Restricting Manhattan’s 14th street to buses has been a success
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
The core issue is simply that cars physically take up too much space on the road, and move too few passengers.
This simple physics problem can be solved solved with 19th century solutions as NYC has here. Make exclusive room for buses, which are dramatically more space efficient than cars. Problem solved.
Otherwise, I agree -- cars take up too much room, especially when there's just one or two people in them. And I like bus lanes, but I think per-vehicle traffic pricing is a better idea, because it achieves the "densification incentive" in a way that also works for carpooling and private bus-like modes.
And before someone says it's regressive, a toll is less onerous than a ban, which is what bus-only lanes are. And (way off topic) I think if income taxes are progressive enough then other types of taxation don't need to be -- and probably shouldn't be, if their purpose is to price externalities.
If the bus is to be dependable, it needs to arrive on time, and that means that the lane in front of it needs to be free. Consistently free — the bus past my house stops 20 times, so that's 20 points at which the bus needs to be on time on order to be seen as dependable. The bus needs to drive at the same speed every day, and even be able to drive a little faster.
You can either regard the free asphalt as "spare capacity" or regard it as being used by the bus that's not visible right now, but will pass by in a minute or two.
Perhaps it's more correct to say that the free asphalt is being used by the route schedule than the vehicle itself.
The result is NYC has 2 highways going up and down it's waterfront when it could have focused on integrating it's city on the rivers as opposed to using them to funnel cars into Manhattan.
The ground is amenable to tunnels. We should be getting rid of the flyovers.
The public are vehemently against more busways while also complaining about how congestion on Gympie Road, Lytton Road and Wynnum Road are constantly getting worse. It all really beggers belief.
We continue to throw money on making roads bigger but it doesn't help, all it means is more and more people move to the other end before the status quo reaches equilibrium again, and the cycle of road works starts again. This of courst assumes the road works ever finish. I'm looking at you, Kingsmith Drive, Mudeergaba Exit on the Gold Coast. All the while we're saying there's less commuters using public transport year on year than ever before.
This is a surprise to no one if you notice busses take an hour to travel 8km when you're contending with gridlocked cars for the entire distance.
Less you purchase a moped or a motorcycle and join me and the 2 Wheel Nomads that Brisbane's starting to enjoy.
The article is behind a pay wall, I'm not sure how to get around it.
https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2...
Can any HNers from Japan or Singapore chime in here. Is traffic congestion common in your country’big cities given you have some of the worlds best public transportation infrastructure?
Also having been in for example Singapore and Manila there are major differences. (Singa's better)
Unfortunately the side effect is, the drivers feels entitled and drive like they own the roads (well, since they paid for it!)
I live a block away from this area, and it's completely transformed the neighborhood. It's much safer to walk across 14th st. There are many shops in the area that seem to be getting more foot traffic (no data behind this). There are more people congregating around the bench/sitting areas around 14th street.
The streets are a public good and they should be for cyclists and pedestrians.
That said, IDK if it’s a resounding success. There may be measures by which it is, I’m just not aware.
For example, I found it difficult as a pedestrian and saw a few collisions and lots of near misses between bikes and pedestrians. The planters create a nice protected area which feels like it’s safe for walking and crossing. But the bikes were moving quickly and quite unyielding in their perceived right-of-way.
When we were there, there was definitely other challenges. There were terrible traffic jams - especially going into the city. It seems like a lot of traffic needs to go through the city to get somewhere else. It didn’t seem like they had adequate public transportation.
Makes snowplowing a mess. NYC can’t just shutdown like Vancouver does every time it snows :)
I don't think it's a big deal because we don't really get a lot of snow in NYC. A plan to improve the 50 weeks a year without snow on the ground is better than not doing the plan because a couple weeks in February will be miserable.
The Pacific moderates a lot better than the Atlantic!
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2010/12/ultimate-bike-lane-snow...
Not to mention those who could not afford them even if they wanted them. I won’t even touch social issues related to hierarchies of disability.
