By contrast, Streetsblog regularly publishes links to, and long excerpts of, anti-CP writings, and represents their positions fairly. I don't know of any straw men here.

That said, Nico, if you've never drunk Kool-Aid in an echo chamber, you should try it.

Maybe you shouldn't address the tone of my argument but the points it raises.

You can't have a rational discussion without respect, and you can't have respect with name-calling. As soon as you started calling names, there was no longer any possibility of a real dialogue.

1) The university is located "90 minutes from New York City and two hours from Boston," according to its website. In other words, in the suburbs.

2) The Quinnipiac Polling Institute seems to have a symbiotic relationship with newspapers and TV news shows, both of which are heavily supported by automobile advertising. There's a POV double-whammy -- a suburban institution communicating through carmaker-funded media outlets.

I think you've picked the wrong people to fight with.

The Mayor, the Commission, the advocates and everyone involved in crafting the pricing plan have made it 100% clear, repeatedly, that they all want the strongest possible transit lockbox language written in to the congestion pricing legislation. Now it's up to the City Council and State Legislature to write the legislation.

If this is a big issue for you, you should take it up with your state legislator.

I didn't respond to your original post because my original post and reponses quite adequately address your post. The poll says that most NYers support CP if (and what a big, fat, huge, gigantic IF that is) the money goes to mass transit.

Here, here's a quote from the pollsters, no emphasis added, a direct cut-and-paste:

“Traffic is a horrendous problem, New Yorkers agree. But they reject all the ideas that are being talked about to ease it. Voters remain firm in their opposition to congestion pricing, but they would support it if – IF – the money is used to improve mass transit, ” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

See, big stress on the IF. Which is all I am trying to point out. Even the pollsters see that it is an issue. It has been addressed by the major media outlets in NY as well.

I don't talk in circles - it is the swirl of the echo chamber of pro-CPers that is causing that effect for you.

The problem is that you are preaching to the choir in here. The lockbox issue is a real issue.

I too have charitable ways that I am sure I could describe your polite way of trying to put me down.

Don't get hung up on the rhetoric, Charles, address the lockbox issue or the way the legislation is written without guaranteed percentages going to MTA, adminstrative costs of CP, and other related costs. Or address tolling the bridges and why that isn't better. How about that Charles? Maybe you shouldn't address the tone of my argument but the points it raises. Not so easy, is it?

Charles, you're absolutely right. And they could have elaborated. As hybrids and electric vehicles become more common, as they will and must, the notion of paying for roads from a gas tax will fade away. To continue to fund road maintenance, we will be left with road pricing, or charging drivers for the amount of wear and tear they put on roads, not the amount of one type of fuel they burn. Road pricing is the same concept as congestion pricing, if not the same technology.

It is going to happen. If NYC innovates and sets the trend, we will be a leader. If we don't, we will lose out to other locations and our economy will suffer.

"Talking around in circles" is a very charitable way to describe Ed. Imagine that anyone can indulge in this sort of totally irrational and ugly name calling, and then turn around in the next sentence and claim that he is rational.

He talks in circles because he is incapable of understanding and answering what we say. Eg, I said that a few opponents of congestion pricing claim there is no lock box, and he answers by saying that there are not just a few opponents of congestion pricing.

Everyone without a parking placard, that is.

Yet another CP opponent talking in circles to fit his agenda.

P.S. to Charles -- sounds good, but what do "traffic experts" know about politics?

No lockbox proposed?? This is the big lie technique used by a few opponents of congestion pricing.

Best quote from the Times article - and that is from the Automotive section!

Who cares what section of the paper it is within? "All the news that fit to print", right? I guess you only read what affects your interests. A bit myopic. Yikes.

Regarding political suicide, when I suggested tolling the east river bridges (facts: less costly, quicker revenue stream, same congestion benefits as CP), someone else in a prior post quoted an article that tolling the bridges was seen as political suicide. What I am suggesting is that obviously CP was not liked over there but the guy was reelected. Thus, I am saying that tolling will not be liked but it is not political suicide just as CP was not. Tolling is and always was and always will be the better option. But Bloomberg and trendoids can't then put their stamp on it and say "see how great I am and how I managed to make NY greener, gee, aren't I progressive".

The money will go to transit, huh? Read a bit more about the current issues regarding the lack of any specifics on how the money is to be used. There is NO formula, nothing specific proposed such as a lockbox and many people are raising this red alert that a big pot of money will be created with little restrictions or at least with laws written so loosely that pols can dip into the money. THIS IS A REAL ISSUE that won't go way because you want it to.

QUinnipiac University polls consistently say that a majority of New Yorkers support Congestion Pricing if the money goes to transit (which is the plan).

So how do you get "hated by regular folk"?

From the London article: "While motorists generally applaud the philosophy behind the system — less pollution and gridlock — they tend to complain bitterly about how it is administered. The charge is steep, the fees cumbersome to pay, and the penalties for late payment so punitive as to be extortionate, they say."

So there's some quibbling about how it is administered but not about the philosophy behind it. Any measure that doesn't cause grumbling among drivers wouldn't decrease congestion. I was surprised how much the motorists in London supported the philosophy.

It's in "Automobiles," a section targeted to car owners, who in London, like here in New York City, are not "the regular folk."