Right, and the proposal to cut down on "parking permit abuse" probably means taking permits away from others so there will be less competition for reserved spaces for them.

The oligarchy is those who currently drive and park for free, a group that in addition to the pols opposing congestion pricing evidently includes Richard Lipsky.

I bet it also includes most former City Councilmembers, Walter McCaffrey among them. Probably any lobbyist that's done any favors for a government agency, which would include Corey Bearak. Jim Trent? John DeSio? Anyone else?

Not just anyone can drive into Manhattan for free on a weekday. Can you? I certainly can't, even though I own a car. Even if I take one of the "free" bridges, I'd have to pay an ENORMOUS amount to park. So we don't have egalitarian socialism, threatened by capitalism. We have an oligachy, threatened by capitalism.

The oligarchy is those who currently drive and park for free, a group that in addition to the pols opposing congestion pricing evidently includes Richard Lipsky.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12092007/news/columnists/congest_critic_in_fire_storm_516528.htm

I didn't actually write this essay. It was written by New School professor Gustav Peebles.

--Aaron

Certainly, as no one has suggesting charging pedestrians and cyclists. But my point is a good one too -- there is no equality of access to road space for most potential motorists.

If EVERYONE could drive and park for free, the CP opponents would soon find the peasants poaching on their royal preserve, and would find there wasn't enough game to go around. The Mayor should suspend tickets for a few days for parking in reserved on-street areas.

BTW, according to a survey I saw a while back, the percentage of subway riders (but not bus riders) who have automobiles is the same as the percentage of city residents as a whole.

It's in my academic spirit to give credit where credit is due. The Wikipedia link, which was lost during the editing process (for technical reasons, I believe), was completely neutral in pointing out potential similarities. I've been trained for years to give footnotes so as not to present an idea as "mine" when it's not, and that's how I tend to think of hyperlinks (perhaps mistakenly; are links "endorsements"? I don't know enough about netiquette yet, and this was my first ever blog entry, and I thank Aaron for letting me make it).

This blogger, as Dave H points out, is indeed anti CP. He is a knee-jerk free market guy who doesn't grasp that people aren’t the same thing as cars. That’s the funniest thing about many anti CP’ers: They literally think of cars as extensions of the human body, and then they think the state is regulating THEIR freedom, rather than the freedom of some of the material objects that they own. Saying that the state can’t tax the use of these sorts of things may be a reasonable philosophical position, but it’s not true in practice anywhere on earth. Most of them don’t mind when the state taxes cigarettes and alcohol. What’s with cars? Thankfully, our moderator on Monday, Rachel Heiman, is a specialist in this issue of Americans intertwining their individuality with their automobiles, so that’s one of the things we want to address.

But anyway, you can point out the potential link with the old tolls and still be FOR them. After all, they were around for ages, so there were obviously people who liked them and thought they were a smart form of regulation. I was only trying to point out that there is a great deal of “empirical data” out there for study about their impact.

Yes, they link it to the old city-toll, but not in a very favorable light!!

Translation: "The new, poorly-camoflaged-as-an-environmental-fee entrance-tax is a a serious step backwards in development."

I think your article is a very interesting one, though.

America is a frontier settler state. Cities have been castrated politically since our founding by a political structure that favored the settling of the frontier over building vital urban centers. Our prevailing narrative was Jeffersonian. The yeoman farmer provided political cover for the slave owner when our government was created and we marched west killing amerindians and draining swamps.

I favor congestion pricing and will continue to do what I can to get it passed (fat chance) but it is still an anachronism in American political culture. So is NYC. Just as there is "American exceptionalism" in international politics, there is a "New York exceptionalism" in American politics. This is the only city in the US where CP could even be suggested.

Two cheers for the enclosure movement.

So we don't have egalitarian socialism, threatened by capitalism. We have an oligachy, threatened by capitalism.

The oligarchy is those who currently drive and park for free, and those who (since the city's current anti-congestion policy is to limit parking) use the a monopoly of the remaining spaces to jack up costs for everyone else. Forcing many, who can't afford it, into the egalitarian subways the oligarchy would never deign to enter.

Can Lew Fidler drive to Manhattan and park for free? Can Richard Brodsky? Can Anthony Weiner? How about Walter McCaffrey? In the latter case you wouldn't expect it, but given the "courtesies" extended by one member of the oligarchy to another, I wouldn't doubt it.

Can the police officers and judges whose enforcement is disapparged here, drive to Manhattan and park for free? Given the possible risks to judges and DAs I understand why they should be allowed to drive. But it does put them in the oligachy.

Opponents are arguing that the executives in their black cars are also an oligarchy, while they are among the peasants, and the executive oligarchy is trying to capture more of the street. They may have a case that those who can afford to pay are also the oligarchy, but so is anyone driving to Manhattan.

So what is the difference? One part of the oligarchy is willing to do something for the peasants, and the other is not.