> NYC’s newer bus lane approaches and congestion pricing findings counter this
Could you clarify which this? (And point to the source? I’m a big fan of congestion pricing.)
Would also note that my “largely” is “largely” mostly to exclude New York. Public transit works in Manhattan, and is uniquely successful in the New York metro area [1].
There is very little that’s unique about NYC’s ability to build a great public transit system, other than it is a uniquely very hard place to do it, and run by a uniquely crooked city govt.
So, if somehow NYC could do it, what’s everyone else’s reasoning for not? To tip some cards - an obscene amount of lobbying from your local car dealer baron, if you’re in Nashville (for example)
Hizzoner aside, I don’t think NYC’s government is markedly more crooked than any other American municipality.
(NYC news is often national news, so there’s a double effect: transparency is a deterrent, and transparency makes the city look uniquely corrupt. If, say, Dallas had the same kind of persistent national coverage as NYC does, I’d expect to see roughly the same stuff.)
NYC has a markedly more pronounced history with organized crime - including that extant sort which is associated with the financial industry - and the municipal culture that develops to deal with it. Of course, this implies that now that Dallas is getting a stock exchange, your claim might become salient in a decade or two.
Emphasis on history: NYC very famously broke its organized crime groups in the 1980s and 1990s. It's what made Giuliani famous before he became a politician[1].
(I would hazard a demographic claim around organized crime: just about any mid-sized city with large suburbs almost certainly has more per-capita organized crime than NYC does. You just don't hear about it because most of it is of the "extortion for trash pickup" variety, not the "Murder, Inc." variety.)
I took pains to mention the extant nature of organized financial criminality which yet influences NYC (and state, and national) politics. Wall Street gets their way a lot when they shouldn't, and it's because government officials and elites are happy to pledge fealty to money over law.
As for Giuliani, he himself is a mobster; he's facing the same RICO charges he leveled at crime bosses as a prosecutor. I think this speaks to my point, which is that NYC corruption vis a vis organized crime didn't go away, it just became part of the institution.
I don’t think Wall Street is responsible for that much corruption at the city level. I agree about the federal level, but at the city level it’s probably mostly real estate with NGOs as a close second.
(But again, I don’t think it’s been evidenced that NYC is uniquely corrupt, which was the original claim.)
> As for Giuliani, he himself is a mobster; he's facing the same RICO charges he leveled at crime bosses as a prosecutor.
Except that the man is nowhere close to the halls of power in NYC, and hasn’t been so for three decades!
He is of course a crook, but that doesn’t evidence NYC being corrupt in 2025. It evidences Giuliani being a crook at the federal level.
> very little that’s unique about NYC’s ability to build a great public transit system
Have you been to New York?
We’re uniquely dense, rich and collectivist. We have a long and proud history of public transit and a culture that doesn’t put social cachet on vehicle ownership. That’s entirely different from the rest of America.
> if somehow NYC could do it,
what’s everyone else’s reasoning for not?
New York’s government is larger, and has a larger remit, than many countries. More practically: they haven’t.
> obscene amount of lobbying from your local car dealer baron, if you’re in Nashville (for example)
Ya and it’s also granite on swamp, with significant cost multipliers to get anything built. Latter is a literal statement, engineering bids have geoloc multipliers for costs.
To your later point, I’d love to see some data on why modern city states are the only ones able to build public transit.
As a Ny’er, I stand by my point that it’s crooked as heck. Not sure how you could spend any time under an Adams or Giuliani admin and think otherwise, to barely scratch the surface. Tammany hall anyone?
Lastly - you’re a NYer and saying pub transit is untenably uncomfortable Metronorth isn’t too bad and has new cars within the last decade. Amtrak is similar.
> it’s also granite on swamp, with significant cost multipliers to get anything built
We're still talking about busses, right?
If we're pivoting to subways, the granite isn't why building subways in New York is expensive. It's one part the existing density of the city and nine parts the usual American permitting hell [1].
> I’d love to see some data on why modern city states are the only ones able to build public transit
Fixed costs scale with distance (not area--routes are 1D) serviced. Revenue potential scales with area around stops. (And drops non-linearly as travel time for potential customers increases from each stop.) Latency and travel time scale inversely with number of stops.
