Comment box Scope: summary, information Tone: neutral Opinion: none of my own Sarcasm/humor: none Archive ……. https://archive.is/ULSwP Observations about how timed road tolls (congestion pricing)...
Observations about how timed road tolls (congestion pricing) improve safety/accessibility for people in New York City.
This is written by an advocate for people with disabilities.
That’s why so many disability justice advocates have fought for the city’s congestion relief program, even as it stood against tough odds and public disapproval for years before finally becoming a reality. With the potential to reduce dangerous car traffic, speed up our paratransit and bus systems, improve air quality, and fund critical investments in long-overdue accessibility improvements, the program is a clear solution to various of our transportation system’s historic shortcomings.
Traffic injuries are down 15% and pedestrian fatalities are at historic lows. Meanwhile, New Yorkers are breathing easier from decreased levels of fine particulate matter and better air quality. All of this means safer streets, faster commutes, and cleaner air.
And the impact is felt especially among people with disabilities. Those safer streets and fewer fatalities are particularly important, as a disproportionately high percentage of car-pedestrian deaths happen to people using wheelchairs. And congestion relief’s cleaner air helps people with respiratory and cardiac disabilities who are disproportionately impacted by air pollution.
We’ve also seen critical improvements to Access-A-Ride, the MTA’s paratransit system for people with disabilities who are unable to take subways and buses. The system has been historically slow and unreliable. It’s also costly to operate — in part due to overreliance on paratransit because the subway system is only 30% accessible. Now, Access-A-Ride is moving faster within the congestion relief zone, which is critical because its riders cannot wait for lengthy subway improvements.
And let’s not forget: when we make the city more accessible for people with disabilities, we make it better for everyone. Elevators also benefit parents with strollers; curb cuts assist delivery workers with dollies; wayfinding features help tourists move around our city with ease; protective barriers make stations safer for kids; and everyone benefits from the comfort of wider doors and gates as well as the safety of smaller gaps between platforms and trains.
Appreciate this post! And I'm very pro-congestion pricing for multiple reasons, this being one of them. The failure to make subways/trains wheelchair accessible by default or to update their...
Appreciate this post! And I'm very pro-congestion pricing for multiple reasons, this being one of them.
The failure to make subways/trains wheelchair accessible by default or to update their infrastructure (and maintain them in general) has been an ongoing issue and just makes accessible Transit costlier And if paratransit is running better that's a great win.
(Intending to reply to your reply to me btw, it's just long and I need to be at a computer not fighting with doctors offices)
Comment box Scope: comment response, information Tone: neutral Opinion: a bit, not much Sarcasm/humor: none All newly built trains/subways in the USA have good accessibility (ADA 1990), but NYC's...
Comment box
Scope: comment response, information
Tone: neutral
Opinion: a bit, not much
Sarcasm/humor: none
All newly built trains/subways in the USA have good accessibility (ADA 1990), but NYC's system goes back to the 1800s when that wasn't a law. Retrofitting elevators into existing subways is unfortunately expensive. NYC MTA is investing several billion dollars into accessibility.
We're committed to increasing accessibility throughout our transit system. The MTA's 2020-2024 Capital Program has dedicated a historic $5.2 billion to making 67 subway stations newly accessible and almost $600 million to rebuilding elevators to ensure continued reliability.
Additionally, in 2022, the MTA and accessibility advocates announced an agreement that reaffirms the MTA’s commitment to systemwide accessibility and provides a clear path and timeline to get there. The systemwide accessibility plan builds on the unprecedented investments in the current Capital Plan, and will bring us to a system that is 95% accessible by 2055.
95% is good. 2055 is a glacial pace. However, they're generally prioritizing busier stations, which means on average, most of the system will be accessible before then. So that's good.
