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Comment by notatoad | Hacker News Reader

is round-trip bus or train fare into the city higher or lower than $15/day? it seems like if they can just make the car a higher marginal cost per day than transit, that should do a lot.

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Yes, round-trip bus and train fare work out to lower than $15 per day by a pretty large margin. If you were to only go into the city and out via subway/train i.e. two rides a day it would work out closer to around $6 per day which is already lower than the $15 cost which also doesn't include cost of gas and parking making it likely much higher of a cost for cars. Of course many people take the train many more times than that per week but thats where OMNY comes in with a per week maximum cost for using transit.

If you use OMNY there is a max you can be charged per week. Essentially all rides are free after your 12th ride per 7 day period. Since the cost of a ride on busses or subway is $2.90 that works out to a max of ~$35 per week for unlimited rides all over the city via train or bus.

I don't live in NYC anymore, but when I did I could never imagine owning a car given the financial burden not being justifiable, but obviously those that do have one are likely in a much higher tax bracket than I am, or are going there for business purposes.

This is per car and bus/train/subway are per person.

a huge portion of car trips are made with only one person in the car, so it's still a fair comparison for all those trips.

Average amount of people in the car during rush hours is 1.3.

It depends where you are taking the train from. I know of a lot of places in New Jersey where the train fare is a lot more than $6/person.

Thats true, there is a very large population of people who commute into the city from other areas where these same prices may not apply. But I still think the cost of parking alone would likely be larger than the cost of transit.

Where are you getting round trip tickets for $6/day from locations which would normally drive in?

Taking NJT one way is $6.75 for me. I also need to take a subway into the office (@$2.75/ride) to make it in on time so $19/day. One could buy a monthly pass at $184/mo or move to somewhere with PATH but for most people dropping $184/month is a lot of money for train tickets and most people who live in NJ need a car for life in NJ.

I don't think this is a good state of things. It would be great if we had plans to expand PATH or increase service times of NJT or build more housing next to NJT/PATH that normal people could afford but all of these seem very unlikely.

> and most people who live in NJ need a car for life in NJ

As someone who lives in NJ, I'd very much like to see this change. There's a ton of things within easy biking distance of my house, but no safe way to get there. Some decent bike infrastructure would go a long way.

You are correct, I was talking about people who live in the city whereas most who may consider a car don't. But I literally did know a few people who lived in the city and drove a car.

I do still think that for most others near public transit it would still net less costly to use that than to drive given cost of parking and gas on top of these new fees.

Driving is already likely a lot more expensive, so yeah I'm suggesting that if drivers have already made that decision as is I don't see another $15/day being a huge difference maker.

Monthly garage parking in midtown is like $800/month.

If you get a monthly pass, it is not.

However, this $15 charge is a floor. If you commute into the city by car, you're paying for parking and gas (if driving ICE) as well.

It’s like $5.80 (2.90 each way iirc) assuming you don’t have to leave one station to get to another. As long as you’re behind the turnstiles you don’t have to pay again (for trains)

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