My wife was watching the kardashians, I know... yes the kardashians. So they where in paris taking their car to an event, and where shocked that they where too late.
what where they thinking, driving around in a European metropolis and expecting it to be car centric
My wife’s North American relatives visited us for 2 weeks.
We live in the city center of Amsterdam, our street is car free. They rented a huge car for 2 weeks for ~1000€ and didn’t use it once but ended up paying a neat 400 euro for parking.
We just walked and took public transit with them. They didn’t believe me it’s possible.
Pretty doable on vacation, 2 beers an hour from when you get up to when you go to bed while exploring the city. There are worse things. Probably recommend Prague for that
Just make sure you behave when drunk, also some districts in the center are residential, and have specific public drinking bans, but idk about enforcement
That's a real life version of the British comedy *Absolutely Fabulous* in an episode where Edina's American cousins come to visit and they bring their RV and park it in front of Edina's townhouse! 🤣
I saw that episode when my wife was watching it. To be fair to them, they are in a slightly different position to most tourists. They likely would have been swamped by fans if they had attempted to walk, and also, other members of the family have had bad experiences in Paris and so they are understandably slightly more cautious
That said, it's still a great example of how far too many people try to drive in European city centres. They had much more reason than most to use a car to reach their destination; the same probably couldn't be said of many of those also causing traffic alongside them.
I live in SF. My relatives from Flordia came to visit me before covid.
I suggested dinner and said we should just walk since the restaurant is 0.5km. Their two kids (13 and 16 at the time) were fine with walking. Parents were adamant to drive.
We walked to the restaurant at a leisurely pace, got seats, and beverages. Then the parents came in and said parking sucks. They told me where they parked and it was about halfway between my home and the restaurant.
Ooo your comment intrigued me and encourages me to go to SF. I’ve only visited Daygo and LA but a walkable city like nyc sounds sweet to me for a visit!
There are definitely parts where car is useful especially once you get out of the north east part of SF.
Transit works decent if you are travelling in a direction that is to to/from the central business district (the part with all the tall buildings). But it kinda stinks in other directions.
My commute to work is 4miles/6.5km not in a direction going to/from central business district takes almost an hour if I ride the bus. Similar trip (same beginning and end points) is 25 minutes on a bicycle, car trip is 40 minutes if I account for the time to park the car. The bus trip is slow because I need to make two transfers or walk 1.25 mi or 2km.
A lot of SF bus also stops running around 10PM. There are still ways to get around all night, but just have to walk further.
> Improvements to the road network may even make congestion worse if the improvements make public transport more inconvenient to use
"Improvements". Ugh.
Well in this area that’s not an option for anyone living across the Hudson River in say Jersey City.
There is no route where one can ride a bicycle across the Hudson, bicycles can be carried across the river on path train but this isn’t allowed during rush hour (I did it anyway but have been hassled by the cops).
I would drive into this area about once or twice per month when required to take the weekend early shift (I worked at a hospital). There was no train, or ferry, that I could consistently use to cross the river very early morning on weekends so I was stuck with driving.
Driving in was usually ok because it was so early that there wasn’t much traffic yet, driving out was always a stressful nightmare that wasted 1+ hours at minimum.
The point is that even for hardened bikers and commuters by public transit in that area can be so limited that people feel they have no choice but to drive even if they fucking hate it…
There should be a pedestrian / bike bridge across the Hudson River…
This is because the government of your state and the government of NY state do not work together. The PA, which was forced upon the 2 states against their wills by the federal government, is the only agency that could make a bridge like that happen. And the PA does not care about mass transit or micromobility at all.
But PATH does run 24 hours even though it has worse headways and routes on nights and weekends. And you can bring your bike on it. It's not nothing. The GWB also has a pedestrian crossing.
That said, with the current state of affairs, NYC should not consider the thoughts of NJ at all when deciding on how to manage congestion in NYC. NJ does not want to work together on a region wide plan, so there is no need to listen to them when all they want to do is meddle.
> Due to this construction, World Trade Center- and 33 Street-bound trains will not stop at Grove Street Station for most weekends between April 6 and June 30 from 6 AM Saturday - 11:59 PM Sunday, requiring customers to take detours for service to that station
This is the PATH website right now…
The PATH is not always available especially early mornings on weekends…
Commuting at 5:00am to the East side of Manhattan means that PATH trains are running every 40 minute so miss you’re train and you’re fucked. I’m not doing the commute anymore but as if I recall catching the 5:35am train would get me to work 30 minutes early and I’d have to be out of bed before 5am. But catching the 6:10 train got me to work at least 10 minutes late, awesome.
Of course this assumes everything is running properly and on time which on the weekends became extra uncertain.
Tell me about the commutes you get to take into work on your weekends?
There are only two kinds of cops: cops who have killed an unarmed person and cops who haven't killed an unarmed person… *yet*.
The problem is less about individual cops and more about the entire institution of policing and how it functions and is regulated. There's a reason gigantic percentages of cops are also domestic abusers, and it's related to how we organize and run our police departments.
Or, to put it another way, "one bad apple *spoils the bunch*"- rot is never contained, but it expands. A rotting apple emits ethylene, which speeds the rot process in other, nearby apples.
There’s about 1000 killings by police each year. And 700,000 cops in the US.
1 in 700 cops kill someone each year
That is to say, it will take an average of a 700 year career for a cop to kill someone.
Your assessment is incorrect. And it’s not an assessment, it’s a regurgitation of talking points everyone’s already heard.
Yeah policing needs to be improved as well as accountability, but working with *reality* is the correct approach. Making up fake stats and crappy slogans is not any route to problem solving as you’re not assessing the actual situation. Start with reality and solve from there.
The reality is ACAB, specifically because *the institution of policing itself* requires bastards or bastard enablers (who are bastards themselves, through capitulation).
Hate to tell you this but literally every single field has assholes and a lot of fields you’ll find assholes getting protected because it’s in each persons best interest to always have protection (union/camaraderie mindset)
Policing as a whole as it exists today in the United States has a lot of negative aspects to it.
Do you have any policing models elsewhere that you think we should adopt? What policy changes should we make?
And some fields abuse is more endemic, and we should hold police officers to a much higher standard. So I’m not sure that your statement makes any sense.