The calculus is more than just people in wheelchairs though. For example, MTA has some incentive to rebuild regional heavy rail platforms lacking level boarding because doing so reduces dwell time in addition to providing accessibility. This improves travel time and the efficiency of the system. This doesn't apply to subways, which already have level boarding, even if the stations lack elevators. LIRR has high accessibility coverage (wiki says 89% as of November 2024). Metro-North has much worse coverage (wiki says 64% as of January 2018). I don't know about NJ Transit. However, regional rail ridership is way lower than subway ridership. So MTA deprioritizes a lot of them. Just another reason why it sucks to be disabled in the suburbs. It's the same in my city, Philadelphia, which has much better subway accessibility than regional rail.
The primary internal incentive to make subways accessible is inducing more ridership from people using wheelchairs, bikes, strollers and dollies, and at a high level to reduce auto traffic. This means just building elevators and ramps. This is expensive because of how deep many subway stations are. Passageways might have to navigate around each other. This means that you can't always use cut-and-cover excavation for underground features (the cheapest option). MTA also has to be careful to drill/dig without destabilizing other tunnels or structures, or who knows what. It's technically perfectly possible but is very hard to do cost-effectively.
In general, NYC's subway's excessive reverse branching means that the entire system is extremely fragile, so delays in one place propagate elsewhere. This means it's a high priority to make infrastructure upgrades that reduce the chance of delays. Subway accessibility upgrades don't really help with that. They do meaningfully increase ridership from both disabled and able-bodied people, but this is sort of hard to predict and it's just not as politically persuasive as "build a new track on this line to stop delays" or "rebuild the junctions on this busy line" or "build a new line to relieve pressure from this existing line". This means building accessible infrastructure requires a ton of advocacy effort. Politicians respond to voting blocs. Wheelchair-disabled people are a relatively small minority (in NYC, ~11% disabled * 25% of those with ambulatory problems = ~2.75% of NYC population), and maybe not the most politically organized. This is one reason why the accessibility goal is 2055 and not 2035.
But because accessibility improvements also help bikes, a group made up of extremely vocal advocates, and a group whose numbers are growing (and hypothetically could one day become 97.25% of NYC's population), I think that alliance is very important. Symbiosis. Mutual benefit.
I can't comment much on maintenance, but in general, simple designs are good and complicated designs are bad. The Hudson Yards station has possibly the weirdest ADA accessibility design, which is a diagonal elevator lift ("inclined funicular elevator"). It moves slowly to discourage able-bodied people from taking it, which I guess works, but is also weird. In my opinion this is a bad design because it's custom. This single elevator delayed the construction of this station by multiple years. MTA would be able to build more infrastructure, including ADA-accessible elevators, if they standardized their designs. Alon Levy discusses this at length in Pedestrian Observations.
American planners characteristically eschew global best practices. They prefer to look only take inspiration from elsewhere in the Anglosphere, within which no city is a global leader in transit except London. This results in high costs. The Transit Costs Project is devoted to solving this problem.
One of the big benefits of congestion pricing is that much (all?) of the revenue specifically goes toward the transit system. This makes it more realistic to perform accessibility upgrades on a faster timeline. I was disappointed when the originally planned congestion toll decreased to what it currently is, but it's still helpful.
I know this is slightly off topic, but can we talk about how out of date the ADA is and how there are more mobility issues than just wheelchair users? I appreciate that it exists, I just wish it...
I know this is slightly off topic, but can we talk about how out of date the ADA is and how there are more mobility issues than just wheelchair users? I appreciate that it exists, I just wish it had more accommodations for invisible disabilities other than "just use a wheelchair."
It's something I have experienced first hand with invisible disabilities and being told my mobility issues can be solved entirely by using a wheelchair for my accessibility needs (which isn't true, especially if I want to keep what mobility I have left).
I appreciate congestion pricing to help with accessibility, but I wish that it was more accessible than it already is, and that pricing didn't affect someone who couldn't use part of public transit for accessibility reasons that aren't visible. :(
For many, the gaps that are between either a bus and the sidewalk or the train and the platform are too far apart. Lifting your leg that high can be a painful nerve issue, or just a safety hazard....
