I appreciate opposition viewpoints in the comments section but if you guys can’t keep anti-semitic and ad hominem attacks out of your contributions then we’re going to have to lock you out of the Streetsblog comments section.

This thread is now closed.

Did anyone read last week’s NYTimes where they had a traffic expert respond to questions regarding CP. Here is an excerpt:

You cannot have congestion pricing without an increase in mass transit capacity. If you do not increase mass transit capacity with congestion pricing, you’ll kill the economics of the city – you can’t do that.

http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/taking-questions-a-traffic-expert-on-congestion-pricing/?scp=5-b&sq=congestion+pricing&st=nyt

I don’t drive, I take mass transit on a daily basis and I don’t want to ride in trains that are any more crowded. There will be no increase in capacity until after CP is running which is the essential problem with this plan. $354 million is chump change regarding mass transit.

One more thing to think about. Bloomberg is such a champion of unclogged streets yet the Atlantic Yards proposal as well as the West Side Stadium proposal had NO corresponding plans on how to deal with congestion that would arise due to both of those projects. He has only looked into reducing placards recently and medallions have increased. CP is primarily about his legacy or he would have shown more concern about congestion prior to this faulty plan.

Edgar, you shot yourself in the foot on that one. Or do you think he doesn’t pay taxes? Isn’t he then paying for the streets already. And you can’t really liken a big-screen TV to a public street.

OMG Angus….that was just too funny.

You can count this Jew as another opposing our “Jewish Mayor” on this issue. Let me phone my rabbi and ask him what he thinks.

You have the choice, as an American, to BUY a big-screen TV or a Hummer or a big house out in Westchester if you want.

You DON’T have the choice, as an American, to receive those things for free. There is a limited supply, so as American capitalists, we set a PRICE on goods with limited supply.

Space on city streets is certainly in limited supply. Thus, we’ll let you drive on our taxpayer-funded city streets all you want. YOU have that CHOICE. But please, be a responsible AMERICAN, and PAY for your CHOICE.

America is all about personal responsibility. Now take responsibility for YOUR actions.

Our “Jewish Mayor” is supporting his constituency (Jewish Real Estate firms and wealthy resident).

Uh-huh. A Jewish Mayor and his Jewish Conspiracy pushed by Paterson, Quinn, Aggarwala and Sadik-Khan. It’s great to have Weiner, Weprin, Brodsky, Lipsky, Fidler, Katz, Lancman and Dinowitz taking on those Jews for us!

As a New Yorker I can say that if you have a family taking the train isn’t convenient or economical. Driving is a necessity.

As a New Yorker with a family I can call bullshit on that.

Call me paranoid, but I find it remarkable how many of those new people have an identical writing style. Then they just disappear, before anyone can ask what precisely is the nature of their interest in the livable-streets movement.

Has anyone on here read comments on either the Daily News or Gothamist when CP is a story? Approximately 70-75% of all comments are against CP.

Ah yes, the Daily News comment threads can tell us exactly what real New Yorkers think. Judging by the ones on transit issues, half of New Yorkers are nuts with Utah phone numbers who live in Israel but are running for Mayor so that the MTA will pay their workers comp from the time they were fired for refusing to kill people. Great measure of public opinion there.

Clogged streets interfere with that glamour, thus, we have CP.

And CP interferes with the glamour of being “just a working guy from Queens” who happens to pay $40 a day in parking.

If you are talking about Manhattan residents, the only thing they are getting is three stations of a subway promised 50 years ago. Maybe.

The Flushing Extension will enable a business district by making it accessible for the whole city.

Everything else is going to the suburbs or outer areas of the city, notably Queens. In some cases, as in East Side Access, Manhattan is getting the construction impacts, suburban areas are getting the improved access to jobs.

Remember, lots of people work in Manhattan who don’t live there, and lots of people live off taxes paid there. Improvements in Manhattan areas of the CBD — the congestion zone — are not for Manhattanites.

Do agree that the bulk of the capital improvements seem to be going to Manhattan though. George Haikalis had a recommendation in his CP testimony (that I don’t think he ever had a chance to deliver) that made sense: pay for the the second ave subway with a special benefit district tax. (Sorry George if I’ve misrepresented the idea here. Please correct me if I’m wrong.)

And the improvements to Manhattan transit are required because most people eventually come here. Do you really think it is only Manhattanites who will use the 7 extension or the Second Avenue subway? Get real.

We in Manhattan already subsidize the rides of those in the former two-fare zones. Improvements in Manhattan are for everyone, if you don’t see that you really need to change your arrogant name.

By the way, what a change. The sort of people who are against CP used to hate mass transit because it was full of poor Black and latino people.

As I’ve said, there are some people who happen to have grown up here who really don’t want to live in NYC. What makes the New York area what it is, and different from the rest of the U.S.? Walking and transit.

Yes, people from Ohio who want that life are coming here. If they are Americans and that is the life they want, where else can they go? I happened to grow up here, but no everyone did.

People who want to drive everywhere really should think about moving to Atlanta if they cannot accept having ONE area of ONE city be a place where the insatiable space needs of the automobile aren’t more important than anything else. That’s what this is about — one area of one city.

CP is generally not wanted by the public. Today’s NYT has an article on how the newbies to NY who want it to be like “Sex and the City” are finding that it isn’t like that – too costly basically. But unfortunately those people who came to this city because of shows like that want to alter NY to fit the image of that show – clean, friendly to upscale white people, a playground. Clogged streets interfere with that glamour, thus, we have CP.

And we NYers who have been here forever KNOW that the money will not all go to mass transit (it will be looted and/or moved around) and the MTA will always beg for money.

Oh yeah, and people from outside Manhattan will be paying for capital improvements to the system within Manhattan – 2nd ave line and 7 extension – with a couple of extra bus lines thrown in for the boroughs and maybe a few extra E and F cars (which I take every day and they run as regular as clockwork so I don’t see how to cram more trains on those lines).

Let Manhattanites pay for Manhattan if they want a playground. Charge more for taxis and more for rush hour subway service within Manhattan in addition to the CP. Charge the beneficiaries too.

What is the most expensive improvement in transit service in NYC in the past 50 years, by far? The elimination of two fare zones in the mid-1990s. Who benefitted? The neighborhoods represented by CP opponents, who say they don’t get any transit improvements.

That shows how long ago you took mass transit. I’m surprised you didn’t say that it’s unfair that drivers will have to pay $8 while the price of a token is only 15 cents.

Some people live in two fare zones, and taking the train isn’t practical to get to work on time.

Uh-huh. How’d they get to those two-fare zones? Were they placed there by the hand of God? No, they chose to live there.

They made bad choices and we made good choices, but you’re saying that rather than move to a better location they should continue to live there, and we should breathe their pollution, dodge their cars and pay to maintain expensive roads and bridges for them to use?

JF, Outer Boro Man, and American Lover what you all failed to address is the fact that this is a con.

You know, I’m getting really sick of a new person coming on here every week who knows so much more than us, has seen that it’s all a con and we’re being hoodwinked. How about you acknowledge that there just might be people who know something you don’t?

No one person can speak for every resident’s situation I’m talking about you guys…

How come you take a break from criticizing us and devote a few words to people like David Weprin who presume to speak for everyone in “Queens,” and when confronted with Queens residents who support congestion pricing, throw a temper tantrum and insist that we’re plants because people from Queens couldn’t possibly support congestion pricing?