You know what works for everyone though? Dropping the pretender that everyone “needs” personal transport and embracing accessible transit and the infrastructure that requires and offers.
For those who cannot walk but also somehow cannot use a motorized wheelchair but can use a car? I am not sure who would fall into this group of people, but it has to be extremely small. We should be able to find some form of accommodation for them.
As for people who cannot afford a wheelchair or other accessibility device? I think we should fund these for people, using public funds. It's the most humane thing to do, as it provides for the greatest potential autonomy, which I think everyone has a right to.
Something to keep in mind, the New York City subway is by and large not wheelchair accessible! They're trying to improve it, but there's just a lot of old, small stations. I've also seen wheelchairs physically unable to fit into train cars when it's crowded.
NYC right now is just a really bad place to live if you're not able bodied. I actually think giving partially-exclusive access to the roads might be the best solution.
They could do it gradually and add public streetcars to main thoroughfares, but the way things are now, it would not work to straight up ban cars today.
Not to mention the many buses that most wealthy people ignore. No need for public streetcars when you already have buses that will be running quite ahead of schedule, as seen with 14th street :)
I'm for gradually removing for other reasons, but the size is not the prohibitive factor.
An alternative could be running power lines over the roads and making buses electric.
After that if it continues to work out, streetcars absolutely make sense. Basically just doubling the subway lines at that point. Probably ideal to cover crosstown first across places like 14th, through Central Park, 34th, 116th, 125th, Canal, and Houston, and then you can sure up the avenues with streetcars, probably starting with Harlem through the upper east side. What a fun project to imagine honestly wow.
You mean past 60th.
Also, the outer buroughs have plenty of subway inaccessible places. And other than Harlem, that's where working class New Yorkers live.
> You mean past 60th
Yeah I counted the park busses in my head, but again, still good bus coverage. At least the worst case from 60-100 is literally a walk in the park.
There's also the option of keeping things like FDR and Henry Hudson open and having a few concentrated parking hubs for those commuters as well. You're right, those cases need to be accounted for. And no matter what this won't solve the lack of coverage in the outer boroughs, but a solution there will take a ton of money politicians won't spend on non-wealthy donors.
> What's stopping them from leaving a car just off the island and using public transit on it?
You end up with the expenses of a car commute with the reliability, cost, and flexibility of a train commute. It probably has the costs of both commutes put together.
Actually having dependable bus routes in outer burroughs would help. My vote would be for chartering private bus routes, but I'm not sure how politically viable that would be.
That way, for any of those stubborn and wealthy enough who refuse to use public transit, we can direct all funds generated to improving public transit -- not just reliability and frequency, but also line expansions and remodeling the deteriorating stations and upgrading train/bus interiors to create a first-class transit experience for the rest of us and to finally prioritize public transit correctly in the US.
Singapore already operates a similar (but stricter and broader) scheme: https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/31/asia/singapore-cars/index.htm....
for efficiency and traffic calming, narrow the car lane to 9-10 ft wide (rather than the typical 11-12 ft in the US), but leave 11-12 ft wide lanes for buses (and emergency vehicles). 6-8 ft bike lanes allows 2-abreast biking/scootering. widen sidewalks and plant trees along all of them. there should be no free street parking, except for the disabled (and maybe temporary commercial use), limited to side streets rather than major thoroughfares.
i'm cheering for LA to do this, with it's awesome weather, endlessly-wide streets, and bad and worsening traffic.
That seems to hand the shared public resource to the wealthy. (Regardless of whether you envision the revenue being used to someday provide a comparably attractive option for the non-wealthy.)
Congestion exemptions for disabled transporters and other social goods can be enacted to eliminate the regressive risk of congestion pricing.
2. If rich people can zoom around the city much faster than poor people, then rich people have more of this right than poor people. Not good.