For many, the gaps that are between either a bus and the sidewalk or the train and the platform are too far apart. Lifting your leg that high can be a painful nerve issue, or just a safety hazard. There is no external place to place an arm for support or protection from the gaps. I've not struggled with this personally, but I have witnessed people unable to safely get inside a bus because of those gaps. It's been a while since I've been on a train, but I imagine it's very similar since there is not a smooth gapless area at least on Caltrain that I've experienced here in California.
In terms of mobility, people with nerve issues often can't sit for long periods of time without exacerbating their issues. For me specifically, while standing upright and still is an issue and is excruciatingly painful, so is sitting in certain positions, namely the position you are forced into in a "standard" sitting position like a wheelchair or a regular chair with arms. If I'm siting upright, I'm usually sitting cross-legged for the support it gives my lower back and core to help combat the pain. Obviously, I'm not everyone, but it's something I've heard a lot of people struggle with in the chronic illness space when I'm trawling the internet. Additionally, sitting for long periods of time in general is something that's hard for many with nerve issues. Many invisible disabilities can get worse when forced to use mobility aids that don't fit their needs, and a wheelchair is not a one size fits all mobility device. It's awesome, for sure, but it's not the be all end all of mobility.
Additionally, intermittent wheelchair users sometimes have people pushing their chair around for them. Specifically for me, my partner does this because there is no way, with my fibro that I can even grip the wheels all day to push myself, let alone have the arm and core strength necessary to get around on my own. Unless you spend a lot of money on a custom chair, which insurance doesn't cover or reimburse for unless you are a full-time user, and even then it's a whole other fight there because we don't go far enough for disability protections in our legal system, it's not ergonomic for anyone, the sitter or the pusher, meaning it can cause RSIs which are also a category of injury and disability.
I am aware that it's older than the 1990s. The issue ultimately there lies in not making things accessible unless/until required and often doing the bare minimum. We're so steeped in a history...
I am aware that it's older than the 1990s. The issue ultimately there lies in not making things accessible unless/until required and often doing the bare minimum. We're so steeped in a history where it was literally illegal for many disabled people to appear in public in many places (not New York, ugly laws failed there) that it's just seen as a norm to be inaccessible, forcibly altered by the ADA. It didn't have to be that way! It still doesn't.
(And even when it is required, it's postponed as not important due to being only 250k people. Never mind it could be any of the politicians in question tomorrow)
I am a large supporter of "universal design" and why it makes sense for disability advocates to be allies with those in that symbiosis. I know your post was informational, and I appreciate the specifics, but let me be clear, I already "get" the issue and the arguments. I'm just glad some progress happens sometimes.
Even if none of the money ever made it to the subway system, the reduction in traffic and the associated noise outside my office window (near the Holland Tunnel) has made me a congestion pricing...
Even if none of the money ever made it to the subway system, the reduction in traffic and the associated noise outside my office window (near the Holland Tunnel) has made me a congestion pricing supporter for life! It used to be constant honking for hours, every single weekday. After congestion pricing started, it all just disappeared for a while. It was incredible! Things have balanced out a bit more recently, with traffic sometimes backing up for Thursday and Friday rush hour, but it's not nearly like what it was. It has been a huge improvement in my quality of life (and presumably for everyone else in the neighborhood too.)
I see complaints about this mainly from A. People who don't live in NYC, and have never even been to NYC, or any other large city where traffic is horrendous or B. People that, for some absolutely...
I see complaints about this mainly from
A. People who don't live in NYC, and have never even been to NYC, or any other large city where traffic is horrendous
or
B. People that, for some absolutely insane reason, commute to lower Manhattan for some reason
Group B is well off enough that this law really doesn't effect them much, and if they truly do insist on driving still, will help them save a good deal of time. Group A is totally irrelevant.
