If the world was "fair" you would not be so wealthy as to be able to live in Manhattan, own a car and have the luxury of a job...anywhere. So get off your self righteous high horse of entitlement and start getting with the program. The costs to society at large for you to enjoy owning a car in Manhattan far exceed what you pay; CP or no.

By the way, I believe you are wrong that the outer boroughs contribute least to the CBD traffic. As I recall, it was much higher than the suburban commuters, despite having more transit options.

I guess burning all that gasoline and polluting the air for a longer period of time to do that is fine with the smug, self satisfied and self righteous. Oh you mean I shouldn't go at all? Wait I'll get my mule.

Well, Phil, judging from your comment you'd probably know better than me about what the smug, self-satisfied and self-righteous think. The environmentalists would prefer you took the train.

"The right wing Bush Administration too away the money with their bogus deadline."

"The out-of-touch billionaire wouldn't negotiate."

Except for this part:

(UPDATE: The new bill would also require congestion pricing to come up for renewal in three years and prevent the MTA from issuing bonds backed by pricing revenue.)

I guess in a best case scenario that would stick, because it hopefully doesn't contradict the home rule message and commission.

DaveH: I walk down the streets in my neighborhood and see the same cars parked all the time with NJ, CT, PA, Ohio, you name it plates. These people live in NYC and register their cars elsewhere for insurance and registration savings.

I bet these same people also don't pay NYC resident taxes. RPP is necessary to get these registration and tax-cheats off the street. Do that and you will free up a lot of on-street parking.

DocB: I only got a car because I had to reverse commute to NJ and there was no public transit option. But once I had the car there was no giving it up. Unlike a lot of people with cars it the city, however, my car was always registered and insured at my Manhattan address and parked in a garage.

What percentage of the cars that park on your block have out-of-state tags? And are always there?

And the additional $40 to take away my exemption is one round-trip taxi fare. Big deal. The city would gain a lot more by looking at those car owners parking on the street and falsely claiming residency elsewhere.

Focus on the big tax revenue dollars and collecting them; not on the inconsequential intra-zone fees or parking-tax exemption dollars.

I must have missed that episode!

Toll the bridges!

Manhattan is an island (well to me, it's a world, but thats another thread) so it would be easy, economical and intelligent to simply charge the fee to transport and store a one or two ton 600-1000 square foot piece of personal property on the second most valuable real estate on the planet at the point where they cross the river.

There are what, 15, 20 places to access Manhattan from the mainland? It makes far more sense to make all of Manhattan "the Manhattan zone" than to arbitrarily declare south of 60th street a "congestion zone"

Now for the folks like Dave (I had no idea that so many people own cars on Manhattan! I've lived here almost 30 years and only know one), the point is not whether they should or shouldn't pay, they should, but the cost/benefit doesn't add up.

Only about 2-3% of the households in the "congestion district" own cars, so if there's 2-3 people per "household" that puts the percentage of people to cars at about 1%. In order to monitor these rare birds, a sophisticated (ie expensive)system of EZ Pass sensors and cameras would have to be set up covering thousands of blocks of city streets just to capture that 1% of the population (a lot of whom only drive to the Hamptons on the weekends so wouldn't have to pay anyway).

The cost of setting up that system (even before the costs of the superfluous lawsuits by the NYCLU) would be a large multiple of the fees collected.

Collecting the Fee at the bridge or tunnel makes far more sense from a pure cost/benefit analysis standpoint.

There already is a finite amount of on-street parking and it's already all taken. Just where do you think the people leaving the garages are going to put their cars? The result of removing the parking sales tax exemption will be

1) slightly fewer cars owned by Manhattan residents
2)higher tax revenues
3) slightly lower pre-tax garage rates

To what degree any of the above will occur, I don't claim to know. I don't think any more people will store their car on the street, unless you know of some unused parking spots somewhere that no one else does (and if you did, why were you parking in a garage in the first place?) Does this make any sense to you?

Now you're officially having this argument with the voices in your head, as we (unfortunately) inhabit the same borough. Hey look everybody, if you want to argue with Dave about the parking tax exemption, that jewel of public policy, this is the place! (It sounds fun but I'll pass.)

By eliminating the parking tax reduction you are doing exactly the wrong thing; if anything the reduction should be greater to entice more people to park in garages, freeing street space for loading zones, bike parking and other non-car uses.

