Also, don't mix me up with that guy from Queens John Liu. Even with a tax, riders should still pay subway fares, parkers for parking, etc.

I wasn't thinking you would be going out with your buddies from the office. Maybe if you were going to a Broadway show after work you could get dropped off at the subway, but it's an extra hassle.

I understand from reading newspapers and magazines that young people in NYC often go out as many as three or four times during the week. Transit is much more flexible than carpooling if you are always going different places.

Jonathan, I thought the problem we were trying to solve was this one, as posed by Anne in the other thread:

1. Most people have a fairly reasonable commute from their homes to Midtown or Lower Manhattan.

2. Most job centers outside Midtown or Lower Manhattan are fairly accessible from Midtown or Lower Manhattan.

3. Many people who do not live in Midtown or Lower Manhattan have difficulty getting to job centers that aren't located there, like Anne's friend who commuted from East Flatbush to East New York.

Larry's carpool suggestion solves that problem: a co-worker from Sheepshead Bay can swing by and pick up Anne's friend.

If Anne's friend wants to go to a Broadway show after work, or to catch a band on the Lower East Side, he can take the subway from the school into Manhattan, and then take the subway home after the show. It's only the commute to and from school that's a problem.

So should the TWU agree that when NYC transit does its "pick," the desire to work near home should trump seniority?

When the "pick" was invented, those were probably the only two possibilities. But now we have these fancy computers that should be able to balance commute with seniority.

1. Compute a "transit commute difficulty" score for each employee-site pair, based on a system like HopStop.

2. Compute a "preference" score based on each employee's picks.

3. Generate a scenario where everyone got their highest pick, based on seniority, and compute an aggregate score of everyone's transit commute difficulty, and another aggregate score of everyone's site satisfaction.

4. Reassign the least senior employee to a more transit-convenient site, generate a new scenario and recompute the aggregate scores.

5. Repeat step 4 until (a) the aggregate transit commute difficulty falls below a certain threshold or (b) the ratio of aggregate transit commute difficulty to aggregate site satisfaction reaches a certain threshold.

It may not be as simple as the seniority system, but it still takes seniority into account.

Presumably you can convince your co-workers to go someplace that's easier for you to get home from by transit.

I wasn't thinking you would be going out with your buddies from the office. Maybe if you were going to a Broadway show after work you could get dropped off at the subway, but it's an extra hassle.

I understand from reading newspapers and magazines that young people in NYC often go out as many as three or four times during the week. Transit is much more flexible than carpooling if you are always going different places.

Two, there’s no alternate destination in case you want to go out after work.

Presumably you can convince your co-workers to go someplace that's easier for you to get home from by transit. What, you don't live near transit? Well, that's the real problem.

So should the TWU agree that when NYC transit does its "pick," the desire to work near home should trump seniority?

What I suggested is a dynamic carpool system, in which rides would be matched separately for each trip among those in a club. That's why it would take tens of thousands of participants to get started -- to ensure enough matches. GoLoco is trying to implement such a system in Boston, but without the initial economy of scale.

(Two, there’s no alternate destination in case you want to go out after work.)

If a teachers decided to hop a bus to a bar in another neighborhood, he or she could get a ride home to Dix Hills from a police officer in a different precienct. The new origin would be dialed in by cell phone, and a match would be made.

(Three, how do you pay, and is that money counted as income?

The money could be automatically debited, like EZ Pass, and forwarded by the carpool provider based on the number of rides. Since the drivers would only be making money taking trips they would have anyway, the IRS could define them as "casual sellers" like people holding a garage sale, not required to be taxed.

(Four, if the driver’s car is in the shop or unavailable, who provides the wheels?)

Another driver. The riders would be matched trip by trip.

(Fifth, how do you know the driver’s car is adequately insured?)

The carpool club would have to routinely check the insurance and driving record of those permitted to participate as drivers, and perhaps the criminal record of all participants. It could also re-insure.

It was (and is)hard enough to "lure" good teachers to teach in NYC schools in many neighborhoods or to take subways. Since new teachers can't select the schools they're assigned to, this affects the citywide pool of talent. We want them to feel comfortable arriving early and leaving late - often in the dark during the winter - to meet with students and parents and participate in activities.

