Enforcement on the subway has surged over the past year. Police officers issued 22,000 more tickets for fare evasion this year compared with 2018, The Times reported.Just make the subway free and increase all the taxes, tolls, and fees related to motor vehicles. Whatever it takes to make the subways free. Use the cops to ticket the hell out of all the cars that are always committing violations and make the fines as high as they need to be to cover all the free riding on the subway.
Hundreds more officers have also been deployed in the transit system in recent months, sparking debate about overpolicing and the criminalization of poverty. Black and Hispanic people had already accounted for an outsize number of arrests on the subway.
Governor Cuomo has been sharply criticized for the expanded deployment, as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is facing a looming financial crisis and struggles to provide reliable subway service.
December 10, 2019
"Some New Yorkers have jumped turnstiles in protest of the arrests of young black men and the handcuffing of a woman selling churros."
From "Tensions Over Subway Policing, Race and ‘Arrest Quotas’" (NYT).
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And since the cops are always going to arrest young black men, everybody gets to ride the subway for free! Win-win!
They arrested the churro lady?
Bastards.
Like rent control, free subways will lead to shabby, unreliable subways.
Why don't we just hand our paychecks over to the Government and let them run everything for free??? yeah...that's the ticket... Taxes are through the roof already in New York...
More taxes on the rich, until there are no rich no more...
Which is better, to eliminate the rich, or to eliminate the poor?
I remember when Washington DC bus tokens worked in the NY subway turnstiles.
So in other words.... Punish the people paying HIGH taxes for using their cars, and give the troublemaking goons free subway passes. The Car owners get screwed, and the bullies get their way. There is such a thing as RULE OF LAWS. If they don't have to follow laws, and you give them their way....why would ANYBODY follow laws. Who makes these laws?? Why have laws??
Send the poor to New Jersey and California...
Take a page from Benjamin Franklin and hook up the turnstiles to drive electrical generators as they turn. Franklin used them to put a gallon of water on the roof.
Black and Hispanic people had already accounted for an outsize number of RIDERS on the subway.
fixed it for them!
Regarding the churro lady, the mean old cops didn't pass the law against vending in subway stations. The woke politicians elected by the woke voters did. Presumably for a reason, but ignore that for a minute. All they have to do is repeal the law and the problem is solved.
Put that Boston University Econ grad AOC in charge of the subways...
Eventually, people with money will see the quality of life in NYC isn't worth the price, and they'll move away. Then the rats will take over the city.
The Hostess trolls.
THEOLDMAN
It's not the race or economic standing that is stressing the country and it's infrastucture. It's the simple fact there are too many of us here. It was a comfortable country at 200 million. Not so at 350 million. What we need some volunteers to leave the lifeboat.
Simple answer, do what DC did, decriminalize turnstile jumping. Win-win.
Way to go, Althouse, that there is some prime cruel neutrality. Very cruel indeed.
@Heartless Aztec take a cross country flight some time during daylight hours, we have more than enough room for 700 million, much less 350.
The population of the entire world could live comfortably in an area the size of the State of Texas ... the result would be less than 1/3 the population density of, say, Monaco, which is by all accounts a highly desirable place to live.
It's the simple fact there are too many of us. It was a comfortable country at 200 million. Not so at 350 million.
What you mean "US"? the population growth of the United States is NOT coming from babies, it's coming from immigrants
Total fertility rate for American Born people is 1.843 which is BELOW replacement
Are these taxes statewide? Why should some poor guy from Buffalo pay taxes to make the NYC subway free?
Is your response facetious? I’m open to plans to make public transit free and can see the benefits, but car tolls and fines are already insane in NYC. One of my old ideas when I lived there was to make private automobiles illegal in most of Manhattan. Then build giant parking garages at most of the city entrances and use the parking fees to fund the subways and busses.
brylun said...
Like rent control, free subways will lead to shabby, unreliable subways.
The Staten Island ferry is already free and I haven’t heard any complaints.
Blacks and Hispanics cannot be arrested for turnstile jumping nor can any person running for president vs. a GOP candidate be investigated for corruption. In twenty years, you will be able to get away with any crime other than hate speech if you so much as declare as a socialist candidate for dog catcher.
MartyH said...
Are these taxes statewide? Why should some poor guy from Buffalo pay taxes to make the NYC subway free?
The people of NYC subsidize the transit systems of the other cities and always have. Making the NYC system free is unlikely to change that.
Common denominator to all of this is that people want stuff. That's normal behavior. People don't want to pay for stuff. Also normal. Problems develop when government gets involved and makes is possible, and fun, for people to get the stuff they want and someone else pays for it. Or else.
The NYC subways started as private companies. Probably too late to privatize, but not too late to prune govt activity back, or at least stop making every single thing a government matter.
"The Staten Island ferry is already free and I haven’t heard any complaints."