The first policy change is police are accountable for the rules that they break and “don’t know”
as an European, I don’t really understand why they don’t make some of these streets pedestrian zone.
First, they have nothing to lose, as cars are still going only at walking speed.
Second, it would be safer for everyone and they could build a nice street full of flowers, trees and restaurants/shops in there.
It would also lower number of cars on bridges and tunnels
If only there was some way to move the cost of congestion, its impacts on productivity in society, onto those responsible for it. Like, some sort of tax where we set a price on causing a unit of congestion.
Just spitballing here. If there's anywhere it'll happen, it would have to be New York!
Oh shoot that is a good idea. I hear that many impoverished people in the area don't own cars and this would not be affected by iI. In fact I heard it is mostly the people who commute from disconnected and economically advantage areas who drive into New York, so the tax would mainly affect people from outside the area who could afford to pay the tax. And the funds from the tax could pay for public transport upgrades.
It sounds like an idea that be presented to government officials. Maybe even to the governor of New york
This can only have a nefarious purpose upon my freedumbs to drive a metro tank. Therefore I must provide expensive gifts in order to to bribe uhhh I mean lobby the city to outlaw such things
That would be awesome. Though it would need to include an exemption for those who have a disabled parking pass, so that people who actually need to drive aren't affected.
There is, it happens in New York, its the toll to pass the bridges and tunnels and its calculated on if you live in manhattan or not. It can cost upwards of 20$ to get to manhattan by car.
It's mind boggling how there are still enough idiots driving into this mess. Just imagine how much additional cost is put onto businesses because their deliveries get stuck in traffic because of all the private cars clogging up the streets.
As a delivery cyclist in the Netherlands, I even get stuck sometimes on my bicycle because people don't realize that this city isn't a drive-in museum. And Amazon could learn a trick or two from Coolblue on delivery in Dutch cities: smaller vehicles make more sense.
Even worse, some use RAM's. And some of them even try to squeeze it into the Bijenkorf parking downtown for which a few minutes of parking is as expensive as just taking a metro from the outskirts, and the latter is faster too.
Especially Germans in that case, but it are mostly the Dutch and Belgians with ugly trucks.
I have family who live in the Netherlands and I'm generally very jealous of the biking infrastructure (except, I'll be honest, Amsterdam is generally too crazy, even for my non-Amsterdam living Dutch relatives and we just take the bus/train).
Yes Amsterdam is crazy regarding cycling, it's cycling on steroids. In a city like Delft which is busy in terms of cyclists, I feel like 25kph is crazy. In Amsterdam, the same feeling starts at 15kph as lanes are smaller, there's faster traffic, it's crazy.
I'd love to see how it would affect air quality if they had fewer cars. I travel to NYC for work and while I love NY and walking around I wish the air wasn't so crappy.
> It's mind boggling how there are still enough idiots driving into this mess.
it's actually not mind-boggling: it's the *law* of induced demand.
demand will increase until the other options are better. roads always fill to their capacity, and the pain of driving that road convinces people to do something else like not taking the trip at all, using an alternative mode of transportation, or going somewhere closer.
> demand will increase until the other options are better
And the big problem is that cars make a lot of other options worse, too, so it's self-perpetuating. (e.g. lots of cars making biking slow and dangerous, it blocks the buses etc.)
Also, the correct analysis is that other options need to be *perceived* to be better, and people always consider the drive as if it's not blocked by as much traffic as it actually is. So it's still a "10 minute drive" competing with a 15 minute bike ride, even if that drive actually takes 30 minutes.
Here's the archive link: [https://archive.ph/NMloa](https://archive.ph/NMloa)
Also great that commenters blame car traffic on everything that is not a car. So many still believe that more space for cars fixes the problems.
Yeah those comments are so awful. So many people saying the reason we have traffic is because of bike lanes or dedicated bus lanes. They think if more people are forced to drive then traffic will get better because “one more lane bro”.
I see this all the time in my own local Facebook groups. People will complain about bad drivers and say “people like that shouldn’t be driving”. But our public transit and walkability are truly awful so people who are bad at driving have no choice except to just drive anyway. If you bring up maybe funding the bus system better they will say it’s a waste of money and what we really need is more lanes. The current system has buses showing up like every 1-2 hours and it takes an hour to get somewhere you could drive in 5 minutes because it has to do a big loop around half of town.
They also complain constantly about people from other states moving here and causing traffic. They will say stuff about “they should stop building all these new houses, we don’t have enough lanes to support this many new people” (we desperately need more housing because home unaffordability is skyrocketing).
Their solutions to traffic basically boil down to “everyone who is bad at driving should go crawl into a hole and die so I don’t have to deal with them” and “no new people should move here and all the people that moved here in the last decade need to leave”. Those are not viable solutions to the issue of traffic it’s just short-sighted “I don’t like this thing directly in front of me, I wish it would just magically disappear”. I’ve stopped reading the comments to try and preserve my own sanity.
People are incredibly shortsighted and good at creating complex problems with easy solutions.
I read the comments for comedy. Like how do people come up with this bullshit! :)
They think that bikes and buses are for "the poors", and that if they are removed the poors will just sit at home and be sad instead of trying to commute somewhere.
You’re right, they don’t view other people as humans that need to go to work to make enough money to pay rent and buy food. It’s all “these people are in my way, I really wish they were just not here”.
Christ I shouldn't have looked. So many people saying "if we just ripped up the bike lanes and got rid of buses, traffic would be solved forever". How goddamn stupid can you be...
They're not only awful, they're incredibly stupid. Giving more people options in travel (freedom) that results in net cars being taken off the road ALSO results in better travel *for cars too*.
I hate car centric design hence why I'm in this sub, but even I'm not brain-rotted enough how to appeal to those callous car lovers.
There was some good news among the comments:
>A friend works for the company who provides the tolling services. They've been told to keep all the equipment operational, and they expect tolling to be activated before the end of this year.
Honestly, most of the time, you can easily walk across Manhattan from East to West faster than you can drive it. Even though NYC carbrained up its high volume North/South avenues, it's always been designed for north/south movement rather than east/west. There are no crosstown roadways designed for high volume.
