What is the concensus on Permit Parking? When I go to every other large city (even LA) and many medium-sized ones and see it I wonder why it is not here. Any explanation? Thanks.

There are 2 interesting studies (aimed at East River bridge tolls, not congestion pricing, but I think the two are similar enough to be relevant) here: http://bridgetolls.org/research/ These take a look at A) who would pay and B) how much time would be saved by drivers overall. A) found that 98% of all New Yorkers would pay less than $50 a year on East River Tolls -- so I'm still not sure why this 2% who would have a large increase in costs are such a huge worry to politicians. Even less so, because many of these are people who would benefit by spending less time to get where they are going -- possibly saving them more in time savings than they are spending in cash.

It's remarkable to note that Mayor Livingstone of London actually ran on the promise of instituting congestion charging -- and won!

But Dave: explain the difference between congestion pricing and "toll[ing] every entry into Manhattan"? Do you just mean that the latter would not fluctuate by time of day? Tolling every entry into Manhattan has been referred to as congestion pricing by many who have studied it in NYC, such as RPA.

I'm starting to think that what we really need is a broad coalition of neighborhood groups from around the city, led by a prominent outerborough leader (Weiner? Liu?) with Mayoral aspirations to tackle the entire transportation and quality of life suite of issues.

Yes I do understand the difficulty we will have with my seemingly simple ideas, and getting tolls on the river crossings will also require the approval of the governor for some unknown reason. We can only hope Spitzer will have a more favorable attitude than Pataki with his pandering to upstate. Let us not forget Pataki Bruno and Silver and the commuter tax debacle.

One can only hope for Bloomberg to focus on congestion and take action other than the very complicated congestion pricing plan (London does have permit parking BTW).

And the next time you walk by a meter on a Sunday (you know the cars from Sat night that will be there till Monday) do a check of how many of the plates are from Jersey. Yeah the city council really messed up on that one, eh?

Those are three sensible and straightforward ideas. Congestion-relief sounds so easy when you put it like that!

However, I'm guessing that you have never run any of these policy proposals by an Outer Borough New York City Councilmember. Don't forget, this is the City Council that prided itself on overturning Bloomberg's enstatement of Sunday parking meters. They called it "Pay to Pray." The Pay to Pray fight was the most substantial discussion of transportation policy that took place during the 2005 mayoral election. That's what we're dealing with in this town...

Disgraceful.

All of this is a lot easier than congestion pricing and can be done with EZ Pass technology or the system in place to grant garage tax reduction notices.

But there is an obvious way to deal with both these problems. Implement congestion pricing, as London and Stockholm have done. Use the revenue from congestion pricing to improve transit service.

1. Refocus and emforce zoning laws to favor low-rise development.
2. Can Iris Weinshall. After the ferry disaster, it's become apparent that failing catching her (or Schumer) with a corpse in their living room, she won't ever be fired. Streets are dug up perpetually without ryme or reason.

Not holding my breath on either.

Do you mean mass transit or the subway? Only asking because buses don't require going up or down stairs.

I believe that the MTA is working towards proving a future goal of having 100 stations wheelchair accessible by a certain time. However, I do not know when that will happen.

Actually, a good friend of mine is only 30 and his knees are so bad, he had to turn down a beautiful apartment because he couldn't climb the 5 flights of stairs to get to it.

If the comment by Alision was made just because of lack of elevators and not associated health or physical impediments then, yes, that is a weak arguement.

But if it is an obstacle because her body is not cooperating, then she has all the right to express that.

you may be right, but it's more likely that Alison is unable to easily climb stairs for physical reasons. Not everyone is a fit 20 year old. New York is an old city so there are many obstacles to those who have difficulty easily climbing stairs. Have a heart.