While I know things are generally more expensive in Switzerland, $685,000 is crazy expensive for just 18 kW (48 panels).
There is no contradiction. Just because the vehicle is licensed for street use doesn't give the owner permission to operate it in ways that violates the law.
Actually, the law does just say "above 85db" is not allowed. Doesn't matter if the car is stock or not.
NYC has never been interested in making parking efficient. The parking meter rates are ridiculously cheap, with many streets not charging anything for parking (or even having time limits). And yes, giving away valuable parking makes driving much more complicated -- but apparently the Governor was in a diner and overheard some voters from NJ complaining about increased costs....
The space will be used for a parking lot (originally was supposed to have a cycletrack, but that was deleted as well).
The project cost is $25 million. There will be long-term pavement maintenance costs that comes with the wider highway, not to mention the giant parking lot that is going in. There will be lost property tax revenue, and more death/injury. So it is highly doubtful the refurb costs of the buildings on that block would have been remotely close to all that.
For those interested in this topic, there are better sources of info than a NJB youtube video. In my experience, NJB is more interested in clicks than accuracy, and this video is no exception.
In particular, the complaints about oversized firetrucks is a bit overblown because any halfway competent bike planner can work around that when designing bike facilities. When cities say they can't do a bike project because of FD concerns, it usually means they just don't want to do an otherwise popular project, and are using flimsy FD excuses as a convenient way to kill a project.
No, it's gotten worse over the past 30 years.
Not mentioned in the article is that these systems are still illegal in the US.
"I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and it melts your skin off."
That $50 billion is over a 10 year period.
Then the DMV better start cracking down on large trucks (F250, etc) as well. NHTSA "safety" standards have had all kinds of loopholes exempting large trucks and SUV from basic safety features including rollover protection, head restraint, and various impact protection systems.
California: "First time?"
https://theintercept.com/2021/05/07/california-fires-chico-housing-real-estate/