Looks like an easy afternoon read 🤣🤣

And yet nobody has thought to update the regulations that require these monstrosities to be printed out.

All a scam. They would have included exemptions for full EV cars.

Never heard of a pdf

So they voted on something in 2019 and weren’t actually able to do anything about it until this report was done? Or did all the money go into making this report? I’m generally confused, can someone explain to me?

This is why we can’t have nice things.

So much for saving the environment.

Imagine having to carry that binder back and forth on the train.

Just freaking implement it already!

NYC didn't vote for this. This is being hoisted on the city by the State. Here's hoping it keeps getting delayed and maybe even outright cancelled.

Yet another toll that's going to unfairly burden poor people. If it thins traffic in Lower Manhattan the bulk of cars and trucks going to LI will be pushed to Harlem and the Bronx.

Are you saying that EVs don't cause congestion?

Or imagine being the intern who printed and assembled them?

So weird that the NYS Legislature can't change Federal laws.

> So they voted on something in 2019 and weren’t actually able to do anything about it until this report was done

Yes

No, EVs do not produce carbon emissions from driving.

What are you talking about, of course it voted for congestion pricing. The 2019 plan that was approved by the state was proposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was the duly elected mayor of New York City.

Poor people ride the subway and the bus, for the most part they are not driving into Manhattan

wait till you find out that it's not just the tail pipes that are fucking up our air

Is the first binder the table of contents?

And I believe absolutely not one page contains the words carbon Monoxide.

What lol, the state hates this and the city voted for it

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Yes, it was that idiot De Blasio that wanted this. Of course, he traveled by car and didn't have to pay for it like everyone else would have. But then again, he and his wife can't come up with where the 850 million went. Still have no answer to that do we Bill. We, as NYers, complain about everything. We speak out, but when are we going to find things out, do they think that we are going to forget about it? Our political leaders think that we just like wasting money. This was a waste. PEOPLE ITS 850 MILLION OF OUR MONEY. I want to see where it went. Books, paperwork, etc.

Yes, waste of ink

The citizens of NYC voted for NYS reps and senators that voted for this. That's literally how representative democracy works.

You sound pretty upset about Bill de Blasio. One day he will no longer be mayor, I assure you

Simple answer is - before any governmental action is taken (including the funding of an action) in NY, an environmental review must be carried out so that decision-makers know of the potential negative environmental impacts that might result from their action. If a negative impact is identified, they must propose measures to limit the negative impact. The same requirement applies to the federal government, who is involved here because they manage/regulate the interstate highway system.

So, in 2019, NYers voted to move forward with congestion pricing. The environmental review is ongoing and, once that is complete, decision-makers will provide the specific policy for implementation (based on the environmental review) and set a timeline for starting congestion pricing.

You’re referring to the brake dust (metal and rubber) produced by buses and subway cars, correct?

Big Bird is no longer mayor, yes, but his policies still are here to mess with us. There are people who need help that have mental health issues. It's 850 million. it's not a drop in the bucket. Why are we not asking the questions where did the money go? We all check our bank account and do the math when we something wrong on our statements, why don't we do the same when it comes to the city budget for any one that we as tax payers give money too?

Thank you!

"We" have been asking questions. The NYTimes alone wrote multiple articles about it, and about unanswered questions:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/nyregion/city-nonprofit-that-thrived-after-9-11-lags-under-mayors-wife.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/nyregion/thrivenyc-mental-health-.html

That too, but when you consider the utility and the fact that the footprint is being split between many users, they look much better than private cars.

Currently yes, but what happens when everyone abandons personal cars and become dependent on public transportation, ride-shares and deliveries?

Because people will still need to do the things they did when owning a car.

I know several teachers that drive in everyday. I'm sure they'd like to live near their schools but can't afford the neighborhoods.

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Some do, and they will benefit from lower congestion. For overwhelming majority of people who drive to Manhattan it is completely unnecessary to drive. Asking drivers to cover their own costs instead of asking the residents to burden themselves is reasonable and ethical. The goal is not to eliminate private cars. They are not closing the bridges.

If only there was some way to get from point A to point B without driving a personal vehicle. One day I hope we'll have that technology!!!

It was proposed by Cuomo. de Blasio just finally signed off on it for some stupid reason.

Huh. What was the stupid reason?

Something about Cuomo "taking over" the MTA. https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2019/02/26/breaking-mayor-de-blasio-endorses-congestion-pricing-as-part-of-cuomo-mta-takeover/

Why do you think NYC would vote against this? Most people in NYC don't drive. Most commuters to Manhattan don't go by car.

