Thursday, 04.10.08
Raise the Drawbridge
Photo by Flickir User Fabrisalvetti under a creative commons license
Home From Nowhere
September 1996
James Howard Kunstler argues that America has mismanaged its cities -- and proposes solutions.
Everyone Pays
05 March 2008
Matt Yglesias defends congestion pricing against the charge that it most burdens the poor.
After helping to kill the most promising transit proposal New York has seen in years, Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr., son of State Senator Ruben Diaz, had the gall to suggest that Bloomberg's proposed congestion pricing measure was "morally unconscionable." That's right. He described a fee designed to price a scarce resource more intelligently -- and create room to maneuver in Lower and Midtown Manhattan, some of the densest real estate in North America -- in terms usually reserved for the wanton murder of beloved house pets.
Diaz went on to explain that the congestion charge was wrong because it failed to guarantee that Bronx residents "will not be subject to yet another transit fare hike in the near future," and because it didn't addres "traffic congestion concerns in any of the four boroughs outside of Manhattan." But of course by defeating a proposal explicitly dedicated to funding traffic-mitigation projects throughout the boroughs of New York and beyond, Diaz himself has all but guaranteed ... a transit fare hike and continued congestion.
Keep in mind that congestion pricing has been used with great success in Singapore, Norway, and London. And of course the putatively "populist" objection to the plan is a flat-out canard. As Transportation Alternatives notes, only five percent of outer-borough commuters travel by private car. The vast majority spends its commute pressed like canned hams on overcrowded trains and buses. Moreover, workers making less than $25,000 are three times as likely to use public transportation than to drive. This makes sense, given that, well, cars are expensive, and so is gas. Evidently Diaz hasn't heard the news. Among workers earning between $25,000 and $50,000, transit remains three times as popular as driving. As for those making more than $50,000, transit still beats private automobile use. Given that all revenues from the congestion charge will go to improve the transit options used by New York's working and middle class, the proposal should be a no-brainer.
Which is why the New York City Council approved the congestion charge in the first place. Now a coalition of suburbanites and treacherous blowhards like Diaz has essentially joined hands to steal money from the pockets of New York's overtaxed, overcharged masses, all so devoted friends in the delivery business and car-mad out-of-towners can crush our streets under the weight of their gas-guzzling metal monstrosities. (Could it be that Diaz is a simpleton? Almost certainly not. It takes brains, grit, and determination to have the exact same name as your father, and to inherit public office in a one-party borough.) Meanwhile, the social costs of traffic congestion will continue to be borne by asthmatic children living in Inwood, Washington Heights, and Harlem, by people waiting desperately for an ambulance or the police, and of course the suffering straphangers who ride the bus.There is only one real solution to this problem long-term, a solution proposed by the late Norman Mailer during his mayoral run in 1969: New York city needs to secede from New York state and take its fate in its own hands. Let this be the last time New Yorkers are robbed blind by the wretched and corrupt gang in Albany.
Reimagining the streetscapeJeff Byles writes that "ideas for calming New York's historically hectic streets go far beyond congestion pricing," signaling a shift in thinking about what streets are for. |
The war on carbonCharles Komanoff wonders whether the failure of congestion pricing in NYC suggests anything about the wider movement to tax carbon. |
ShortfallStreetsblog wonders how the MTA will be funded without congestion pricing. |
A bad omenDot Earth argues that if New York City cannot find support for clearing its streets of traffic "estimated to cause billions of dollars in lost productivity," that doesn't bode well for global efforts to limit climate risks without harming economies. |
(16)
Maybe the delivery and trucking lobbies have Diaz on their payroll. Seriously.
Truly well done. My hat's off to you, sir.
Thats hilarious. As soon as i read that Diaz voted against the measure, i started thinking to myself what a simpleton and a blowhard he must be. And then a few lines later, a paraphrasing of my thoughts are right there in the article ("Could it be that Diaz is a simpleton? Almost certainly not. It takes brains, grit, and determination to have the exact same name as your father, and to inherit public office in a one-party borough."). too funny.
But you usually don't see an article in a magazine like the Atlantic Monthly let someone have it like that (even when they clearly deserve it).
A modest proposal:
As the experience of Washington, DC indicates, independence will likely cause more harm than good. When the majority of people who work in or near a city live in other states, the ability to raise public revenue to support the metropolitan area is gravely compromised. What was once the tax base for civic projects (however reluctant) become a bunch of shameless freeloaders.
The problem NYC faces is that New York State is a large geographic entity full of quaint small towns and distant, parochial locales such as Buffalo that have no meaningful connection to the City. It would be in the best interest of the City of New York, along with Nassau and Westchester Counties, to secede from New York and merge with the state that is geographically and culturally best-suited to support and maintain them...
New Jersey
"It would be in the best interest of the City of New York, along with Nassau and Westchester Counties, to secede from New York and merge with the state that is geographically and culturally best-suited to support and maintain them...
New Jersey"
I have been advocating (sort of) the same course of action for Philadelphia. We too are under the rule of a bunch of backwater yokels and anti-urbanists in our capital, Harrisburg, even though the governor is FROM PHILLY and is our former mayor. FREE PHILLY! FREE NYC!
Thanks to another decision this week from the Assembly, Upper Manhattan and Bronx children will also continue to rack up the social costs of poor public schools. This week the state also refused to approve the city's new teacher accountability review system, a major blow to Bloomberg-Klein reform efforts.
So, about that secession--is Jimmy Breslin still game?
As the experience of Washington, DC indicates, independence will likely cause more harm than good.