Admittedly, I'm sort of group A myself, but I did grow up in the area, and still go up there pretty frequently, so I'm familiar with the problem at least.
Driving into lower Manhattan for any reason unless you're required to do so for your job (you're a maintenance worker, a cab driver, a cop, firefighter, and so on) is insane, irrational behavior in 99% of cases.
The only people I ever knew who did it were people who actually hated their lives and the excuse of sitting in traffic for two hours was better than dealing with whatever was waiting at home for them, or people who were so afraid of people of color that the thought of potentially interacting with them on the MTA was worse than spending that much extra time and toll money every day.
It was an insane thing to do even before the congestion pricing, but it's nice to see that the pricing is dissuading even more people. I'm wondering what the effects will be when the cost starts ramping up. I'm expect curious if the increasing costs will lead to more MTA revenue, or just even fewer people driving in lower Manhattan. Both would be good things.
My main issue with these kinds of solutions is they tend to disproportionally hurt the most vulnerable. There's 0 doubt in my mind congestion pricing will, and can, work. But the people it's...
My main issue with these kinds of solutions is they tend to disproportionally hurt the most vulnerable.
There's 0 doubt in my mind congestion pricing will, and can, work. But the people it's getting off the road are the people who can't afford to be there.
In new york specifically I think it's probably ok because they do have other options, but even then I think this starts leading back to the whole "ok so are we actually going to have any fast food within 30 miles, because no one is willing to pay them what they need to live here" situations.
I do hope that this will lead to the obvious solution of "hey fix/improve your mass transit", but i'm not so certain it's going to actually play out that way, and the pain for those at the bottom rung in the meantime sucks.
Edit -
To be a little clearer I think Manhattan in particular is a somewhat unique case, so i'm not really against it, but I also question how well this will scale/adopt in any other urban area.
Comment box
Archive ……. https://archive.is/ULSwP
Observations about how timed road tolls (congestion pricing) improve safety/accessibility for people in New York City.
This is written by an advocate for people with disabilities.
Appreciate this post! And I'm very pro-congestion pricing for multiple reasons, this being one of them.
The failure to make subways/trains wheelchair accessible by default or to update their infrastructure (and maintain them in general) has been an ongoing issue and just makes accessible Transit costlier And if paratransit is running better that's a great win.
(Intending to reply to your reply to me btw, it's just long and I need to be at a computer not fighting with doctors offices)
Comment box
All newly built trains/subways in the USA have good accessibility (ADA 1990), but NYC's system goes back to the 1800s when that wasn't a law. Retrofitting elevators into existing subways is unfortunately expensive. NYC MTA is investing several billion dollars into accessibility.
95% is good. 2055 is a glacial pace. However, they're generally prioritizing busier stations, which means on average, most of the system will be accessible before then. So that's good.
The calculus is more than just people in wheelchairs though. For example, MTA has some incentive to rebuild regional heavy rail platforms lacking level boarding because doing so reduces dwell time in addition to providing accessibility. This improves travel time and the efficiency of the system. This doesn't apply to subways, which already have level boarding, even if the stations lack elevators. LIRR has high accessibility coverage (wiki says 89% as of November 2024). Metro-North has much worse coverage (wiki says 64% as of January 2018). I don't know about NJ Transit. However, regional rail ridership is way lower than subway ridership. So MTA deprioritizes a lot of them. Just another reason why it sucks to be disabled in the suburbs. It's the same in my city, Philadelphia, which has much better subway accessibility than regional rail.
The primary internal incentive to make subways accessible is inducing more ridership from people using wheelchairs, bikes, strollers and dollies, and at a high level to reduce auto traffic. This means just building elevators and ramps. This is expensive because of how deep many subway stations are. Passageways might have to navigate around each other. This means that you can't always use cut-and-cover excavation for underground features (the cheapest option). MTA also has to be careful to drill/dig without destabilizing other tunnels or structures, or who knows what. It's technically perfectly possible but is very hard to do cost-effectively.
