is New York City dead?

Middle Collegiate Church has a history that dates back to 1628 — this morning as a result of a fire in a neighboring building that was vacant, the church is no more. pic.twitter.com/NK2qXC0fVO

— 𝐌𝐲𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐍. 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 (@MylesMill) December 5, 2020

https://awrycomics.com/im-in-new-york/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/nyregion/nyc-residential-parking.html

ban cars iirc

“That was the day I lost my mind,” she said. After the virtual meeting, she began looking for monthly parking, eventually finding a garage where she pays $275 a month.

^^^ this is the thing, right? like ur circling in your fucking car for 2 hours trying to find a spot at 6PM, waking up and sitting in ur car for 2 hours for street cleaning - suddenly 9 dollars a fucking day to lot your car IS THE EASY SOLUTION IF YOU INSIST ON BEING A DUMBASS AND OWNING A CAR IN NYC.

Also ban cars, also increase fine scales esp for speeding violations, also put weight limits on delivery/service vehicles

I pay 175/mo to park in my building's garage, it's a dream.

"the city does not owe you a place to store your private property" makes sense as long as the subway works.

would happily pay $175 a month extra in taxes if i were guaranteed a spot on my block.

lol that will solve the problem

i too would also happily pay significantly less than the fair market value of land in new york city to have access to land in new york city.

On-street parking should be abolished everywhere for anyone without a disabled parking permit

having a car sucks, will happily stop doing so when there's a reasonably reliable and convenient way to get my daughter to her grandparents house in brooklyn, then i can rejoin the smugly carless

On-street parking is probably fine as long as car ownership itself is fully socialised.

There are very large swaths of NYC that either have no public transit, have only buses (whereby it takes multiple transfers and huge amounts of time to get most places), or have a single local subway line that only provides access along one corridor. I guess in theory a lot of things can be done via Uber, but (1) Uber also sucks and (2) that doesn't actually mean less use of cars.

would happily pay $175 a month extra in taxes if i were guaranteed a spot on my block.

― adam, Tuesday, January 5, 2021 2:37 PM (forty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol i had a spot in a garage in manhattan. the monthly fee was, uh, more than that. i'm back in new jersey now though.

a Brooklyn resident who uses his car primarily to take his 13-year-old son — and his large bags of gear — to hockey practice in Long Island City, Queens.

this is the only part i sympathize with, because dragging hockey gear on subway + bus is no fun. although it does mean any canadians in the vicinity will say hi

ugh and the gear gets stinky too

have only buses (whereby it takes multiple transfers and huge amounts of time to get most places).

Ride the bus it’s fun and you don’t have to drive

Self-driving cars will help relieve the parking situation. Only need to wait another 10-15 years.

No they won’t. They will change one set of parking problems for another. You’re waiting for a solution to geometry.

silby otm again and again

would happily pay $175 a month extra in taxes if i were guaranteed a spot on my block.

― adam, Tuesday, January 5, 2021 2:37 PM (forty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

but the first question is, is storing private cars the best use of this public space? and/or what's the balance between using some of this space for storing private cars, and some of it for other things? only once those questions are settled would we really start getting into what a 'fair' price would be for the parking spaces. at a minimum it seems like the city should not be undercutting private garages, which are a much more efficient model of storing cars, and also do not encourage car ownership quite as thoroughly, being more inconvenient.

i swear to god i'm not smug about it but i would say something around +/-40% of my decision to remain in nyc is focused on the fact that i hate cars and i hate car culture and i hate driving and i hate owning a car

no cars in cities

^^^ otm, but this is a pipe dream without massive overhauling of public transportation and how jobs are spread out throughout most cities.

And I fear that COVID is really going to set public transportation ridership back in too many cities. NYC probably won't be hit quite as hard, but a city like Chicago that seems to be built just as much for cars as for public transportation is going to see ridership down for quite some time. I mean, I know directly of 4-5 very sizable employers that are still effectively telling employees not to take the bus or train.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/02/nyregion/nyc-subway-coronavirus-safety.html

hunter s thompson's platform for mayor of aspen included disarming the police, ripping out all the streets, replacing with sod, and making everyone put their cars in garages outside the city limits

basically i'm saying, it's time for freak power

otm, ban cars in cities is a good incremental start

I'd happily ride buses (at least in non-pandemic times) if the buses had a place to put unfolded strollers like good old London town but no this city hates babies.