To add on, 4 years isnt really a long period of time for something that they have to modify infrastructure around. Traffic patterns, public transit load, and general behavior could change dramatically, and the city has to be able to anticipate that Edit: This usually culminates in a report such as a feasibility study or environmental impact statement

Deliveries group multiple orders which makes them more efficient than 1 person in a car going to pick up their order * how ever many people get deliveries. Public transportation is also more efficient, so less pollution. Ride shares are trickier, but a fleet of Ubers could theoretically be optimized to deliver a more efficient trip than personal car rides

You’re basing this off of the current situation.

I’m talking about when everyone stops driving and begins relying on mass transportation, deliveries and ride-shares to get things done.

My “nobody” encompasses anybody with the authority to make changes - federal, state and local.

Instead, they still print everything - including the bills that they don’t get the chance to read before the vote.

Right. The benefits we gain from switching to public transportation scale as the adoption rate increases.

Not a single page was read.

As the article nicely spells out in the headline, it's tire particles, which EVs create more of due to their better acceleration and higher weight.

The counterpoint is that making the process take this long is part of the reason projects cost so much and often don’t happen at all. When it takes longer than any politician’s term to even do the environmental review, it’s more likely projects will simply get canceled.

Also, in this case, it’s a toll. We’re not talking about demolishing entire neighborhoods to build a highway. If there’s a problem, they can turn it off.

Ezra Klein at the NYTimes has done some articles on how NY’s experience with congestion charging is a great example of how broken these systems are. Costs for all kinds of infrastructure projects skyrocketed when these kinds of reviews became mandatory in the 1970s.

Pretty ironic that something called the National Environmental Protection Act has been used to hold up a plan that would reduce emissions and help the environment for YEARS

This is a federal requirement, unfortunately. One of those "sounds good on paper" ideas that have been a disaster for any project that might actually be good for the environment. Other countries don't do this. The cost is usually in the low millions for project of this size, but the real killer is just how long they take. 4 years for something like NYC congestion pricing sounds about right to me. Although maybe not, since it's not like there's no tolls currently, congestion pricing is largely just standardizing tolls across the board.

They were originally supposed to be short studies, just be a paragraph or two, but now in practice they look like this. Entirely to try and avoid frivolous lawsuits.

So in practice highways keep getting built, while bus ways, bike lanes and transit projects get held up for years by these things

Now think this is just for congestion pricing in one city.

Imagine trying to make cross state rail systems, expand port capacity, build a massive solar farm, etc etc.

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I'm slightly biased towards these reports as that is what I study in school, but I'm also aware that a 500 page statement is going to deter potential readers

Do you feel like the system around these is working appropriately?

I’m not an expert, I just like reading about the mechanics of these projects when I can.

It seems to me, and a lot of non-experts, that timelines for projects like this are just way too long and that perhaps some reform of these processes is needed. Do you think that’s a fair assessment? Genuinely curious.

I know, it's basically just a new tax, not even building anything new!

Hate to admit it but the Republicans might be right; we need to roll back some of these regulations. They're doing more harm than good right now

Lord be praised when this finally gets enacted. So fucking sick of almost getting run over daily and dealing with traffic noise.

Brakes too.

This congestion pricing is stupid. More money for the state and NOTHING in return for the average NY’er. If you think this will lower traffic, it won’t! Just wait till prices go up on everything because of this. The speed cameras are doing an impeccable job at stopping speeders huh? This city needs cars and trucks to survive.

> This city needs cars and trucks to survive.

Doesn't need cars.

Lol. You think that all deliveries in the city are made with trucks? Ignorance is bliss. Just say you want the poor to get out of the city to not inconvenience the rich. Just remove all cars from the city and take away all the street lights. They you can walk in the middle of the street without a care in the world. The rich won’t care about the price increases as long as the peasants aren’t around anymore. Funny thing is that ALL the surrounding boroughs have the same traffic problems yet they only want to implement this “congestion” crap where all the money and rich people are at. LOL gimme a break.

>NOTHING in return for the average NY’er.

how about less congestion in Manhattan (and probably Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx) and more dedicated funding for the transit system that a majority of New Yorkers use?

>You think that all deliveries in the city are made with trucks?

Congestion pricing will be a boon for deliveries. Delivery drivers will be able to make more deliveries with less private cars congesting the roadways

> Just say you want the poor to get out of the city to not inconvenience the rich.

The poor don't drive in NYC they take the subway.

