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
Coming to NYC from rural Colorado surprised me, and this could have been the main reason. I had never driven in traffic like that in my life, so I promptly chose to walk everywhere on day two.
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
@@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
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
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
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"
First correction right out the bat: it’s 60th street and below, not 59th. I know this because my dad won’t shut up about his car being parked on 60th street (garage)
Street parking is such an insane concept. We're going to pave the land that all people, animals, and plants need so that some guy can leave a metal box full of toxins there for free, and we'll make the people who live nearby pay for that whether they own a box or not.
@Daltnation if it were free parking it would be being paid for by tax payers in addition to the deliterious effects of pollution that results from encouraging driving by making parking free or subsidized and the enormous waste of space for the normal 4 or 5 passengers that is usually used by 1 person on average that is a car. Also that's besides the destruction to the environment from over needing pavement when trains and other transit plus bicycles for local trips are more efficient. How about you try making sense.
The street highlighted in the video is clearly 59th, which is the lower end of Central Park and is generally considered the upper bounds of Midtown Manhattan.
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.
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.
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.
As someone who has loved in NYC years ago, I’m going to be honest. I understand the arguments for and the arguments against. Also just another thought, the MTA is in a bad place, it’s not properly funded and also it’s not properly managed which means the money it does get is not used well. Both of those need to be fixed.
For those saying that the New York transit authorities are not underfunded... yeah. They are. A healthy and well funded transit authority is and should be able to build every decades a few new tramway or metro lines, in addition of keeping their rolling state in a good shape and modernising its lines. Kisses from Lyon :3
the MTA is actually in a great place and is by far the best transit system in the US. it also is properly funded, and the money is being used well. congestion pricing will go to *capital* projects, i.e. improving the system, with projects such as IBX, SAS phase 2, PSA, etc.
@@marcbuisson2463 first off, love lyon, such a cool city secondly, the MTA is funded well, its just ya can't build much stuff when you're in america and NIMBYs will block things at every turn
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.
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
@@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.
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
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.
There's obviously no decent alternatives for folk to get from e.g. New Jersey. People hate waiting in traffic and paying exorbitant charges for the privelige, but it's hardly like there's lots of empty, clean, safe, convenient and safe trains running around just waiting for them to make the jump to. Otherwise they would do so.
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.
You keep saying Low Time Value Drivers getting priced out by the fees is fine, as if pricing out poorer people from driving is just a chill solution to the problem. This video takes the human out of the issue a little too much imo 🤷🏽♀
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?
New York is already the richest city in the history of the Earth. They ALREADY have the highest taxes in the country, and they have been a 1-party-rule state for their entire existence. If their public transportation system is unfunded and broken, then it's not because of "lack of money" or "lack of power" to fix it- it's because the system was unsustainable to begin with.
@@tRuStThEsCiEnCeBiGoTPublic transportation isn’t meant to be “sustainable”. It’s not meant to turn a profit. The reason to build subways and trains is to offer transit as a public service. This in turn benefits the local economy like in New York. It’s like saying the fire department doesn’t turn a profit.
@@tRuStThEsCiEnCeBiGoT There are cities all over the world with safe clean mass transit systems. The difference is that those cities take care of those systems, maintain them, and upgrade them on a continuous basis. If the mass transit systems are underfunded or broken it comes down to simple mismanagement. Blame the folks you vote for, and yourself for voting for them...
@@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.
Yep, probably being pushed by the Executives who want the riff raff priced off the road so they can swan around in their towncars with drivers without getting stuck in traffic. Of course they're pushing Return to the Office at the same time which is increasing the congestion by huge amounts.
"Who is willing to pay the most" is the best possible way to filter for who benefits the most. If you aren't seeing $9 worth of benefit from driving you're not going to be willing to pay $9.
The fundamental problem isn't cars, it's moving people around. Make public transport more convenient than driving and no one would drive. What the rich should realise is they should invest in public transport and rail, so that THEY get to drive while everyone gets great public transport.
@@bwofficial1776You still don’t understand that you benefit more by people taking the subway to get out of cars so traffic would flow faster. If they closed the subway for a bit and everyone who rides it suddenly was using a car, no one would be able to get anywhere traffic would be too much. So it makes sense for drivers to pay for subway as well as the people that ride it
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.
