New York bans horse-drawn carriages after 160 years | Hacker News Reader

New York bans horse-drawn carriages after 160 years

bbc.com

13 pointsgeox7 comments

Why not regulate more to prevent abuse? Although I am not sure how stressful it is for the horses to work in those conditions, in a congested city. Surely there are more deaths with vehicles.

Meanwhile billions of animals are raised and killed in atrocious conditions every year.

You can't regulate away abuse that isn't happening without writing rules that cause some stupid enough to cause pushback consequences elsewhere. Also it might start a regulatory turf war depending on how the state of NY claims such things.

These conditions are a literal walk in the park compared to pulling a chord of wood off road in the rain or the 90deg sun because winter's coming and fuel must be stocked regardless of weather and the other "real work" these animals were meant for. The horses doing these jobs are borderline pet animals that have a job to subsidize themselves avoid the hoofed equivalent of a working dog that tears things up from boredom. Doesn't surprise me that they keel over on the job sometimes. Horses are both stupid and fragile.

The vibe I'm getting here is "sir the latest poll says you're losing the crazy cat ladys" "ok fine, ban the carriages and call it an animal safety thing and see if that gets them back"

Unless there's overwhelming public interest or overwhelming industry interest/corruption the government almost never takes it upon itself to regulate minutia like this, the downside is just not worth it unless you think you can pander to some demographic.

It’s an overwhelming public interest, and it’s not an animal cruelty thing: it’s like 100 people running a business on public land, where the externality is congestion in the lower loop, and horse shit strewn on the ground.

Oh piss off with the hand wringing. National defense. Health, cleanliness and sanitation, having effective courts, those are "overwhelming public interests". Some tourist attraction horses in the park is not an "overwhelming public interest".

Congestion in the lower loop? Rofl. It would be the same without the horses. Hire a guy with a shovel and a rolling trash can to deal with the horse shit.

My understanding is that people have been hired to handle the horse shit. It’s not like the road in Central Park is 6 feet deep in manure. But there’s still horse shit on the ground and it’s still disgusting if you’re just out trying to get some exercise in one of the only car-free spaces in the city.

I agree with you that the animal rights angle is a weak justification. But as someone who uses the park, I’m glad the carriages are gone. Let’s get rid of the pedicabs next.

I don't disagree that there could be some problems here but my point is that the problems (horse shit, potential for animal cruelty) are surmountable problems with known solutions, not a fundamental tradeoff.

I don't like these sorts of exclusionary type arguments. We should strive to include all users or as many types as possible, not kick some varieties out for others except where truly necessary (e.g. there is no vehicular through traffic).

Look at the arc of state forests, watershed districts and conservation lands over the past 20-50yr. A lot of them (especially in the northeast) follow the following pattern: First they kicked out the Jeeps and whatnot. Then they kicked out the ATVs and dirtbikes. Then they kicked out the hunters and fishermen. Then they kicked out the mountain bikes and kayakers. Then they kicked out the dog walkers. Then they closed it to the public and gave a megacorp permission to clearcut it and build a solar farm or something, i.e. it goes to shit and nobody can enjoy it.

I know central park isn't exactly the same but with these sorts of things that don't "actually" affect the detractors in a serious way (it's not like stepping around horse crap will ruin your finances for the month or cause you a risk of developing cancer later in life or something) there's a lot of potential for the same sort of purity spiral where once you start picking and choosing who and what's allowed you whittle down your potential user base and with it political support for keeping whatever your subject is from going to shit (IDK what "going to shit" looks like for central park). Like this is supposed to be a common good. I think some level of niche touristy commerce here is what you want.

It's not like the horses were thaaat detrimental. They surely weren't so numerous they were clogging it up to the exclusion of other users. Like at best they were a minor inconvenience, but one that brought a lot of paying customers entertainment and employed some people so I think it's worth having. If they're causing solvable problems solve those problems, don't just kick them out.

Everyone is overlooking the fundamental fact that _horses aren't real_. They don't exist and never have. This is all just horsewashing by Big Horse to entice people to bet on underground horse fights and pay for horse yoga classes. Wake up, sheeple!

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