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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34482 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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Also, the NYC subway and transit system is sufficient, and the city is dense enough, that a majority of New Yorkers don't own a car. Once you have a car, the marginal cost of a trip drops by a lot (although it's still probably higher than people intuitively expect, once you account for wear and tear, insurance, maintenance, etc). But if you can get by without owning a car at all, that's a big fixed cost you can avoid, and it encourages you to take transit for marginal trips.

It's worth keeping an eye on this, because self-driving cars could completely disrupt it, either by dropping taxi prices 50% or more or by allowing cars to drop off their owners and then go find parking on their own.

Maybe, although congestion is so bad that it still might not be worthwhile. I've been in a NYC bus that was slower than walking in between stops, and reducing the price of a cab ride just makes this problem worse.

Plus, of course, you won't have to worry about your car being stolen/vandalized/broken into.

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