Driving a car is usually the most expensive means of transportation in dense cities anyways. I doubt it will do anything besides freeing roads for the rich. I like the approach that we have in Paris instead: no congestion charge, improve public transit and cycling, restrict on-street parking and roads open for motor vehicles, limit through-traffic for axes that remain open. I think it is more courageous than implement a scheme that increases inequalities rather than the other way around
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
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
Scope of the Decision: In Crandall v. Nevada, the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot impose taxes or regulations that burden the right of individuals to travel freely, including the modes of travel they use. The case specifically addressed Nevada's attempt to tax individuals leaving the state by various means of conveyance, such as stagecoaches or steamboats. Fundamental Right to Travel: The Court affirmed that the right to travel freely is a fundamental right protected under the privileges and immunities clause of Article IV and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This right encompasses both interstate and intrastate travel and includes the freedom to choose the mode of travel. State Taxation Prohibited: Crandall v. Nevada established that states do not have the authority to tax the right to travel or the specific modes of travel that individuals use. The Court's reasoning was grounded in the principle that such taxes would infringe upon a fundamental right and exceed the permissible scope of state taxation powers. Constitutional Constraints: The decision underscores constitutional constraints on state authority to tax activities or rights that are essential components of fundamental liberties. States cannot impose taxes that directly burden these rights without violating constitutional protections. Judicial Interpretation: Crandall v. Nevada remains a precedent that clarifies the limitations of state power in taxing activities related to fundamental rights. It affirms the judiciary's role in interpreting and upholding constitutional guarantees against state actions that infringe upon individual freedoms. In summary, Crandall v. Nevada definitively established that states cannot tax the right to travel freely or the modes of travel used by individuals. The decision reinforces the protection of fundamental rights under the Constitution and sets boundaries on state authority in taxation to ensure compliance with constitutional principle.
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Precisely what is said at 19:22 is what's going to happen: congestion pricing will go into effect, roads will free up, air quality will improve, public transportation will get better with increased funding, and people will wonder why anyone objected to it in the first place. The same thing happened to Social Security, the same thing happened to the Affordable Care Act (some of its now-supporters being former staunch opponents when it was derisively called "Obamacare"), and the same thing will happen here. Statistics, studies, and even working examples in other countries will not sway public opinion; seeing it working in person is the only way it'll gain support.
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.
maybe they should use the money they have to improve public transportation instead of making more excuses to fill their pockets with our money while nothing changes, or gets worse. they let billionaires build useless skyscrapers which make the skyline hideous, are a drain on resources, and physically sink the island. While they're mainly empty now, those are the people who usually use cars. Those who have to pay the bulk are out-of-city buses, and other forms of delivery - cost of living for regular new yorkers is going to skyrocket more than it has. new york isn't a playground for the wealthy, it's new yorkers' home. most of us have nowhere else to go. I forgot to add, in addition to raising the cost of living, businesses and money will go elsewhere (like NJ, as it has been for decades) to cut business costs, taking away more revenue from NYC than what they propose to make. Whatever "good" or benefits are argued completely ignores the reality that these corrupt people will embezzle the funds, as they always do, and NYC will be the worse for it.
>use the money they have to improve public transport >nyc implements a tax to raise money for infrastructure improvement >@ughIdontwantto complains about nyc raising money for public transit what's the world like experiencing it with so few brain cells?
Never thought Wendover would namedrop my state senator. Thanks for making this video. I hope I finally get to live the effects of congestion pricing, and hope other cities do too.
Southern BK and Staten Island, two places with incredibly lackluster public transport. People are basically forced into driving, even if they don’t want to. People will just stop driving into Manhattan, park above 60th, or cause congestion in other places with public transport hubs in Brooklyn. Nobody will pay unless they absolutely need to, this is New York. So prepare for the government to be surprised that their revenue is lower than they expected.
They expect you to transfer to the train somewhere. As a Lower Manhattanite, it’s unfair that we get all the pollution while everyone else in the outer boroughs barely have any unless you live right next to the highway. Sure, Manhattan isn’t the whole city, but Lower Manhattan holds nearly 10% of the city’s population. We should have a say in this. I hope people in the outer boroughs can figure out stuff though, but if you’re in Staten Island 9/10 times you probably have enough money to pay the toll…
Right, nobody wants to drive in Manhattan, it’s usually people who are required to whether it’s for their job or due to lack of public transportation etc. I take the train, it blows but it’s better than driving. Not a lot of options
@@GobbiExistssome black and brown people in the Bronx would highly disagree with your interpretation of pollution. They get fucked and are going to get double fucked with all the traffic diverting over the GWB.
It's not like every last worker in Manhattan is some high-up C-suite member. There's plenty of low managers, basic off staff, janitors, retail staff, restaurant/food staff, the people that paint the lines in the road.
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.
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This is all so true. The benefits clearly outweigh the drawbacks. I'll bet you that most of those 61% people that voted didn't even take 3 seconds to critically think about the problem and just decided that they don't want to have additional charges when driving. In reality, they will likely just be taking public transportation, like everyone else in their right mind in NYC, except without the tolls it's a whole lot shittier of an experience. Congestion pricing is a smart thing to do, and it will improve NYC's future and make it a more livable, walkable and orderly city.
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.
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.
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.
New York City, particularly Manhattan, has one of the highest concentrations of high-earning businesses and individuals in the world. The taxes collected from residents and the influx of tourists far exceed the revenues of some wealthy nations. Yet, it’s perplexing to witness the chronic underfunding of the city’s public transportation system. The issue doesn’t appear to be a lack of money. It’s how that money is allocated. If the public transit system were made safer, more reliable, more affordable, and overall more appealing, more people would be incentivized to use it, benefiting everyone. Instead, the city has opted for a band-aid solution by imposing additional financial burdens on commuters, rather than addressing the root cause through better budget management. This approach fails to solve the underlying issues.
