I couldn’t even finish that article it was so appalling. I hit this sentence, closed the page in fury and felt like going to wash my hands:

“Truth is, Bloomberg’s cherished open-spaces crusade has always been a luxury item”

Apparently no one told the intellectuals who write for the Post that tourism is one of NYC’s top industries.

Plus, the Hummer is responsible for more wear and tear on the roads and bridges and poses a greater risk to others from “accidents.”

So while discourage the number of miles driven with a millage tax has some merit, we also need to encourage the use of smaller more fuel efficient vehicles.

One of the most commonly voiced concerns about pedestrianization is the alleged potential to affect business negatively. By this line of reasoning, you’d think that cars, rather than real-live humans, were doing the shopping. For as many cars as there are clogging Times Square, there are several times more people, and giving them some walking and breathing space can only help.

And as the Mayor has said, this is a reversible experiment. With apologies to Mark Twain, reports of Broadway’s death at the hands of more pedestrians have been greatly exaggerated.

The WSJ’s case for taxing vehicle mileage, if I’m reading this correctly, seems to be that it’s a good end run around the lack of political will to raise the gas tax. There’s a good case to be made for taxing mileage but I’m not sure this is it. (Truth be told, I think the smartest thing to do would be to tax both mileage and gas to some degree.)

I’d have considered running it into the Port Authority Bus Terminal, which could have been turned into a join rail-bus terminal called “New Jersey Station.” A track connection to the West Side rail cut could have provided a connection to Penn Station, and an alternative for Amtrak during GOs.

I get why there’s support for this, as it would directly tax those who are using the roads based on their usage, but isn’t it environmentally regressive?

If Driver A drives his Prius 100 miles, burning two gallons of gas, and Driver B drives her Hummer 100 miles, burning 10 gallons of gas, they’d pay the same VMT tax. But Driver B would put five times as many global-warming emissions into the air.

Maybe a hybrid (no pun intended) of a road tax and a gasoline tax would serve us better.

It occured to me as I was shoveling yesterday that the city does nothing to maintain the portion of city property used by pedestrians — the sidewalk. No tax dollars are used for them. My guess is that wasn’t always the case.

Meanwhile, city tax dollars — and not auto-related taxes that go to highways either — are used to maintain and clear and clean the streets used by automobiles. That and fines for illegal parking.

The bad news for transit riders: the state legislature is working hard to avoid blame for the disaster it created.

People here are being manipulated. Forget the present, and what they say. Look at the past and what was done, and realize that every one of them is responsible for a near-certain downward spiral of the transit system and economy.