Downside of Lower Manhattan’s Boom: It’s Too Crowded

Re:Downside of Lower Manhattan’s Boom: It’s Too Crowded by TulliusCicero on Friday December 02, 2016 @11:12AM (#13089762)

Oh really, tons of bike lanes? Well, there are at least an order of magnitude more car lanes than bike lanes, so surely reallocating some of them for bikes will be no problem then, since there's a veritable smorgasbord of space for cars as it is. Bike lanes can handle much higher peak loads of people, so they're a more efficient use of space.

> Most New Yorker's don't drive - they walk, bike, take the train, or taxi/uber.

Yes, and those non-car modes should obviously have more surface space. If way more New Yorkers walk than drive, why is there more street space for cars than peds?

> Don't you think if the answers were this simple someone would have done this already?

No. Politically it can be very difficult to take space away from cars, even when it's obviously the right thing to do.

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Re:Downside of Lower Manhattan’s Boom: It’s Too Crowded by finid on Friday December 02, 2016 @11:38AM (#13090027)

It would be actually easy to take space from cars in boroughs other than Manhattan. It just takes some push and a champion.

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Re:Downside of Lower Manhattan’s Boom: It’s Too Crowded by notJim on Friday December 02, 2016 @12:44PM (#13090648)

Really? I had the opposite experience. If you take away even one parking spot, people in Brooklyn go absolutely insane. The city was considering putting in bike lanes in my neighborhood, and tons of people showed up to the meeting in opposition to it. They all had their own reasons, but it was pretty clear that the 2 real motivations were a general dislike of cyclists, and a desire to not lose parking spots.

http://gothamist.com/2016/06/22/yell_louder_cyclists.php

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Re:Downside of Lower Manhattan’s Boom: It’s Too Crowded by kristopolous on Friday December 02, 2016 @04:13PM (#13092343)

Probably because supporters rarely show up to city council, just the opposition

So those three whiney obnoxious people get there way while the reasonable people suffer

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Re:Downside of Lower Manhattan’s Boom: It’s Too Crowded by dispose13432 on Friday December 02, 2016 @03:24PM (#13091968)

Why doesn't someone just build a huge commercial parking lot, and rent out parking spots? In a dense city like NY, it may actually work

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Re:Downside of Lower Manhattan’s Boom: It’s Too Crowded by dandelany on Friday December 02, 2016 @04:27PM (#13092430)

There are plenty of these too. But street parking is always free or at least ~an order of magnitude cheaper, which is why people don't want to lose them

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Re:Downside of Lower Manhattan’s Boom: It’s Too Crowded by notJim on Friday December 02, 2016 @07:42PM (#13093527)

Less snarky answer than most people are giving you: street parking is free, while parking garages cost like a significant portion of your monthly rent per month.

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Re:Downside of Lower Manhattan’s Boom: It’s Too Crowded by scott_s on Friday December 02, 2016 @03:35PM (#13092060)

There's parking garages all over the city.

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Re:Downside of Lower Manhattan’s Boom: It’s Too Crowded by rhizome on Friday December 02, 2016 @07:11PM (#13093388)

Incredible idea, I wonder why nobody thought of that.

Step 1: Find a huge open space that can be paved over.

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Re:Downside of Lower Manhattan’s Boom: It’s Too Crowded by rtpg on Friday December 02, 2016 @07:17PM (#13093417)

Japan has giant vertical parking garages with automated lifts. 15 stories, but it only requires a small piece of land. I'm sure you could make some money on that

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