Helpful critic: add more graphs it would be amazing if when you talk about size and when you are comparing sizes I could see a few bar charts instead of only you reading the numbers :)
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.
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.
Manhattan will probably need to do what Sydney has done over the last 20ish years: Build underground, massive bypasses tunnels to allow people to skirt around the district, reduce private parking and create dedicated underground London Tube style train systems leading off in all directions. This is one of those things where people's feelings need to be ignored for the betterment of everyone. Ambulance's inability to get to life threatening emergencies quickly already invalidates counterarguments.
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.
With your model (I feel it's kinda oversimplified) solution seems pretty intuitive: make an auction for "ride to Manhattan" pass. Define how many cars city government is willing to allow and conduct online betting for those passes. That way everyone will have an impact on the price, have more clear decision & there won't be that much arbitrarity. Possibility stands to create some off-peak passes like weekends, or differentiate their length but that's optional.
An idea, just an idea: make public transit fast and pleasant. I live in Turkey (an arguably shitty country) and I LOVE taking the metro here. It is fast af, clean, safe, welcoming. My time at Columbia Uni was horrifying and I literally laughed at the New York subway. New York (somehow even a shittier as a city than turkey as a country) has dirty trains, AWFUL stations, congestion in metro, and it does not feel safe. On top of that, you literally need to take the Amtrak to go to Newark and the subway does not extend to New Jersey.
Fwiw, the PATH trains do go to Jersey, but they're a separate subway system, because, reasons. But you're right, the MTA have the aesthetic of a developing country. There is also a profound shortage of cats compared to IST.
There are problems here with the criminal justice system and lots of mentally unstable people and low enforcement of laws/rules. So the trains are not pleasant. You never know when a crazy person will get on. I’d rather walk or drive.
theres just three problems 1. Delivery vehcles are still charged (and they're charged significantly more) 2. Motorcycles are charged (which london doesnt do), disincentivizing travel with a significantly smaller footprint, while retaining the benefit of a car. 3. The MTA already gets all the money from all the crossings and mishandles it grossly.
On the note of motorcycles, apparently once the London Congestion Charge was introduced, there was an increase in motorcycle accidents in the zone and a consideration to introducing charges for them, but that didn't end up happening and to this day, motorcycles are still automatically free (and tricycles free upon registering for about £10 a year if I remember). That said, I wonder why they're choosing to charge motorcycles, strange for a congestion charge when overall they're quite space efficient (and if I were there, I'd be considering getting a possibly questionably legal "e-bike" as a replacement!)
@fetchstixRHD im curious if there was a decrease in car accidents as well, given the reduction of cars in the zone. My guess is that an increase in motorcycle accidents correlates with an increase in motorcycles, which would indicate that people were successfully incentivized to use alternative transport.
@@elinoamrichter162: My guess (I can't remember the full source for that, only a second hand comment from a transport site) would be that it's both their usage increasing, and the fact that those who switched to them were probably less experienced with using them. Incidentally, same site mentioned that although traffic itself decreased, so did speeds in the zone, as road space was lost...
Applying congestion pricing to motorcycles proves it's not really about congestion. No one has ever complained about all the motorcycles hogging the road and taking up space.
I have no argument with the benefits of reducing car traffic, but as a long time NYer I'm compelled to give some context to the opposition argument: 1. Almost everyone who *can* avoid driving in the congestion zone already does, because of the hellish nature of driving in Manhattan. Only the people who have to work in the congestion zone, because they can't work remotely, are left, and those are disproportionately working class people who live in areas of both NY and NJ that are underserved by public transit. The MTA's own projections were for traffic to drop only by 10%. 2. Manhattan is not London, a landlocked mid-density sprawl with ring roads around it. It is an extremely dense island in an estuary with only three exits across the Hudson to mainland USA. Two of these are in the congestion zone. The third, the George Washington Bridge, is a lengthy detour if you're coming from / going to the most populated areas to the southwest of the city and will increase traffic and pollution specifically for the lower-income communities in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx. 3. People in the New York area have been dealing with constant fare increases from the MTA and regional transportation systems in recent years, as well as increased tolls on the bridges and tunnels AND new tolls on the interborough crossings in the last ten years, while public transportation keeps getting less reliable. Where is the money going?
@@London755 To avoid the toll. It's free westbound. That's also part of the problem that they are not addressing. It's sometimes cheaper to drive through Manhattan than to go around. Verrazano has a toll as well as the RFK Throgs neck and Whitestone.
They need to fix the MTA first before people from the outer boroughs are willing to stop driving into downtown Manhattan. I remember riding to and from Queens like 15yrs ago on the 7 train, back when that one graffiti building was still around, and those old R32s were cleaner than several newer trains I rode in the past year.
Good comment. In principle, I'm in favor of the congestion pricing plan, but this video did a poor job of addressing the concerns you raised. "People will get used to it once the plan gets rammed through" is not convincing enough.
>"2. Manhattan is not London, a landlocked mid-density sprawl with ring roads around it. It is an extremely dense island in an estuary with only three exits across the Hudson to mainland USA." This makes NYC even more well suited to congestion pricing than London. The higher density makes it more necessary, and Manhattan being an island makes it easier to enforce.
