In the long run the plan will not work when the rest of the state residents realize it is nothing more than a regressive tax on the people who can not afford 2,000 a year on top of their mounting bills.

How much is the average LIRR or Metro North commute per year? Is it upsetting to Michael that these poor folks from the rest of the state have to pay for the resources they consume?

Michael-
Let’s think through your plan: 13,000 taxis are suddenly off the street and suddenly traffic is moving, let’s say, 50% faster. Do you believe that this equilibrium will last? Or will folks (apparently like yourself) from Westchester who currently take the train see that they can get to Manhattan all the more quickly if they each jump in their car? So, what have we gained? Just more mobility for folks (apparently like yourself) from out of town and less mobility for folks who live in town and don’t own automobiles.

There is a lot that is silly and un-serious about your assertions, particularly the “high placed retail official” in London. What the heck is a high placed retail official?

However, it’s the everyone’s-going-to-have-to-pay-$2,000-per-year talking point that I’m finding most remarkable.

The fact is that the only people who will pay $2,000/year in congestion charges will be people who drive in and out of Lower Manhattan 250 times/year — in other words — people who commute to work by car just about every day. We know that this amounts to 4.6% of NYC residents who work in the Manhattan charging zone. The other 95.6% of Manhattan weekday commuters? They use transit.

As for this 4.6% who will be so regressively taxed, they earn something like $20,000/year more on average than those who get to work by bus and train (and pay a fee to do so, by the way). As for the social and environmental costs of the 4.6%’s driving, it goes almost completely unaccounted for. So, cry me a river for the 4.6%, Michael.

Congestion pricing can’t possibly be called a regressive tax by any serious person. Congestion pricing takes from a very small number of relatively well-off car commuters and helps fund transit for the great mass of New Yorkers.

But please keep spreading the $2,000/year thing. 95% of New Yorkers know that they aren’t going to have to pay that.

The point Michael misses is during the time a cab is on the street it services, at minimum (assuming all single passenger rides) 48 people, but the average is probably 50-60 The average private vehicle probably services an average of 1 1/2 – 2 people.

Michael, again raises an interesting point in that the colonies kicked out the English for merely taxing them. Here we put up with not only having to fund Albany but also having to ask “mother may I?” to manage our own transportation and land-use policies. Don’t even get me started on the way they’ve botched the Ground Zero site.

I say we kick out Albany.

In the long run the plan will not work when the rest of the state residents realize it is nothing more than a regressive tax on the people who can not afford 2,000 a year on top of their mounting bills.

Great, now we’ve got “regressive tax” added to the talking points. No, Michael, it’s not a regressive tax, it’s a LUXURY tax. Cars cause much more wear and tear on the city’s infrastructure per passenger-mile than buses or trains. I don’t want to keep paying for that out of my income and sales taxes so that someone from Westchester can feel all important driving down Second Avenue in their Lexus SUV.

If people can’t afford to pay for that wear and tear, they can take the train like the rest of us.

I just had meeting with a high placed official in the retail business who said they have looked at all the studies on London, Singapore etc and the plans have not been that successful. The other part of the puzzle in London is the price of gas which is equal to something way over 5.00 per gallon in U.S. money.

You also assume the money wll be spent on what they are saying, mass transit, well you know what happpens when politicians see the money coming in. They will all want a piece of the pie and pretty soon it will be used to add water drinking fountains in Central Park etc.

In the long run the plan will not work when the rest of the state residents realize it is nothing more than a regressive tax on the people who can not afford 2,000 a year on top of their mounting bills. Do you see that foreslosures in NYC on houses have doubled, the car industry is dying, health costs are out of control and the middle class are like a bunch of mice trying to get a crunb of cheese left behind by the rich?

Look to Washington D.C. as an example Congress has a approval rating of 23 percent , Bush 29 percent. Yet these bozos vote themselves a pay raise up to 170,000, Bruno is making 79,000 for his service in government I seem to remember the Colonies kicked out the English because of “taxation without representation” sounds like histoty repeating itself!

I just had meeting with a high placed official in the retail business who said they have looked at all the studies on London, Singapore etc and the plans have not been that successful. The other part of the puzzle in London is the price of gas which is equal to something way over 5.00 per gallon in U.S. money.