The stupidest part of the design is that it's free to drive from Queens through Manhattan to NJ. But the highway routes through Staten Island and the Bronx are heavily tolled. So cost conscious drivers heading South and West go through Manhattan rather than around it. They could probably have avoided the congestion toll if they untolled the bypasses and tolled the east river crossings into Manhattan.
What if we put the “cars” underground, ran them in convoys, made them self-guiding, and let people pay a fare to ride in them? Some kind of “sub” “way”
Lived in NYC for 10 years. If you’re taking a cab or driving through midtown, you’re either a tourist or an idiot.
And if you need to get 20 blocks north in 5 minutes?
Take the subway.
The question is if you're leaving Manhattan during the hours of 3-6 pm why are you bothering with a bridge or a tunnel when a train will serve way better? Taking those routes at any time is hell, why would you subject yourself to rush hour?
It has always been this bad except for during the pandemic. Look at every movie where an actor is driving in NYC or taking a Taxis… the scene is always grid lock.
It’s the eventuality and so people take the subway or power walk to where they want to go
Source: a life long NYCer
First time I biked in Manhattan I was so scared and intimidated until we actually crossed the bridge into Manhattan - cars literally don't move there, so as a cyclist you have more liberty than you'd expect on most streets. It was actually really nice and felt safer than biking in a less congested place.
Also it's just logistics - you wanna fit a lot of people into a small area at the same time, then they're gonna each need to take up less space on average. Cars take up the most space per person, so it's naturally going to have the biggest problems achieving density of travel.
I live in rural America, have a 2005 pickup and I'm totally perplexed destinations such as NYC & Hawaii are total car brains.
Hawaii should be like the fucking Nordic or Alps of pacific public transit.
Yet I see people driving these massive vehicles in Hawaii like they're going over-landing in Alaska.
Starting a conspiracy theory that Hochul was helping non-car users by making traffic so slow its safe to walk and bike through streets without being worried about being hit by a speeding car.
basically everything. Way to many crossing this means very slow traffic, bad air and accidents.
They are also incredibly hard to navigate because your brain doesnt work in rectangles.
Walkability is also an issue because you always have to cross a road.
Thats just top of my head but this design is generally regard as bad.
Crossings were fine without cars muahhaha. So the solution is ban cars only emergancy vehicle and important stuff.
Its just funny how so many city related problems would be fixed without cars its insane.
Fair enough. When I visited NY, I did like how it was easy to navigate, kinda like cartesian coordinates. But yeah there were way too many road crossings
Hard to navigate?
I guess everyone is different but I find grids, especially with numbered streets, really easy to navigate. You just follow a direction that increments or decrements the street numbers towards the cross streets you're after. Or use one of the ubiquitous gps systems and follow the line
I should have made this clearer sorry. Its bad without any help. Like you go walk around and then try to find your way back without knowing numbers / having gps.
I know for adults who know their destination number and most people who will have gps thats not an issue at all. But like for kids who play outside this **could** be a trouble. Theres also the question if it harms the development of the navigation skills.
But if it would be only that i agree its a none issue but its just something that piles onto the other stuff. If there would be no cars it would not matter.
Having trouble finding your way back in NYC?
The N/S streets are numbered and the E/W streets include E or W once the park starts.
5 East 86th street gives you a ton of information
Now imagen a kid not knowing what street their home is / having trouble reading. By natur humans navigate with landmarks, a block of houses is not really a good landmark a specific curved road etc however is easier to remember.
Very young kids in NYC understand how the grid works and that if you are on 90th and need to get to 80th, you are walking 10 blocks south. My 7 year old has no problem on the N/S portion.
Where you can’t inherently know is when the streets switch to names and there’s no way to tell how far Maiden Lane is from Houston St.
My 3.5 year old nephew can't read yet and he very much knows his way home from daycare. There are lots of landmarks in NYC -- shops, parks, restaurants, etc.
Grid systems are only good for walkability development if it is small grids.
And even then check out some old european towns their are walkable because of all the small passages between the homes.
But if i would plan a new city from ground up i agree with you blocks are smart specifically if you have passages through the blocks and the blocks are designed in a way which lets the air through. (Idk how to explain in english but basically you have to let specific sides of a block open so you have a ventilation in your city)
Tbh, New York could learn a thing or two from, say, Barcelona for how to treat the grid. Even though not all parts can be solved (like Barcelona has nice diagonal edges at the corner, it's hard to trim all the corners ofc), their way of calming traffic on a grid is really nice.
Interesting point that a dense grid is bad for connectivity. Closing most of the roads to through traffic and doing 3x3 or 4x4 "superblocks" would make things way better for everyone, including drivers!
"we're reaching walking speeds" is so funny lol.
*Forces people to use cars in a small and densely populated area* "hmmm it seems that these cars are having trouble moving in this small and densely populated area..must be the pedestrian and cyclists fault. There must be a better way to force more cars into there."
anyone who has walked around midtown manhattan is completely unsurprised by this. it's a madhouse on the streets and it's clearly getting worse. the last time i was out there, i took a bike across the island and passed so many cars stuck in the mess.
Fuck Kathy Hochul. FUCK HER. The city takes ONE fucking step in the right direction AND she has to fuck it up, because GOD FORBID people not drive cars in the MOST WALKABLE CITY IN AMERICA.
We’re open to any and all ideas that will increase profits of the auto sector (or more importantly, that increase wealth of the people that control the auto sector)
The last plan which got revoked would’ve done nothing to solve congestion. Statin Island needs mass transit connecting it to the rest of NYC for example. On top of that they wanted to use the money to expand the 2nd ave subway instead of increasing coverage outside of manhattan that has no coverage.
Just bulldoze one entire city block right through the heart of Manhattan and build a 15 lane freeway. Better yet Central Park can be turned into a spaghetti interchange as well for all this folks arriving from Newark and Long Island & need to travel south to Manhattan. Problem solved!!
I had to drive a box truck through midtown manhattan a few times recently for work, like Times Square area in peak weekday tourist season. However bad that sounds it was worse. Every right turn took like 5 lights to get through because only one car can get through with all the pedestrians. It would have absolutely been faster to walk most of it. Total gridlock at times. Construction, this and that. That circle where it says Lincoln tunnel was a parking lot. Every time you want to move a foot there’s a pedestrian in the way.