13:00 “The cost of driving in manhattan is so low” 😂😂😂. Not true at all. Tolls are already 20 bucks from New Jersey. Add in 50+ dollar parking spots. 800 for a month of parking. It is already one of the most expensive areas to drive. The solution is to disincentivize driving by time. Not money. Decrease infrastructure to add to public transit and bike lanes. But do not add another tax. This is one of the most well funded mtas in the world. All they will do with more money is squander it
"It is already one of the most expensive areas to drive." But it's still not expensive enough because the negative externality of driving there is so great.
It’s cheap when measured against local incomes. Somebody making $75/hour in NY is not the same as somebody making $7.25/hour in the rest of the country.
I mean, the congestion pricing absolutely is elitist in nature. Most already use public transport to get in there, so this isn't a problem that actually really needs solving.
Worse, congestion pricing is both a tragedy of the commons, but does not affect a majority of the poorest people. 90% of New Yorkers already commute because it's too expensive to own a car, much less more than one car. In fact, it affects the highest class more. Being able to drive straight to your work in New York is the outlier
Cars are BY FAR the worst part of nyc. Constantly illegally honking, blocking the box, blocking crosswalk, parking on sidewalks, blowing red lights. Not to mention all the public space being given up for free to these cars to park. All for such a small number of people using them
Yes, congestion pricing, but also, ban non-commercial and emergency vehicles. Maybe when politicians and executives start taking the subway, it'll improve. $8 a day is practically less than they pay in shoelaces, and therefore isn't a deterrent.
Let time be the deterrent, as time hits both poor and rich equally. The solution is simple, install a traffic light on a straight, on all roads leading to the city and let the cars queue there, outside the city. Taxis and Emergency vehicles can simply skip the queue, everybody else can turn off their engine whilst waiting. When the bus is faster, everyone will use it, then everyone has an interest that it is good quality too.
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.
15:32 I used to have a friend who watches for the cross light to go red when he gets stopped at a red light, to reduce his reaction time so he's ready to move just as soon as the car in front starts to (or, if he's at the front of the line, as soon as the light changes).
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).
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.
Congestion pricing and other fees on negative externalities are SO GOOD economically, but people are really shallow-minded and only see the immediate dollar cost and think “I don’t want to pay for things” instead of thinking about how much we all pay in so many ways because of the problems of things like congestion.
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.
Coming to NYC from rural Colorado surprised me, and this could have been the main reason. I had never driven in traffic like that in my life, so I promptly chose to walk everywhere on day two.
Yeah when I drove there from Toronto in 2005, this is exactly what I did - parked the car for the weekend and walked/subwayed it everywhere.
the funny thing they dont say where the traffic really is located
"Nobody drives in New York. There's too much traffic." - Phillip J. Fry
Told this to friends that hated their NYC visit...they spent half their trip in traffic jams in car. Next trip via mass transit they loved it.
Public transit sucks.
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
"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.
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💀
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?
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"
First correction right out the bat: it’s 60th street and below, not 59th. I know this because my dad won’t shut up about his car being parked on 60th street (garage)
Street parking is such an insane concept. We're going to pave the land that all people, animals, and plants need so that some guy can leave a metal box full of toxins there for free, and we'll make the people who live nearby pay for that whether they own a box or not.
@@aluisiousWhat? Try making sense please
Will he shut up about how stupid it is to park a car on 60th street?
@Daltnation if it were free parking it would be being paid for by tax payers in addition to the deliterious effects of pollution that results from encouraging driving by making parking free or subsidized and the enormous waste of space for the normal 4 or 5 passengers that is usually used by 1 person on average that is a car. Also that's besides the destruction to the environment from over needing pavement when trains and other transit plus bicycles for local trips are more efficient. How about you try making sense.
The street highlighted in the video is clearly 59th, which is the lower end of Central Park and is generally considered the upper bounds of Midtown Manhattan.
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
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
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.
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.
9:46: random dude running over the freeway 😂
Modern Dante going though the circles of concrete hell
Straight line mission
As someone who has loved in NYC years ago, I’m going to be honest. I understand the arguments for and the arguments against.
Also just another thought, the MTA is in a bad place, it’s not properly funded and also it’s not properly managed which means the money it does get is not used well. Both of those need to be fixed.
The MTA is adequately funded. It just mismanaged and corrupt. There's people making 150k to just to submit spreadsheets.
Why give it more money if it's just going to waste the money it gets?
For those saying that the New York transit authorities are not underfunded... yeah. They are. A healthy and well funded transit authority is and should be able to build every decades a few new tramway or metro lines, in addition of keeping their rolling state in a good shape and modernising its lines.
Kisses from Lyon :3
the MTA is actually in a great place and is by far the best transit system in the US. it also is properly funded, and the money is being used well. congestion pricing will go to *capital* projects, i.e. improving the system, with projects such as IBX, SAS phase 2, PSA, etc.
@@marcbuisson2463 first off, love lyon, such a cool city
secondly, the MTA is funded well, its just ya can't build much stuff when you're in america and NIMBYs will block things at every turn
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
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
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.