In general, NYC's subway's excessive reverse branching means that the entire system is extremely fragile, so delays in one place propagate elsewhere. This means it's a high priority to make infrastructure upgrades that reduce the chance of delays. Subway accessibility upgrades don't really help with that. They do meaningfully increase ridership from both disabled and able-bodied people, but this is sort of hard to predict and it's just not as politically persuasive as "build a new track on this line to stop delays" or "rebuild the junctions on this busy line" or "build a new line to relieve pressure from this existing line". This means building accessible infrastructure requires a ton of advocacy effort. Politicians respond to voting blocs. Wheelchair-disabled people are a relatively small minority (in NYC, ~11% disabled * 25% of those with ambulatory problems = ~2.75% of NYC population), and maybe not the most politically organized. This is one reason why the accessibility goal is 2055 and not 2035.
But because accessibility improvements also help bikes, a group made up of extremely vocal advocates, and a group whose numbers are growing (and hypothetically could one day become 97.25% of NYC's population), I think that alliance is very important. Symbiosis. Mutual benefit.
I can't comment much on maintenance, but in general, simple designs are good and complicated designs are bad. The Hudson Yards station has possibly the weirdest ADA accessibility design, which is a diagonal elevator lift ("inclined funicular elevator"). It moves slowly to discourage able-bodied people from taking it, which I guess works, but is also weird. In my opinion this is a bad design because it's custom. This single elevator delayed the construction of this station by multiple years. MTA would be able to build more infrastructure, including ADA-accessible elevators, if they standardized their designs. Alon Levy discusses this at length in Pedestrian Observations.
American planners characteristically eschew global best practices. They prefer to look only take inspiration from elsewhere in the Anglosphere, within which no city is a global leader in transit except London. This results in high costs. The Transit Costs Project is devoted to solving this problem.
One of the big benefits of congestion pricing is that much (all?) of the revenue specifically goes toward the transit system. This makes it more realistic to perform accessibility upgrades on a faster timeline. I was disappointed when the originally planned congestion toll decreased to what it currently is, but it's still helpful.
I know this is slightly off topic, but can we talk about how out of date the ADA is and how there are more mobility issues than just wheelchair users? I appreciate that it exists, I just wish it had more accommodations for invisible disabilities other than "just use a wheelchair."
It's something I have experienced first hand with invisible disabilities and being told my mobility issues can be solved entirely by using a wheelchair for my accessibility needs (which isn't true, especially if I want to keep what mobility I have left).
I appreciate congestion pricing to help with accessibility, but I wish that it was more accessible than it already is, and that pricing didn't affect someone who couldn't use part of public transit for accessibility reasons that aren't visible. :(
Sure, we can talk about that. What mobility issue(s) are you referring to? What mobility issues can't be entirely solved by a wheelchair?
For many, the gaps that are between either a bus and the sidewalk or the train and the platform are too far apart. Lifting your leg that high can be a painful nerve issue, or just a safety hazard. There is no external place to place an arm for support or protection from the gaps. I've not struggled with this personally, but I have witnessed people unable to safely get inside a bus because of those gaps. It's been a while since I've been on a train, but I imagine it's very similar since there is not a smooth gapless area at least on Caltrain that I've experienced here in California.
In terms of mobility, people with nerve issues often can't sit for long periods of time without exacerbating their issues. For me specifically, while standing upright and still is an issue and is excruciatingly painful, so is sitting in certain positions, namely the position you are forced into in a "standard" sitting position like a wheelchair or a regular chair with arms. If I'm siting upright, I'm usually sitting cross-legged for the support it gives my lower back and core to help combat the pain. Obviously, I'm not everyone, but it's something I've heard a lot of people struggle with in the chronic illness space when I'm trawling the internet. Additionally, sitting for long periods of time in general is something that's hard for many with nerve issues. Many invisible disabilities can get worse when forced to use mobility aids that don't fit their needs, and a wheelchair is not a one size fits all mobility device. It's awesome, for sure, but it's not the be all end all of mobility.
