicles in Manhattan are rideshares, and they get a break with the new toll. All of the trucks bringing in our food, however, do not. Congestion won't go away with the new tolls. I suspect its just another 20$ for the MTA to buy scratch tickets with.
Cabs get a pass on the toll.
They have to work 20 plus hours a day. That’s how. lol
exactly. it’s a money making scheme… thinly disguised as a traffic reducing scheme.. and that’s just one of the many reasons I loathe it.
Further compounding, the issue is the fact that for the millions of people who live on Long Island, your only option to get off the island is to drive through the city!
Google maps tells that there is also a ferry.
Google maps tells that there is a ferry.
@@rafakrakowiak2719 From....?
You can get off LI via the Verrazzano Bridge and Throgs Neck. Congestion pricing only charges people entering lower Manhattan.
@@Vevxo As of the 2020 U.S. census, Long Island had a population of 8,063,232 people.
You want 8 million people to take one bridge to get off the island?
I don't think adding an additional change to a city that has one of the highest costs of living in the world is a good idea
It will increase the price of all goods via delivery trucks. The MTA already wastes hundreds of millions a year can't it spend the money it gets more efficiently
This video's filmmakers and producers sound like a mouthpiece for congestion pricing. There are a few flaws that I noticed. 1st, is the fact that there's more and skewer traffic due to less diving lanes and more bike and pedestrian lanes. 2nd is that they say it's to curb pollution, but other location would suffer, making the cars that drive elsewhere pollute those areas instead. 3rd, there is a huge mismanagement issue with the MTA, the department tasked with overseeing the program. 4th, there are no plans to upgrade the public transit system or even make it safer (I'm sure you've all followed the recent news regarding nyc subway crimes). 5th, the public already gets taxed enough, driving on a public road, already paid by public funds, shouldn't incur any more costs. Seems to me like this is just another money grab by the government to line their pockets with excessive, no-show overtime projects. Not to mention that making deliveries of goods in the area more expensive to deliver, thus raising prices on such goods. In turn inferring such costs to consumers.
59st Bridge (Ed Koch) and Brooklyn Bridge were the bridges of the working class who'd drive into and out of Manhattan. The city despises people who save money and work for a living.
Did you watch the video? The cost of traffic is far greater than any toll. Delivery driver's value of time was quoted at $100-$200 per hour. Even a time savings of 15 minutes per day would cover the toll. The MTA could dump all of that toll money into the Hudson and congestion pricing would still be a net benefit.
Imagine trying to drive from Brooklyn to New Jersey for work, where there’s definitely not trains all over, and paying $9 a day plus $18 for the holland tunnel EVERY DAY. I’ve turned down jobs in Jersey just because it wouldn’t be worth it solely because of the tolls. It’s ridiculous
It's not ridiculous. You're not entitled to a job in a different state 😂.
@@traplover6357 This comment makes no sense. I live in NJ and also wish there were better transit to New York. I'm not even that far and it takes me 3 trains to get to my downtown job. I don't even look at jobs in Brooklyn because of how long the commute would be. It's about a job to make a living not entitlement.
Believe me, it’s all just another form of taxation. It starts out as a congestion charge only, to drive into a certain area. Then, comes the Low Emissions Zone, which surrounds the congestion area, and then, when people get used to that, ultra low emissions zone comes along, when the City needs more tax money.
When politicians tell you it’s for the good of the people, don’t believe them. They don’t care less about environment or congestion. It’s one hundred percent revenue collection, and it’s the poor and less well off that carry that burden, as usual!! 😞
Yes, this is exactly what they have done in some European cities and those cities are much nicer to live in.
I’m late, but to me, the problem is that nobody WANTS to be driving down there. I don’t see it realistically reducing traffic, because anyone driving there already has no other choice. Anybody who has any other way to get there is already doing that.
I guess I could be wrong, but New York seems unique to London in many ways here.
0:38 small correction maybe (?) the complex is called Galaxy Towers not Guttenberg Towers
I have 2 issues with congestion charging (and I cycle to work):
1) No viable alternatives.
2) Wealth inequality.
They could be fixed by charging a rate tied to your income... Which would also generate more income.
And either exempting, or having limited numbers of passes per month for essential trips (eg the supermarket) or people not served by the public transport network.
Public transport (or preferably, active travel) needs to be made easier and quicker than driving.
So here in NJ, congestion pricing is pretty much universally hated. One of our gubernatorial hopefuls has already started putting billboards outside the Holland Tunnel and on the Turnpike that say “No Congestion Pricing.”
I think one reason it’s so unpopular in Jersey is that there isn’t any talk of paring it with improvements to mass transit. The idea is to just dump the money into the MTA, but the Port Authority controls the GWB, Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the bus depots at 175th and 42nd street, the PATH train, and Penn Station. So basically, NYC is saying “we’re going to force you to use crumbling infrastructure and overworked overcrowded busses and trains, and we’re going to take your money to pay for people to commute from the outer boroughs.”