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
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
Londoners: *first time eh?*
God bless the bladerunners
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.
When Manhattan car speed is lower than your average biking speed, but Americans still refuse to use anything else than a car.
Because arthritis and old people aren't real. Go back to your suburbia you out of touch transplant.
There's obviously no decent alternatives for folk to get from e.g. New Jersey. People hate waiting in traffic and paying exorbitant charges for the privelige, but it's hardly like there's lots of empty, clean, safe, convenient and safe trains running around just waiting for them to make the jump to. Otherwise they would do so.
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....?
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.
Thanks!
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
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 😮💨
You keep saying Low Time Value Drivers getting priced out by the fees is fine, as if pricing out poorer people from driving is just a chill solution to the problem. This video takes the human out of the issue a little too much imo 🤷🏽♀
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
Poor people don't drive. They take mass transit which is now NOT getting funded.
New York is already the richest city in the history of the Earth. They ALREADY have the highest taxes in the country, and they have been a 1-party-rule state for their entire existence. If their public transportation system is unfunded and broken, then it's not because of "lack of money" or "lack of power" to fix it- it's because the system was unsustainable to begin with.
@@tRuStThEsCiEnCeBiGoTPublic transportation isn’t meant to be “sustainable”. It’s not meant to turn a profit. The reason to build subways and trains is to offer transit as a public service. This in turn benefits the local economy like in New York. It’s like saying the fire department doesn’t turn a profit.
@@tRuStThEsCiEnCeBiGoTIf we fund transit the same way we fund highways It would be sustainable
@@tRuStThEsCiEnCeBiGoT There are cities all over the world with safe clean mass transit systems. The difference is that those cities take care of those systems, maintain them, and upgrade them on a continuous basis. If the mass transit systems are underfunded or broken it comes down to simple mismanagement. Blame the folks you vote for, and yourself for voting for them...
@@tRuStThEsCiEnCeBiGoT It amazes me how many people think this way when the rest of the world proves you wrong
what a hellhole. i would never want to get near it. i'll go to a quiet leafy suburb with single family house, garage and white picket fence please
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.
10:48 INNIT 🏴☕️
😂😂😂😂
You on one
Congestion pricing is elitist.. it's not based on who benefits the most from driving, it's based on who can pay the most.
Yep, probably being pushed by the Executives who want the riff raff priced off the road so they can swan around in their towncars with drivers without getting stuck in traffic. Of course they're pushing Return to the Office at the same time which is increasing the congestion by huge amounts.
"Who is willing to pay the most" is the best possible way to filter for who benefits the most. If you aren't seeing $9 worth of benefit from driving you're not going to be willing to pay $9.
0:52 Three-legged dog.
?
with a ballsack
Dog balls on wendover before gta 6
Totally saw this immediately
@@DameOfDiamonds as prophesised
The fundamental problem isn't cars, it's moving people around. Make public transport more convenient than driving and no one would drive. What the rich should realise is they should invest in public transport and rail, so that THEY get to drive while everyone gets great public transport.
I don't want to pay for something I don't use. Let people who ride the subway pay for it.
@@bwofficial1776You still don’t understand that you benefit more by people taking the subway to get out of cars so traffic would flow faster. If they closed the subway for a bit and everyone who rides it suddenly was using a car, no one would be able to get anywhere traffic would be too much. So it makes sense for drivers to pay for subway as well as the people that ride it
And public transit users should be exempted from all taxes that go towards the maintenence of all roads and other car infrastructure then, yes?
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.
Driving a car is usually the most expensive means of transportation in dense cities anyways. I doubt it will do anything besides freeing roads for the rich. I like the approach that we have in Paris instead: no congestion charge, improve public transit and cycling, restrict on-street parking and roads open for motor vehicles, limit through-traffic for axes that remain open. I think it is more courageous than implement a scheme that increases inequalities rather than the other way around
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
As someone who plans to move to NYC next year, wish me luck 🫡
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.
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.
Scope of the Decision: In Crandall v. Nevada, the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot impose taxes or regulations that burden the right of individuals to travel freely, including the modes of travel they use. The case specifically addressed Nevada's attempt to tax individuals leaving the state by various means of conveyance, such as stagecoaches or steamboats.
Fundamental Right to Travel: The Court affirmed that the right to travel freely is a fundamental right protected under the privileges and immunities clause of Article IV and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This right encompasses both interstate and intrastate travel and includes the freedom to choose the mode of travel.
State Taxation Prohibited: Crandall v. Nevada established that states do not have the authority to tax the right to travel or the specific modes of travel that individuals use. The Court's reasoning was grounded in the principle that such taxes would infringe upon a fundamental right and exceed the permissible scope of state taxation powers.
Constitutional Constraints: The decision underscores constitutional constraints on state authority to tax activities or rights that are essential components of fundamental liberties. States cannot impose taxes that directly burden these rights without violating constitutional protections.
Judicial Interpretation: Crandall v. Nevada remains a precedent that clarifies the limitations of state power in taxing activities related to fundamental rights. It affirms the judiciary's role in interpreting and upholding constitutional guarantees against state actions that infringe upon individual freedoms.
