Tom Vanderbilt Dissects “The ‘E’ Word”
Image: ReclaimVanderbilt's piece, entitled "The 'E' Word," deconstructs what he considers one of the most "abused word[s] in contemporary political discourse."
A few facts -- "stubborn things," as Reagan called them -- are in order. The most obvious thing to note is that car drivers make up a very small portion of the commuter population -- 16.9 percent of travelers into the proposed "congestion zone" of Manhattan, and that includes trucks. And as the New York City Independent Budget Office has found, those people who do drive into Manhattan have a median annual income that exceeds other commuters by some 28.6 percent. And yet it's the cyclists who are elite.
Council Member Liu complained that Sadik-Khan's job is not to be a "visionary." Rather it's to strike a "balance between all the entities competing for street space." Well, let's think about that "balance" under the status quo so beloved by Liu. In regards to the Times Square project, the space under consideration currently hosts nearly seven times as many pedestrians as vehicles. And yet how much space was devoted to those pedestrians? 11 percent.
Of course, what else but propaganda such as this would we expect from a publication produced by Transportation Alternatives -- the group that, according to one anonymous New York Mag source, "is literally writing transportation policy in the city of New York -- unchecked."
Carry on, TA overlords. We look forward to future elitist measures like parking reform, car-free parks and, naturally, the ultimate prize of the ruling class: congestion pricing.
