v***@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com
2009-02-12 01:44:51 UTC
*+->> Here's one suggestion: Ask drivers to start paying tolls on the
*+->> bridges that cross the Harlem and East Rivers.
*+->
*+-> When the subway starts charging extra for trips across the same
*+-> waterways.....
People mistrust uniform crossing tolls as a hidden tax increase; So
promise revenue neutrality: Lower the existing tolls to pay back what
you make by raising other tolls. "Private" busses had off-peak rates
before they got fully socialised. I agree you have to apply
congestion pricing on both transit and vehicles, and that you have to
graduate it more finely than just two time zones.
(Reminder of my older post)
Congestion pricing is a misnomer. This is a vendetta on automobiles. And
it is the kind of thinking that puts this mayor on the same trash heap of
history as Jimmy Carter and the metric system. It cuts too wide a swath to
be legitimate congestion pricing. LIRR peak/off is congestion pricing, and
if you are fair, it should apply to transit fares as well to induce employers
to stagger work hours. Why are you building new convention centers if you
penalise people for going to them? They will become abandoned ruins
commemorating the silliness of urban verminage. I wonder how, if he has not
been able to get the much simpler plan of equalising bridge and tunnel tolls,
how he will succeed in this. I know plenty of people who drive an extra
fifteen minutes to avoid tolls. I could, however, change my mind if there
was a reduced charge in the 10am-2pm zone, and mass transit also had
congestion pricing.
A major fraction of the traffic is caused by folks whose original or final
destination is NOT Manhattan. A crosstown highway or tunnel linking the two
midtown under-river tunnels seems imperative. If we can build one more Hudson
tunnel, then we can build one under land, given the new tunneling machines
available.
As the next worse cause of congestion is hovering, we should study how
zoning laws encouraging the creation of public spaces might not be used to
also encourage hovering in such spaces instead of busy streets. You could
also reduce the charge for hybrid vehicles, not because it would effect
congestion, but because they are ideally suited to idling in Manhattan.
In 1991 I came back from Japan and agitated in favor of emulating their
pedestrian overpasses on 57th & 34th. But today we have found a cheaper, more
innovative solution: crossing pedestrians mid-block. Do you remember how
folks dressed up as cattle when this was first proposed? We need more of this
kind of innovation. The biggest reason things don't get done in this town is
folks insist on getting everything their way, instead of compromising.
Another thing to consider (more to do with jaywalking and pedestrian
traffic, but quite relevant): When you make a mess on a sidewalk due to
construction, you should have to pay to close the sidewalk down. But if other
people on your side of the street also want to do work, they should pay a
reduced rate. The goal would be to force the disturbances to cluster so
pedestrians can cross and stay on the other side. With this kind of
incentive, hopefully, folks would arbitrage the penalties and wait so all the
disturbances would take place on the same block side
simultaneously. Similarly, I once lost an express bus (you know they don't
run frequently) on a crowded Rockefeller Ctr street because some street
vendor was using a garbage can as his place of business and no one who move
so I could catch the bus which was only two yards away.
Traffic Troubles By JOHN FALCOCCHIO [nysun.com April 13, 2007 professor of
transportation engineering at Brooklyn Poly] four key contributors that
should be considered in determining the policy strategy needed for Manhattan:
(1) Traffic lanes, especially curb lanes, are often used by vehicles stopped
or standing, thus creating bottleneck conditions. (2) Cruising for customers
generates half of all taxi mileage. (3) About 30% of traffic entering
Manhattan below 59th Street is going through and not to Manhattan. For Canal
Street, through-traffic can get as high as 40%. (4) About 10% of the traffic
in Manhattan is generated by drivers cruising for a curb parking space..
focus on improving traffic mobility through traffic engineering improvements
and more efficient enforcement of curb lane regulations; developing new
regulations limiting taxi cruising, and implementing congestion pricing
techniques that specifically discourage both through-trips and cruising by
drivers searching for a parking space
- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
[Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
[Urb sprawl confounds terror] [Remorse begets zeal] [Windows is for Bimbos]
*+->> bridges that cross the Harlem and East Rivers.
