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In New York City, congestion pricing leads to marked drop in pollution

(e360.yale.edu)
472 points Brajeshwar | 11 comments | 10 Dec 25 15:25 UTC | HN request time: 3.04s | source | bottom
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JumpCrisscross ◴[10 Dec 25 16:53 UTC] No.46220095[source]▶
I'm curious how congestion pricing became a national issue. The strength of conviction people have about this policy–almost either way, but certainly among those against–seems to scale with distance from the city.

Nobody in Idaho gets uppity about New Jersey's tolls. But they have strong, knowledge-free, almost identity-defining opinions about congestion charges.

Is it because it's a policy that's worked in Europe and Asia and is thus seen as foreign? Or because it's New York doing it, so it's branded as a tax, versus market-rate access or whatever we'd be calling it if this were done in Miami?

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taeric ◴[10 Dec 25 17:02 UTC] No.46220243[source]▶
Feels like this is the curse of modern US politics. I'm convinced the majority of people that "want high speed rail in CA" don't live in CA. Further away they live, the stronger they will argue for why we should have it.
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OkayPhysicist ◴[10 Dec 25 17:27 UTC] No.46220582[source]▶
You run in very different social circles than I do. The only complaint I have ever heard about California's high speed rail plan (as a life-long Bay Area resident) is how damn long it's taking because of the yokels claiming it'll annoy their cows and almonds.
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1. taeric ◴[10 Dec 25 18:43 UTC] No.46221678[source]▶
My assertion is most people arguing online about this do not live near the impacted areas. Happy to be proven wrong on this. I just have a lot of sour taste to the whole thing with how many people constantly harp on public transit, but then want me to see their brand new car.
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2. yannyu ◴[10 Dec 25 19:16 UTC] No.46222204[source]▶
Two things can be true:

1) I wish we had better rail transit in the bay area and to the areas surrounding the bay

2) I have to own a car to get to places in Northern California

These don't seem like remotely contradictory positions.

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3. taeric ◴[10 Dec 25 19:21 UTC] No.46222279[source]▶
Largely fair. Ish. If you are dreaming of Tokyo level public transit, though, you are dreaming of far fewer cars for the people that live there.
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4. OkayPhysicist ◴[10 Dec 25 19:24 UTC] No.46222328[source]▶
The SF-LA transit project isn't a replacement for driving, it's a replacement for flying. Cars are replaced by local transit, the CA high speed rail line goes through a whole lot of nothing (read: the worst farmland they could route through) between SF and LA. Are you sure you live around here if you're this off-base with the basic premise?
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5. yannyu ◴[10 Dec 25 19:25 UTC] No.46222342{3}[source]▶
It's a chicken and egg issue. We don't build dense, mixed-use housing and commercial, we don't build transit. There's no way to live a Tokyo-like lifestyle in 95% of California. And the places where you can are often exorbitantly expensive.
6. taeric ◴[10 Dec 25 23:17 UTC] No.46225418[source]▶
People have a habit of arguing online that this would replace people's commutes.

Which, to be fair, people online have a habit of just arguing past each other.

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7. OkayPhysicist ◴[11 Dec 25 00:21 UTC] No.46226037{3}[source]▶
It might speed up the commutes of people coming into the bay from Gilroy, and it might make Madera a somewhat-viable commuter town (if you don't mind 2 hour commutes), but I can't imagine many people using it for daily travel who aren't already well-served by Amtrak/Caltrain
8. panick21_ ◴[11 Dec 25 09:57 UTC] No.46229502[source]▶
Of course because more people live outside of CA then inside. And lots of people talk about transport policy. Lots of countries talk about high speed rail and California is known globally.
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9. panick21_ ◴[11 Dec 25 09:59 UTC] No.46229513[source]▶
This is completely the wrong way of thinking about it. Long distance and short distance transport form a symbiotic relationship.

And in most countries we wouldn't call multiple cities of 100k+ population 'nothing'.

HSR is the spine of the transportation network, that local and regional traffic docks to making a greater whole. It increases the reach and power of public transport as a whole.

For HSR to be successful, you need people using the in-between station for regional trips, not just end to end airplane like trips.

10. taeric ◴[11 Dec 25 14:03 UTC] No.46231475[source]▶
It isn't necessarily a problem one way or the other, I should add. The observation, though, is that people are far far more forceful and opinionated on the situation the further from the area that they are.
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11. panick21_ ◴[11 Dec 25 23:05 UTC] No.46238592{3}[source]▶
I'm not sure how you measured how far away everybody talking about it is. If seen more passion form Americans then from Europeans about HSR in California. And I don't think most people in China are hot on it.

I guess there are some very passionate rail fan liberals in the Eastern united states that hope for true HSR on the East coast that really root for HSR.

But then again I have heard plenty of Californians passionately denounce/advocate for the project.

So I don't think your observation holds.