3. Crucial to this argument is that the price is prohibitive in nature, and that transit by car is a rivalrous good. So other rights, such as easy access to food, don't fall so easily to this argument because poor people can still buy nutritious food from their wages, even if rich people can buy more expensive and better food.
Markets heavily bias in favour of the richest consumer.
If we could entice people to get out of their cars and politicians to drastically increase public investment in transit, then yes, congestion pricing wouldn’t be necessary at all — but in general that hasn’t been the case, and nothing in recent history points to this paradigm shift happening on its own.
I believe this issue is in many ways one of prioritization and balance, and right now the status quo is already cutting off some of the most vulnerable demographics from this “shared public resource.”
And I'm assuming, possibly over-optimistically, that "no cars" doesn't include ambulances and police cars and fire trucks and so on.
And I'm also assuming, almost definitely over-optimistically, that people who have jobs where they may get called in for emergencies at all hours of the day or night will get ultra-special Manhattan driving licenses. After all, medical people don't live at the hospital when they're on call, and they're not going to.
Would be so awesome.
Areas where before closing for traffic it didn’t make sense to drive anyway because walking is literally faster due to narrow streets, too many cars, etc. I don’t understand why people choose to drive there unless someone explicitly tells them they can’t.
2. As for carrying, based on my experience of living in a walkable neighbourhood where thousands of people lived within a kilometer of the central shopping area, a lot of people would bring carts that they would push their groceries home in. If you can push a small wheeled grocery cart through the total 100 meter aisles of the grocery store, then you can push a big wheeled cart the 1000 meter to your house on the sidewalk. Given that I often saw 80 year olds doing that, most healthy people should also be able to do it, no problem.
Buss volume scales with funding and political will with upfront costs and delayed realized benefits. Generally supply is outstripped by demand.
Personal conveyance volume does not appear to have any of these limiting factors. And has terrible demonstrated density.
Once private cars are off the road, busses and trucks would spend less time in traffic. That increases their economic yield, which in turn, makes a gradual electrification mandate economically feasible.
https://www.iwillride.org/what-200-people-look-like-driving-...
I'm sure Manhattan would become very pleasant for those who could still afford to live there.
[0] (Suppose for the sake of argument my preference for commuting was driving,walking,transit (in that order.) With the option of driving eliminated my second preference would be to walk, which means finding housing closer to my workplace in Manhattan.)
Why?
And we recover all that wasted space on roads to build parks and a lot more housing.
I don’t know where you live, but NYC is very different than the rest of the U.S. when it comes to transportation. In NYC, only around half of people own a car (in Manhattan it’s even less: around a quarter).
Cabs are like cars, except more expensive, and they drive around without anyone using them for transport looking for business. Why are they superior?
I'm picking on this example not because I think that list is meant to be complete or perfectly thought out, but because cabs often seem to get exceptions like this (e.g. in HOV lanes) and I really don't understand why. It basically seems like a "I'm rich enough to pay someone to do my driving for me" exception.
(Well, they do, but it's out in my neighborhood in queens.)
Ambulances cover the medically injured. Buses cover normal strictly time regimented use.
A simple scenario: my son has been injured at home and I need to immediately get home or to the hospital. The bus may take far too long depending. That's an example of an urgent need for singular transport.
Of course, once cabs are available, people will use them for convenience rather than the valid reasons. I don't have a solution for this, but I think the valid reasons are strong enough that cabs should be allowed in cities where private cars are banned/strongly discouraged.
I moved to Manhattan last year, and while there some things I've been annoyed about, it wouldn't have occurred to me to put "cars" on that list. I didn't bring my car here, and having driven a rental a couple times in the city, it's hard for me to imagine why anyone drives here if they don't have to: the experience as a driver is far, far worse than as a pedestrian.
Look at some of “urban plazas” [1] that have replaced short sections of road and witness how much more peaceful and open the city can feel when roads are removed in favor of people. Or, go down to 14th St. I was there this past week and it was wonderful—so much quieter and more open, and buses were moving smoothly.
