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    C.M. AllenBrian Kahn
    4/01/19 2:27pm

    “...access to mass transit and jobs, stores, and recreation opportunities closer to home. More people living a car-free or car-light lifestyle means lower emissions.”

    This is one of the major failings of American urban planning (even if the plan was quite deliberate). Cities are built around the presumption of automotive transportation, so everything is more spread out, and people *have* to use automotive transportation to get around. It allows businesses to condense their offerings into fewer locations, hire fewer staff, etc.

    In older cities, those originally built around *foot* traffic, you have a completely different design for businesses, residential, etc. Everything is nearby and quickly accessible. You don’t need to own or use a vehicle to get around. Because there are so many more businesses catering to those nearby customers, there are also more jobs.

    Megacities are the antithesis of a stable, sustainable society. They are *not* designed for people. They are designed to extract as much profit as possible from as many people as possible for as low a cost as possible. They’re built to be wealth vacuums — siphoning off the value of society’s labor to benefit the few.

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      Zombie CucumberC.M. Allen
      4/01/19 2:35pm

      “Cities are built around the presumption of automotive transportation, so everything is more spread out, and people *have* to use automotive transportation to get around.”

      How can this be true of cities that pre-date the automobile?

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      PVC.M. Allen
      4/01/19 2:52pm

      It would be interesting to see an architectural trend develop in creating living blocks - 3-d spacial representations of everything a small number of people would need to be self-sustainable. So if you think of a living block as being a cube about 500-1000ft on a side, built on the idea that work, education, life, and everything occurs in this block to some extent, then you could easily see that some services that aren’t in one block might be served by an adjacent block. And building these blocks not just along a grid, but also vertically to maximize space use. And then every so often having a bio-block, basically an area where nearby blocks can grow food, have open spaces, etc.

      Oddly enough if we can increase the population density and efficiency of our cities, and build vertically we could easily address a lot of climate related issues. Especially if these blocks are built with the Reuse-Recycle-Repair paradigm and are capable of bio support. We could probably also improve the quality of life for the vast numbers of the inhabitants without much effort.  

      We’d need fusion or a fission energy source to provide enough power, but with such a concept we could probably get away with dedicating 90% of the planet as a nature reserve, and live in the 10 percent we’ve set aside for our cities and infrastructure even up to a population of 100 billion. At that point, heat density becomes the greatest threat to the system. But hopefully it would buy us enough time to build sustainable orbital habitats and create a terrestrial Dyson cloud of a few million O’Neill Cylinder habs in the earth-moon space. Habs that would probably, at best, consume one tenth of one percent of an asteroid like 16 psyche. The mass of 16 psyche, its potential metal content and other associated materials, can build between 4-12 billion O’Neill cylinders sized from B5 all the way up to Island 3.

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    Wolfpack86Brian Kahn
    4/01/19 2:42pm

    Forget CO2 emissions, this could have a huge reduction in street level particulate matter, which when inhaled by pedestrians can cause cancer and asthma. Actual health improvements.

    Nevermind there’s zero reason for anyone to drive a personal car around Lower Manhattan during the day.

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      ExtraDasWolfpack86
      4/01/19 2:53pm

      Except all the people who’s income depends on it.
      Middle class and lower income people.

      But I guess fuck those people. Because Wealthy Urban Vegan Baby might get asthma.

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      WowwhatageniusWolfpack86
      4/01/19 3:15pm

      It’s called “trying to walk with bad knees.”

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    Don VergasBrian Kahn
    4/01/19 2:08pm

    Yeah I really doubt that the money is going to be used to fix the roads.. More like its going to go to politician pockets.. smh.

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      BandersnatchDon Vergas
      4/01/19 2:13pm

      Probably not directly, but I suspect a huge part will go towards paying for the administration of the program.

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      KnightmaskDon Vergas
      4/01/19 2:22pm

      They have to find a way to offset the tax revenue lost due to all the people leaving the state due to the high taxes

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    DonkofkongBrian Kahn
    4/01/19 3:29pm

    Big deal for the planet?

    China has double the carbon emissions of the US and anything companies and cities do to lower the carbon footprint here. This whole thing just seems like a plan for new york to sell its carbon offset credits. 

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      JedinDonkofkong
      4/01/19 4:28pm

      But the average American is still a much bigger polluter than the average Chinese person.

      Source: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions

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      DonkofkongJedin
      4/01/19 6:55pm

      I dont see how that matters when the entire country still doubles our emissions.

      Even if this is the case, this isn’t because they are being green or planet conscientious. This likely comes down more to their ability to own a car like vehicle or a home of their own and things of that nature. Its hard to have a carbon footprint when you aren’t able to own anything that creates one. Little scooters and cramped apartments let you only contribute so much. Yet still, double the US. 

