this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2025
297 points (99.3% liked)

News

25286 readers
3732 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Summary

New York City has become the first U.S. city to implement a congestion charge, with car drivers paying up to $9 daily to enter areas south of Central Park.

The scheme aims to reduce traffic and fund public transport but has faced opposition, including from Donald Trump, who has vowed to overturn it.

Fees vary by vehicle type, with trucks and buses paying higher rates.

Despite legal challenges, the initiative moves forward as New York remains the world's most congested urban area, with peak traffic speeds averaging just 11 mph.

(page 3) 35 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Fees vary by vehicle type, with trucks and buses paying higher rates.

I would have thought that single occupant cars should be paying the higher fees, and mass transportation like busses should pay lower fees.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I would bet per head/weight/size, they likely do. Like a single car $9 / 4 people vs. bus charge / bus population, I would wager the bus rate is better for them, but it’s just a guess.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Does the bus rate apply to MTA busses? Or do they get an exception?

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I wonder how this will affect elections. I figure Governor Hochul "indefinitely" paused the program last summer to avoid hurting Democrats in the 2024 election. The next mayoral election in NYC is in November of this year and the next election of the governor is in November 2026. Right now both the mayor and the governor are not popular and congestion pricing has a lot of opponents. Maybe people will get used to it before the elections, which is what Hochul is betting on, but there will almost certainly be a new mayor (for reasons unrelated to congestion pricing) and Hochul's chances of being reelected aren't great either.

With all that and opposition from Trump, I think there's a good chance that congestion pricing won't last very long. (I can't say I would be sad.) The congestion pricing hardware cost over $500 million to build, and the expected income from the toll would take over a year to cover that. The MTA's budget will be in big trouble if congestion pricing ends up not even paying for itself.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I don't recall the name of the effect, but there's a characteristic curve that shows up on the graph of public support for these kinds of changes. The hysterical outrage peaks at the time of implementation, but falls off as time goes on. If it has visible benefits, and it lasts, a lot of people will claim that they supported it all along, by November 2026.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you live in an RV or truck, you're screwed. But then if you drive a huge truck to deliver stuff, your company benefits more and destroys more than my driving my 1980 civic.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Who in their right mind is bringing an RV into this:

Pic

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 102 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

This is great. People complaining on social media aren’t New Yorkers. We have the best mass transit in the nation. Fuck cars. What we want are more bike and footpaths and less time at the crosswalk.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I agree it's great but NYers are definitely complaining

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (4 children)

About the charge or just in general?

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The amount of crying and screaming around this has been insane. On IG, you'd think from the comments that downtown Manhattan is a mecca of families and small businesses, and not the Financial District.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 month ago (8 children)

This is great work by the city leadership. It's taken decades to get this system in place and the city sorely needs it.

Congestion charges work. It's not a new thing nor an untried approach to mitigating extreme congestion from unfettered use of the city streets.

The weird part about all of this, to me anyway, is that tools and congestion charges are very much an economic and Libertarian style solution, but strangely conservatives often fight them tooth and nail. Isn't their whole schtick that the market driven solutions are best? The city owns the streets. The use of the streets are in high demand. So, the city puts a price on a resource. That's just econ basics.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Perhaps my memory is bad, but as far as I can recall, they jettisoned all ideology after the Tea Party (funded by Libertarian billionaires) fizzled. So, pretty much about the time Obama took office. It's mostly racism and tribal identity now.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

I think they just whittled down their ideology into the most privileged and selfish extreme. They do believe the insane things they spout like "tax is theft."

I think you're right that the rank-and-file libertarians don't really think their ideology through or educate themselves on its flaws or alternatives, because it really is about identity. I'm pretty convinced that it always has been though. Conservative ideology is based on hierarchy, and they think the right outcomes result from having the proper social stratification— this is usually wealth-based.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I would not want to drive in New York.

Kansas City is nowhere near as dense as NYC, but I still get frustrated driving downtown around there, especially if there's construction.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›