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Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

(www.nytimes.com)
437 points Vinnl | 5 comments | 13 May 25 10:43 UTC | HN request time: 0.969s | source
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neves ◴[14 May 25 15:07 UTC] No.43985435[source]▶
Impressive how cars are harmful to society. This is just a small example. We should be more radical in preventing the use of individual automobiles.

If it works in a country where the auto is so ingrained in the culture and lifestyle, it can work anywhere.

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HonestOp001 ◴[14 May 25 16:34 UTC] No.43986501[source]▶
The converse is how helpful cars are. It allows people to have the ability commute from areas they live at to where they work. It brings down the cost of living by expanding the commute availability circle, instead of driving up land values for the desirable areas.
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1. kmeisthax ◴[14 May 25 22:01 UTC] No.43989657[source]▶
Expanding the commute availability circle does not increase the supply of housing, because people build sparser neighborhoods with larger lawns. If you want to increase the supply of housing, you need higher density, not longer distance.

What longer distance does is make the closer areas more valuable, because people will pay $$$ for a shorter commute. And for those who can't afford the closer housing, they get to pay $$ on a car and gas instead.

Cars are only helpful in exactly two scenarios:

1. You live in a remote rural area where any sort of transit infrastructure is comically infeasible. 99% of the people posting here do not quality for this.

2. You live in a city so maliciously planned out that living without a car is unthinkable and that any other option to get to where you're going is not available.

I use the word "malicious" because the gutting of American cities' transit infrastructure was a deliberate act by American car companies giving their competition the mafia bust-out treatment.

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2. tilne ◴[15 May 25 10:43 UTC] No.43993633[source]▶
> Expanding the commute availability circle does not increase the supply of housing, because people build sparser neighborhoods with larger lawns.

This is not true. It is true in some circumstances, but definitely not in all. The fact that it’s presented as absolute fact hurts the point you’re trying to make imo.

3. Tade0 ◴[15 May 25 11:47 UTC] No.43994010[source]▶
In my region of the world they enable having any sort of housing at all. Plenty of people don't have the credit score to buy anything livable within city limits, so they resort to buying apartments in the suburbs and small, adjacent cities.

Public transport hasn't caught up because these places developed too fast and even though their inhabitants live and pay taxes there, the businesses they work for don't, so the tax base is all the lower due to that.

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4. tristan957 ◴[15 May 25 16:03 UTC] No.43996415[source]▶
Your point is valid, but the lack of affordable housing in your city is most likely due to the lifestyles that cars allow us to live. Single family homes and parking lots as far as the eye can see.
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5. Tade0 ◴[15 May 25 17:32 UTC] No.43997324{3}[source]▶
Nope. More like commie blocks as far as the eye can see, as it's in eastern EU.

I moved out BTW, because I figured that being able to afford at most a 1-bedroom, 55m2 apartment as a software engineer is a deal I'm not willing to take.

Real estate has been going up in price all over the world in the past decade and it doesn't matter if it's apartment blocks or detached homes.

My new place is a city 40% the size and far from there, but my friends by and large drove until they qualified. Typically less than 30km, but that's already a 1h commute by car.