There's a new toll I'll have to pay to drive anywhere.
There's a new toll I'll have to pay to drive anywhere.
It'll cost $9 each time. They're raising money for the mass transit system by charging specifically those people who don't use the mass transit system and that feels really unfair to me.
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You live in literally the best transit area in the entire nation. One of the best in the world.
Take Transit. You are lucky enough to be in one of the areas where you aren't forced to drive. You are incredibly privileged to live there, and are able to take transit to pretty much wherever you like.
Plus it's lower Manhattan. You said you live inside the congestion zone, which means lets be real, this is a drop in the bucket compared to actually driving there. Just your car you probably pay for storage, some of the highest gas in the country, and the highest insurance in the country, and you're still complaining that there's a slight tax now because you are choosing not to take the incredibly convenient, regular, and world renown subway system?
Even in NYC (where driving is particularly slow and mass transit is particularly well developed) it's still usually significantly faster to drive than it is to take mass transit unless you're traveling within Manhattan or between two stops of the same express train. The trips I frequently take are about twice as fast by car as by mass transit, so from my point of view I am forced to take mass transit (when I have nowhere to park at my destination) while people outside the city have the luxury of quickly driving directly from where they are to where they want to be.
I'm not going to get into my opinion of how pleasant (or not) taking mass transit is compared to driving, because that's subjective. However, I will note that according to the MTA's own survey, a little over half of the people who do take mass transit are dissatisfied by it.
Mass transit is necessary here because the city has an old layout not designed for cars and so it wouldn't be able to function if everyone had to drive. That doesn't imply that mass transit is pleasant or convenient. It's just often the only option.
It's because people have more rights to clean air and lower cancer rates then you do to driving a car. Paris did the congestion pricing and it literally made the city a cleaner and healthy place to live. That is what you should want for Manhattan and if you don't there are plenty of other cities that will still prioritize cars. NYC needs to be a post-car city.
Mass transit is necessary here because the city has an old layout not designed for cars and so it wouldn't be able to function if everyone had to drive.
Cities shouldn't be designed for cars. They should be designed for people. I get it. They've added a tax and that's inconvenient. I agree.
I live in a European city with a medieval layout. I'm happy they started banning cars. Our city is more liveable without than with cars.
If you think your city is old and not designed for cars, come visit Boston. You can take the train.
I used to live in the Boston area, but out by I95. That's actually where I learned how to drive. The Boston subway is a lot less gross than the New York subway, but I still only went to Boston about once a year. There wasn't anything in Boston that was worth getting on the subway for me. However, Cambridge and Somerville weren't too bad to drive to, as long as I had a plan for where to park.
I'm not saying Boston is a bad place. I just don't like most of the things that people go into a city to do. The funny thing is that I live in Manhattan because I work around here, driving to work is entirely unrealistic, and I'd rather walk than take the subway.
Fam, I felt kind of bad that your honest feedback about the new congestion toll has been downvoted so much. And if you truly found nothing in Boston (and presumably Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, Allston, etc.) that interested you then... OK, I can respect people's differences. And if you say walking to work through Manhattan would somehow be bad, and that the only reason you live there is to be close to work... sure, there are people like that, I get it.
But I think your situation is kind of like living in Hawaii and then saying it's unfair that you can't just drive to the mainland.
I want to clarify that I thought that Cambridge and Somerville were pretty nice - nicer than where I lived at the time. I had friends in Cambridge and I enjoyed visiting them, but I didn't know anyone in Boston so I never felt like I had any reason to go there. I actually saw more of Boston earlier this year when a friend invited me to go there with her as a tourist than I ever did during the six years that I lived in Massachusetts. The waterfront was pretty, there was an Italian bakery with really good cannoli, and overall the city was cleaner and less crowded than NYC. I don't have any particular desire to visit again, but that's not because of anything wrong with Boston in particular.
I do see the irony in the fact that I spend a lot of money to live in a place that tens of millions of tourists visit every year but I really don't like it. I'm here because this is where my relatives are and they're not going to leave. (I tried to persuade them to, but it really would be very difficult for them.) I admit that while I know that many people like being in big cities, I don't really understand why. The tourist attractions presumably get boring quickly even if they were interesting at first, and after that what's left?
I just want to leave and go somewhere more pleasant and they're going to charge me $9 every time I do that.
