Oh_Hi_Denny_ t1_jcnojzb wrote on March 18, 2023 at 3:53 AM

Reply to comment by ManhattanRailfan in This city needs residential parking permits and loading zones by nsmka

The city is so expensive so let’s start charging residents instead of having free street parking? What your suggesting is just another tax on the working class

ManhattanRailfan t1_jcnp5bk wrote on March 18, 2023 at 3:58 AM

Three things here:

Working class people overwhelmingly don't own cars in this city. The median income for car owners is 2-3 times higher than non-car owners depending on which borough. They are entirely optional for the over 90% of New Yorkers who live within a 5 minute walk of a bus or train stop.
If you can't afford a $50 parking permit, you probably can't afford the $12-15k per year it costs to own a car.
You are not entitled to use public space to store your private property for free. The city subsidizes parking to the tune of $40 billion (yes, with a B) every year. You'd be insane to think that's good policy when cars are actively detrimental to the city.

ParadoxScientist t1_jcnwlbr wrote on March 18, 2023 at 5:15 AM

Not sure where you got your statistics from but you need to reconsider people who live in Manhattan vs the rest of the boroughs. People who own cars in Manhattan are often pretty wealthy, because it's much more expensive there to own one, as you will need to use parking garages. But in the other boroughs? That is not quite the case. The majority of people I know with cars (all outside Manhattan) are not earning that much. And many who do own cars here go for cheap, used, but reliable cars that don't cost anywhere near 12-15k per year, not even close. In some parts of these outer boroughs, public transit is either nonexistent, slow, or unreliable. Even with traffic, driving is often faster.

People are not entitled to store private property on public space, but when transportation systems are setup a certain way, we expect certain things. If you want to reduce car usage, you need to provide better alternatives. Other major cities are doing so much better with their subways. But NYC continues to ignore subway expansion in the outer boroughs. And subways in my opinion are the most efficient method of travel in a city and should be the #1 priority in transportation. More than buses and biking.

ManhattanRailfan t1_jcowjl0 wrote on March 18, 2023 at 1:00 PM

https://blog.tstc.org/2017/04/21/car-free-new-york-city/

And I think you, like most people, are vastly underestimating the cost of car ownership. Insurance alone for a 10-15 year old Toyota is going to cost around $500-600 a month for insurance alone. Then there's gas, maintenance, depreciation, inspections, etc.

Nearly everyone in the parts of the outer boroughs without the subway could get by just fine with bikes and buses. In fact, many people do. The problem with transportation in the order boroughs comes specifically from cars. If people didn't drive so much, then the buses would be far more reliable and efficient and biking would be a lot safer. There's nothing wrong with those modes of transportation, and many neighborhoods, in Eastern Queens especially, aren't dense enough to justify subway expansion over other areas. Those people should be taking a bus or bike to the subway or LIRR, not driving into Manhattan.