I mean, there's barely any room even to put folded strollers. The only aggro I've had since moving here was from a sitting woman as I tried to carry a toddler and a folded stroller past her while the bus was moving.

otm. I was not on team cars until I had kids. Public transit is extremely hard in NYC with babies. Many subway stations don't have elevators, the ones that do are often out of order, escalators also often out of order, and buses are fucking impossible - you try folding a stroller while holding an infant and holding the hand of a 3 year old.

Banning cars first is not an "incremental solution" it's "fuck you and hope this gets fixed in the future somehow"

Agree. Ban kids first, then ban cars.

"fuck you and hope this gets fixed in the future somehow"

this could also describe the complete takeover of cities by cars. which goes a long way, of course, towards explaining why provision for pedestrians is so poor...

Many subway stations don't have elevators,

Add elevators?

the ones that do are often out of order,

Repair elevators?

escalators also often out of order,

Repair escalators?

and buses are fucking impossible - you try folding a stroller while holding an infant and holding the hand of a 3 year old.

asked and answered tbh

the buses had a place to put unfolded strollers like good old London town

*monkey's paw twitches in Brighton*

what have i done

xp This is a small example, but where I used to live in Queens (which actually DID have good public transit access if you were going into Manhattan, as opposed to between boroughs which was abysmal, and notwithstanding said problems for children and the elderly) they took some steps in the direction of "ban cars first." Massive bike lanes were added on main thoroughfares and lots of street parking was removed. After a few years, it was still the case that virtually no one was using the bike lanes and everyone was complaining about the parking, especially elderly people (of which there were a lot in my neighborhood). No evidence that it has led to some massive public transit improvement push. Infrastructure is unfortunately massively expensive and massively hard to build/change. That goes both for the antiquated NYC subways system and the unfortunate design of much of the city around roads. Of course, I guess this is all theoretical since it's also politically impossible to ban cars. Maybe that will change in a generation or two.

But it's still a bit narrowsighted to be like "Well I (healthy childless 30-something) can get by just fine riding my bike to the coffeeshop and carrying a bag of groceries home and ordering a lot of takeout, so the city doesn't need cars and trucks"

tbh i feel like the vast majority of car-owning citydwellers i know hate the millstone around their neck of needing a car for whatever they need it for, and would be glad to be rid of it if they could.

*raises hand*

I think cars are terrible and yet...I love owning a car in the city. Especially when I was heavily involved in nightlife. So long as you know when you can or can't drive and where you can or can't find parking it can be really convenient. Especially in Queens. And especially since having a kid.

It would be cool though if the entire city only had revel style rentable cars for everyone.

I don't know Queens at all though. Maybe you can't walk to grocery stores? I live in a European city & before the pandemic we shopped for food daily, it's a 5 minute walk to three small but thorough enough supermarkets. now we do it twice a week. we have three kids.

the solution to the stroller problem is to ban strollers too. they're a blight on getting around for everyone else. just get a sling or an ergo or whatever.

lol @ sic. let's make him the president of the mta, a notoriously easy job.

We could walk to a couple of overpriced and somewhat crappy but adequate grocery stores. I guess arguably we could have done all of our food shopping there. There are certainly parts of Queens where you can't though, a lot of it is semi-suburban. We had a car primarily because I was working in a place that would have taken two hours each way by public transit, but it was admittedly very nice for Costco runs and regular visits to the in laws and weekend trips out of the city in nice weather. Also I don't think I would have been able to do stuff like take both kids to the hall of science by myself when one was little and the other was a baby -- yes, in theory I could have put the baby in an ergo, carried a huge bag with their lunches and diapers and all of that, force marched my late-walking three year old and waited for the bus with them (sometimes in the rain) and then walked 20 minutes from the stop, but it made a heck of a lot more sense to just drive 5 minutes and park in the lot. And this was in one of the most transit-accessible parts of Queens.