[1] http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/list-of-plazas.pdf
> The thought of how pleasant Manhattan would become if only cabs + busses + delivery trucks + ambulances were allowed makes me almost too happy.
was the part that made no sense. Cabs are at least as noisy and air-quality-deficient as other cars, and there will be a lot more of them if other cars are banned from some large part of Manhattan.
As a pedestrian (which is every day), I've never felt as threatened by cars as I did when I was driving a rental in NYC, which happened only a couple times.
- UPS already uses natural gas and often hybrid electric
- Prius-es are common as cabs (often lower tco)
"The MTA and Department of Transportation announced Monday that beginning July 1, private cars will be banned along 14th Street from Third to Ninth Avenues from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m."
"It’s part of the MTA’s plan to increase bus service while repairs continue on the L train."
[1] https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/06/11/commuter-alert-most-...
I want this to be true. I support this policy decision. I don’t own a car, live in NY, and want to see the streets reclaimed from drivers. Love it.
But if someone declared this experiment a terrible failure after /several days/ I would laugh and say, “please wait a bit so we can examine some real data.”
Please, urbanists, consider waiting a bit before calling this “a phenomenal success.” Let’s have some evidentiary standards.
It may be early yet, but realistically, what catastrophes do you foresee that wouldn't have come by now?
That's just a few events I thought of off the top of my head. That doesn't cover the normal ebb and flow of activity in the city - it's pretty busy around Thanksgiving and Christmas, and dead in February, and a zoo in the summertime. How do all those things affect this? What happens when school is out? What happens during shopping season? What happens in heat waves or during snowstorms?
The point is, a lot of different things can happen in the city on pretty annual cycle, and declaring this a success even after a month is pretty silly and potentially very costly.
People who know more statistics better than I do could provide a more analytical description, but basically given the results so far, the likelihood of a "failure" (for whatever definition the city has chosen) is extremely low.
Cities are rebuilt all the time. My city now invest heavily into bike lanes reducing the number of car lanes from 2 to 1 and replacing them by bike lanes. That is a choice, which can be made every year by any city.
Getting rid of cars is a good thing, let's hope we get rid of them in inner cities before electrics take over and rob us of that chance. The pollution caused by cars is one of the main drivers of getting rid of them, if that reason is dealt with then it will be much harder to marshal the forces required to see this through.
Things change over time. It's never too late to reverse that painful legacy, and this 14th St. project is but the first step.
At the same time we sometimes do want to or have to travel outside the city. I’m not really sure how that would work in a car free city.
Jokes aside, yes, I really hope this is the beginning of the end of cars in Manhattan. When it was announced I was thrilled: here was the perfect flash point to grow the anti-car movement in NYC. Now we have to deliver.
Many cities already successfully pulled this off and this method received far more popular support than just cutting off car traffic and expecting the people to "deal with it" without having good options.
1. You can't take away personal car access; the public transportation sucks! Make it better, first.
2. You can't improve public transportation; everybody drives so it's not a good cost investment. Get more people to ride transit, first.
3. Goto 1
You collect the returns after you invest. Otherwise almost any initiative would get bogged down into your 3 point loop. When companies build a new HQ they don't tear down the old one first. The "loop" is a fake conundrum.
For example, in western Washington, we've repeatedly voted to tax ourselves for transit. Our regional leaders had to push, prod, and beg our state elected leaders to pass laws permitting us to have those votes. (Meanwhile, road projects sail through.) Yet, more often than not, we've voted yes. But in November, through our tediously broken initiative system, the entire state will get to vote on whether to repeal our locally-approved taxing authority because a political shyster likes running bumper-sticker-politics campaigns on $30 car tabs because "nobody uses transit."
You're right that the "loop" need not happen and often doesn't in most circumstances but people are very persnickety about transportation and their deity-granted right to park their vehicle on a free street directly in front of their place of residence.
