17 Years, $700M Wasted: The Collapse of NYC's Traffic Moonshot | Hacker News Reader

17 Years, $700M Wasted: The Collapse of NYC's Traffic Moonshot

wsj.com

12 pointsimpish920817 comments

> average travel speed in Midtown fell to 4.5 miles an hour in May, the lowest ever recorded for the month. 2024, he said, is on pace to be the worst year ever for traffic congestion.

American politics are holding the country back. Suburban areas are holding larger populations hostage.

We are facing a multitude of problems (ie, abortion, O&G regulation, climate change reversal) that see very little progress because of vocal minorities/gerrymandering.

I’m not sure this is a NIMBY issue though. This is downstream of poor structural incentives for anything that could generate negative PR to happen in an election year. And thats less about voting precincts and more about career politicians.

Responding to your other point, what people don’t understand is that for American politics to work you have to be okay globally with a checked oppression of minority viewpoints. The system doesn't work if every squeaky wheel has to be greased. And lately we seem to be spending our political and social capital protecting even the smallest minorities instead of taking big problems and working together to solve them on a state and country scale.

https://archive.is/bfOdn

The project will most probably be reactivated. To think that a govt will forgo that kind of income (and control - all those cameras and LP reads) is unrealistic. A year from now it'll be up and running. In fact, it actually might be running already, just not charging. This is quite common in the tolling world, to run a few billing cycles at first without sending out invoices.

Due to the antagonistic nature of NYC vs State politics, I could see this never being restarted.

Awww. All those grumpy people who now cannot spend money they were going to steal from others. Am I the only one who feels these (or any) tolls go against the right to freely travel?

> the right to freely travel

No such thing.

He sort of has the right to use what he's paid for — his car.

He'll feel good about missing the things to be paid for with those $15B though. That only affects his ability to do things. If he wants ability, he has to think about how to pay for the things, and "don't pay" isn't an option if he wants the ability.

You don’t have a right to use your car on public roads just because you paid for it. You get a driver’s license which is quite regulated.

Generally roads funded with public money in the US don’t become toll roads. Congestion isn’t only a problem in NYC. Imagine if every once public road became a public toll road. Something feels off about that even though I’m bullish on using market economics to solve civil problems like transit and parking.

If you were to poll a thousand Americans a question such as "if you buy a car, do you have a right to use it on public roads?", how many per cent do you think would say yes? I'd guess >50%.

While I personally think the correct answer is no (IMO NY voters get to decide on that via city government), the opinion of the majority isn't something one should disregard.

You do not have a right to paved roads. I don't believe there would be any constitutional barricade to NYC closing every one of it's public roads and selling the land to private owners.

As an NYC resident I was literally just looking forward to fewer cars. That's an end unto itself. If the program successfully discouraged enough drivers to earn no income, then that's an optimal result.

Genuinely curious— how would you prefer to fund maintenance for roads and other infrastructure?

> The right to freely travel

You would need to change that to "the right to freely travel by any method of my choosing" for your point to stand. If you don't believe in the right to commute by tank, it's pretty easy to see that some communities may not extend a right to freely travel by car.

there is no right to freely travel. you can’t walk in the middle of the street and you can’t drive your car on the sidewalk. there are rules governing where you can go and how you can get there everywhere. and anyway if you take a car into manhattan during rush hour you won’t be freely traveling, you’ll be stuck in traffic not going anywhere

Like 99% of Canada for example is totally open for anyone to freely travel. But you’d probably eventually die of dysentery. I think where this daydream breaks is the implicit desire to freely travel on land that’s been developed and maintained.

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