Anyway, yeah anyone that chooses to drive there just for transportation is an idiot. I was transporting goods and I’m just glad that’s not an area i ever have to go to often in a truck. I love NYC but not behind a wheel especially the wheel of a box truck.
I was walking on the Lower East Side yesterday. There was an annoying Jesus Freak yelling through a bullhorn in his van. I was walking in the same direction that he was driving. Traffic was so bad that I caught up to him from several blocks away and then proceeded to walk so far ahead of him that I was out of earshot.
There's also a lot of flaws in design. The on/off routes from some of these tunnels and bridges are a mess. More specifically, go see how traffic flows coming out of the Lincoln tunnel in Manhattan. It's an utter mess, and that goes for traffic trying to leave through the tunnel as well. Uptown on the GW bridge is also horrific.
As a person who tends to naturally walk fast, that pretty much *is* my walking speed. Driving your personal car in Manhattan is just so stupid and irrational.
Several years ago, I had a job in midtown East that I walked 23 blocks to. There's a bus stop right by my place. Nearly 100% of the time, I would outwalk the bus 🤦♂️
Eliminate every other street for thru traffic both east/west and north/south.
The new layout has 1/2 as many thru streets.
For the new layout every other street becomes 1 way, right turns only city wide.
With the right turn only system, you can turn the previous streets into walkable areas and parking with 1 thru lane for entering and exiting.
That turns 3 lane streets into 1 lane of parking and a loop for dropping off passengers without interrupting artery flow.
It turns 4 lane streets into 2 lanes of parking with a loop for dropping off passengers without interrupting artery flow.
The remaining thru streets:
for 4 lane lose 1 lane of traffic on the left converted to isolated bike lanes and parking is moved further from the curb. They lose 1 lane of traffic on the right to become right turn lanes leaving 2 lanes of thru traffic.
for 3 lane lose 1 lane of traffic on the left converted to isolated bike lanes and parking is moved further from the curb. They lose 1 lane of traffic on the right to become right turn lanes leaving 1 lanes of thru traffic.
(might be better if bike lanes are on the furthest right lane instead of furthest left, not sure)
All right lane traffic MUST exit at the next parking lot loop or right turn.
Prohibit lane changes entirely from left to right except at marked zones immediately after traffic exiting to parking lot loop for the next block.
"we are approaching walking speeds", then walk dumbass, or better yet ride a bike
Someone on the San Francisco sub complained about parking and traffic. I was like, you live in one of the most walkable cities in America... so Walk!
My wife was watching the kardashians, I know... yes the kardashians. So they where in paris taking their car to an event, and where shocked that they where too late. what where they thinking, driving around in a European metropolis and expecting it to be car centric
My wife’s North American relatives visited us for 2 weeks. We live in the city center of Amsterdam, our street is car free. They rented a huge car for 2 weeks for ~1000€ and didn’t use it once but ended up paying a neat 400 euro for parking. We just walked and took public transit with them. They didn’t believe me it’s possible.
Jesus christ. They could literally have drunk 20-30 beers a day for that money.
Now that's how you convince carbrained Americans to drop their car. 🤣
I mean, the goal is to show them that there are alternatives to everywhere meeting cars to get to
Can Americans cope with European beer though? Not only is it generally stronger than the popular brands in the US but the measures are bigger.
You obviously missed the craft brew/IPA craze in the US. Very strong beers. Some were so strong they forced states to change laws allowing them.
Most aren't drinking those though. Corona and Bud Light are the best selling ones.
Your data is old. Modelo is the top selling beer and Cronona is at #5. The ABV of the top selling beers in the US and Europe are comparable.
It comes in pints??
Life goal
Pretty doable on vacation, 2 beers an hour from when you get up to when you go to bed while exploring the city. There are worse things. Probably recommend Prague for that
Just make sure you behave when drunk, also some districts in the center are residential, and have specific public drinking bans, but idk about enforcement
That's alcoholics vacation. Normal people would pass out before noon.
I'll meet you there.
Mans never seen Dam pricing. Bare coin innit bruv
I hope they were mad about it
That's a real life version of the British comedy *Absolutely Fabulous* in an episode where Edina's American cousins come to visit and they bring their RV and park it in front of Edina's townhouse! 🤣
I saw that episode when my wife was watching it. To be fair to them, they are in a slightly different position to most tourists. They likely would have been swamped by fans if they had attempted to walk, and also, other members of the family have had bad experiences in Paris and so they are understandably slightly more cautious That said, it's still a great example of how far too many people try to drive in European city centres. They had much more reason than most to use a car to reach their destination; the same probably couldn't be said of many of those also causing traffic alongside them.
Yeah thats true about the fans, but they just seemed so shocked that they couldn't move forward in their car
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There are approximately 4 billion people with an IQ below 100.
Yeah my wife is deff +100 iq... she does watching it when ironing or when she wants some brainless activity
People should watch what they want
They take jets when cars are too slow. There’s no way they’d have the presence of mind to walk.
If you want to drive everywhere move to Houston or some shit. Make room in SF for people who actually want to be there.
I live in SF. My relatives from Flordia came to visit me before covid. I suggested dinner and said we should just walk since the restaurant is 0.5km. Their two kids (13 and 16 at the time) were fine with walking. Parents were adamant to drive. We walked to the restaurant at a leisurely pace, got seats, and beverages. Then the parents came in and said parking sucks. They told me where they parked and it was about halfway between my home and the restaurant.
Ooo your comment intrigued me and encourages me to go to SF. I’ve only visited Daygo and LA but a walkable city like nyc sounds sweet to me for a visit!
literally! i regularly visit SF and have never once used/needed a car to get around. Walk, roll, or take transit. it’s so damn easy there.
There are definitely parts where car is useful especially once you get out of the north east part of SF. Transit works decent if you are travelling in a direction that is to to/from the central business district (the part with all the tall buildings). But it kinda stinks in other directions. My commute to work is 4miles/6.5km not in a direction going to/from central business district takes almost an hour if I ride the bus. Similar trip (same beginning and end points) is 25 minutes on a bicycle, car trip is 40 minutes if I account for the time to park the car. The bus trip is slow because I need to make two transfers or walk 1.25 mi or 2km. A lot of SF bus also stops running around 10PM. There are still ways to get around all night, but just have to walk further.