Everything should be free and there will be no complaints.
How much would it cost to put in vertical (full height) turnstiles? That would immediately solve the problem.
Black and Hispanic people had already accounted for an outsize number of crimes on the subway.
We could just ban blacks and browns from the subway. What would the subways be like if there were no black or brown people there? That is some dangerous hatethink there.
Why not just raise the tolls on the bridges and tunnels to $50.00? Raise lots of moollah and keep out those NJ and Conn deplorables.
How gallant of these protesters to support the thieving young men who can't be bothered to pay their subway fare. And make no mistake, they are thieves.
As I used to observe at my job, when I'm King, things'll be different.
The churro lady was not arrested for selling anything, She refused pay the mob their rightful money for protection. (NYC govt permits)
Spoken like someone who doesn't drive much or doesn't like to drive.
Driving in NY is already a high tax situation. Between the price of gas there, the price of insurance there, additional taxes placed on gas and highway use (tolls). Then there's parking your car in NY, another entirely higher level of confiscation. And I'm sure the City has their hands in the tills of the parking lots and garages. So what's left? More taxes on the drivers and vehicles so that those who don't want to pay for transportation should not.
Transportation is now a right.
Along with the right to eat. The right to healthcare. The right to go to Columbia School of...Journalism!. The right to chase those you don't like out of restaurants. The right to chase those who disagree off of your campus. The right to cheap rent that does not move, no matter how many taxes the property owner has to pay to help you get all of the above rights. The right to keep horrible teachers on the education payroll.
These are not rights. Maybe turn the subways into giant homeless communities. Bus in homeless from around the US. (San Fran, Seattle, Portland, LA- to name a few). Open up the miles of empty covered spaces. Make small apartments down there. Then strip shopping centers. Create an entirely new civilization. As we get more like the Eloi up above, the subway folks will become the Morlocks. It's New York. Think Big!
Only the young can jump turnstiles. We oldsters get stuck paying the fares.
"The population of the entire world could live comfortably in an area the size of the State of Texas"
"Fit"? Yes.
"Live comfortably"? No.
"Like rent control, free subways will lead to shabby, unreliable subways."
How does rent control lead to shabby, unreliable subways?
Transportation is a right. People below the "poberty line" - citizens, non-citizens, and visitors alike - should be issued no-limit rider cards. Cost can be offset by simply doubling or tripling the fare for other riders.
What could go wrong?
Andrew @6:56, it would probably cost a small fortune to install full height turnstiles and it wouldn’t solve the problem. At locations where there are only full height turnstiles now, there are also “emergency” gates, which many people use to exit—those with strollers, etc. No alarm sounds). All a turnstile jumper has to do is wait for someone to exit and saunter in. No jumping necessary.
"Eventually, people with money will see the quality of life in NYC isn't worth the price, and they'll move away. Then the rats will take over the city."
Do you live in NYC? Is this your own, lived experience and conclusion? Mine certainly differs. I live in NYC and it is a fantastic city. I love everything about it. For all the talk about bad subway service, the subways are vastly better than 30 years ago: the trains are newer, the cars are cleaner, the service is more reliable. There was a time when there was always a distinct possibility that any train you got on would be "taken out of service" at some point, with all riders ejected from the train to wait for the next one.
NYC gets more expensive all the time, as is true in most places in America. People with money--which I am not, which means I will probably have to leave eventually--can certainly enjoy the bounty of NYC without any difficulty.
We don’t care if NYC descends into chaos.
"One of my old ideas when I lived there was to make private automobiles illegal in most of Manhattan."
YES!
"We don’t care if NYC descends into chaos."
But...it isn't.
Cook, when high prices finally drive people like you (and me!) out of the city, it will revert to a 1970s situation, with rich people cocooned in the rich areas and the “middle class” (a very high bar in this crazy place) taking their kids and fleeing in droves to the suburbs. It happened before, and with the mismanagement of Deblasio, and probably of whoever follows him, it will happen again.
But...it isn't.
Actually, it is. Bring back the broken windows policing and the stop and frisk. Dump Carranza and his racist cronies. And place the criminal De Blasio and his freeloading wife into restraints.
- Krumhorn
Send the poor to New Jersey and California...
LOL. San Francisco is already full up.
There are no subways or ANY kind of public transportation in our area of California. You need a car to live here. Which is why we also don't have many homeless hanging about.
If you make it illegal to have automobiles in NYC...how are you going to get out when the shit hits the fan? Or just want to visit Grandma in Maine?
"Some New Yorkers have jumped turnstiles in protest...." reminds me of looters in Los Angeles victimizing innocent property owners to protest the Rodney King verdict.
Under Deblasio NYC already "tickets the hell" out of car owners. There are already over 2,000 cameras used to fine speed and red light violations.
peacelovewoodstock: "@Heartless Aztec take a cross country flight some time during daylight hours, we have more than enough room for 700 million, much less 350."