> You think that all deliveries in the city are made with trucks

mostly trucks, deliver vans or freight rail which has a last mile deliver via truck/van

>They you can walk in the middle of the street without a care in the world.

Do you realize the subway exists?

Is there someone that is going to read this page by page?

You are clearly misinformed as to what and who actually delivers in the city. I can bet 50% of the deliveries that are made in the city are “ private cars”. How would you know if a car is being used for deliveries or not? Just because the plates aren’t commercial or the car doesn’t have stickers all over it doesn’t mean they aren’t working delivering. Subways are for people and roads are for Cars. All these stupid bike lanes weren’t enough for you? It’s crazy to me that “congestion” tolls are wanted ONLY by those who DONT DRIVE. the city needs to add a tax for walking on the sidewalks, let’s c how you like it.

You really thing a stupid toll will lower congestion? Lmao! The mta Mishandles funds on a consistent basis. Trains and busses always late. Sometimes they don’t even come. And you think throwing more money will fix shit? You are delusional. You obviously don’t understand how this works. All those tolls we pay already and the streets are filled with potholes.

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I don’t think “throwing more money” will fix the MTA, but I do think less money will make things worse. I do think there is an enormous amount of deferred maintenance that makes things more expensive to run.

I do think people respond to tolls by driving less. I know I do.

Less money? That money was never there to begin with so how is it less without it? And people who have no choice but to drive for work MUST pay. If you only knew the amount of money that will be coming out of the pockets of people who aren’t really doing well financially( delivery drivers are making Pennie’s on the dollar now), I don’t think you would be for this. It just doesn’t make any sense why non drivers are promoting this BS money grab by the city. This is NYC, traffic will never ease up no matter how much they charge to get in.

tl;dr?

Brakes are consumed at a lower rate compared to ICE cars of a similar weight( Evs are usually heavier) because of regenerative braking

My problem with these is that like with most other services, the work is contracted out to consulting firms. Sometimes this makes sense, the city used a danish firm for the Cloudburst program due to their track record in Copenhagen, and sometimes we'd be better off with an in house assessment. The lack of oversight and long leash NYC gives contractors is astounding

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> Entirely to try and avoid frivolous lawsuits

I think you mistyped "paid by the hour consultants".

Make more deliveries? Unless you talking about Uber eats or DoorDash, daily deliveries are mostly already set. A driver doesn’t magically get another load for deliveries while ALREADY being in the city. They would have to leave and come back just to PAY another toll. Make it make sense. You can go back and forth all you want but the bottom line is that it will help NOONE but the city(more money). Don’t cry when every single thing you need goes up in price again because of this.

The poor drive in Queens, tons of areas with poor transit access that it makes more sense to buy a car.

Right, just because they’re “set” doesn’t mean they can’t be unset and reset. In one of my previous careers I regularly had to book van couriers for deliveries. That business could potentially be more efficient. In my current business I have deliveries made in NYC from a warehouse in Connecticut. That happens whenever I need to order materials, it’s not “set”.

So how would you explain that delivery drivers can make more deliveries if there is no congestion. You would still have to travel out of the city to get the things you are delivering. You are ok with companies paying the same toll multiple times to get product into the city? Seems to me like people want this more for the city to get money rather than less cars. It just doesn’t make sense to me at all. Like I said before I bet you would have a different tune if this would be a toll on Walking around the city. There’s millions of people that congest the sidewalks daily, why not tax them also if they want to walk around?

Hi, truck gets loaded up at the warehouse based on a route. More stops can be added to the route, a real tangible increase in productivity and commerce. Truck capacity is rarely an issue. If you have a simple office job or service job where you don’t have any sort of exposure to these sorts of deliveries or commerce, I understand how it might be difficult to conceptualize, but in aggregate these make a majority of deliveries by weight and volume, not Amazon boxes and door dash, which may be more visible to laymen.

How can more stops be added when the truck has already left the warehouse with only what was supposed to be delivered on the route he has. Do you think companies send drivers with extra inventory in hopes that someone will place another order???? You are totally missing the point. There is absolutely no way to get more product onto a truck once said truck has left the warehouse to complete its route unless it’s coming back to home base to reload. There are thousands of businesses that don’t rely on huge trucks to get to them. It’s sad that you don’t realize that atleast 50% of orders placed by businesses don’t require trucks or vans. It’s the little guys with their personal cars doing the running around.

that too

How does making the roads only accessible to rich people help the environment?

...isn't that obvious? fewer cars on the road

The environmental review has showed that pollution will worsen in the Bronx (and Staten Island). Doesn't seem fair for the bronx to take the brunt of this