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    Your New FriendBrian Kahn
    4/01/19 3:45pm

    I realize I’m not the main type of driver that’s targeted by this and that I drive into the city infrequently enough that it’s not really for me to complain about, BUT:

    They have to charge and AWFUL LOT to make taking public transit from the middle of Long Island cheaper than driving. An off peak round-trip ticket costs $27.50, which is around what an entire tank of gas costs for my car. Driving to and from my house takes 1/4 a tank of gas. (Forget peak round trip, which is $38.00) If it’s just me travelling off-peak I can swallow the price difference in the name of emissions, but if it’s two or more people it’s just too much.

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      ThidrekrYour New Friend
      4/01/19 7:40pm

      It’s simple: what they want you to do is sell your house and car in the outskirts, then use that money to buy a condo in NYC. The city gets its tax money, while property developers make a killing gouging people who are now stuck within a few mile radius. Absolutely none of this is about making life affordable or convenient.

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      Old Man MosesYour New Friend
      4/02/19 9:11am

      Drive to where it costs less to park than midtown and then take the subway.

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    This account is no longer activeBrian Kahn
    4/01/19 2:33pm

    I’m generally for congestion pricing as a concept, but I have absolutely ZERO faith in New York City and State’s ability to come up with an implementation that is effective and that guarantees that the money will go toward public transit in perpetuity.

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    StarControlBrian Kahn
    4/01/19 3:26pm

    Ahhh a class fight. Because the lower middle, and middle middle class were not already fucked with a big enough dick.

    They’re trying to do the exact same bullshit in LA.

    The poor, poor, well they’ve been super fucked for a long time and they don’t really have a vehicle, so this won’t really affect their terrible lives further.

    And this will have zero impact on the well off, but will create havoc on working folks (especially parents, or even worse single parents) who are already stretched extremely thin.

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      BrillyOceanStarControl
      4/01/19 3:34pm

      What single parents are driving to fucking Manhattan???

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      StarControlBrillyOcean
      4/01/19 3:43pm

      Well Mr/Ms fancy pants/scirt,

      The janitor who cleans your fancy office toilet. The babysitter who’s taking care of your whiny self-entitled brats, the hotel maid picking up your dirty towels, the bellhop lugging your shitty bags that sometimes cost more than they make in a month, the uber driver who’s driving your sorry ass because you’re too lazy to walk 8 blocks, the barista that has to make your morning $10 latte. Shall I go on? You know those modern day slaves that you lead your life and don’t even notice? Yeah, those are single parents that have to get somehow to their job in Manhattan.

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    ElantraMuskBrian Kahn
    4/01/19 2:26pm

    Taxes can be small and raise revenue (highway tolls) or be large and deter actions (think cigarettes) but they cannot be/do both. Sounds more and more like this will funnel money to MTA (which is probably a good thing) but to say it will have any real effect on carbon or congestion is probably wishful thinking.  Curious to see how it goes.

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      KumichoElantraMusk
      4/01/19 2:35pm

      An almost identical plan has done wonders in London.

      Plus, $10/day isn’t exactly small change.  That’s $50/week, or $200/month, more than half of what it would be for a commutation ticket on Metro North (depending on the station).  Add in parking (and wear and tear on your car), and suddenly the math makes it a lot easier to choose mass transit over driving your car in.

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      ElantraMuskKumicho
      4/01/19 2:40pm

      yeah ok so more of a prohibitive tax but then the fear could end up being that so many people are taking MTA that the service has never been worse and the revenues from the tax arent enough to cover it because fewer  and fewer people are paying it.  As a metro north customer I am definitely hoping it works out but MTA doesnt have the best track record

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    HollylujahBrian Kahn
    4/01/19 6:53pm

    Finally! I have been WAITING for the first American city to finally break free from the whiny-driver lobby and put this congestion-pricing thing through, already. It’s been how long? Every time it comes up for referendum vote here in SF I vote Yes on it, but we’re way way further from actually accomplishing anything than NYC is.

    I hope they finally ram it through. Break the ice! Our cities need this shit. Among the things that are LONG overdue for drivers to pay us back for every day:

    - the smog they fart on us

    - the parking they take from locals

    - the killings cause by those who refuse to obey red lights and speed limits

    - the money they require for the enforcement of their shitty-ass driving in our city

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    Sergio526Brian Kahn
    4/01/19 2:52pm

    As someone who only goes to the city every once in a while, sometimes for work, usually for leisure, and has never, ever driven there, I’m looking forward to see if this makes an improvement. I remember meeting a customer at their location on 5th ave at 8AM on a Saturday and there wasn’t a single car anywhere on the road for several minutes. A couple of joggers and a bike or two, that was it. I was absolutely blown away, it was a beautiful sight.

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