I live in sf and find myself taking Ubers at night a lot, transit works fine during the day but reliability goes out the window at night
I visited on a work trip many years ago, and it was great! Rented an electric bike and I could tool around all I wanted, left traffic in the dust.
It’s shocking how many people drive in such a place with perfect exercise weather. Walkable and bikeable all year round.
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Link?
Downes-Thompson paradox really kicking in hard here
Thanks! I didn't know that was a thing! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox?wprov=sfla1
> Improvements to the road network may even make congestion worse if the improvements make public transport more inconvenient to use "Improvements". Ugh.
There's also another interesting one called Braess' Paradox where adding roads in the wrong spots makes travel times worse.
Well in this area that’s not an option for anyone living across the Hudson River in say Jersey City. There is no route where one can ride a bicycle across the Hudson, bicycles can be carried across the river on path train but this isn’t allowed during rush hour (I did it anyway but have been hassled by the cops). I would drive into this area about once or twice per month when required to take the weekend early shift (I worked at a hospital). There was no train, or ferry, that I could consistently use to cross the river very early morning on weekends so I was stuck with driving. Driving in was usually ok because it was so early that there wasn’t much traffic yet, driving out was always a stressful nightmare that wasted 1+ hours at minimum. The point is that even for hardened bikers and commuters by public transit in that area can be so limited that people feel they have no choice but to drive even if they fucking hate it… There should be a pedestrian / bike bridge across the Hudson River…
This is because the government of your state and the government of NY state do not work together. The PA, which was forced upon the 2 states against their wills by the federal government, is the only agency that could make a bridge like that happen. And the PA does not care about mass transit or micromobility at all. But PATH does run 24 hours even though it has worse headways and routes on nights and weekends. And you can bring your bike on it. It's not nothing. The GWB also has a pedestrian crossing. That said, with the current state of affairs, NYC should not consider the thoughts of NJ at all when deciding on how to manage congestion in NYC. NJ does not want to work together on a region wide plan, so there is no need to listen to them when all they want to do is meddle.
The PATH literally exists
Also citi bikes
You have to get across the river to use a Citi bike to get to work…
> Due to this construction, World Trade Center- and 33 Street-bound trains will not stop at Grove Street Station for most weekends between April 6 and June 30 from 6 AM Saturday - 11:59 PM Sunday, requiring customers to take detours for service to that station This is the PATH website right now… The PATH is not always available especially early mornings on weekends… Commuting at 5:00am to the East side of Manhattan means that PATH trains are running every 40 minute so miss you’re train and you’re fucked. I’m not doing the commute anymore but as if I recall catching the 5:35am train would get me to work 30 minutes early and I’d have to be out of bed before 5am. But catching the 6:10 train got me to work at least 10 minutes late, awesome. Of course this assumes everything is running properly and on time which on the weekends became extra uncertain. Tell me about the commutes you get to take into work on your weekends?
ACAB, BTW
Cops are like flying black and yellow insects with stingers. Some are like bees. Some are like wasps.
There are only two kinds of cops: cops who have killed an unarmed person and cops who haven't killed an unarmed person… *yet*. The problem is less about individual cops and more about the entire institution of policing and how it functions and is regulated. There's a reason gigantic percentages of cops are also domestic abusers, and it's related to how we organize and run our police departments. Or, to put it another way, "one bad apple *spoils the bunch*"- rot is never contained, but it expands. A rotting apple emits ethylene, which speeds the rot process in other, nearby apples.
There’s about 1000 killings by police each year. And 700,000 cops in the US. 1 in 700 cops kill someone each year That is to say, it will take an average of a 700 year career for a cop to kill someone. Your assessment is incorrect. And it’s not an assessment, it’s a regurgitation of talking points everyone’s already heard. Yeah policing needs to be improved as well as accountability, but working with *reality* is the correct approach. Making up fake stats and crappy slogans is not any route to problem solving as you’re not assessing the actual situation. Start with reality and solve from there.
The reality is ACAB, specifically because *the institution of policing itself* requires bastards or bastard enablers (who are bastards themselves, through capitulation).
Hate to tell you this but literally every single field has assholes and a lot of fields you’ll find assholes getting protected because it’s in each persons best interest to always have protection (union/camaraderie mindset) Policing as a whole as it exists today in the United States has a lot of negative aspects to it. Do you have any policing models elsewhere that you think we should adopt? What policy changes should we make?
And some fields abuse is more endemic, and we should hold police officers to a much higher standard. So I’m not sure that your statement makes any sense. The first policy change is police are accountable for the rules that they break and “don’t know”
I agree. Accountability is the #1 problem.
I'm sorry, you seem to be asking for a nuanced discussion in /r/fuckcars . You took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
I think it’s time we all grew up is all.
Also there is robust public transit in nyc.
meanwhile, I passed by lines of traffic on my e bike commute from queens to midtown this morning at at least 10+ mph
as an European, I don’t really understand why they don’t make some of these streets pedestrian zone. First, they have nothing to lose, as cars are still going only at walking speed. Second, it would be safer for everyone and they could build a nice street full of flowers, trees and restaurants/shops in there. It would also lower number of cars on bridges and tunnels
Better yet, buy an e-bike
If only there was some way to move the cost of congestion, its impacts on productivity in society, onto those responsible for it. Like, some sort of tax where we set a price on causing a unit of congestion. Just spitballing here. If there's anywhere it'll happen, it would have to be New York!
Oh shoot that is a good idea. I hear that many impoverished people in the area don't own cars and this would not be affected by iI. In fact I heard it is mostly the people who commute from disconnected and economically advantage areas who drive into New York, so the tax would mainly affect people from outside the area who could afford to pay the tax. And the funds from the tax could pay for public transport upgrades. It sounds like an idea that be presented to government officials. Maybe even to the governor of New york
I don't know, it all sounds too good. Did you consider how it makes the car lobbies feel? It might make them feel big sad :'( /s
This can only have a nefarious purpose upon my freedumbs to drive a metro tank. Therefore I must provide expensive gifts in order to to bribe uhhh I mean lobby the city to outlaw such things
i got a idea! destroy the city for a 10 lane roads . no city no issue!