Put it together and you need revenue per stop to cover the cost of, ideally, the distance halfway to the next stops. Herego, density reigns supreme [2].
> you’re a NYer and saying pub transit is untenably uncomfortable
I said busses are uncomfortable. Trains are fine. But you're not going to get an LIRR and subway system working sustainably in Dallas, Baltimore or even Chicago--everyone already owns a car, which makes the marginal cost of driving oneself uncompetitive with public transit.
Rude. I'm a lifelong New Yorker and nothing about your posts seem reasonable or made apparent by anything that's just "obvious" about being in new york. There's also great bus transit in Queens... but you don't mention that. You just continuously suggest all your points are self evident.
Sure. If you don’t see why Queens is uniquely well situation to be served by such a system, particularly in comparison to e.g. Nashville, I’m going to be similarly surprised.
Yes, manhattan is the only special place in the country that can have public transit. Oh wait yeah, except for Queens! No, they aren't particularly alike and yes it is true that plenty of cities outside of the US have great public transit, despite not having what the special Manhattan and/or Queens sauce, but yes... Nashville.
And yet on the list of North America transit systems by ridership[0], while New York City takes the top spot, every other city in America loses first to Mexico, then to Canada.
I can't speak on Mexico with any authority, but telling me multiple cities in Canada are more dense and financially well-off than every other city in America is more than a little shocking.
Telling me the (allegedly, but very publicly and loudly) Christian country is more collectivist than both Canada and Mexico is odd, unless we take a very cynical view of what it means to be Christian in America
> doesn’t put social cachet on vehicle ownership
> This isn’t being launched in Nashville
Yes, the point is that the social cachet around vehicle ownership is marketing, pushed by car dealerships (among other institutions)
> Telling me the (allegedly, but very publicly and loudly) Christian country is more collectivist than both Canada and Mexico is odd
OP mentioned Nashville. I wasn’t considering places outside America. Within America, New York is unique in those aspects. As a global city, it’s strikingly inefficient.
> point is that the social cachet around vehicle ownership is marketing, pushed by car dealerships (among other institutions)
Sure. Whatever. I disagree, but that’s irrelevant. It’s the field we’re given to play. We can complain about the field or we can play to win.
Lots of problems could be solved if wishing upon a star that people were different did anything. It doesn’t. So we’re left with real solutions and pipe dreams. If one side offers only the latter, particularly if conspiratorially tinted, you go with the other option.
As a former New Yorker, I’d like to hear what you think makes NY government uniquely corrupt. It doesn’t seem any more or less corrupt than anywhere else I’ve lived in the US.
It has? This literally happened to Oakland, CA (a few transit stops away from SF) months ago where the ex-mayor and a cadre of her backers were indicted by the FBI. I think you've been in NYC for too long if you think NYC is uniquely bad for transit due to corruption and geo factors. The Bay Area has hills and mountain ranges everywhere and has a literal ocean on its West side. Chicago is built along the Great Lakes and has ridiculous wind gusts and wind chill in the winter.
Most older US cities were built along rivers and other natural features because rivers are flat and most natural features are opening/closing points for trade routes between areas. Newer sunbelt cities are probably the ones that don't have these issues because they were built in less challenging geography.
> Most older US cities were built along rivers and other natural features because rivers are flat and most natural features are opening/closing points for trade routes between areas.
People build along rivers for (secondarily) the water supply and (primarily) the cheap shipping.
Putting aside your attempt at humor through exaggeration, I don’t see any evidence at all in this discussion that the city is uniquely corrupt. Generically corrupt? Sure I can live with that.
If the congestion pricing was based on the pre-tax income percentage it'd be even better! Right now these are private lanes for the rich and desperate.
Could you clarify which this? (And point to the source? I’m a big fan of congestion pricing.)
Would also note that my “largely” is “largely” mostly to exclude New York. Public transit works in Manhattan, and is uniquely successful in the New York metro area [1].
[1] https://www.moneygeek.com/resources/car-ownership-statistics...