In summary, Crandall v. Nevada definitively established that states cannot tax the right to travel freely or the modes of travel used by individuals. The decision reinforces the protection of fundamental rights under the Constitution and sets boundaries on state authority in taxation to ensure compliance with constitutional principle.
Exceptional video!🔥💯🔥
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Precisely what is said at 19:22 is what's going to happen: congestion pricing will go into effect, roads will free up, air quality will improve, public transportation will get better with increased funding, and people will wonder why anyone objected to it in the first place. The same thing happened to Social Security, the same thing happened to the Affordable Care Act (some of its now-supporters being former staunch opponents when it was derisively called "Obamacare"), and the same thing will happen here.
Statistics, studies, and even working examples in other countries will not sway public opinion; seeing it working in person is the only way it'll gain support.
I hope you're kidding...
Congestion charging exists in other cities, and that hasn't happened, why would New York be different?
i live in the lower east side, i say we get rid of cars entirely in manhattan and buff up the public transport
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.
maybe they should use the money they have to improve public transportation instead of making more excuses to fill their pockets with our money while nothing changes, or gets worse. they let billionaires build useless skyscrapers which make the skyline hideous, are a drain on resources, and physically sink the island. While they're mainly empty now, those are the people who usually use cars. Those who have to pay the bulk are out-of-city buses, and other forms of delivery - cost of living for regular new yorkers is going to skyrocket more than it has. new york isn't a playground for the wealthy, it's new yorkers' home. most of us have nowhere else to go.
I forgot to add, in addition to raising the cost of living, businesses and money will go elsewhere (like NJ, as it has been for decades) to cut business costs, taking away more revenue from NYC than what they propose to make.
Whatever "good" or benefits are argued completely ignores the reality that these corrupt people will embezzle the funds, as they always do, and NYC will be the worse for it.
>use the money they have to improve public transport
>nyc implements a tax to raise money for infrastructure improvement
>@ughIdontwantto complains about nyc raising money for public transit
what's the world like experiencing it with so few brain cells?
That was the plan, the revenue generated would go to mass transit
Never thought Wendover would namedrop my state senator.
Thanks for making this video. I hope I finally get to live the effects of congestion pricing, and hope other cities do too.
Southern BK and Staten Island, two places with incredibly lackluster public transport. People are basically forced into driving, even if they don’t want to. People will just stop driving into Manhattan, park above 60th, or cause congestion in other places with public transport hubs in Brooklyn. Nobody will pay unless they absolutely need to, this is New York. So prepare for the government to be surprised that their revenue is lower than they expected.
The Eastern third of of queens is that way as well
They expect you to transfer to the train somewhere. As a Lower Manhattanite, it’s unfair that we get all the pollution while everyone else in the outer boroughs barely have any unless you live right next to the highway. Sure, Manhattan isn’t the whole city, but Lower Manhattan holds nearly 10% of the city’s population. We should have a say in this. I hope people in the outer boroughs can figure out stuff though, but if you’re in Staten Island 9/10 times you probably have enough money to pay the toll…
Right, nobody wants to drive in Manhattan, it’s usually people who are required to whether it’s for their job or due to lack of public transportation etc. I take the train, it blows but it’s better than driving. Not a lot of options
@@GobbiExistssome black and brown people in the Bronx would highly disagree with your interpretation of pollution. They get fucked and are going to get double fucked with all the traffic diverting over the GWB.
@@pigeon321 The ferry is free
Working class car commuters in Manhattan?? That’s literally an oxymoron and the direct opposite of reality
It's not like every last worker in Manhattan is some high-up C-suite member. There's plenty of low managers, basic off staff, janitors, retail staff, restaurant/food staff, the people that paint the lines in the road.
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.
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TE LE GRAM
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
This is all so true. The benefits clearly outweigh the drawbacks. I'll bet you that most of those 61% people that voted didn't even take 3 seconds to critically think about the problem and just decided that they don't want to have additional charges when driving. In reality, they will likely just be taking public transportation, like everyone else in their right mind in NYC, except without the tolls it's a whole lot shittier of an experience. Congestion pricing is a smart thing to do, and it will improve NYC's future and make it a more livable, walkable and orderly city.
it's almost like personal steel boxes are a terrible way to move large numbers of people around small spaces...
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.
You can tell whos not from new york when they recommend you take the subway instead of taking your car 😂
Too many cars in NYC. So much chaos.
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.
Not only did they close roads and lanes..can’t turn certain places..and also reduced the city speed limit..so yeah slow drivers are the problem
Price SUVs, sportcars, supercars, luxury cars double the regular price.
If you honestly think you need a car in Manhattan then you should pay for it..
Don’t see a problem with that..
Yeah, regressive taxes for the win. A congestion charge a day keeps the plebeians away.
I think the pedestrian on the freeway with a briefcase at 9:50 is a perfect addition to this video.
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.
6:20 Spitzer is a spRitzer alright 😆
Had to double take to make sure I heard that right. Spritzer. 🤣🤣
Basically the Rich can enjoy driving their cars through Manhattan and the poor can take their chances with a crazy person on public transportation.
