I don't think a change like that would happen without people thinking of consequences though.

Sounds like they thought of the consequences and didn't heed the warnings ;)

It's definitely important to be thoughtful of MTA capacity, but FiDi is probably one of the best suited parts of the city to make such a change with minimal MTA impact.

You can start with parking spaces: even if those are mostly for commuters (which I'd be surprised to hear), and all of them stopped driving if we got rid of free parking (instead of paying for a parking garage), how many more MTA riders would eliminating parking create? FiDi is very small geographically (so not many parked cars fit anyway), yet it's serviced by almost all subway lines (so you can distribute the new load over many lines).

Yes thank you.

But as you can from the comments here. If your views disagree with the "more bikes no more cars!" knee-jerks reactionaries you are branded a subhuman.

It does not matter if you disagree for reasons that are based in practicalities and not ideological ones. But more people will down vote you rather than engage in a dialogue. Yet everyone like to complain that Facebook is the echo chamber.

It's always the same in HN threads discussing differences between Europe and USA. These kinds of "discussions" are reminding me about Parkinson's Law of Triviality.. people on HN discuss topics they know only little about the most. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality#Examples)

Indeed and you really notice it when its something you yourself might be intimately familiar such as having lived in an area for a long time and its obvious when some "highly opinionated" folks likely have never even visited let alone lived there.

> If your views disagree with the "more bikes no more cars!" knee-jerks reactionaries you are branded a subhuman.

Wow, talk about an exaggeration! I see no one 'branding others as subhuman' for their opinions here. Just because most people at HN disagree with you doesn't mean they're barbarians at the gates.

> It does not matter if you disagree for reasons that are based in practicalities and not ideological ones.

Ironic considering the reasons for supporting car dominance of land area in the most densely populated area in the country are mostly ideological rather than practical.