Geez, this again? I honestly don't think that parking is an effective lure. I think teachers would be just as likely (or unlikely) to take a job if it came with parking. Maybe you're not going to get Suzy who lives with her husband the cop in Middletown, but you might get an excellent teacher who lives just a few blocks away.

I'm also sick of hearing the commute-blind assignment practices of the Department of Ed (or the NYPD/FDNY/Sanitation/etc.) treated like an Iron Law of Nature. By assigning a teacher who lives in Douglaston to a school in New Dorp, or a cop in Bay Ridge to a precinct in Baychester, often over the objections of the employees themselves, the city administration is essentially requiring all civil servants to own cars and use them, discriminating against those who don't want to drive, and contributing significantly to congestion. How much money do they save with this flexibility? Is it more than the city pays in road maintenance for the wear and tear caused by these commutes?

Finally, I believe in reasonable work hours. My son's teacher does not have them, and I don't know if any do. She's there by 8AM, probably earlier, and although school ends at 2PM, she often stays late for meetings and events, possibly every day. You want to lure good teachers, how about a work schedule that allows them to have a life? The same thing goes for cops and firefighters and all their overtime.

But I agree that sometimes teachers have to work before sunrise or after sunset, when the walk to the train may not feel very comfortable. Bronx Community College has a shuttle to the train for that very reason. I'm pretty sure it's available to teachers from the high schools on campus, and every school that's not on top of a subway stop should offer one.

If the carpooling was coordinated through a matching service, I would assume that the service would take care of three, four and five, but that would probably increase the overhead from 20% to 40%.

I certainly don't object to amny outer-borough public employees, driving, as both their residences and the workplaces are dispersed and they often cannot choose to work a short transit ride from home.

But rather than "monetize" the permit I would cut the number of spaces in half. And limit free, guaranteed on-street parking to those public employees who were willing to call a number before the leave for/from work, pick up up to three people in the area where they were, and drop them off in the area where they were going. A computer would do the matching and provide directions. These public employees could also be paid (say $2.50) for each person they take.

Other public employees would pay ($3.00, with the matching service getting 50 cents for expenses) to get a direct door to door carpool ride. With such a ride guaranteed, they could avoid purchasing a car (or a second car) saving big bucks. It is a transit equivalent for trips where there isn't enough mass.

Other unions with lots of people working outside Manhattan could be invited to join in (airports, utilities, hospitals), and the service could eventually be extended to others.

The problem -- the unions would never do it.

Still, the permit has a value and should be monetized. There is no benefit to the city in taxing it (that costs the city too) but it should offer equal incentives to bike or use transit. Permits should be school-specific, and limited. Schools in safe, easy-to-transit neighborhoods need fewer permits. This eliminates the blanketing of permits as a union-won privilege and hands principals a powerful tool for attracting and retaining the best staff.

They are wealthier than the average transit commuter.

There is a fundamental difference between charging someone a modest fee to pay for a service and the assessment of a fee whose sole purpose is to deter access to a neighborhood.

When I think of congestion pricing, I like to think of it as a fee that allows you to use a scarce resource, namely street space. If you look at it like this, your two options are one and the same.

You really need to drop this whole hydrogen car thing. It has nothing to do with congestion whatsoever.

Your three tunnels may help free up/add capacity to the road system, but it will be immediately eaten up by induced demand. I have yet to see a C.P. opponent deal with this issue in any of their proposals. The fact of the matter remains, no matter how much extra enforcement, lane capacity or trucks you take off the road, you still will have congestion. All C.P. opponents seem to do is dodge the issue. Since you claimed that you don't run away, you need to address it.

You said, specifically, "to deter free access to a neighborhood." Mass transit riders already do not have free access. Whether its intentional or not, the price acts as a deterrent for use, especially for those on the lower end of the income scale. What difference does the intention make when the result is the same?

You did not read my post carefully. I talked about the elderly constituent that does not have access to private transportation.

The difference between increasing peak fares and reducing off peak fares is pretty much pure semantics. They both result in congestion pricing. At the "status quo" you can't reduce off-peak fares anyhow given the MTA's financial situation.