DC is a bad example because so much of the city's business is government and various NGOs that they don't have very much of a tax base. New York City has a massive base of wealthy state-tax payers that will keep it well funded on its own.
(That's not to say your suggestion isn't a good one, I just think DC is a poor analogy. I think many state lines need to be redrawn to avoid cutting across urban agglomerations: NY, Philly, St. Louis, Chicago are the first to come to mind. DC as well.)
I was at a talk with Councilman Gennarro who voted against congestion pricing and also happens to be the chair of the environmental committee.
His argument against the plan relates to the fact that NYC sends 12 billion more dollars to Albany than it gets back. So really NYC should already be getting its transit needs met by what it pays in taxes.
Therefore, if NYC decides to implement congestion pricing on top of the taxes it already pays, instead of getting an increase in transit funds, Albany will simply say you've already got the money you need, take the other money away and use it for other things. So then NYC ends up paying more for transit funding.
Of course this argument also supports the idea of secession.
With 8 million people (and a projected 1mm more in the next decade), and a large, diversified economy, I think NYC as its own state actually would work. No way it'll ever happen, of course, but a nice idea.
Maybe there should be an Absolut NYC ad...
As a northern New Jersey resident who has never driven into NYC in his life, but taken the train in countless times, I would like to be the first to welcome you to the Garden State!
Of course we have huge financial problems of our own, so New York may just be ditching one bad apple to take up with another. Not to mention that I shudder to think about what would happen to NYC property taxes if they joined us.
New York would really need to be a state of its own to be worth while, which would never be allowed to happen. Would the richest city in America really not want federal representation? They'd be raped of their wealth by the feds.
Thanks to Reihan for a trip down Memory Lane. Working in Mailer's campaign was my first active involvement in politics. Secession was a great idea then, and it still is. I remember that the campaign provided data showing that New Yorkers pay vastly more taxes than they get back in services.
One thing, though. Mailer wanted to secede from the whole United States, not just New York. One of the points he made at the time was that New Yorkers didn't need to be paying millions to the Feds in order to keep the Viet Cong from infiltrating the subway.
Bring back the city-state!
Uhh...last time I checked the "spoiler" in your story, Mr. Diaz, was from the Bronx...so if the city were to secede,it would still have Mr. Diaz. As an upstater I say secede if you must but we ain't keeping the Bronx!
why do people wish to be sober????????
Dear Reihan Salam
Your unfortunate and misinformed opinion was brought to my attention today.
The only �canard� presently at hand is the one that you and so many other misguided individuals have been espousing on behalf of the industrialist mayor of New York City.
Briefly, the MTA has publicly declared on several occasions that the NYC subway system is already running at or near full capacity during rush hours and therefore that means there is no metaphysical way to add extra trains or train cars to the existing subway lines. So when you talk of the overcrowding that straphangers must endure, how prey tell do you propose to alleviate the matter? With the Second Avenue subway I would suppose? Come now.
The fact of the matter is that the mayor�s plan was designed to assist certain segments of the financial sector in Manhattan NOT low income New Yorkers.
Or perhaps you believe in your infinite economic wisdom that when a struggling street vendor has to pay an extra daily fee to enter Manhattan that their bottom line is not somehow affected or maybe you think that they will not be forced to raise the prices on their goods thereby passing the cost along to the public. No-brainer right. Oops, in your case, I guess not.
On the other hand, maybe you think that New York City is an inexpensive town and we can all afford to pay a new tax, or toll, or the increased price of that morning cup of coffee. More than likely this is the world that you live in�
By the way, every hard working New Yorker is already contributing to our city and state�s transportation system whether they use public transportation or not, we do it every payday, it�s called payroll taxes, and yes even motorist (your so-called scarce resource) are forced to pay taxes, surprise! And here is another surprise, the streets of our city�s poorest neighborhoods are filled with all those �gas-guzzling metal monstrosities� that are so expensive to maintain, why? Well it would seem that for some unspeakable �car mad� reason low-income people chose to own them. Yes! Imagine that, cars are not simply the purview of the rich and socially affluent class. Wow! Go figure.
Moreover, the MTA has mismanaged the public�s money for years and consistently opposes any form of public authority reform that would make their agency more accountable for it�s spending practices. Remember only a few years ago when we learned that the MTA kept a set of secret financial books? Sure! Lets just throw money at them and hope they suddenly solve all of our city's transportation problems. Yea! That�s it! And HELLO to living in �La La� Land.
Also, you may want to �fact check� your writing prior to going public with it, since Assemblyman Ruben Diaz, Jr. was elected to public office BEFORE his father. Interesting, isn�t it? Looks like you made an erroneous assumption based on a simplistic worldview of New York City politics.
So who is the blowhard simpleton now? Hmmm?
I am trying to locate a building named during the 1960's the Doctor Dube Friedman bldg originally used for administrative on one floor and electronics and also selector general etc.The bldg was named for me and I did work there and held my records of different jobs there including military and space and Whitehouse and pentagon. I have forgotten where it is located after all these years and was told that it was on campus at CCNY but they deny it and would like to find out if it is on campus at another area. It had been restricted during 911 of the years 1960's. I would appreciate your informing me if it is still there and where located or where it was located. I had fotgotten my code number otherwise I would write it and by the way I am a former mayor and governor of New York and it seems Hillary is following in my footstesps and also living in my home which I purchased back and was taken during many demonstrations in New york and washington.You can easily find out whether I was friedman or popoff or robinson or even a former figure skater and actress. Thankyou Dolores
secede!
Posted by Amanda | April 10, 2008 12:26 PM