(Leaving aside that all that "empty space" in flyover country is either being productively used, or may not be settled for good reasons, and that people aren't going to spread out uniformly over territory...)
On this planet, lovers of high-density living are spoiled for choice as far as living in swarming anti-heaps goes. There are packed megalopoleis of tens of millions all over the world. But apparently people like peaceloveydovey are losing sleep at night at the thought of people with different preferences having any choice about not living on a paved-over planet.
Just make the subway free and increase all the taxes, tolls, and fees related to motor vehicles.
What? Tax the people who don't use the subway to benefit those who do? Explain the justice in that proposal.
Robert Cook writes: How does rent control lead to shabby, unreliable subways?
Maybe rent control leads to people pretending to not understand similies.
Why stop at cars? Tax the hell out of bikes, Nike sneakers, and, of course, Gucci loafers and cab rides.....Also, as mockturtle points out, some turnstiles should be lowered so as to allow fare jumping by the elderly and disabled. The current turnstiles discriminate in favor of young, able bodied fare jumpers whilst it is the elderly and the disabled who have the most need for free rides.
Not just in NYC but in all US cities: As mentioned previously, bring back enforcement of all laws. Build more jails and prisons. Lots more. No more early release of violent offenders.
peacelove etc etc said take a cross country flight some time during daylight hours, we have more than enough room for 700 million, much less 350.
Room already occupied by people who don't appreciate others wanting to come and freeload on their hard work and the work of their ancestors. People that are also mostly armed and Deplorable with a capital D.
Now. Mexico. There you have a lot of wide open spaces. Room to grow. Via con Dios!
"We don’t care if NYC descends into chaos."
But...it isn't.
Yet. But working on it.
The Staten Island ferry is already free and I haven’t heard any complaints.
Isn't it enough that it goes to Staten Island? Law & Order says that's the bad part of NYC.
Every major city on Earth has a public transportation system that charges at least a nominal fee. This is rarely controversial.
The New York business is just a matter of US-peculiar ethnic politics. Spoiled people exploiting others foolish, decadent concepts of virtue.
Private cars? Why don’t we just get rid of private property?
-Comrade Juan Liberacion.
Somebody tell Althouse about the tragedy of the commons.
What? Tax the people who don't use the subway to benefit those who do? Explain the justice in that proposal.
Oh that's easy! It's social justice.
"Not just in NYC but in all US cities: As mentioned previously, bring back enforcement of all laws. Build more jails and prisons. Lots more. No more early release of violent offenders."
Why? Violent crimes are at 25 year lows.
We need fewer jails and prisons, and alternatives to incarceration for many classes of crimes.
"Maybe rent control leads to people pretending to not understand similies."
Maybe some people don't recognize an ironic comment on a poorly constructed sentence.
We are going to integrate all classes with education, free health care and mixed housing, like Rio. Then the People will commit very little crime.
-Juan Liberacion-Mas
I love it when a “protest” saves me a fare or allows me to cut a day of high school or allows me to commit some unpunished crime. Fight the Power!
Singapore solution for lifestyle crimes - caning.
Over and done quickly. Not easily forgotten.
I understand people who need to get somewhere and not having the money to do it jumping the turnstiles.
The problem for me when I lived in London and Chicago and used their mass transit (not in Hong Kong and Tokyo. This was not a problem there) were the people who jumped the turnstiles to steal, to harass, or to pass out in seat, pee their pants, and then ride all day.
Let’s make turnstile jumping a capital crime and harvest their organs for people on the waiting list for transplants. Solve two problems at once!
make it free and there will be no complaints?
"What do you want for nothing?!? Your money back?!?!?"
It's NYC. Churro lady was probably arrested for using trans fats to make her churros. Or for not listing the calorie counts.
Ann Althouse said...Just make the subway free and increase all the taxes, tolls, and fees related to motor vehicles. Whatever it takes to make the subways free. Use the cops to ticket the hell out of all the cars that are always committing violations and make the fines as high as they need to be to cover all the free riding on the subway.
Just target one group of commuters for the benefit of another group--use the power of the State to "go after" a group I dislike in order to benefit a group I like...is that the idea?
I mean, it's an ethos, sure.
Anyway I thought the big push was to close more and more of Manhattan to cars anyway. Can't ticket cars and charge for parking if they're not allowed in, so a bit of a shaky revenue source there.
"Just make it free by raising taxes" is fine, of course, and all you'll have to do is convince those people who'll pay the tax but not benefit themselves from the subway (people who live in NY/NYC who don't ride, etc) that it's only fair they pay. Should be easy--it's not like some working class family that walks to work would resent having to pay taxes to subsidize the commute of some people wealthier than them. Piece of cake.
"Yet. But working on it."
From that point of view, everything will eventually revert to chaos.
