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Comment by hourislate | Hacker News Reader

How do people feel on a congestion fee for sidewalks. Too many people on sidewalks in NYC making them almost unusable. If you want to walk on a sidewalk during the busiest times you should pay a congestion fee. Why would we stop at just roads?

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> Too many people on sidewalks in NYC making them almost unusable

One, pedestrian congestion doesn't exhibit traffic congestion's negative externalities. (You have to get to trampling-risk densities before that occurs.)

Two, "sidewalk passes" have no precedent. Congestion pricing has lots of precedent [1].

Three, this is a problem getting attention [2]. America has spent decades throwing lanes at traffic. Not all of that was a waste. Similar effort has yet to broadly benefit pedestrians.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing

[2] https://www.thevillager.com/2019/04/grassroots-group-calls-f...

The area around Penn station reaches trampling risk densities five days a week.

Funnily enough, the area around Penn station allocates nearly 80% of the space there to cars, which carry only a tiny fraction of the people traveling through daily. For anyone not familiar with the Penn area, check out this Streetfilms video to get an idea of how lopsided the street allocation is: https://vimeo.com/268616894.

Because 20 people can and do fit into the same space that a single SUV occupied by one person takes up trawling for a fare through Midtown, yet 70+ percent of the streetscape is allocated to accommodate that SUV.

Also keep in mind pedestrians have to share space with sidewalk planters, outdoor seating, trash bags, and many times, cars parked partially on the sidewalk, making the usable walking space less than 10% of the size of the total street space, yet still allowing exponentially more people to move faster than the cars the street was designed for.

NYC sidewalks are only congested because 90% of street space is dedicated to cars. On 6th avenue near 42nd, there is 5 feet of sidewalk space that thousands of people have to squeeze onto, while cars enjoy a 6 lane highway totaling 70 feet.

Why do cars need a 6 lane road through the middle of the busiest pedestrian neighborhood in the world?

Well, considering that the streets were for walking and drivers stole them, that seems a tad unfair.

Here's what they looked like before: http://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/c/c/3/a/cc3a56fafeaa6119/S...

For one, the crowded NYC sidewalks are at least partially caused by the sidewalk narrowing efforts to make room for cars: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2016/07/01/the-new-york-of-2016-...

Walking is the most efficient mode of transportation, with regards to space used. The problem of crowded sidewalks is relieved by expanding the sidewalks at the cost of space for cars.

My understanding is that these are not "congestion fees", but "pollution fees". They are there to make air less unhealthy, not to make traffic more fluid.

You are getting lots of comments, but the most obvious reason is that the act of driving on a road degrades it much faster than walking on a sidewalk. Thus, it needs to be repaired more frequently. Increase the number of cars and the frequency of repair (i.e. costs) increases.

Passenger cars cause virtually zero damage to city streets. All of the degradation comes from heavier vehicles.

They do kill people tho

Two reasons would be that ealking doesn't pollute and is healthy activity.

Seems easier to widen the sidewalks by taking away a car lane.

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