In the News: Another Push for Congestion Pricing

••• “Starting Monday, a team of parking cops will ‘reluctantly’ roam the city with specific instructions to ticket illegally parked police vehicles and officers’ personal cars. […] But team members are chafing at having to ticket fellow officers, who, for as long as anyone can remember, have been able to put a city parking placard in their civilian-car windshield and park pretty much anywhere with impunity. ‘These guys are not liking that they have to go out and write summonses on department vehicles,’ a source told The Post. ‘All this is going to do is cause bad blood and issues with morale.'” Tough it out, New York City’s Finest. —New York Post

••• Eater‘s Robert Sietsema recommends six dishes at Canal Street Market. I second what he says about Oppa’s Korean burrito, although I tried the tofu version. (Given the busyness of the food half, especially relative to the shopping half, I have to agree with the reader who thinks it might be a question of time before food takes over more of the venue.)

••• Move NY is pushing for congestion pricing again: “Under the group’s plan, the city would impose a $2.75 fee on cars entering Manhattan’s central business district south of 60th Street. Trucks would pay a higher fee, while taxis and other for-hire vehicles would pay a congestion surcharge based on travel within the zone. Recent congestion-charge proposals faltered in the state legislature. But Move NY says the city doesn’t need state approval to charge drivers. It cites a 1957 state law giving cities with a population of more than one million people the power to toll their own roads and bridges.” —Wall Street Journal

••• Cute story set in Tribeca in the New York Times‘s “Metropolitan Diary”—even better, it’s prose and it occurred recently, not back in the summer of 1964. (Those of you who read “Metropolitan Diary” will know what I mean.)

••• “City Acres will open June 19 at 70 Pine Street with a food hall and grocerant—including vendors Artichoke Pizza, Vanessa’s Dumpling House, JuiceBrothers, the vegan-friendly Cinnamon Snail, and another location of Beyond Sushi.” Grocerant is the ugliest word I’ve heard in a while. —Eater

 

4 Comments

  1. The Post article online has a picture of a bogus (union-issued not City-issued) police parking placard. However, the caption merely stated, “This vehicle had an expired parking placard.” That’s not an auspicious omen.

  2. Congest pricing: YES YES YES. This is long overdue. Let us look to the success of this approach in London, for example.

    The slow-parade (and frequently more of a standstill) of dangerous, honking, polluting, vehicles has for too long dominated the public space of this city.

    The revenue generated should be used for infrastructure and public transit.

    • Yes, because our city government has such a great track record of spending the money it takes in so efficiently… let’s definitely give them another “revenue” source to waste & abuse.

      • Good point! I for one will throw a PARTY once there are two way tolls on the Holland tunnel…
        Hopefully it’s just a matter of time.
        Cars sitting wasting gas and sitting around saving on a bizarre toll situation.

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