March 11, 2025
"Before, it was too much, there was honking of horns without reason. Now, it’s better for everybody."
Said Syed Ali, 49, who works at a halal food cart in midtown Manhattan, quoted in "Honking Complaints Plunge 69% Inside Congestion Pricing Zone/In the first two months of the Manhattan vehicle tolls that Trump wants to nix, gripes over blasting horns sunk when compared to 2024" (The City).
Posts
39 comments:
The plan seems to be doing what it was designed to do. Such plans have been implemented in several cities in Europe and they all have been successful in thinning out traffic congestion (and the ills deriving from that), as well as increasing municipal revenues.
Yeah, till Syed realizes that so many of those horns were people who eventually parked, went to work, and then wanted a shawarma for lunch. Plus the horns that remain represent people who no longer have the money for a shawarma because they paid the congestion toll.
JSM
Honking in Manhattan might be down but we'll always have "An American in Paris."
Okey-dokey. Trump wants X, so we get all these MSM stories about how X is bad. IRC, people in NJ wanted the congestion pricing zone gone. But the city didn't talk to them.
Buckley was in favor of banning cars from Manhattan back in 1965. The liberal/left didn't like it. Now they do. Personally, i think its a good idea. Just have taxis and buses. No private cars. Of course, you'll also need Vans for seniors and the disabled. But it will make Manhattan a better place to live.
This "Congestion zone" pricing just seems like a halfway measure to get more tax dollars.
"Said Syed Ali, 49". Syed said that? Said syed that? Does Said Syed Ali know Boutros Boutros-Ghali?
They say that writers shouldn't try to think up other ways to say "said" and just put up with the repetition, but when Said and Syed are around I'd keep a thesaurus handy.
"...there was honking of horns without reason."
There's always a reason for honking in NYC, and that reason is they're all a-holes, especially if they're from Jersey.
Driving into Manhattan used to be an adventure. I'd write down the streets where I parked the car so that I wouldn't spend all night looking for it. I felt like I already paid a "congestion charge" from paying the bridge tolls. Goodbye, small adventures.
The previous article today relates to delivering the "fruits of effective government." Just reading through the Wikipedia article on "Congestion Pricing in New York City" is wading through a mass of detail. I can only imagine what it must be like to read all the paperwork that the article is based on. Complicated societies with many people and little open space seem to demand bureaucracy. See Max Weber for more details.
"...there was honking of horns without reason."
Some of that is road rage or frivolous, but a lot is for good reason. Primarily it is a signal to others to take your foot of the brake and put your foot on the gas pedal, then depress that pedal as much as possible without colliding with what is in front of you.
I was in traffic in Pittsburgh (where such honking is not the norm), when someone a couple cars back would start honking the instant a light turned green. After a few seconds, other drivers began beeping too! It occurred to me that the beeping was serving a purpose. I think it worked at least a little. Ten cars waiting at a light when 5 of the drivers are lollygagging wastes everyone's time.
Beep Beep... Come on while we're young!
I imagine that "Congestion Pricing" is a expensive proposition for those whose livelihoods involve driving in lower Manhattan. To the rest of us, it is a minor annoyance, and one more reason to not visit, at least by private vehicle. We were routed through Manhattan by Waze a few times last year. I wonder if that is now included in the tolled zone? M
My understanding is, the argument against this scheme are the federally funded highways in the area that mandate a toll-free route. How many of these exist?
Keek the car, remove the horn. Keep the horn, remove the driver. Keep the car, the horn, the driver, and remove the urban clutter.
…where only the very wealthy can afford to drive…
Horns are part of urban living. Cowboy up.
I never honk, under any circumstance. When people honk at me I feel it, my body tenses up. My instinct is to respond somehow but it’s useless, then then there’s the chance that escalating could lead to a confrontation with someone who is carrying. That’s not good, as Trump might say.
This is sane economics, something I would have not expected for NYC or any blue city. Auto travel in NYC is a limited resource with high demand. Putting a price on the resource causes people to make alternate decisions - skip the trip, ride the subway, enter on off-peak hours. Those are good outcomes.
I hope this initiative survives the initial start-up issues. Having Trump against it increases the odds that it does if for no other reason than spite.
"There was honking of horns without reason" could be the first line of a future novel on the NYT best seller list.
From Grok, in the style of Ernest Hemingway:
There was honking of horns without reason. The street was narrow, and the cars pressed close, their drivers leaning on the wheels with flat, tired faces. The sun hung low, spilling orange over the cobblestones, and the air smelled of gasoline and dust. I stood on the corner, watching. A man in a gray suit stepped out of a black sedan, his shoes clicking sharp against the pavement. He did not look at the drivers. He walked past me, his eyes fixed ahead, and I wondered where he was going.
The café across the street was open. Its windows were streaked with grime, and the sign above the door said "Café du Nord" in faded red letters. I crossed the street, dodging a bicycle that came too fast, its rider shouting something I did not understand. Inside, the air was cooler, thick with the smell of coffee and cigarettes. The barman looked up, nodded once, and went back to wiping the counter with a rag that had seen better days.
