
A Spreadsheet That Could Solve NYC Transit - ALee
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8x53xb/meet-the-spreadsheet-that-can-solve-nyc-transit-and-the-man-who-made-it
======
ordinaryperson
As the article discusses at the end: the MTA is a black hole of money, it's
overly optimistic to assume cash generated from congestion pricing would go
back into public transit (e.g.: the NYT recently reported how Gov. Cuomo
directed the MTA to hand over millions to ski resorts in upstate NY because
there hadn't been a lot of snow that year).

By comparison London implemented a $15 congestion fee in 2003 and it resulted
in a 26% reduction in traffic, which is good but likely not life-changing for
most commuters.

So if you cynically assume you won't get free transit and congestion pricing
is not a panacea for rush hour gridlock, what do you get implementing this?

Less CO2 emissions. Fewer pedestrian accidents. But mostly: more money for the
city. Aka a tax.

Once you accept that, the discussion boils down to your belief in what
constitutes a fair taxation scheme: should the users of a service pay per use,
or should essential city services be subsidized by the wealthiest citizens?
Good arguments for and against.

While I'm in favor of congestion pricing in general I think it's important to
not be overly optimistic in our assumptions in what it can accomplish.

Very cool spreadsheet though.

~~~
mcny
> Once you accept that, the discussion boils down to your belief in what
> constitutes a fair taxation scheme: should the users of a service pay per
> use, or should essential city services be subsidized by the wealthiest
> citizens? Good arguments for and against.

Very tangentially related but wanted to hear your opinion on this: I know it
is not in my best interest as a poor person but I think there should not be
any handouts or subsidies for poor people. We should transform any entitlement
program that requires you to show you make $X or under a year and replace them
with programs that everyone (regardless of income or wealth) can participate
in. I am still a firm believer in a progressive tax regime to fund these
programs but we should not divide beneficiaries based on income or wealth.

Another thought experiment I sometimes think about is what would change if
public transit were fully paid for by taxes? How would things change? Would we
see more traffic? How much more traffic would we see? Would we see more people
camping out inside the subway stations?

~~~
ordinaryperson
Depends on your definition of "handouts". Free cash transfers don't seem to be
a successful antipoverty program but what about free college tuition? High
education levels strongly correlate with above average lifetime incomes but
you can't expect poor mothers to feed their children on college degrees. I
guarantee you even the most ardent proponent of regressive taxation schemes
has some pet govt benefit they consider not a handout but a right.

As to the second, it's an interesting idea. Everyone complains about the NYC
MTA but for $2.75 you can traverse the entire city -- even with delays it's a
steal. People are definitely disconnected from the price vs reward of public
transit.

~~~
mcny
> what about free college tuition

I love it! However, if we can afford to make college tuition to people making
under $x, I think we can make college tuition free for everyone without
checking for their income. (This is my main objection to the New York state
scheme. They can make it so only NYS residents are eligible but we should drop
the income requirement.)

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cletus
I've sad it once and I'll say it again: we need to stop subsidizing cars and
drivers as a matter of public policy. In places like NYC we need to go further
and punitively tax the ownership and operation of private cars.

Every time this issue comes up, someone will pipe up that gas taxes pay for
the roads. Bzzzzt, wrong [1].

Want to see how far this could (and IMHO should) go? Take a look at Singapore
[2].

While we're at it, let's:

\- eliminate street parking on the avenues and other major roads (eg 14th,
23rd, 34th, 42nd, 57th, 59th, etc streets) in Manhattan;

\- eliminate half the street parking in the other streets

\- stop using the remaining parking as long-term parking. Want long-term
parking in Manhattan? Put it in a garage.

As for Cuomo, he's a disaster for NYC. Then again, probably every NY Governor
is and will be because they're beholden to all the upstate voters who live in
SFHs, which also explains why apartment dwellers are taxed punitively by the
state (except if you're a billionaire) [3] [4].

Another point worth considering is this: why do we charge anything for using
the subway? It unfairly hurts low-income workers. This should be completely
covered by NYC income taxes and taxes on car ownership in Manhattan in
particular.

[1]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving-
true-costs/412237/?utm_source=atlfb)

[2] [https://www.lta.gov.sg/content/ltaweb/en/roads-and-
motoring/...](https://www.lta.gov.sg/content/ltaweb/en/roads-and-
motoring/owning-a-vehicle/costs-of-owning-a-vehicle/tax-structure-for-
cars.html)

[3]
[http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20170519/BLOGS01/170519...](http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20170519/BLOGS01/170519866/numbers-
reveal-how-bad-nycs-property-taxes-are)

[4] [https://citylimits.org/2015/06/10/why-effort-to-reform-
nyc-p...](https://citylimits.org/2015/06/10/why-effort-to-reform-nyc-property-
taxes-has-stalled/)

