Sure, but that zone is congested because so many people want to go to businesses or other places within the zone. The guy we’re talking about doesn’t want to go anyplace in the congestion zone, he’s just forced to by circumstance.
There’s a parking garage near me. I hadn’t been there for years. Last time I went, you’d drive up to the gate, take a ticket, park, and then pay to get out. I was there a few years ago. Pulled in, and then I found that they’d changed it so I needed an app to pay for parking. I had an old, very full, very slow phone, and I didn’t think I could install another app on it. I went up the ramp, turned around, and left. A few weeks later I got a bill in the mail. I assume the garage had license plate readers. I protested the charge, saying I shouldn’t have to pay for parking at a place I hadn’t actually parked. They said they’d forgive it just this once.
Maybe that’s why I sympatize with this guy. As things were, I didn’t want to go into the garage, but by the time I found that out, I was already in the lane and I couldn’t back out. I don’t begrudge the garage for charging people to park, or New York for charging people who travel to the busiest part of the city. But I don’t think they should charge people who want to avoid it, but can’t.
I’m sure there are people with much more legitimate gripes than this guy, like a disabled woman who works the night shift at a phone center and commutes from the Bronx to 58th Street, but can’t use public transport or walk a few blocks due to legitimate mobility and/or safety concerns. But that’s kind of the nature of legislation, it can’t be completely fair to everybody.
Here in the relatively podunk hamlets that line the shores of Puget Sound, the transit authorities operate a service called “dial-a-lift” where seniors and disabled people can make a reservation on-demand for a small bus or van to pick them up at home and take them directly to their destination and back for things like work, grocery shopping, doctor’s visits, or similar errands, all fully funded by state and local sales tax (here in Olympia) or for the same price as a senior bus fare (in the Seattle area and adjacent).
Surely they have a similar system in The City That Never Sleeps?
Most cities or burbs I’ve lived in have that same basic system by one name or another.
The problem tends to be that the supply is about 10% of the demand. So it can’t really be relied upon to get you anywhere where your arrival time matters. Like work or a medical appointment.
Said another way, the system is just big enough to be a fig leaf that “something is being done”, but it relies on its sheer inconvenience and inadequacy to limit the number of people trying to use it.
Sorta the opposite / inverse of the “nobody goes there anymore; its too crowded” jape.
Because the drone ‘pilots’ are too stupid to understand that violating airspace is stupid.
At least that’s only six to a dozen 1,500 gallon water drops per hour several hours a day. Nobody’s going to lose their house or their life over it, right?
Okay, add “anecdote based on personal observation” before my comment. My point is that there are plenty of people without cars in NYC who somehow manage.
• Just over half (53%) of New Yorkers personally own or have access to a car
• Car ownership and access is highest in Staten Island (86%) and lowest in Northern Manhattan (35%) and Manhattan Core/Southern Bronx (36%)
When I was in grade school and the Pan-American highway was in the news a lot my geography teacher (natch) who was an avid fisher said when he retired he wanted to travel the length of the highway from Alaska down to wherever it wound up in South America stopping to fish at every likely spot along the way. Poor guy’s likely long dead by now.
When I was in grad school one of the other grad students had a shirt commemorating his goal of driving the Pan-American Highway all the way to the end after finishing his bachelor’s degree. He was surprised to find that there are large portions where the highway doesn’t exist (notably the Darien Gap) – you couldn’t drive from one end to the other. They ha to find other ways to get the car around the gaps.
They didn’t even think of driving back.
According to Wikipedia, no current ferries exist for getting around the still-open Darien Gap. And none has operated for decades.
He could attempt it with a surplus amphibious jeep. Australian Ben Carlin tried to go around the world in one, though his ultimate destination proved to be divorce court
