Comments on: How driving a car into Manhattan costs $160

By: enterpriseauto

enterpriseauto — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 06:17:54 +0000

wow i work for enterpriseautotransport.com and for $160.00 I could get a car moved $160 miles!

By: joycemcg1

joycemcg1 — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 06:11:32 +0000

This enable people who are using public commuting system to have more cars for a family and use. Dental CPA

By: Peter_Mould

Peter_Mould — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 06:56:27 +0000

This is an ambitious plan. However, I can see it being feasible in the future. The allure of free bus rides is just to much to avoid. By making bus rides more efficient and cheap, more people will opt to take public transport instead. This will considerably reduce the number of private cars on the roads, as people leave their cars in their garages. Less traffic together with less cars will also reduce the carbon emission by the city. Its a two win situation!

Peter – http://www.pmwltd.co.uk

By: autotransport

autotransport — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 03:24:14 +0000

Manhattan is just not the place to drive a car … Take the subway or ride a bike , but just not car

By: SuzetteC

SuzetteC — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:11:42 +0000

I hate buses and public transportation alltogether. Except for disney buses.

By: Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:07:19 +0000

A seemingly minor, but very telling mistake:

“Komanoff’s a cyclist too, but he’s concentrating in this spreadsheet mainly on vehicular traffic.”

A bicycle is a vehicle.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:24:37 +0000

I agree with Max on the first post. I like the European approach..sort of a good-buddy system. They should collect some value for fare and perhaps use the funds to pay for a new fleet of energy-efficient or electric powered buses?

By: Nate

Nate — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:00:42 +0000

I was just in Seattle where the city buses are free within a designated downtown area.

By: fpteditors

fpteditors — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:07:36 +0000

Nothing is free. Follow the link below for a partial list of the hidden costs of the current auto/sprawl system. Taking the fares off transit would save $trillions.
http://freepublictransit.org/index.php?p r=Externalities

By: Marc Rich

Marc Rich — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:06:54 +0000

If you’re going to work with an ad-hominem attack, you ought to have the rest of your facts and logic straight:

“You do not understand the concept of ‘public good.’ Roads are the *standard textbook example of public goods.*”

Maybe in 1776 when Adam Smith asserted this. 50 years later, private roads laced the nation, before eventually getting taken over by the states. Oh, and by the way, charging for Manhattan roads is the idea of the post, not the commenter being criticized.

“You do not understand the concept of ‘externality.’ Any economic activity that imposes costs that are not captured in the price of the good is a negative externality.”

Uh, that is not a workable definition of externality, since nearly every economic activity arguably fits that description. (By the way, most economic activities also create positive externalities.) You have to have a significance test, which Komanoff does, in order to qualify an externality.

“Your deranged Ayn Rand views of the morality of taxation normal Americans find repugnant and insane.”

You must live in New York to have such a twisted view of what “normal Americans” think.

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:25:02 +0000

@ Barbara O’Brien — of course the subway fares don’t currently change by time of day … that’s Komanoff’s proposal. (Though of course the fares just changed on June 28, from $2 per single ride to $2.25.)

By: Bob Montgomery

Bob Montgomery — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:57:25 +0000

In Seattle, they do not charge any fares on busses in the downtown core area: http://metro.kingcounty.gov/tops/bus/are a_maps/m_seattle-rfa.html

It works pretty well for making stops very quick. The commuter train (www.soundtransit.org) that runs into and out of Seattle uses (very rare) random spot checks for tickets/passes. That also makes the stops very very quick.

By: Erin

Erin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:35:00 +0000

I dont know where the money our public transportation system goes specifically, but i’m sure alot of it goes to the salaries of the thousands of people employed by the MTA, and Bridge and Tunnel. Thats enough reason for me to be fine with paying $4 to get anywhere I want to go and back. For all of you who keep saying that making buses free would allow them to harbor “undesirables” aren’t taking into account that it is only $2! i think anyone in dire need to shelter can scrounge up $2. and they have. haven’t you been in the subway in manhattan EVER? I dont think making it free would affect this really. Presently, both the Staten Island train and Ferry are free (unless you transfer between the two) and they both seem to be operating fine and arent harboring the people you are so scared of.

By: el chief

el chief — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:31:15 +0000

I am totally fine with congestion pricing, with the following restrictions:

1. all revenue (minus operational costs) must go to public transport

2. free or cheap parking at bus or subway stations so I can maybe drive a mile to the nearest subway, then hop on and get downtown. maybe i can use my buspass to pay for parking and it checks that I got on the subway within a reasonable time

By: el chief

el chief — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:28:32 +0000

Vancouver has essentially free fares on it’s cross-town express buses (B-Lines). There is a fare, but all four door sets open and no one ever checks.

Load times are much faster (Except people outside crowd the exits cuz they want to get on)

There are more homeless stinky people on the bus, as they don’t have to pay.

Overall it works pretty well

I lost my buspass, so it works well for me :)