~~~
leetcrew
> Another point worth considering is this: why do we charge anything for using
> the subway? It unfairly hurts low-income workers.

i don't disagree with your larger point about the benefits of incentivising
alternative forms of transportation, but im not sure i can agree that it is
"unfair" to charge low income workers literally any amount of money to ride
the subway. when you look at the operating expenses vs. fare revenue for the
subway, its already subsidized by the city and state at something like 50%.
the fact that you can ride on the subway for the current price already
represents a substantial transfer from wealthier citizens who pay more taxes.

i think there is certainly room for debate as to what exactly the price should
be, and there may be other compelling reasons why it benefits everyone to make
it free; i just find it absurd to argue that making such an expensive service
anything other than free is unfair.

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trothamel
[https://nurturenature.org/pages/balanced-transportation-
anal...](https://nurturenature.org/pages/balanced-transportation-analyzer)

is the spreadsheet itself. Interesting is that it justifies most of the
savings by saving drivers time.

I'm a little dubious that's valid, most notably because the costs of mass
transit projects tend to occur early ($14 billion of the second avenue subway
and east side access in NYC), while the benefits manifest later, if at all.

~~~
audiometry
I’m guessing that this spreadsheet is rife with false accuracy. Modeling and
forecasting markets is incredibly difficult. The reason he can get away with
it is nothing will ever happen that can prove it wrong.

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outsidetheparty
Not to denigrate what is clearly a labor of love and noble intentions (this
is, of course, the necessary preamble for a comment in which I'm going to
denigrate what is clearly a labor of &c.) -- but the idea of a complex
72-worksheet Excel file put together by someone who has never heard of source
control ("Komanoff has more than 2,000 versions saved on a hard drive") is
making my left eyelid twitch uncontrollably. I wonder what the unit testing
situation is, here...

~~~
keithpeter
Also what the sensitivity of the final result is to each of the variables...
seems like they are using a lot of assumed or estimated values for the
variables.

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maxhallinan
I'm 100% in support of less car traffic in NYC but I think there has to be
other reliable options in place before that change is made. Many people are
using cars and ride-hailing apps as a remedy to the broken public
transportation system. If I was working downtown and had a meeting in the
middle of the day uptown on the East Side, taking the train would risk missing
the meeting. Taking a car meant I had to leave earlier and pay a lot more
money, but also meant I could be sure of actually getting there roughly on
time. At least in my circles, the preference is public transportation and cars
are used for the times when you're waiting 45 minutes or an hour for a train
that never comes, watching the arrival timer continually count down to 0 and
reset to 12 minutes.

~~~
ardit33
wait, who does that? If you have to go somewhere, and don't want to take the
subway, you usually get a cab. I am assuming normal yellow cabs will not be
affected by this charge.

I live in Manhattan, and the people that I know that own a car and live here,
they fall in the categories:

1\. Work outside/far in the burbs, and need the car to go to work.

2\. Are rich, and their car is there for the weekends...

3\. Have a "commercial license", and can park at places where most normal
folks can't.

In some areas you can find parking during the day, but in most places where
there are businesses (most of downtown, and midtown), it is impossible finding
a parking place unless you are paying a lot of money.

Much cheaper and less hassle to get a cab

~~~
thanksgiving
I think everyone (I guess other than emergency services?) should pay the
congestion charge and the money should never go back to the general treasury
and be directly earmarked for subways and buses only.

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Tempest1981
Seems like this begs to have a simplified web interface, where people can
adjust some of the top-level parameters, and see the results.

Maybe write a tool that reads (a snapshot of) the .xls file, and knows which
cells are interesting inputs and outputs, to instrument and monitor. But then
you need to "eval" all the formulas... seems tricky. Is there an easier way?

Maybe just automate tweaks to a small set of input parameters -- limiting the
number of permutations -- and collect the outputs of interest. Then make a
simple visualizer of that data. Perhaps even just visualize 5 primary
scenarios.

~~~
outsidetheparty
From the article:

> At one point, I asked Komanoff is he’d ever considered converting the BTA
> into some kind of web app to make it accessible to more people. He expressed
> interest in the idea, but worried he wouldn’t be able to modify the model as
> easily. Moreover, he values the spreadsheet’s transparency and flexibility,
> which would be lost in a basic web platform. Of course, a gigantic
> spreadsheet with 72 worksheets and hundreds of thousands of cells has its
> own issues of opaqueness.

I agree with you, though; I don't know how you'd even begin to tease this
thing apart for bugtesting.

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mkmk
How many formula errors does it contain?