I live in NJ, and I don’t really get all of the hate for congestion pricing. People who drive from NJ are already paying tolls that go to defray the cost of the congestion pricing. And there are plans in the work to improve the port authority terminal and build two additional tunnels into manhattan that will primarily be used by NJ transit and Amtrak. If those projects get canceled, it will be because of funding. Congestion pricing can help make sure that doesn’t happen. I take the bus every day and spend 2-3 hours commuting. The bus can be fast but it is not when it has to sit in traffic. If you look at the statistics, the vast majority of people who commute from NJ into manhattan do so by bus and rail already, and congestion pricing will help them.
@ I used to work in Brooklyn and commute by bus into the city, and yes it was 2-3 hours but the sitting in traffic wasn’t the issue. The issue was that some busses were already full and would just bypass my stop, so at least an hour of that commute was “waiting for an empty enough bus.” When I moved to central Jersey, I started driving in because it was only an hour and my car wasn’t going to leave without me. I think that’s the source of a lot of the resistance, it’s not that people want to drive into the city, it’s that there is no plan to make NJ Transit suck less in the immediate, and all the money is going into the MTA.
People who live in New Jersey get all the benefits of working in Manhattan but take on almost none of the burden of living in nyc. NYC can’t keep having this traveling dollar and expect things like the MTA to get better
@@El_Guapo98 Agreed entirely. If you come into NYC from New Jersey, make your money, leave, and then go spend it in NJ, you are degrading the roads and contributing to congestion without giving anything back
well, maybe there's a deal to be worked out. if an NJ driver pays congestion pricing to enter the city, maybe some (or all?) of that money should go back to NJ transit? seems straightforward to me.
The unique problem with Manhattan is that drivers are already taxed with tolls on most bridges and all tunnels. The tolls are some of the highest in the country. How is that for alleged cheap travel into the city? And where are all the billions of $ going?
🤔 Nothing for nothing, if they implement “Congestion Pricing”, they should eliminate the toll on the Brooklyn Battery tunnel which gives you access to both the Westside drive,and FDR.
I feel the same way about driving in NYC that I feel like driving in Paris, you couldn't pay me enough to do it on a regular basis. Unless you have mobility issues that prevent you from using public transit (and trust me wearing even a boot on NYC public transit is a pain) you simply don't need to do it.
Tell me more about how the government doesn't *want* to spit in my face, but, tragically, they are forced to do so for my own benefit.
There’s just too many people on RUclips who aren’t from New York or don’t live in New York who try to over logic their way into justifying congestion pricing. You forgot to mention that congestion pricing will effectively push pollution to low income neighborhoods in the south Bronx causing more asthma for people that can’t afford healthcare. Another thing is MTA has been known for mishandling the funds that could’ve paid for better transit and now the average working man will have to be in charge of fronting the cost of improved transit that MTA has always had money for. On top of that, businesses in the central business district will suffer because of delivery costs rising as delivery trucks will transfer the cost of paying a $21 toll on the consumer. Prices of goods and services will go up for everyone whether you drive or not because repair trucks, delivery, etc. will add that tolling that they pay daily to their costs. Also, the biggest thing out of all of this, nyc road infrastructure is too far gone. There will be heavy traffic with or without tolling. This is a cash grab!
How will it push pollution to low income neighborhoods...? Fewer people driving is fewer people driving.
@ fewer people driving doesn’t mean fewer people driving in the entirety of New York City 🤦🏿♂️. It’s clear you don’t understand the geography of nyc. The central business district is only the lower part of manhattan. It’s going to push people in Jersey to take the George Washington bridge because that’s how you get into manhattan without getting into the central business district. Politicians in fort lee New Jersey (the part that the bridge starts in) are worried about constant congestion piling up there. This will also cause (like I was saying earlier) congestion on the cross Bronx expressway and other highways in the Bronx because of all the traffic that will be trying to avoid the central business district… therefore causing more pollution. This is part of an environmental study that was done about the impacts congestion pricing will have on nyc. The worst part is they said they would use some of the congestion money to donate to places that will treat asthma (rough summary) which basically means that the MTA KNOWS this will happen and don’t care enough to stop it.
@@BernellJonesII I can't believe how 99% of commenters here just don't get it like you do
@@TFrills it’s because they don’t live in New York, and since the video is well edited it’s pretty convincing. I mean, tbh if I didn’t live in New York and I saw this video, I’d probably be pro-congestion pricing too
Yes. This tax is going to hurt low income people. But they are selling it like it’s a good thing. I hate this.