Additionally, intermittent wheelchair users sometimes have people pushing their chair around for them. Specifically for me, my partner does this because there is no way, with my fibro that I can even grip the wheels all day to push myself, let alone have the arm and core strength necessary to get around on my own. Unless you spend a lot of money on a custom chair, which insurance doesn't cover or reimburse for unless you are a full-time user, and even then it's a whole other fight there because we don't go far enough for disability protections in our legal system, it's not ergonomic for anyone, the sitter or the pusher, meaning it can cause RSIs which are also a category of injury and disability.
I am aware that it's older than the 1990s. The issue ultimately there lies in not making things accessible unless/until required and often doing the bare minimum. We're so steeped in a history where it was literally illegal for many disabled people to appear in public in many places (not New York, ugly laws failed there) that it's just seen as a norm to be inaccessible, forcibly altered by the ADA. It didn't have to be that way! It still doesn't.
(And even when it is required, it's postponed as not important due to being only 250k people. Never mind it could be any of the politicians in question tomorrow)
I am a large supporter of "universal design" and why it makes sense for disability advocates to be allies with those in that symbiosis. I know your post was informational, and I appreciate the specifics, but let me be clear, I already "get" the issue and the arguments. I'm just glad some progress happens sometimes.
Even if none of the money ever made it to the subway system, the reduction in traffic and the associated noise outside my office window (near the Holland Tunnel) has made me a congestion pricing supporter for life! It used to be constant honking for hours, every single weekday. After congestion pricing started, it all just disappeared for a while. It was incredible! Things have balanced out a bit more recently, with traffic sometimes backing up for Thursday and Friday rush hour, but it's not nearly like what it was. It has been a huge improvement in my quality of life (and presumably for everyone else in the neighborhood too.)
I see complaints about this mainly from
A. People who don't live in NYC, and have never even been to NYC, or any other large city where traffic is horrendous
or
B. People that, for some absolutely insane reason, commute to lower Manhattan for some reason
Group B is well off enough that this law really doesn't effect them much, and if they truly do insist on driving still, will help them save a good deal of time. Group A is totally irrelevant.
Admittedly, I'm sort of group A myself, but I did grow up in the area, and still go up there pretty frequently, so I'm familiar with the problem at least.
Driving into lower Manhattan for any reason unless you're required to do so for your job (you're a maintenance worker, a cab driver, a cop, firefighter, and so on) is insane, irrational behavior in 99% of cases.
The only people I ever knew who did it were people who actually hated their lives and the excuse of sitting in traffic for two hours was better than dealing with whatever was waiting at home for them, or people who were so afraid of people of color that the thought of potentially interacting with them on the MTA was worse than spending that much extra time and toll money every day.
It was an insane thing to do even before the congestion pricing, but it's nice to see that the pricing is dissuading even more people. I'm wondering what the effects will be when the cost starts ramping up. I'm expect curious if the increasing costs will lead to more MTA revenue, or just even fewer people driving in lower Manhattan. Both would be good things.
My main issue with these kinds of solutions is they tend to disproportionally hurt the most vulnerable.
There's 0 doubt in my mind congestion pricing will, and can, work. But the people it's getting off the road are the people who can't afford to be there.
In new york specifically I think it's probably ok because they do have other options, but even then I think this starts leading back to the whole "ok so are we actually going to have any fast food within 30 miles, because no one is willing to pay them what they need to live here" situations.
I do hope that this will lead to the obvious solution of "hey fix/improve your mass transit", but i'm not so certain it's going to actually play out that way, and the pain for those at the bottom rung in the meantime sucks.
Edit -
To be a little clearer I think Manhattan in particular is a somewhat unique case, so i'm not really against it, but I also question how well this will scale/adopt in any other urban area.