Donald Trump opposes a good idea? Color me surprised.
If you actually live within the NYC area, then you understand its a bad idea like the hyena we almost had as president.
New York City, particularly Manhattan, has one of the highest concentrations of high-earning businesses and individuals in the world. The taxes collected from residents and the influx of tourists far exceed the revenues of some wealthy nations. Yet, it’s perplexing to witness the chronic underfunding of the city’s public transportation system.
The issue doesn’t appear to be a lack of money. It’s how that money is allocated. If the public transit system were made safer, more reliable, more affordable, and overall more appealing, more people would be incentivized to use it, benefiting everyone.
Instead, the city has opted for a band-aid solution by imposing additional financial burdens on commuters, rather than addressing the root cause through better budget management. This approach fails to solve the underlying issues.
the DNC is control of NY city and state. If they’re not doing enough of a good job, what does that mean for the struggling citizens?
Helpful critic: add more graphs it would be amazing if when you talk about size and when you are comparing sizes I could see a few bar charts instead of only you reading the numbers :)
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.
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.
Manhattan will probably need to do what Sydney has done over the last 20ish years: Build underground, massive bypasses tunnels to allow people to skirt around the district, reduce private parking and create dedicated underground London Tube style train systems leading off in all directions. This is one of those things where people's feelings need to be ignored for the betterment of everyone. Ambulance's inability to get to life threatening emergencies quickly already invalidates counterarguments.
NYC already has an extensive subway. We need more parking, I wouldn't live some place if I couldn't have my car.
@@bwofficial1776Then don’t live in Manhattan. Not everyone is obsessed with cars. NYC needs more transit.
Living and/or working in crowded areas is expensive - and this includes owning a car an driving it.
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.
With your model (I feel it's kinda oversimplified) solution seems pretty intuitive: make an auction for "ride to Manhattan" pass.
Define how many cars city government is willing to allow and conduct online betting for those passes. That way everyone will have an impact on the price, have more clear decision & there won't be that much arbitrarity.
Possibility stands to create some off-peak passes like weekends, or differentiate their length but that's optional.
An idea, just an idea: make public transit fast and pleasant. I live in Turkey (an arguably shitty country) and I LOVE taking the metro here. It is fast af, clean, safe, welcoming. My time at Columbia Uni was horrifying and I literally laughed at the New York subway.
New York (somehow even a shittier as a city than turkey as a country) has dirty trains, AWFUL stations, congestion in metro, and it does not feel safe. On top of that, you literally need to take the Amtrak to go to Newark and the subway does not extend to New Jersey.
Fwiw, the PATH trains do go to Jersey, but they're a separate subway system, because, reasons.
But you're right, the MTA have the aesthetic of a developing country. There is also a profound shortage of cats compared to IST.
There are problems here with the criminal justice system and lots of mentally unstable people and low enforcement of laws/rules. So the trains are not pleasant. You never know when a crazy person will get on. I’d rather walk or drive.
@@rsvpevents6780 since there's obviously *no* crazy people on the roads
Yeah, it's more pubic transit than public transit.
theres just three problems
1. Delivery vehcles are still charged (and they're charged significantly more)
2. Motorcycles are charged (which london doesnt do), disincentivizing travel with a significantly smaller footprint, while retaining the benefit of a car.
3. The MTA already gets all the money from all the crossings and mishandles it grossly.
On the note of motorcycles, apparently once the London Congestion Charge was introduced, there was an increase in motorcycle accidents in the zone and a consideration to introducing charges for them, but that didn't end up happening and to this day, motorcycles are still automatically free (and tricycles free upon registering for about £10 a year if I remember).
That said, I wonder why they're choosing to charge motorcycles, strange for a congestion charge when overall they're quite space efficient (and if I were there, I'd be considering getting a possibly questionably legal "e-bike" as a replacement!)
There's a lot more than 3, but yes
@fetchstixRHD im curious if there was a decrease in car accidents as well, given the reduction of cars in the zone. My guess is that an increase in motorcycle accidents correlates with an increase in motorcycles, which would indicate that people were successfully incentivized to use alternative transport.
@@elinoamrichter162: My guess (I can't remember the full source for that, only a second hand comment from a transport site) would be that it's both their usage increasing, and the fact that those who switched to them were probably less experienced with using them. Incidentally, same site mentioned that although traffic itself decreased, so did speeds in the zone, as road space was lost...
Applying congestion pricing to motorcycles proves it's not really about congestion. No one has ever complained about all the motorcycles hogging the road and taking up space.
i really like the economics based analysis. it's so rare that when i see it, i notice
I have no argument with the benefits of reducing car traffic, but as a long time NYer I'm compelled to give some context to the opposition argument:
1. Almost everyone who *can* avoid driving in the congestion zone already does, because of the hellish nature of driving in Manhattan. Only the people who have to work in the congestion zone, because they can't work remotely, are left, and those are disproportionately working class people who live in areas of both NY and NJ that are underserved by public transit. The MTA's own projections were for traffic to drop only by 10%.