He didn’t even mention how now having to pay. The toll prices will go up because it’s more expensive to get in the city and it’s not gonna help with the congestion at all. You’ve tried this back when horses were in the city. They tried everything to get horses off the streets because they were making a mess. They made fine and they kept upping them and ultimately you know what ended up fixing it what’s the invention of the automobile not government not money so this is gonna have the same effect it won’t be fixed until someone comes through way with a new wave of transportation it’ll just make you mad increase pricing and drive people out of the city and in other states
8:02 I'm confused by this statement. Wouldn't a congestion fee on top of the existing tolls still raise money from NJ commuters?
No, he’s saying the few from NJ to Manhattan would include the new congestion pricing. Or in other words, the NJ commuters already pay a congestion pricing
While I don't think congestion pricing is a bad thing - I don't see why they don't first enact other measures like community parking and actually enforcing traffic laws. Many many cities will only allow street parking for people who have plates registered in that city, DC is a great example of this. So if you want to park there you have to find paid parking. Meanwhile in NYC I'd say 1 in 3 cars have plates from other states. Additionally, if NYC is trying to find new sources of revenue, how about enforcing "don't block the box" again. Now cars just sit under red lights and in cross walks blocking traffic in all directions every day. They've installed cameras for automated ticketing of speeding and running red lights (in a few token areas) yet automation hasn't reduced that workforce. Funny how that happens.
Two ideas that would help:
1) “All Stop, All Walk” red lights. The inability to turn due to pedestrian traffic creates massive grid lock. Tokyo figured this out and allowing people to cross diagonally with an All Stop intersection improved pedestrian efficiency and safety; while doing the same for car flow.
2) A NYC bypass tunnel from NJ and CT to Long Island. Having to go through Manhattan to get to L.I. from NJ or CT is a congestion nightmare.
We can tuen right on red here in South Florida and the pedestrian vs car injuries/deaths is twice as high as NYC and we don't have NYC's density..
The 'all stop, all walk' junctions are such a game-changer, they've become increasingly common in London too
@@rafborreroSouth Florida is a joke in terms of public transportation and pedestrian infrastructure. I can't even walk to the Publix half a mile away without worrying about getting run over.
Change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end
Closer to dystopia every day...
Congestion pricing fails to take into account the disparity in the value of the dollar per individual. So a wealthy person can decide fifty dollar congestion pricing is acceptable for their bar hopping evening directly contributes to pricing out a family who may not have the time to adjust to the change in pricing or the resources to do so. Let's not pretend like the funds will get put into actually maintaining an upkeeping of a modern infrastructure. It's just gonna create another class-based system of halves and have nots. Admittedly, if you harm few enough people in this way, most people will accept those people as collateral damage.
This. It’s a design to keep poor people out of the rich people’s areas. I hate this.
It is great. They can use the money to fund better public transport for the poor then
@anonymousman9824 If you're talking autonomous vehicle, maybe. There's so many issues with current public transportation models that it would solve. Including congestion through efficiency, operational cost, safety, reliability, accessibility, and long-term infrastructure savings just to rattle off a few. I think my big contention here is that we don't have the public motivation now to actually fund programs for the disenfranchised beyond being performative. So i have little faith that the revenue generated will be used to help address the problems the policies created. You could just fund them now by raising the upper ends of the tax bracket and earmarking funds for transport that, in theory, would also help congestion.
Deal with it😅
@jvees7916 I won't have to, don't live inside a major city and own cars. I just enjoy the topics of public infrastructure and policies, economics. 🤷♂️
I have been stuck in Newark multiple times because NJ transit was not running or the path was not running at the time. It does not make sense to shame people who get stranded when service is not adequate in Jersey or New York. For many people, ubering or driving is the only way to get home. It’s like we’re being punished for trying to get home and punished for trying to be productive. It never ends. And I can’t even afford to uber.
Then fix NJ Transit! Stop making Jersey's problems New Yorkers problems. NJ Transit and PATH get far less funding per rider than the MTA does... Of course the service is shit as a result
Less than 10% of people coming into Manhattan for work, commute by car. Also, cabs will only have to pay an additional $0.75 per trip. NJ Path being as bad as it is, is still better than driving to/from lower Manhattan on most days. When NJ Path is bad, take a cab.
@@gahandi They are paying a payroll tax to the MTA. PATH is far better run than the MTA, cleaner and in a better state of repair, NJTransit is about the same as the MTA but they have less money. It's a patronage pit. NY already strong arms cross state workers, during COVID NY was not entitled to the income tax yet they got to keep it. Jersey can pay for their trains when they get a fair deal from NY. People in NY love the income tax they collect from NJ residents. If NYC can get away with the congestion tax watch jersey turn around and come up with taxes and fees which hit NYC, it's a slippery slope.