Edit: look at Seoul or Tokyo, with some of the best subway systems in the world, maybe the best. People still drive cars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Line_(MBTA)#Rolling_sto....
Boston's T (1897) is just a year younger than Budapest's Metro.
Data has shown that businesses are doing well. Some do better, some the same, some worse (like furniture stores, which is a silly thing to have in a city centre anyway).
There's certainly a growing preference for car-free cities. Seems to me like younger people prefer it. Not just because they don't have cars.. I do now, but I really don't like to use it in the city. My wife and I take it to the closest metro station with free parking, and take the metro the rest of the way. Much less stressful.
Seems to me like it is mostly old people who are opposed to banning cars. When they were young, the cities were not as dense, cars not as prevalent, and people didn't care as much about air pollution. They could drive straight into the city centre and park wherever. They don't want to give up on that, even if it means being stuck in traffic and driving around the city centre for half an hour to find a free parking spot. It's an inconvenience they've gotten used to. But the inconveniences of public transportation? Unbearable!
It is a very common sight to see people in my neighborhood get on a bus with one of those square rolling carts with a week's (or more) worth of groceries. I've considered doing the same thing but between my spouse and I, we can fit everything we want in our two backpacks and two to three reusable handle bags.
Lots of how we run society is for the collective good. Strangely, transportation seems to be the opposite. We subsidize the hell out of individual transport while minimizing collective, more efficient transport. What most of us who advocate for public / group transport want is for those to be more even.
Movement of all but the rarest, large items is not a problem.
This appears to be a solved problem.
We notice, and hate it every time we visit the relatives down there. "Start breathing crap" kicks in around Hendon.
A universal diesel ban (including public transport) would go a long way to improving air quality IMO. There are viable electric buses, but apparently the way TfL runs it's contracts means it is not commercially viable for bus companies to use EV buses (due to requiring new vehicles on new contracts, but the contracts not being long enough to recoup the costs of EV buses Vs cheaper diesel)
Unfortunately the black cab unions have TfL by the balls so they'll never ban them (just like how black cabs are somehow exempt from ULEZ)
Yes EV vehicles still create brake and tyre particles, but EVs use brake pads less, and I'd rather have just the brake pad and tyre particles to deal with, rahlther than brake, tyre AND diesel particulates.
As London taxi licenses expire after 15 years, the last diesel cabs will be gone by the end of 2032. But given how many electrics there already are, in practice the vast majority will be electric long before then.
I agree that more needs to be done about buses. We are starting to see some electric buses, but they're not being rolled out fast enough. TfL needs to stop buying new diesel buses immediately.
Exempting cabs from the ULEZ is bizarre and unforgivable. It could have been a perfect push to electric.
It was entirely counter-productive, slower than cycling, expensive and just about zero chance of convenient parking. After one or two attempts, I left it at home and took the train down each week.
That is the tip of the iceberg for problems with cars.
And yet, you can't see why cars are a problem? I don't believe you.
You can’t count the negative and ignore all the positives.
and
> Traffic deaths are now the leading cause of death globally for those between the ages of 5 and 29.
> Pedestrian deaths are up 51.5 percent since hitting a low of 4,109 in 2009, according to GHSA. They now make up 16 percent of all road deaths, up from 12 percent in 2009.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/02/28/pedestr...
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffi...
It just doesn't extrapolate to anywhere else in the country particularly well. Even Boston is a shit-show without cars, and that is another dense, old, East Coast city with legacy public transit, albeit much less well designed.
It's a complete non-starter most places.
People often forget this fact but the vast majority of cities east of the Mississippi in the U.S. developed without cars for most of their existence. Streetcars were the name of the game until the 1950s, after which personal car ownership was heavily pushed and subsidized by the government after bending to the will of GM, Ford, and Chrysler.
The entire idea of designing our cities around car ownership and the single-family household is extraordinarily new and unnatural. There's nothing prohibiting us from creating density in these post-WWII cities; just look at Denver or Portland and their massive successes with public transit and upzoning.