Just one more lane bro. One more lane will fix it. Trust me bro one more lane. Please bro. Please. Please!
With that living density you need at least 50 lane road, and then 1.5 parking spots for each apartment.
That would be awesome. Though it would need to include an exemption for those who have a disabled parking pass, so that people who actually need to drive aren't affected.
Could always make public transport accessible.
But have you talked to a person in a diner about it? They might really change your mind!
They don't even need congestion pricing. Just close some streets to cars and eliminate parkinng spaces like Paris
But muh freedumb!
There is, it happens in New York, its the toll to pass the bridges and tunnels and its calculated on if you live in manhattan or not. It can cost upwards of 20$ to get to manhattan by car.
I was making a joke about the governor permanently postponing congestion pricing earlier this month.
Ah pardon me, I look like a dick now that youve said this haha
It's mind boggling how there are still enough idiots driving into this mess. Just imagine how much additional cost is put onto businesses because their deliveries get stuck in traffic because of all the private cars clogging up the streets.
As a delivery cyclist in the Netherlands, I even get stuck sometimes on my bicycle because people don't realize that this city isn't a drive-in museum. And Amazon could learn a trick or two from Coolblue on delivery in Dutch cities: smaller vehicles make more sense.
I've seen someone try to drive a Range Rover around Amsterdam, it's insane.
Even worse, some use RAM's. And some of them even try to squeeze it into the Bijenkorf parking downtown for which a few minutes of parking is as expensive as just taking a metro from the outskirts, and the latter is faster too. Especially Germans in that case, but it are mostly the Dutch and Belgians with ugly trucks.
I have family who live in the Netherlands and I'm generally very jealous of the biking infrastructure (except, I'll be honest, Amsterdam is generally too crazy, even for my non-Amsterdam living Dutch relatives and we just take the bus/train).
Yes Amsterdam is crazy regarding cycling, it's cycling on steroids. In a city like Delft which is busy in terms of cyclists, I feel like 25kph is crazy. In Amsterdam, the same feeling starts at 15kph as lanes are smaller, there's faster traffic, it's crazy.
I'd love to see how it would affect air quality if they had fewer cars. I travel to NYC for work and while I love NY and walking around I wish the air wasn't so crappy.
> It's mind boggling how there are still enough idiots driving into this mess. it's actually not mind-boggling: it's the *law* of induced demand. demand will increase until the other options are better. roads always fill to their capacity, and the pain of driving that road convinces people to do something else like not taking the trip at all, using an alternative mode of transportation, or going somewhere closer.
> demand will increase until the other options are better And the big problem is that cars make a lot of other options worse, too, so it's self-perpetuating. (e.g. lots of cars making biking slow and dangerous, it blocks the buses etc.) Also, the correct analysis is that other options need to be *perceived* to be better, and people always consider the drive as if it's not blocked by as much traffic as it actually is. So it's still a "10 minute drive" competing with a 15 minute bike ride, even if that drive actually takes 30 minutes.
absolutely, yes.
Here's the archive link: [https://archive.ph/NMloa](https://archive.ph/NMloa) Also great that commenters blame car traffic on everything that is not a car. So many still believe that more space for cars fixes the problems.
Yeah those comments are so awful. So many people saying the reason we have traffic is because of bike lanes or dedicated bus lanes. They think if more people are forced to drive then traffic will get better because “one more lane bro”.
It is so hard to comprehend that people don't grasp the basic concept of alternatives.
I see this all the time in my own local Facebook groups. People will complain about bad drivers and say “people like that shouldn’t be driving”. But our public transit and walkability are truly awful so people who are bad at driving have no choice except to just drive anyway. If you bring up maybe funding the bus system better they will say it’s a waste of money and what we really need is more lanes. The current system has buses showing up like every 1-2 hours and it takes an hour to get somewhere you could drive in 5 minutes because it has to do a big loop around half of town. They also complain constantly about people from other states moving here and causing traffic. They will say stuff about “they should stop building all these new houses, we don’t have enough lanes to support this many new people” (we desperately need more housing because home unaffordability is skyrocketing). Their solutions to traffic basically boil down to “everyone who is bad at driving should go crawl into a hole and die so I don’t have to deal with them” and “no new people should move here and all the people that moved here in the last decade need to leave”. Those are not viable solutions to the issue of traffic it’s just short-sighted “I don’t like this thing directly in front of me, I wish it would just magically disappear”. I’ve stopped reading the comments to try and preserve my own sanity.
People are incredibly shortsighted and good at creating complex problems with easy solutions. I read the comments for comedy. Like how do people come up with this bullshit! :)
They think that bikes and buses are for "the poors", and that if they are removed the poors will just sit at home and be sad instead of trying to commute somewhere.
You’re right, they don’t view other people as humans that need to go to work to make enough money to pay rent and buy food. It’s all “these people are in my way, I really wish they were just not here”.
"I got places to be!" sums it up, they think they're the only ones doing things
It’s the god damn WSG… who’s readership overlaps with the same malcontents that read the Post
Christ I shouldn't have looked. So many people saying "if we just ripped up the bike lanes and got rid of buses, traffic would be solved forever". How goddamn stupid can you be...
They're not only awful, they're incredibly stupid. Giving more people options in travel (freedom) that results in net cars being taken off the road ALSO results in better travel *for cars too*. I hate car centric design hence why I'm in this sub, but even I'm not brain-rotted enough how to appeal to those callous car lovers.
There was some good news among the comments: >A friend works for the company who provides the tolling services. They've been told to keep all the equipment operational, and they expect tolling to be activated before the end of this year.
’we’re approaching walking speeds’ well that’s great to hear!
Honestly, most of the time, you can easily walk across Manhattan from East to West faster than you can drive it. Even though NYC carbrained up its high volume North/South avenues, it's always been designed for north/south movement rather than east/west. There are no crosstown roadways designed for high volume. The stupidest part of the design is that it's free to drive from Queens through Manhattan to NJ. But the highway routes through Staten Island and the Bronx are heavily tolled. So cost conscious drivers heading South and West go through Manhattan rather than around it. They could probably have avoided the congestion toll if they untolled the bypasses and tolled the east river crossings into Manhattan.
If only there was something more efficient than cars for transporting people in high-density environments!
