Doomsday was Passed - Vote again

hitokiri

http://ga3.org/campaign/doomsday/

longtimesloper

haven't been on a subway in a billion years, how much are they raising subway fare to? What is it now, 2.25?

carmen

its 2.00 now, they're raising it to 2.50 and the monthly unlimited is 103, which is less than my car insurance monthly incidentally.

longtimesloper

Very true in a lot of cases (in regards to car insurance)

flo

Well, let's see. It was about $63 about a decade ago. And now it will be about 63% more.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/09/nyregion/pataki-announces-unlimited-passes-for-city-transit.html

hitokiri

LongTimeSloper wrote: haven't been on a subway in a billion years, how much are they raising subway fare to? What is it now, 2.25?

here is the kicker.

$81 a month for unlimited cards jumps to $103

AND they are cutting back on services.

So we are paying more for less.

vidro3

Toll the bridges.

Seriously though, the monthly cards let you average down the cost of your rides so much that nobody will actually pay $2.50 just like nobody actually pays the $2.00 base now. Ok, almost nobody, I remember reading that full fare rides account for 2% of farebox revenue.

And remember that the introduction of the metrocard in 1997 resulted in the end of two-fare zones, basically doubling the number of rides you could take for a given price.

Still, the biggest contributor to this fare hike is the ever diminishing amount of tax revenue coming back to NYC from the State.

vidro3

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/03/26/2009-03-26_blame_gang_of_three_traitors__carl_kruge.html

longtimesloper

So, is this fare hike really going into effect? Are the bridges safe from tolls?

booklaw

for the moment, yes. permanently, I doubt it very much. But I hope so. I'd rather pay the increased subway fare (and I ride back and forth to Manhattan 5 days each week) then open the East River bridges up to the delays and ever-increasing costs of tolls. Once you establish the toll, that is the first thing every politician will look to both for the mta, and for the city and state general funds.

Eventually you'll need to take a second mortgage just to drive into Manhattan.

longtimesloper

^^that is my fear! And, it is only based on the fact that my husband drives and makes deliveries for a living and crosses those bridges a bunch of times every week. he has already taken a major pay cut due to the economy and people not using delivery services as much, to add tolls to it would be killer.

Now, we don't ride the subway, but my oldest child does back and forth to work all the time. Yet, with the purchase of a metrocard and the amount of metrocards that a good friend of ours finds every week and passes along to us, he will not truly be paying a $2.50 subway fare either. So, i would much rather that the subway fare go up as opposed to bridge tolls!

sweet tea

that's nice, but i'm not sure i'll be able to afford to keep my job if subway and mnrr fares go up that much. (i need both, and no, i don't get paid very well.)

scarlett

Yeah, unless you move (gulp) closer to work.

vidro3

booklaw wrote: for the moment, yes. permanently, I doubt it very much. But I hope so. I'd rather pay the increased subway fare (and I ride back and forth to Manhattan 5 days each week) then open the East River bridges up to the delays and ever-increasing costs of tolls. Once you establish the toll, that is the first thing every politician will look to both for the mta, and for the city and state general funds.

Eventually you'll need to take a second mortgage just to drive into Manhattan.

tolls would certainly decrease delays since the traffic volumes would decrease.

longtimesloper

Yeah, i am not so sure about that. That is kind of like when they raise the cigarette tax es and then say, "oh, now less people will smoke because it's so expensive". I have yet to meet anyone who quit smoking because the price got too high.

etson

Toll booths would slow down traffic even more on the approaches to the bridges. Even if private motorists drive somehwat less, which is debatable, trucks will still travel between Brooklyn and Manhattan in similar numbers. The effect of toll booths would be to create much worse tailbacks of commercial traffic.
I agree with booklaw that tolls would just be another stealth tax, a permanent and irreversible solution to a temporary problem.
NYC's public transport is a bargain compared to many major world cities. Still I would have a lot more time for the MTA if they didn't keep spending money on dumb stuff. To pick one example among many of unnecessary spending - the monitors that count down the number of minutes to the next L train.

whynot_31

etson, I agree with most of what you say, but toll booths wouldn't be used.

Post 9/11, all of the east river bridges presently have license readers in place ...they could either use these, and debit your credit card like ezpass.

or insist that everyone get ezpass, and then install "high speed" ezpass lanes.

It is likely to be a combination of the two: They'll insist you get ezpass, and then mail you a fine if you drive thru without one. ...the same way they do now if you drive thru a high speed ezpass lane without an ezpass.

vidro3

Compare the volumes at the tolled brooklyn battery tunnel and queens midtown tunnel to the three free bridges. The free bridges all have higher volume than the tolled crossings.
Tolls certainly would not induce more people to drive and as whynot says a combination of cameras and the high speed ezpass would not cause any bottlenecks.
Any debate on whether they should be tolled or how to fund the mta aside, if they are told traffic volumes and travel times across the bridges will decrease.

vidro3

whynot_31 wrote: etson, I agree with most of what you say, but toll booths wouldn't be used.

Post 9/11, all of the east river bridges presently have license readers in place ...they could either use these, and debit your credit card like ezpass.

or insist that everyone get ezpass, and then install "high speed" ezpass lanes.

It is likely to be a combination of the two: They'll insist you get ezpass, and then mail you a fine is you drive thru without one. ...the same way they do now if you drive thru a high speed ezpass lane without an ezpass.

I've never heard that all the bridges have license plate readers, where did you get that from?

whynot_31

let's just say that a source I trust has told me that the plate reading part of this public plan is 90% done...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/nyregion/12cars.html?ref=nyregion

I'm not a source for the radiation part ...too scary, and -thankfully- off topic.

sweet tea

scarlett wrote: Yeah, unless you move (gulp) closer to work.

...which would, among other things, require me to own a car. or i could get a car here, i suppose, and enjoy those free river crossings. everybody wins!


(PS, i can't stand the thought of moving closer to where i currently work. i'd rather leave new york entirely.)

bleibtreu

etson wrote: Toll booths would slow down traffic even more on the approaches to the bridges.

There wouldn't be toll booths, just high-speed EZPass and license plate scanners. "Open road tolling" is all the rage now.

whynot_31

bleibtreu wrote: [quote=etson]Toll booths would slow down traffic even more on the approaches to the bridges.

There wouldn't be toll booths, just high-speed EZPass and license plate scanners. "Open road tolling" is all the rage now.

damn, there is an echo in this room.

bleibtreu

whynot_31 wrote: damn, there is an echo in this room.

Heh... sorry. I swear, I never do that... posting before reading the whole thread.