I took a stool at the bar. The wood was worn smooth, and there were initials carved into it, jagged and uneven. I ordered a coffee, black, and the barman poured it without speaking. The cup was chipped, but the coffee was hot, and I drank it slowly, watching the door. The honking outside went on, a steady rhythm, like a pulse.
A woman came in, her coat too heavy for the weather. She sat at a table near the window, her hands folded tight on the tabletop. She did not order anything. She stared out at the street, her face pale, her lips pressed thin. I wondered if she was waiting for someone. I wondered if it was the man in the gray suit.
I gave up driving into Manhattan long ago. I just take Amtrak now. It's more expensive (maybe), but it's really wonderful now that you exit through the lovely Moynihan Hall, a nice step towards reversing the devastation of the loss of Penn Station. ("“One entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat.” - Vincent Scully) . Staying in my usual hotel on the Lower East Side in February, the noise at intersection out front (Bowery and Delancey) was noticeably less than the last time I was there, so, from my perspective, congestion pricing is a win.
And Herman Melville:
Chapter I: The clamor of the shore
There was honking of horns without reason, a cacophony of brazen throats that rent the air like the cries of seabirds driven mad by tempest, and in that din, I, Ishmael, stood upon the wharf, my soul as restless as the waves that lapped the barnacled pilings beneath. It was not the orderly clamor of commerce, nor the purposeful alarum of some calamity, but a discord without rhythm, as if the very spirit of man had grown impatient with silence and sought to fill it with noise, meaningless and vast. And yet, in that chaos, I found a strange music, a reflection of the tumult within me, for I am ever a man drawn to the edge of things—to the brink of the sea, the precipice of thought, the boundary where order dissolves into the sublime.
You rarely hear a horn here. When you do it’s almost someone from New Jersey…
Why is it "congestion pricing" instead of a "congestion lottery"?
Why do Democrats hate poor people?
That's funny, I didn't hear a thing.
"Horns are part of urban living. Cowboy up."
Horns are part of East Coast urban living. Somehow, in the metropolises of the West, traffic moves without all the extra agro.
Why do Democrats hate poor people?
Why do you hate poor New Yorkers. Do you know what a hassle it is to own a car in NYC? Parking a car in a lot in the congestion zone costs a hell of a lot more than the fee. 85+% of commuters to Manhattan use public transportation, the vast number who actually drive in are from the affluent New Jersey, New York and Connecticut suburbs. The revenues from the congestion pricing will be used to improve public transportation, especially the subways (which have 3 million plus rides a day) .
You may not like congestion pricing, but to claim it disproportionately hurts the poor is simply bullshit.
So the congestion pricing has reduced the number of cars, which in turn has reduced the number of honkers blasting their horns. The honkees who have been listening to the amount of horny activity are pleased with the reduction in the number of “those people”. It sounds like the honkees have a problem with the rich aural diversity that vibrant cultures in a big city bring.
I, for one, always go to the food cart operators when I want high level cost/benefit analysis of government overreach.
When the other driver honks, you know you’ve won. It’s the ones that don’t honk you have to worry about hitting you.
The revenues from the congestion pricing will be used to improve public transportation
They'll piss it away on beer and hookers...
When more people leave the state, the complaints will go down some more.
"The revenues from the congestion pricing will be used to improve public transportation"
Just like the toll booths are supposed to pay for our terrible roads, and the lottery is supposed to pay for schools. They always lie to us when they steal our money. Most of it goes into paying salaries and pensions.
The issue is behavior, not congestion.
It was a dark and stormy night; there was honking of horns without reason.
I used a semicolon because dashes are cheating.
Why not get those remaining 31% of honkers by preventing anyone from entering New York? In the long run better for everyone...
Can workers remotely service urbane elites?
"Putting a price on the resource causes people to make alternate decisions - skip the trip, ride the subway, enter on off-peak hours. Those are good outcomes."
Now do "Raising merchandise prices during a disaster."
When the government does it, they call it "Demand Management".
When you do it, they call it "Price Gouging".
"there was honking of horns without reason."
I was watching a movie the other night, one scene showed a Southern California freeway with traffic at a standstill. Much honking of horns. The funny thing is- that doesn't happen.
I was born and raised in SoCal and at one time, had a 50 mile (each way) commute for work. The freeways at rush hour were always packed and plenty of times, I'd come to a complete stop. People didn't honk their horns.
I honked my horn twice today. If the car in front doesn't move in 2 seconds when the light turns green, the hand comes down. Move it, Geezer! Did I disturb the tranquility of your suburban Eden? Tough.
We usually don't honk our vehicle horns here in Austin, TX, either. An armed society is a polite society.
It isn’t a cattle prod. People in carry states recognize this…
The simple foil to the Joes of the world is to feign car trouble until the light turns red, then blast through the intersection as cross traffic begins to move. Raised middle finger is optional…
Post a Comment
Comments older than 2 days are always moderated. Newer comments may be unmoderated, but are still subject to a spam filter and may take a few hours to get released. Thanks for your contributions and your patience.