This opens the door for Federal tax’s for getting around by all kinds of transportation use.
Actually I wouldn’t mind a tax on cycling if he would give us a lane on the interstates. I asked Clinton and got nowhere. Over the years local US roads like US22 a main road out of the city West connecting with Southern roads have been eliminated leaving cyclists no way to go in those directions unless you travel North over the GW going 50 miles out of the way.

There’s a difference between essential public resources and non-essential. Passport fees should definitely be eliminated, especially now that you need one just to fly to Canada. Fees to park at Yellowstone? Not as bad, you can go elsewhere for recreation.

Congestion charging? No problem. You can walk, ride a bike, or take transit.

So you’d rather use a cleaver than a scalpel because it is ‘democratic’? Not that I drive but I would prefer to make the decision whether or not it is appropriate to drive and weigh that need with any additional costs. Odd and even driving days takes that control from you- so if you have to move your anvils today from your office to your home in Brooklyn you have to take the subway. Unlucky you.

More seriously, as you mentioned earlier that there is latent demand that will absorb any reduction in traffic. Those Westchester commuters just got off of Metro North (at least every other day)

There’s a difference between essential public resources and non-essential. Passport fees should definitely be eliminated, especially now that you need one just to fly to Canada. Fees to park at Yellowstone? Not as bad, you can go elsewhere for recreation.

Can’t our goals be accomplished with a combination of other programs, like HOV requirements or smaller taxis (I saw a Honda Civic taxi the other day)? How about odd/even driving days? Or just banning cars altogether? I have no problem sacrificing if everyone is doing the same.

Hey, remember: All of us, whether we now own cars or not, are potential motorists someday.

“Hi, I’m Spud and I’m a motorist”

“Hi, Spud!”

As Steve so eloquently pointed out elsewhere, there’s no right to drive wherever and whenever you want. Ultimately, we citizens own the streets and if we decide, through our electeds and their appointees, to charge for driving, well we can do it. And once we can reach the inevitable consensus that everyone, rich and poor, will be better off as a result, then we will do it.

Or is it specifically public resources that should be free? And do you therefore support the elimination of all user fees, whether for passports, parks (most national and state parks charge for parking), transit, toll roads, library fines, driver’s licenses, etc.?

Finally, to show that this isn’t a one-sided conversation on your part, we’ve demonstrated (there’s a post here somewhere, and someone will provide a link if you can’t find it) that there are hardly any “lower-income” people driving into Manhattan. They’re all middle-class and richer. Please acknowledge that and stop repeating the misinformation that this is out of concern for working-class people.

Steveo, that’s one way to look at it. Another way to look at is that government will be taking a public resource that’s been available to everyone and start charging a fee designed to exclude people who have less money from using that public resource. The effect will only be felt by lower income people — upper income people will not have to change their lifestyles one bit. (In fact, more upper-income people might choose to drive once the lower-income people are forced off the streets.)

That’s the best we can do? There’s no other effective plan that forces everyone to sacrifice, and not just people with less money?

Sad if that’s true.

But I’m not pro-driver or pro-car (as I’ve been accused of being elsewhere on this site). I just want a democratic traffic control plan that affects everyone, and doesn’t exclude certain people from using the streets based on how much money they can pay to the government.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117064116425197878-3gh193OAWWXI884HsKVhoV3M78U_20070307.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top
(via google news)

Also, Spud, what you’re leaving out of the equation is the value of the space that cars take up, which is heavily subsidized. (Drivers do also not bear the full cost of maintaining the roads, bridges, etc., as others have pointed out.)

I support congestion pricing. But I want to see a viable political strategy that supports it as well. What we get instead is a lot of angry rhetoric concerning the evil of cars. No one hates cars more than I but I nonetheless own one.

That said, it is nice to see the class struggle being so important in policy making circles. Would that it were so important in tax, health care and education policy as well.