I suppose you have a better idea for financing the investments, instead of congestion tax?

He's saying it's not going to finance any "investments" - the extra money is just going to the unions.

Hasn't the state also been directly taking money meant for mass transit in general for years?

Lol no. The State through various schemes has been propping up the MTA for years. The bridges and tunnels (rightly) subsidize the mass transit. The state also imposed an additional sales tax for people 100 miles away to raise more revenue.

The MTA’s woes are death from a thousand cuts.

I’d love to hear more about that. US unions seem broken in such interesting ways. Are they generally seen as a cost driver, apart from working to raise salaries and pensions?

Few ideas:

Structure the fares to charge a premium for low volume riders. Work two days a week? Pay for 5.

Collect fares.

Raise bridge tolls.

Drop construction cost drivers. Change liability laws, reduce MWBE requirements, mandated staffing levels, etc.

There’s lots of potential areas. Just politically expensive to do.

What problem would you solve by a “drive twice, pay for five” scheme?

I think that would incentivize people to drive more, not less.

The same problem that congestion pricing aims to solve - more revenue for the MTA.

I think you’re vastly overestimating how many people commute into lower manhattan via car.

If nobody is driving, why is it congested? New York City is the hub of a region that represents like a quarter of the US population. Like many other regions, you start cutting off the hub and the central business district dies.

Commuting is one aspect. Tourism. Business meetings. Medical care. I live in Queens. Getting a family member to MSK for treatment or getting a meeting in the city via public transit is a 4 hour odyssey.

End of the day, folks are gonna say “fuck it” and move to Jersey.

I’m not saying “no one is driving.” Clearly they are or there wouldn’t be such horrible gridlock in lower Manhattan. I’m just very skeptical of the claim that congestion pricing in one of the densest urban environments in the world will “kill the city.”

I work in lower manhattan (in a high-income field). I don’t know of a single coworker that drives into work. Most of my friends also work in lower Manhattan. None of them drive to work.

Many other cities have implemented congestion pricing without killing their economies.

If businesses really do require employees to drive into lower Manhattan instead of taking transit, for most profitable businesses it will not be an issue to cover the additional cost.

I feel for you in Queens. I think we should absolutely expand public transit access. But that takes money. Congestion pricing provides (at least some of) that money.

So you never use cabs or Uber?

My point is, which is definitely not being expressed well by me is that that are millions of exceptions and cost/convenience escalations that are going to impact lots of people and increase the friction and hassle of the place.

> So you never use cabs or Uber?

Rarely. Less than once a month.

I get what you’re saying, but there’s lots of friction/hassle associated with all of the cars too. Walk or bike around lower Manhattan on a weekend morning before all of the cars roll in. It’s so pleasant! No honking, no risk of getting run over at every intersection, etc. Biking especially is way better. And for those that do have to drive it’s way better and quicker for them too!

Every time someone drives into lower Manhattan they make life slightly worse for the hundreds of thousands of people that live or visit the area. I don’t want to ban cars, but I think it’s totally fine to discourage driving there.

Tourists certainly don't drive in Manhattan. They don't want to get stuck.

Isn't it easier for tourists to just take public transit instead of renting a car? You probably won't find parking next to the empire state building...

Much easier. I've only visited NYC twice, and both times I took transit into Manhattan. The first time, on my way out of NYC, I accidentally drove over a bridge into Manhattan and it was very stressful.

> I live in Queens. Getting a family member to MSK for treatment or getting a meeting in the city via public transit is a 4 hour odyssey.

I feel like I’m going insane reading this! There is nowhere in Queens that’s more than two hours from midtown Manhattan by public transit, and pretty much everywhere besides Far Rockaway is under an hour. Do you commute by car into Manhattan every single time? Have you ever actually tried public transit? If you think it’s a “4 hour odyssey,” you’re in for a very pleasant surprise.

2 + 2 = 4.

Try taking a bus to a train then walking 6-10 blocks with a patient requiring the services of MSK. It’s difficult.

Off-peak, it takes about 20-40 minutes via car.

Commuting to the city for the daily grind is totally different. That’s what everyone thinks about - if you don’t have a conventional schedule or have a need that isn’t daily commute, your needs may be different. There are millions of trips every week like that.

Every time cities encourage people to drive less, it has immediate benefits for quality of life and health. I’d be shocked if this is more than a rounding error on the impact of telework, especially since prioritizing residents over commuters frees up a ton of real estate for desperately needed housing.

I think it's the other way around. The death of the city is when you see it as dependent on the suburbs, it places transportation and ease of access over quality of life. To see big cities thrive means increasing quality of live so that working remotely and other changes will not mean abandonment, but just an easier life inside the city because it results less traffic and more spaces for people, restaurants, cultural institutions and parks.

A conglomeration of office-towers surrounded by suburbs with major arteries leading traffic in and out is not a real city.

Makes sense for Cleveland. NYC is a different animal. It’s really a conglomeration of cities surrounded by suburbs that are bigger than most US cities.

> It’s going to kill the city. It’s just going to push businesses out at a bad time.

It's going to do the exact opposite. Every city in Europe that has implemented measure to discourage or even BAN cars in some areas has experienced positive economic outcomes. Of course, every single time people like you had predicted that it would be bad for business.