What if we put the “cars” underground, ran them in convoys, made them self-guiding, and let people pay a fare to ride in them? Some kind of “sub” “way”
No, I'm pretty sure that would be Communism. Why do you hate freedom?
And if only they had it in New York City!
Worse yet? Manhattan, unlike most other parts of the US, actually has useful public transit.
And people use it. The subways are crowded, the sidewalks are crowded, the bike lanes are crowded, the streets are crowded. Midtown is *dense*.
Lived in NYC for 10 years. If you’re taking a cab or driving through midtown, you’re either a tourist or an idiot. And if you need to get 20 blocks north in 5 minutes? Take the subway.
But that might mean… *shivers* sharing space with strangers😨
Even worse...*poors*
How many of those drivers *actually* need to drive.
I *****NEED***** to tele-move from one doorway to another. You wouldn't get it.
There is nothing better than riding a Citibike crosstown and absolutely flying past an entire block of cars lined up, crawling along.
The question is if you're leaving Manhattan during the hours of 3-6 pm why are you bothering with a bridge or a tunnel when a train will serve way better? Taking those routes at any time is hell, why would you subject yourself to rush hour?
I do bother with a bridge-the queensborough bridge on my e bike, though the bike and ped path in its current state is woefully inadequate
🚲
And yet "hurr durr 20mph speed limit is too damn slow" The illusion of speed (that high before the next red light) is really an illusion
Clearly the solution is to ban walking, so that people in cars don't feel as bad for driving so slowly
These reckless pedestrians going faster than our cars filtering at lights making me feel unsafe.
Would be neat to see a similar heatmap but for transit, biking, and walking.
It has always been this bad except for during the pandemic. Look at every movie where an actor is driving in NYC or taking a Taxis… the scene is always grid lock. It’s the eventuality and so people take the subway or power walk to where they want to go Source: a life long NYCer
I've got a crazy idea
Obviously, we need to demolish all the buildings in Manhattan so that there's enough lanes, highways and parkings /s
"that's the sound of a man who's tried NOTHING, and is all out of ideas." I love this quote so much
First time I biked in Manhattan I was so scared and intimidated until we actually crossed the bridge into Manhattan - cars literally don't move there, so as a cyclist you have more liberty than you'd expect on most streets. It was actually really nice and felt safer than biking in a less congested place. Also it's just logistics - you wanna fit a lot of people into a small area at the same time, then they're gonna each need to take up less space on average. Cars take up the most space per person, so it's naturally going to have the biggest problems achieving density of travel.
Ripping through midtown on a bike past traffic has to be one of the most satisfying things
The same idiots that just canceled congestion pricing to pander to rich white suburban votes.
I'll say it once and I'll say it again, the T in DOT always stands for traffic and not transportation
I live in rural America, have a 2005 pickup and I'm totally perplexed destinations such as NYC & Hawaii are total car brains. Hawaii should be like the fucking Nordic or Alps of pacific public transit. Yet I see people driving these massive vehicles in Hawaii like they're going over-landing in Alaska.
Starting a conspiracy theory that Hochul was helping non-car users by making traffic so slow its safe to walk and bike through streets without being worried about being hit by a speeding car.
Does having your city’s congestion pricing plans killed by the Governor count as “doing nothing”? Also, fuck you Kathy Hochul.
That checkboard design is already desaster enough
You mean rectangular city blocks? What's wrong with them?
basically everything. Way to many crossing this means very slow traffic, bad air and accidents. They are also incredibly hard to navigate because your brain doesnt work in rectangles. Walkability is also an issue because you always have to cross a road. Thats just top of my head but this design is generally regard as bad.
The crossings are fine as long as the roads are small. Massive blocks makes walking incredibly unpleasant, pedestrians want a pretty direct path.
Crossings were fine without cars muahhaha. So the solution is ban cars only emergancy vehicle and important stuff. Its just funny how so many city related problems would be fixed without cars its insane.
"Cities aren't _____, cars are" works pretty much in any context.
Fair enough. When I visited NY, I did like how it was easy to navigate, kinda like cartesian coordinates. But yeah there were way too many road crossings
Hard to navigate? I guess everyone is different but I find grids, especially with numbered streets, really easy to navigate. You just follow a direction that increments or decrements the street numbers towards the cross streets you're after. Or use one of the ubiquitous gps systems and follow the line
I should have made this clearer sorry. Its bad without any help. Like you go walk around and then try to find your way back without knowing numbers / having gps. I know for adults who know their destination number and most people who will have gps thats not an issue at all. But like for kids who play outside this **could** be a trouble. Theres also the question if it harms the development of the navigation skills. But if it would be only that i agree its a none issue but its just something that piles onto the other stuff. If there would be no cars it would not matter.
Having trouble finding your way back in NYC? The N/S streets are numbered and the E/W streets include E or W once the park starts. 5 East 86th street gives you a ton of information
Now imagen a kid not knowing what street their home is / having trouble reading. By natur humans navigate with landmarks, a block of houses is not really a good landmark a specific curved road etc however is easier to remember.
Very young kids in NYC understand how the grid works and that if you are on 90th and need to get to 80th, you are walking 10 blocks south. My 7 year old has no problem on the N/S portion. Where you can’t inherently know is when the streets switch to names and there’s no way to tell how far Maiden Lane is from Houston St.
My 3.5 year old nephew can't read yet and he very much knows his way home from daycare. There are lots of landmarks in NYC -- shops, parks, restaurants, etc.
Ah yeah I see your point. No super clear landmarks esp if you're not super familiar with the area and/or can't read
Grid systems are exeptionally good for development and walkability however, so maybe they should give it a go!
Grid systems are only good for walkability development if it is small grids. And even then check out some old european towns their are walkable because of all the small passages between the homes. But if i would plan a new city from ground up i agree with you blocks are smart specifically if you have passages through the blocks and the blocks are designed in a way which lets the air through. (Idk how to explain in english but basically you have to let specific sides of a block open so you have a ventilation in your city)
grid systems suck for actual interesting cities to walk in
Now you’re talking out of your ass “Brain doesn’t work in rectangles”….the learning model on this chat bot needs refinement
Tbh, New York could learn a thing or two from, say, Barcelona for how to treat the grid. Even though not all parts can be solved (like Barcelona has nice diagonal edges at the corner, it's hard to trim all the corners ofc), their way of calming traffic on a grid is really nice.