Get rid of the placard-criminals and insurance cheats through RPP and more street space will be created. Rather than have that space taken over by parkers moving out of the now-more-expensive garage, have them stay in the garage and use the space more wisely.

Eliminate on-street parking permanently on one side of the street (alternating) to allow deliveries, taxi drop-offs and the like.

The streets in the city, especially the CP zone should not be used for car storage. Raise the parking tax and you will encourage exactly that.

Seriously, though, it's fine if you don't support pure congestion pricing. It's fine with me if the coalition includes people that support the plan as a way to finally sort-of toll the east river bridges. If we weren't talking about congestion pricing I would support bridge tolling as a worthwhile aim in itself. But that's been a big fat loser historically. Maybe you could take a lesson from that and stick to reaffirming your support of the plan on the table (at this crucial point!). Whenever technology advances to the point that intra-zone tolls are worth looking at for NYC we can sit at opposite sides of the table.

NM: "It has very little to do with the candy coated version of democracy we are fed in grade school, checks and balances, etc."

Mrs. Henderson has a lot to answer for. I wonder if I could dig up her e-mail address? Speaking of candy, though, I'm getting through this week with a steady intake of ice cream and beer. I can not WAIT until it's over. There's still the Democratic presidential "race" to worry about, but I'm far more attached to this policy, and the insane drama of right now being our only real shot at getting it in the next few years, than I am to any politician.

Unlike London which had to create such arbitrary (and expanding) boundaries why not just give in to mother nature and toll the bridges and tunnels and be done with it.

Make the tolls two-way (which should be done everywhere) and exempt those on the Cross-Bronx and be done with it.

How many of the poor in the Bronx travel to Harlem by car and vice-versa? How many of these phantom poor-car-owners-driving-to-Manhattan will be impacted by this? Not many I bet.

If I am to be charged for intra-zone travel in Manhattan I expect those of you shouting how bad traffic is in the outer boroughs will accept intra-zone fees in downtown Brooklyn as well.

We'll see how ugly the sausage making ends up. By Thursday AM the cops and firemen will probably have their exemptions. I'd be much happier if the whole first year of pricing revenue was divvied up in the senate and assembly to direct to their districts for whatever they wanted. It would be much cheaper in the long run.

Given the amount of effort and discipline the vast coalition of civic and neighborhood groups have expended creating and maintaining a united front, this last second freelancing is a bit mindboggling. This is also a good word for the hutzpah of Gods Love We Deliver, which is displaying phenomenal parochialism, or more likely kissing the ass of a political patron. They have timed their concerns for maximum destructive effect.

(Incidentally, the hutzpah of the exec dir of that group to undermine a vast coalition

http://citizensunion.org/news_release/04_02_08.html

These are exactly the kind of divisions this insta-plan is intended to create, I would speculate. But while there is no perfect congestion pricing plan, the principles are sound enough that practically any plan is better than the unregulated mess of over-capacity traffic we presently suffer. You and I both support the commission's plan, and though I hope you'd find it in your heart to support a plan that charged for intra-zone trips, that isn't the question at hand. The only credible plan in Albany is the commission's plan that over the past year has been painstakingly determined, dissected, debated, and finally emerged intact and approved by the city council.

1) "This is mischief aimed at defeating congestion pricing." ---- This is instead mischief aimed at allowing Mr. Brennan to have his cake and eat it too. He can avoid the fate of Mr. De Blasio widely seen pandering against policies he has supported for years (tolling the bridges) and pretend he is voting against this because of this or that.

2) "The clock is the enemy." ---- The clock may not be a friend, but it is a clock, without which the game would never end. (F. Zappa "and the torture never stops)

3) "if anyone thinks that cooking up last minute alternative plans that solve imaginary problems will get them off the hook for killing the real plan they are sorely mistaken." ----while that may be Mr. Brennan's intention I think that the hardball politics of the situation will take care of it. He may want to vote against the entire budget scenario. A lot of people would like to, but they still want the legislative pay raise. What to do? They can't all vote against it and still get the pay raise, there is no where to hide. It is all going to be wrapped up in the same ball of string.

This is one of those moments where good policy can only move through the mechanisms of raw political power. It has very little to do with the candy coated version of democracy we are fed in grade school, checks and balances, etc. Backs get scratched and if they don't nothing moves. Everything New York political culture has learned from Tammany Hall must be engaged to pass this. As the Harlem Fox once said, "no one ever does anything for nothing."