2. Manhattan is not London, a landlocked mid-density sprawl with ring roads around it. It is an extremely dense island in an estuary with only three exits across the Hudson to mainland USA. Two of these are in the congestion zone. The third, the George Washington Bridge, is a lengthy detour if you're coming from / going to the most populated areas to the southwest of the city and will increase traffic and pollution specifically for the lower-income communities in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.
3. People in the New York area have been dealing with constant fare increases from the MTA and regional transportation systems in recent years, as well as increased tolls on the bridges and tunnels AND new tolls on the interborough crossings in the last ten years, while public transportation keeps getting less reliable. Where is the money going?
Who from Long Island is driving through Lower Manhattan instead of taking the GWB or Verrazano?
@@London755 To avoid the toll. It's free westbound. That's also part of the problem that they are not addressing. It's sometimes cheaper to drive through Manhattan than to go around. Verrazano has a toll as well as the RFK Throgs neck and Whitestone.
They need to fix the MTA first before people from the outer boroughs are willing to stop driving into downtown Manhattan. I remember riding to and from Queens like 15yrs ago on the 7 train, back when that one graffiti building was still around, and those old R32s were cleaner than several newer trains I rode in the past year.
Good comment. In principle, I'm in favor of the congestion pricing plan, but this video did a poor job of addressing the concerns you raised. "People will get used to it once the plan gets rammed through" is not convincing enough.
>"2. Manhattan is not London, a landlocked mid-density sprawl with ring roads around it. It is an extremely dense island in an estuary with only three exits across the Hudson to mainland USA."
This makes NYC even more well suited to congestion pricing than London. The higher density makes it more necessary, and Manhattan being an island makes it easier to enforce.
13:00 “The cost of driving in manhattan is so low” 😂😂😂. Not true at all. Tolls are already 20 bucks from New Jersey. Add in 50+ dollar parking spots. 800 for a month of parking. It is already one of the most expensive areas to drive. The solution is to disincentivize driving by time. Not money. Decrease infrastructure to add to public transit and bike lanes. But do not add another tax. This is one of the most well funded mtas in the world. All they will do with more money is squander it
Tax credits at point of sale for Toyota Yaris sized cars. Toll reductions and discounted parking for Toyota Yaris sized cars.
"It is already one of the most expensive areas to drive."
But it's still not expensive enough because the negative externality of driving there is so great.
It’s cheap when measured against local incomes. Somebody making $75/hour in NY is not the same as somebody making $7.25/hour in the rest of the country.
Do you know the costs of changing infrastructure vs the Monetary payment option?
They should arrest fare evaders and charge them instead!.!.
I mean, the congestion pricing absolutely is elitist in nature. Most already use public transport to get in there, so this isn't a problem that actually really needs solving.
Worse, congestion pricing is both a tragedy of the commons, but does not affect a majority of the poorest people. 90% of New Yorkers already commute because it's too expensive to own a car, much less more than one car. In fact, it affects the highest class more. Being able to drive straight to your work in New York is the outlier
Cars are BY FAR the worst part of nyc. Constantly illegally honking, blocking the box, blocking crosswalk, parking on sidewalks, blowing red lights. Not to mention all the public space being given up for free to these cars to park. All for such a small number of people using them
no bikes are pure and simple
Alot of people use them
@@nickcarroll5034 didnt have a 3000 lb bike blow a red light and almost kill me last weekend
Every car has a VIN. Base the cost off the original MRSP value of the car.
So you buy an ancient BMW and get charged more than a person buying a new Camry?
Yes, congestion pricing, but also, ban non-commercial and emergency vehicles. Maybe when politicians and executives start taking the subway, it'll improve. $8 a day is practically less than they pay in shoelaces, and therefore isn't a deterrent.
I could get behind that, but it will never happen. The elites would rather burn the city down rather than give up their autonomy.
Let time be the deterrent, as time hits both poor and rich equally. The solution is simple, install a traffic light on a straight, on all roads leading to the city and let the cars queue there, outside the city. Taxis and Emergency vehicles can simply skip the queue, everybody else can turn off their engine whilst waiting. When the bus is faster, everyone will use it, then everyone has an interest that it is good quality too.
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.
If you’re driving 7mph on average, just fucking walk there. Let alone take the train
The only way to solve traffic is to get less people to drive
15:32 I used to have a friend who watches for the cross light to go red when he gets stopped at a red light, to reduce his reaction time so he's ready to move just as soon as the car in front starts to (or, if he's at the front of the line, as soon as the light changes).
We will see how much better mass transit gets or doesn't get better.
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
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.
i get why new yorkers might think public transit is dangerous, they might get shot by a cop who's trying to take out a fare dodger
0:38 small correction maybe (?) the complex is called Galaxy Towers not Guttenberg Towers
Congestion pricing and other fees on negative externalities are SO GOOD economically, but people are really shallow-minded and only see the immediate dollar cost and think “I don’t want to pay for things” instead of thinking about how much we all pay in so many ways because of the problems of things like congestion.
Dumb big government hurting the working class isn't a good idea. When did Wendover go WOKE?
This is just a money grab for the MTA.
The working class gets screw again.
this is horrible mistake for New Yorker