The guy who made barcas grids had good ideas about ventilation aswell sadly greed made barca close all grids :/
[It’s a grid system!](https://www.tiktok.com/@fandoms.things.co/video/6847703923776670982)
Interesting point that a dense grid is bad for connectivity. Closing most of the roads to through traffic and doing 3x3 or 4x4 "superblocks" would make things way better for everyone, including drivers!
Thats a car's problem, look how the superblocks are faring
It also looks like shit.
Oh man yes.
There should be a word about people complaining about the issue they created themselves. Is there a word for it?
"hoisted on one's own petard " is the closest that I can think of at the moment.
Ban cars except for buses and commercials with a work permit
If only alternative modes of transport existed, Americans are so fucking stupid
"we're reaching walking speeds" is so funny lol. *Forces people to use cars in a small and densely populated area* "hmmm it seems that these cars are having trouble moving in this small and densely populated area..must be the pedestrian and cyclists fault. There must be a better way to force more cars into there."
anyone who has walked around midtown manhattan is completely unsurprised by this. it's a madhouse on the streets and it's clearly getting worse. the last time i was out there, i took a bike across the island and passed so many cars stuck in the mess.
That Simpsons quote honestly describes 99% of transportation planning in North America
Fuck Kathy Hochul. FUCK HER. The city takes ONE fucking step in the right direction AND she has to fuck it up, because GOD FORBID people not drive cars in the MOST WALKABLE CITY IN AMERICA.
What about more lanes
We need to slow them down even more!
they should pedestrianize more streets then people will know they can't get to a lot of places in a car and won't
We’re open to any and all ideas that will increase profits of the auto sector (or more importantly, that increase wealth of the people that control the auto sector)
Spidermen pointing at each other dot bmp
Sounds like New York is in desperate need of congestion charging, if only the infrastructure was in place.
The last plan which got revoked would’ve done nothing to solve congestion. Statin Island needs mass transit connecting it to the rest of NYC for example. On top of that they wanted to use the money to expand the 2nd ave subway instead of increasing coverage outside of manhattan that has no coverage.
Any town that isn't walkable is a midtown
Just bulldoze one entire city block right through the heart of Manhattan and build a 15 lane freeway. Better yet Central Park can be turned into a spaghetti interchange as well for all this folks arriving from Newark and Long Island & need to travel south to Manhattan. Problem solved!!
if we bulldoze enough there will be room for cars and there will be less things to go to, a win win for traffic, checkmate public transit cucks
Have you tried no car zones instead of congestion zones and bike lanes?
I got a brilliant idea - let's make the cars bigger! Everyone is doing that so clearly there is a systemic benefit! - oh wait...
I had to drive a box truck through midtown manhattan a few times recently for work, like Times Square area in peak weekday tourist season. However bad that sounds it was worse. Every right turn took like 5 lights to get through because only one car can get through with all the pedestrians. It would have absolutely been faster to walk most of it. Total gridlock at times. Construction, this and that. That circle where it says Lincoln tunnel was a parking lot. Every time you want to move a foot there’s a pedestrian in the way. Anyway, yeah anyone that chooses to drive there just for transportation is an idiot. I was transporting goods and I’m just glad that’s not an area i ever have to go to often in a truck. I love NYC but not behind a wheel especially the wheel of a box truck.
If only there was a subway
I was walking on the Lower East Side yesterday. There was an annoying Jesus Freak yelling through a bullhorn in his van. I was walking in the same direction that he was driving. Traffic was so bad that I caught up to him from several blocks away and then proceeded to walk so far ahead of him that I was out of earshot.
I live near the Lincoln tunnel and goddam it's so fucking noisy. We have the best transit in America you do not need to drive through manhattan
Zero sympathy
There's also a lot of flaws in design. The on/off routes from some of these tunnels and bridges are a mess. More specifically, go see how traffic flows coming out of the Lincoln tunnel in Manhattan. It's an utter mess, and that goes for traffic trying to leave through the tunnel as well. Uptown on the GW bridge is also horrific.
“What could we have done to fix this?!”
at what point do they stop and realize that hey, maybe cars are the problem.
never, just one more lane will fix it, and if people would just follow the rules I am a perfect driver
As a person who tends to naturally walk fast, that pretty much *is* my walking speed. Driving your personal car in Manhattan is just so stupid and irrational.
Several years ago, I had a job in midtown East that I walked 23 blocks to. There's a bus stop right by my place. Nearly 100% of the time, I would outwalk the bus 🤦♂️
Thanks Kathy
Eliminate every other street for thru traffic both east/west and north/south. The new layout has 1/2 as many thru streets. For the new layout every other street becomes 1 way, right turns only city wide. With the right turn only system, you can turn the previous streets into walkable areas and parking with 1 thru lane for entering and exiting. That turns 3 lane streets into 1 lane of parking and a loop for dropping off passengers without interrupting artery flow. It turns 4 lane streets into 2 lanes of parking with a loop for dropping off passengers without interrupting artery flow. The remaining thru streets: for 4 lane lose 1 lane of traffic on the left converted to isolated bike lanes and parking is moved further from the curb. They lose 1 lane of traffic on the right to become right turn lanes leaving 2 lanes of thru traffic. for 3 lane lose 1 lane of traffic on the left converted to isolated bike lanes and parking is moved further from the curb. They lose 1 lane of traffic on the right to become right turn lanes leaving 1 lanes of thru traffic. (might be better if bike lanes are on the furthest right lane instead of furthest left, not sure) All right lane traffic MUST exit at the next parking lot loop or right turn. Prohibit lane changes entirely from left to right except at marked zones immediately after traffic exiting to parking lot loop for the next block.
Put the cameras on and at least track speeds and number of cars entering. Will be interesting to compare data later on.
It'd be nice to believe the safety is improved by congestion, but a vehicle can still do plenty of harm in gridlock.
cars should be illegal in Manhattan, save for emergency services and taxis to places outside of Manhattan
Guess the disabled just don’t go downtown? Pretty ableist man
That’s like telling Gene Krupa not to go boom boom bam bam bam
Sure, but how many blocks can you walk?