Also, the baby carrier became impossible pretty much as soon as my unusually long first daughter's legs dangled enough to constantly accidentally kick me in the nuts. Not really gonna address the "ban strollers" suggestion, that's silly, especially if you want people to be able to do shopping with their kids and without a car.

Many subway stations don't have elevators,

Add elevators?

the ones that do are often out of order,

Repair elevators?

escalators also often out of order,

Repair escalators?

I mean, yes, of course. Rarely works out that easily in reality though. Elevators and escalators all over the CTA are routinely out of order for months at a time. But, of course, this goes back to mass transit being criminally underfunded.

overpriced and somewhat crappy but adequate

NYC in six words.

man alive, thanks for that. the only American "city" we ever lived in as parents was Palo Alto, where we did a fair bit of grocery shopping by foot, but also a fair bit by car (had two kids, a baby & a toddler at that point). I biked to work. But getting to SF was awful, either by car or by Caltrain, and going to like Half Moon Bay or Santa Cruz, not sure how we'd do that without cars.

I have a friend who teaches at P1tz3r & lives in LA without a car, with two toddlers. Because of her I'm willing to listen to people trying to recruit me to socal jobs even though I think it must be complex to live that way.

my "ban strollers" thing is not to be taken seriously even though I seriously believe in it

yes "complex" is the word. It's not that these things *can't* be done, it's that there are layers of complexity and difficulty that become increasingly tiring and challenging, or else limiting. We could have spent even more time in our neighborhood and ventured outside of it less, for sure. We would have survived. Or we could have taken our kids to the Natural History museum on transit when they were 2 and 5 (I think we did this once), it's just the added 1-2 hours of travel time total, plus the fatigue from carrying the 2 yo up and down many steps and over city blocks when they get too tired or are moving too slow or sit down on the sidewalk in frustration, the stress of not knowing if the train will get stuck underground right when your kid needs a bathroom, the unlikelihood that you'll have seats, the likelihood of crowdedness, etc. Logistics of shopping, errands, everything just gets more complicated, time-consuming and tiring. I guess you could argue that if everyone was forced to live like that, it could potentially increase the availability of amenities within one's own neighborhood and just make us more neighborhood oriented.

I'm not saying I need a car because I live in Queens. I'm saying Queens is more car friendly.

There are certainly parts of Queens and Brooklyn and the Bronx where public transportation is bad or non-existent. Not where I live though.

When I moved here I said it was like a mix of living in Brooklyn and New Jersey. I could walk out of my apt, go to the pharmacy and drug store and supermarket, hop on the train to work etc.

OR I could get in the car, drive to Home Depot and Ikea etc.

Parking was much easier in my hood when I moved here than Brooklyn, but over the years even that's gotten harder.

As an occasional DJ, I'd find myself coming home at 4am driving around looking for a parking spot. Certain neighborhoods perhaps where there's more car commuters, it's easy to park before 10pm or so but at night it's hard.

We got a spot in our building's garage after 10 years only before our kid was born. I didn't relish the idea of pulling up at the fire hydrant, unloading kid and groceries etc then going to find a spot etc.

But it's also great to just come home from a party or whatever at whatever time (pre pandemic of course) and not worry, just pull into my garage. Certainly worth 175/mo. Was 150 when we started.

Now if we lived in Boerum Hill and garage parking was 500/mo, that would be a different story.

As far as how great having a car is, it's just so fun to explore the city (and to get out for day trips) and I suppose if you're the type who lives in Park Slope and using your car to go to the hamptons 1 weekend out of the month, well that sucks, but if you find yourself driving to College Point for dinner on a weeknight, I mean, you try taking public transportation to Little Pepper!, or driving to the rockaways and stopping at L&B or whatever on the way back. Or going to Wave Hill or Untermeyer gardens. It's great that you don't need a car in NYC, but it sure makes a lot of things easier.