You also assume the money wll be spent on what they are saying, mass transit, well you know what happpens when politicians see the money coming in. They will all want a piece of the pie and pretty soon it will be used to add water drinking fountains in Central Park etc.

In the long run the plan will not work when the rest of the state residents realize it is nothing more than a regressive tax on the people who can not afford 2,000 a year on top of their mounting bills. Do you see that foreslosures in NYC on houses have doubled, the car industry is dying, health costs are out of control and the middle class are like a bunch of mice trying to get a crunb of cheese left behind by the rich?

Look to Washington D.C. as an example Congress has a approval rating of 23 percent , Bush 29 percent. Yet these bozos vote themselves a pay raise up to 170,000, Bruno is making 79,000 for his service in government I seem to remember the Colonies kicked out the English because of “taxation without representation” sounds like histoty repeating itslef!

Just as charging people for their water has resulted in a reduction in wasted water charging people a portion of the actual costs to the city of their driving (health care, infrastructure, traffic safety) will result in a reduction of ‘wasted’ traffic.

I understand why you’d like to dismiss the success in cities around the world in implementing fair traffic pricing yet your claim that ‘everyone bikes in Stockholm’ is laughably weak. Nearly everybody who drives into Manhattan has a time-competitive option- they simply choose not to. The money raised from congestion pricing will further reduce any time advantage of driving.

FYI- there are 13,000 taxis operating citywide. The goal is to remove 100,000 cars from the streets of Midtown and Lower Manhattan from 6am to 6pm each weekday.

I am a writer and I have done research on NYC of the 1860 and 1870 timeframe and the biggest complaint was that there were so many omnibuses and horse and wagons that the city street could not be navigated by pedestrians. It was too congested!!! Well nearly 200 years later things are the same. So you show me where the problem was in 1870 with commuters from Westchester and Nassau etc. No the problem was and is that if there is a great mass transit system in place ban all taxi cabs let the people uses buses and subways, meke truckers enter the city after 6pm as they do in Chicago etc.

And please do not use Stockholm as a model, every person driving there rides a bike to work etc. There are very few cars, so no wonder the people voted to keep cars out by congestion pricing. The price of gas there is high that eveyone needs a bike!

So in reality the rich city dwellers do not want to be poor schlubs like everyone else and take the subway. Yet put a 2,000 year on middel class workers who might need to drive. Show me one city dweller willing to sacrifice their beloved cabs and then talk to me about congestion pricing.

I stood at 34th street today waiting for a light to change and no less than 30 caabs passed me by! And that was on a Sunday, you want to make the air cleaner you eco bozos get rid of the cabs!!!

Under congestion pricing, private automobiles only have to pay $ 8.00 a day.

Maybe instead of congestion pricing, NYC should issue Private automobile medallions at the current market price to allow driving in Manhattan.

Only $ 350,000 – $ 400,000 per car.

That would be a much fairer system which doesn’t discriminate between Taxis and private cars.

Banning taxis does nothing to raise millions of dollars for the “greatest mass transportation system in the world”.

If you had bothered to read the agreement you’d see that the plan (whether or not it includes congestion pricing) must reduce the number of vehicles entering the ‘zone’ by 100,000. Unless you are suggesting that Bloomberg will simultaneously be adding 100,000 taxi cab medallions to the streets it looks like we ‘assume’ correctly that there will be fewer cars on the road.

In any case, taxis as a regulated component of the city’s transportation system, are being required to meet higher emmissions standards than private cars.

In driver’s ed, they told me that driving was a privilege, not a right. Likewise, it is also choice. Choose wisely.

Now he’s an environmental engineer?

Glenn on the other hand has his receiver tuned in.

Pseudo liberals like Brodsky and his supporters will never open their wallets. They will hide behind regressive tax BS that is clearly not applicable here.

Old school cretins like Bruno will sink it just to piss off Spitzer.

Silver will sink it because he can and because he is a civic sadist that enjoys manipulating the process as long as he wins.

Maybe Quinn can deliver? I have my doubts, there is a big difference between being a control freak, and being in freaking control.

Bloomberg would be well served to put 3 thoughtful memebers on the commission, but he will likley look for yesssmen with some measure of popularity.