*+->
*+-> When the subway starts charging extra for trips across the same
*+-> waterways.....
People mistrust uniform crossing tolls as a hidden tax increase; So
promise revenue neutrality: Lower the existing tolls to pay back what
you make by raising other tolls. "Private" busses had off-peak rates
before they got fully socialised. I agree you have to apply
congestion pricing on both transit and vehicles, and that you have to
graduate it more finely than just two time zones.
(Reminder of my older post)
Congestion pricing is a misnomer. This is a vendetta on automobiles. And
it is the kind of thinking that puts this mayor on the same trash heap of
history as Jimmy Carter and the metric system. It cuts too wide a swath to
be legitimate congestion pricing. LIRR peak/off is congestion pricing, and
if you are fair, it should apply to transit fares as well to induce employers
to stagger work hours. Why are you building new convention centers if you
penalise people for going to them? They will become abandoned ruins
commemorating the silliness of urban verminage. I wonder how, if he has not
been able to get the much simpler plan of equalising bridge and tunnel tolls,
how he will succeed in this. I know plenty of people who drive an extra
fifteen minutes to avoid tolls. I could, however, change my mind if there
was a reduced charge in the 10am-2pm zone, and mass transit also had
congestion pricing.
A major fraction of the traffic is caused by folks whose original or final
destination is NOT Manhattan. A crosstown highway or tunnel linking the two
midtown under-river tunnels seems imperative. If we can build one more Hudson
tunnel, then we can build one under land, given the new tunneling machines
available.
As the next worse cause of congestion is hovering, we should study how
zoning laws encouraging the creation of public spaces might not be used to
also encourage hovering in such spaces instead of busy streets. You could
also reduce the charge for hybrid vehicles, not because it would effect
congestion, but because they are ideally suited to idling in Manhattan.
In 1991 I came back from Japan and agitated in favor of emulating their
pedestrian overpasses on 57th & 34th. But today we have found a cheaper, more
innovative solution: crossing pedestrians mid-block. Do you remember how
folks dressed up as cattle when this was first proposed? We need more of this
kind of innovation. The biggest reason things don't get done in this town is
folks insist on getting everything their way, instead of compromising.
Another thing to consider (more to do with jaywalking and pedestrian
traffic, but quite relevant): When you make a mess on a sidewalk due to
construction, you should have to pay to close the sidewalk down. But if other
people on your side of the street also want to do work, they should pay a
reduced rate. The goal would be to force the disturbances to cluster so
pedestrians can cross and stay on the other side. With this kind of
incentive, hopefully, folks would arbitrage the penalties and wait so all the
disturbances would take place on the same block side
simultaneously. Similarly, I once lost an express bus (you know they don't
run frequently) on a crowded Rockefeller Ctr street because some street
vendor was using a garbage can as his place of business and no one who move
so I could catch the bus which was only two yards away.
Traffic Troubles By JOHN FALCOCCHIO [nysun.com April 13, 2007 professor of
transportation engineering at Brooklyn Poly] four key contributors that
should be considered in determining the policy strategy needed for Manhattan:
(1) Traffic lanes, especially curb lanes, are often used by vehicles stopped
or standing, thus creating bottleneck conditions. (2) Cruising for customers
generates half of all taxi mileage. (3) About 30% of traffic entering
Manhattan below 59th Street is going through and not to Manhattan. For Canal
Street, through-traffic can get as high as 40%. (4) About 10% of the traffic
in Manhattan is generated by drivers cruising for a curb parking space..
focus on improving traffic mobility through traffic engineering improvements
and more efficient enforcement of curb lane regulations; developing new
regulations limiting taxi cruising, and implementing congestion pricing
techniques that specifically discourage both through-trips and cruising by
drivers searching for a parking space
- = -
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
[Homeland Security means private firearms not lazy obstructive guards]
[Urb sprawl confounds terror] [Remorse begets zeal] [Windows is for Bimbos]