One thing NYC learned this past year is that car culture is not going away anytime soon. Last summer with positive rates < 3%, people afraid of the subway, and car shares booked weeks in advance, New Yorkers turned to car ownership. 40,000 new cars were registered in July ‘20.
Although bikes and buses are nice, they can’t take you far. With people needing to get escape our 500 sq. foot boxes, the convenient investment to get you to the hiking hills of the Catskills or the beaches of Long Island is a new car.
I borrowed a car for a week in July, and the biggest challenge I found was parking. Not only did the wildly inconsistent alternate side parking rules of last year create a game theory ecosystem, the simple act of finding a space not far from your location is one of the greatest headaches. A study by SpotHero found that it takes about 15 minutes on average to find a spot in the city. Often, we just give up and spend $15/hour in a garage.
This week, 2xParked, will be looking into our namesake.
Car to Buy
One of the bigger investments you will make is the car you purchase. Whether new or used (or “certified pre-owned”), the car has the power to take you wherever you need to go. When purchasing a car, you might consider the price, the safety, the gas mileage, and the trunk space.
In New York City, you should also consider how easy it is to parallel park. If you have not considered this yet, 2xParked is here to help. I have modeled out the increase in odds of being able to find a parallel parking spot when compared to another model by running 10,000 simulations of parking in the streets of NYC.
Cars type and trunk size are not necessarily correlated. SUVs like the Honda CRV and Mazda CX-5 are surprisingly easier to park, while sedans like the Honda Accord and Nissan Sentra might take longer than expected.
Ticket to Ride
People with cars swear it is cheaper to get a parking ticket than it is to pay for a spot. That mostly holds true as long as you can average less than 3 tickets a month. That should not be too difficult. At the same time, you sacrifice knowing you have a spot, and there is always the chance your car gets towed.
There are 99 listed traffic violations in NYC. All traffic violation data is stored just so we can look at it. Here is a quick glance at how the fiscal year 2021 compared to the fiscal year 2016.
There are two major differences when comparing one year to another.
Meter parking related tickets are way down. This might be due to less crackdown by the police, or that a lot of the parking rules were suspended in the height of the pandemic.
School camera zone parking tickets are way up. This gets the city an easy few hundred bucks in revenue. With no police needed, it means a lot less costs and more profits.
Finally, double parking violations (pronounced 2xparking) are down over the past 5 years. I recently saw a woman park a car in the middle of 66th street in the Upper East Side. She got out of the car and left it. IA police officer walked right on by without writing a ticket. There are probably bigger fish to fry I guess.
MayorModel
Here are the updated model results:
Recently, Harry Enten of CNN.com wrote about how front runners usually win in NYC mayoral elections. There are a couple caveats that New Yorkers might note are needed.
Lots of Candidates: There are many “major” candidates still running campaigns. Like in the 2013 dem primary, the one election where the front runner did not win, this means no one is the clear favorite at this point. Additionally, like how Klobuchar and Buttigieg dropped out and gave their support to Biden, what happens if any of these candidates drop out? That could be a tipping point, especially if McGuire, Donovan, or Garcia endorse a candidate.
Lots of Unknown: In the latest NY1/Ipsos poll, 26% of the vote was for “unknown”. That is wildly high considering how close we are to the election. Even in 2013, it was mostly 8%-16% unknown at this point prior to the election. This means people still do not know for who or if they are voting.
Let’s have a little fun with the NY1/Ipsos Poll.
If we assume McGuire + Donovan 2nd rank votes are split between Adams and Yang, Wiley + Morales 2nd rank votes go to Stringer, and Garcia 2nd rank votes are split among all the candidates, polling after RCV looks more like 1) Yang [29%], 2) Stringer [24%], 3) Adams [20%] with 26% still undecided.
Let’s assume the 26% undecided is distributed proportionally for these three front runners. This would look like 1) Yang [40%], 2) Stinger [33%], and 3) Adams [27%]. Everyone is still short of the 50% threshold.
Assuming Adams is 3rd, Stinger would have to win more 63% of the Adams’ votes to be mayor. This is not totally unrealistic, especially given the branding of these candidates.
Although these assumptions are not great, this exercise shows us the path to victory for these three candidates. Yang may not need to win many more votes, but he can’t risk hurting his chance at potential lower ranked votes. Stringer needs to align with the more moderate (or similarly “established already elected NYC official brand”) voter base that Adams is pulling in. Adams still has a great chance. If he can win a disproportionate amount of 1st and 2nd ranked votes among the 26% undecided and pull into 2nd of the three candidates, he might be more closely aligned with Stringer to overtake Yang on the final ranked voting count.
All this being said, it’s better to be in the “lead” than to not be.
“Double Parked" was drawn by Ink&thyme, drawing life's unforgettable moments. For unique art drawn just for you, check them out on Facebook and on Instagram.
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