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1

Best Slog headline ever.

New York can kiss hundreds of millions of federal dollars goodbye.

Posted by lorax | April 7, 2008 1:42 PM
2

This makes absolutely no sense. I don't think I know a single person in the outer boroughs who would ever even consider driving into Manhattan, so why would they oppose this?

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | April 7, 2008 2:02 PM
3

Boo effing hoo - it was a solid Democratic majority who killed this proposal (and btw - the biggest push for "Congestion Pricing" is coming from the Bush Administration - who would like nothing more than to use it to start privatizing public infrastructure. Nice allies you pro-toll folks have there).

Posted by Mr. X | April 7, 2008 2:07 PM
4

Huzzah!

Say no to big government!

"Get your filthy hands out of my pockets" say New Yorkers.

Stop trying to legislate how I behave.

Posted by TheMisanthrope | April 7, 2008 2:13 PM
5

quick! if you have an agenda, post here!

Posted by infrequent | April 7, 2008 2:15 PM
6

I lived in New York state for the first 30 years of my life. I still love it dearly, but I have to say, it's so fractious and corrupt.

Posted by Dawgson | April 7, 2008 2:22 PM
7

Yes, great headline, Annie. Hate to say it, but that Shelly Silver guy makes Frank Chopp look like Nelson Mandela.

Posted by cressona | April 7, 2008 2:22 PM
8

Yes, stop trying to legislate how I behave. Let me use lots of services like roads for free. After all, roads build themselves. Right?

Posted by lorax | April 7, 2008 2:24 PM
9

Bridge and tunnel tolls are already prohibitive. What's another several bucks, particularly when you're plunking down a huge chunk of change to park in Manhattan?

Posted by keshmeshi | April 7, 2008 2:28 PM
10

From a NY Times article last year

"It’s a common enough thought among city drivers inching through traffic: Everyone around me came from the suburbs, making my life miserable. But it’s wrong, because more than half the drivers who crowd into Manhattan each workday come from the five boroughs."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/nyregion/12traffic.html?scp=8&sq=manhattan+traffic+boroughs&st=nyt

Posted by thefacts | April 7, 2008 2:29 PM
11

lorax, faulty premise. the roads are a sunk cost and congestion pricing would do nothing to build more roads or maintain current ones.

this is like a cigarette tax in many respects. I personally think the idea of this congestion pricing may be a good thing, but to be honest, most of the congestion in NYC probably is caused by people living outside of Manhattan commuting into work and thusly they should have a say in whether this happens or not.

it'd be like the people of seattle creating a toll to cross into city limits; the only people who ever really cross into city limits are those that don't actually live in seattle.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | April 7, 2008 2:31 PM
12

@9 Isn't that what taxes are for? Or, am I wrong in that thinking?

Posted by TheMisanthrope | April 7, 2008 2:37 PM
13

and is a congestion tax any worse than community design boards?

Posted by Bellevue Ave | April 7, 2008 2:38 PM
14

Mr. X @3: Boo effing hoo - it was a solid Democratic majority who killed this proposal...

And you know, I take those Democratic legislators at their word that they were just expressing the will of their constituents.

One can blame Bloomberg for not being able to sell this proposal to his fellow New Yorkers, but chances are, not even Derek Jeter or Jesus Christ would have been able to sell this proposal.

It's times like this you can't help but think that, no matter how many Nobel Prizes Al Gore wins or how many $300 million ad campaigns he unleashes, the great problems of our time like climate change simply are just not going to be solved--at least not anything but the hard way.

Posted by cressona | April 7, 2008 2:38 PM
15

@11 - Why shouldn't New Yorkers have the final say, or at least a far greater say, regarding what happens on the public land within their own city limits? They're contributing the bulk of the taxes to maintain it.

Posted by tsm | April 7, 2008 2:41 PM
16

BA, it is completely impossible to compare New York and Seattle. The degree of congestion in New York is literally orders of magnitude beyond Seattle, even on Seattle's worst day. And there's no comparing the public transit either.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | April 7, 2008 2:41 PM
17

The comparison is in implementation not in scope or quantitative analysis of such a thing in Seattle.

@15 Explain why tax payers should have a final say in architectural design when they arent putting up any money for the buildings the hem and haw about.

I think the NYers should have ultimate authority on the matter of congestion pricing but I don't think it is necessarily a good thing that they alone could levy a tax on something integral to the health of the entire region.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | April 7, 2008 2:53 PM
18

Easiest way for NYC to change that - jack up parking rates for non-citizens (residents).

Posted by Will in Seattle | April 7, 2008 3:18 PM
19

@18 - EXACTLY. Tune existing taxes on fuel and parking to get the desired result. NOT more agencies with their own metabolisms to feed. War on drugs, war on traffic, war on whatever. same deal.

The surveillance society is going great guns already, we don't need UK-style logging of everyone's comings and goings, unless they are Republican senators in airport bathrooms, etc.

Posted by Karlheinz Arschbomber | April 8, 2008 4:31 AM

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