(Full disclosure: right now I want to save some money so I park my car in a Brooklyn neighborhood that doesn't have street cleaning and then when I want to go somewhere, I take the subway to my car first. I won't have to pay this toll if I keep doing that, but it isn't fun and I really want to go back to having my car near me. I'm actually blowing off a dinner invitation as I write this post, because seeing those people would be nice but not nice enough that I actually want to get on the subway.)
Edit: Also I don't really mind the downvoting. I know most people around here either like urban areas, dislike cars, or both so I wasn't expecting sympathy from everyone. I do wonder whether the people talking about how wonderful taking mass transit is have ever actually taken mass transit.
I admit that while I know that many people like being in big cities, I don’t really understand why. The tourist attractions presumably get boring quickly even if they were interesting at first, and after that what’s left?
Every week something interesting's happening. Concerts, sports events, art shows, book readings, parades, festivals, etc ... usually multiple things per weekend and a couple during the weekdays. Then there are restaurants and cafes of all types to discover, crafts stores and bookstores and markets, clubs and meetups and demonstrations and celebrations. I'm an asocial shut-in who spends all his time on Lemmy but I still was really into wandering around town (yes, using mass transit) and just... coming across unique stores or organizations that were in a historical building and were randomly having an open-house and it turns out that it's Armenian Heritage Week or something.
I'm not trying to change your mind. I'm just saying what I find good about it. Where I live now there are only 1 or 2 interesting things happening per month.
Move to Houston then where the city was designed for the car and you can drive in traffic every day and park in massive parking structures whenever you like. It's a very odd opinion that you choose to live in the only city that focuses on people and mass transit in this country, and complain that one of the best things about it is the one thing that is unique. Go live in Texas if you like driving. Go live in LA and drive on the 5 where cars were at the center of their city planning. Sounds like your dream. You can have 20 lanes of constant traffic, 30 story tall parking garages, just like you dream of.
You see the problem with those cities is that everyone drives. It's not a privilege to drive in those cities, it's not reserved for those who can afford it, so everyone is forced to drive, and then all of a sudden cars are everywhere. You want your cake and eat it too. Maybe that's why you're upset about the tax, because that bar has been raised even higher now, and you may be under it. I guarantee the actual rich will be paying it easily.
I live in NYC to support (and have the support of) my relatives, not because I want to. I also never said that I was rich. Even without the toll, driving in Manhattan is at the edge of what I can reasonably spend. Just the parking costs several times more than all my other discretionary spending put together.
I grew up in a Texas suburb and it was pretty nice (except for the humidity) but I don't have first-hand experience with driving in a place like Houston or LA. I know that there's a lot of traffic, but I'm genuinely curious about whether it's really slower than mass transit in NYC is.
If you live in Manhattan, congrats, you're doing better than the vast majority of the country financially. Even with dependents, you're doing much much better.
I’m genuinely curious about whether it’s really slower than mass transit in NYC is.
There's no way to know because no other cities in North America have one like NYC. No where has mass transit. I'm in Seattle, we have 2 (disconnected) light rail lines. Houston has 3 light rail lines for the entire city. LA has a metro that doesn't even connect to the airport yet. You want to know why you're being downvoted to hell? It's because you live in the only place in the entire country with an actual, working metro service and you don't want to ride it because it's slightly dirty sometimes, or you might be forced to interact with other people. Let me tell you, I travel to NYC regularly, and I wish we had a metro system like yours. I sit in traffic for 1.5 hours each way to get to work, and I live 7 miles away from it. And Seattle has a "good" metro system compared to the vast majority of the country. Last time I was in New York I happily stepped over a pile of human shit to get on the train, and I still got across the city in less than 30 minutes. How many people here have to tell you, you have a golden ticket with your metro service, the ability to go anywhere in your city at any time for $2 and change, and you're trying to convince all of us that it's actually not that great.
Do you know what I'd give to not have to drive? To not have to get in a car every day to go to work? Even if it took longer? To not have to white-knuckle drive, to not have to maintain a vehicle, to not have to sit there day after day. A train would be a godsend, and we're finally starting to get a working one in Seattle but we're decades away from a system that can get me to more places than the Airport, downtown, or the university.
The most ironic thing is that the tax you're paying is literally to improve the subway, to make it cleaner, safer, to finish the second avenue line, and for maintenance, but you probably still will convince yourself that it's not worth it.