however, to be fair, it’s not like there haven’t been sobriety checkpoints before. you couldn’t drive down frannie lou in queens in the 90′s without being stopped by cops. and i guess they were trying to stop drag racing, but still. that wasn’t suburban transplants.

I’ve had similar thoughts. I imagine a child running out between parked cars an my hitting them.

I suggested at one point having a chip installed in every car radio to turn the radio on and play one of a series of public service announcements remind drivers of what might happen. Such reminders would probably reduce the number of accidents but, as you point out, it might also reduce the number of drivers.

Are you sure? My guess it was other people’s cars — and the resulting parking difficulties and traffic — that decreased your quality of life.

Your guess is wrong (mostly). I’ve seen a cyclist (a husband and father) thrown across three lanes of traffic by an impatient, distracted motorist, to land on his head and die before my eyes. I’m honest enough to admit that I can get impatient and distracted at times, and every time I got behind the wheel I was aware that I could be responsible for a horror like that. I guess you could call that breathtaking.

Are you sure? My guess it was other people’s cars — and the resulting parking difficulties and traffic — that decreased your quality of life. And your getting rid of your own car benefitted them.

Hence the argument for congestion pricing/permit parking. Those who diminish other people’s quality of life should pay, those who increase other people’s quality of life should benefit.

My car increases my quality of life and reduces everyone else’s quality of life.

Everyone else’s car increases their quality of life and reduces my quality of life.

Everyone is in favor of restricting someone else’s car.

You know what you have when you have to drive to go to the grocery store, can only go to chain restaraunts with fake-chipper wait staff, and have those neutral SLC accents, in NYC?

A crowded suburb.

Is that really why people came here?

I really look forward to the city gov’t getting rid of allot of the free parking on the avenues, which supposedly is part of Jan Gehl’s “formula”.

If you want to /”have to” drive, fine. Just don’t expect a space to be easy to come by or cheap.

-j

That’s precisely the problem – they don’t. A substantial number of negative externalities are not captured by the price paid by drivers. The market price of driving does not reflect its true social cost.

And if I need to hail a cab or hire a man with a van to lug the occasional heavy objects (such as items bought on craigslist) every once in a while, so be it.

We should start a support group. I don’t take cabs much because more often than not I regret the trips I do take in them. There’s nothing luxurious about the slamming starts and stops, drivers talking on the phone, horn honking, and worst of all their menacing of pedestrians. Of course you’re supposed to be able to rein them in on all that, but personally I don’t want to be a barking taxi cab manager for ten minutes, and pay for it, and decide the employee’s under-the-table “bonus.” Public transportation, please!

The new affluence of the UWS and other neighborhoods brings both bad and good. Part of what makes New York City such a draw is the sense of limitless possbility. Of course that is an illusion; we face limits everywhere, on space, public services, other resources. If people want to come to the city with their cars and attempt to articulate a suburban lifestyle, I say, let them come, and let them pay (and a bit of mockery couldn’t hurt too much, either).

And Brooklyn and KoKoschka are of course right that having a car in the city at night can be great fun. It’s the other 16 hours a day that stink.

The only reason I had a car was because it was given to me for free five years ago. now that its dead i see no reason to buy a new one.