"Cook, when high prices finally drive people like you (and me!) out of the city, it will revert to a 1970s situation, with rich people cocooned in the rich areas and the “middle class” (a very high bar in this crazy place) taking their kids and fleeing in droves to the suburbs. It happened before, and with the mismanagement of Deblasio, and probably of whoever follows him, it will happen again."
Ebb and flow, rise and fall and rise again, is the nature of big cities, as with everything else. What you describe could happen, but it will take decades. Even in the 70s, when NYC really was chaotic, it was still a livable city for the rich, but more important, also for the not-rich, who could find affordable places to live.
"Just make the subway free and increase all the taxes, tolls, and fees related to motor vehicles."
Making the buses free is exactly what's being proposed in Kansas City. We haven't yet gotten to the second half of your sentence.
"Just make the subway free and increase all the taxes, tolls, and fees related to motor vehicles. Whatever it takes to make the subways free. Use the cops to ticket the hell out of all the cars that are always committing violations and make the fines as high as they need to be to cover all the free riding on the subway."
I know there are differences, but remember when Althouse got on the Scott Walker bandwagon when he killed the railroad boondoggle between Milwaukee and Madison? Rail transport is surprisingly provocative of emotional outbursts from us all.
Manhattan certainly presents surface and underground transport problems. Is the best answer to make the subway free? That will probably lead to over-use. It still needs to be paid for, and there is real logic in having users pay part of the bill.
It costs a fortune already to drive a car onto Manhattan. I suppose NYC could add a congestion charge. When we visit London and rent a car we have to pay the congestion charge to get out of the center of the city. I tell my wife that it is like paying for parking but never finding a spot.
In any case, there are good reasons to charge users for public transport, fairness being one of them. The question is, how much?
I don't like X. I do like Y.
"Just" tax everyone to pay for Y, and while you're at it jack up fines and penalties on X to help raise some money--really stick it to people who do X and use helping people who do Y as a reason to attack Xers.
That's not, you know, exactly an universalizable set of moral ideas, Professor. Outside of preferred commuting options in NYC can you think of a situation where you'd cheer that framework as applied to issues of public choice?
Why is it so goddamn hard for colored peop...ahem...I mean "people of color" to follow the rules? Why is it ALWAYS the blacks causing these problems and getting their panties in a twist? They cant scrounge up $2.50 to get on a train? Then walk, dickheads!
To quote Jim Carrey's character in "Liar,Liar" - STOP BREAKING THE LAW, ASSHOLE!
Just make the subway free and increase all the taxes, tolls, and fees related to motor vehicles. Whatever it takes to make the subways free. Use the cops to ticket the hell out of all the cars that are always committing violations and make the fines as high as they need to be to cover all the free riding on the subway.
Take off your fucking clothes, bitch. I'm going to beat you before I fuck you. This way your outfit won't get ripped up. You can thank me later.
Oh you were just seeking to Socratically provoke discussion. Did you know why they made Socrates drink the hemlock?
Expressing surprise at the few votes required for an acquittal, Socrates joked that he be punished with free meals at the Prytaneum (the city’s sacred hearth), an honour usually held for a benefactor of Athens, and for the victorious athletes of an Olympiad. After that failed suggestion,
Because he was an obnoxious fuck.
You want to make the subways free for some reason? Sell the de Blasio family's asses for $2.75 a ride, if you want to subsidize the po'.
Or peel a few billion a year off Bloomberg, surely he wouldn't mind.
I don't see the downside of increased law enforcement in the trains. Just prostitute, or expropriate the assets of, some retired law professors, that ought to cover it. Exploit the hell out of them. For that matter, just increase the fines on blacks and Hispanics, they can obviously afford it, just like NYC drivers can.
Cook: From that point of view, everything will eventually revert to chaos.
Now you have it!!! You have just re-discovered Chaos Theory, Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
Noun definition of Chaos Theory the branch of mathematics that deals with complex systems whose behavior is highly sensitive to slight changes in conditions, so that small alterations can give rise to strikingly great consequences.
Entropy is the universal tendency toward disorder, disorganization, disintegration and chaos. Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics, also known as the Law of Increased Entropy, states, “the total entropy of any isolated system will increase over time, approaching a maximum value.
All we are is another brick in the wall. The Little Dutch Boy with his finger in the dike of chaos. Doing what we can to delay the inevitable.
Removing all the laws and safeguards to a stable society just increases the entropy and inevitable fall. Chaos. :-D
Our expectations of black people are still too high. We need to lower them more.
"I suppose NYC could add a congestion charge."
It comes into effect in 2020.
Yeah, makes the NYC subway free so it is priced at its actual value. Follow that up with free education and medicine in NYC.
Ok, so in the same spirit, the nice little cafes you visit, and all other brick and mortar stores are supposed to subsidize illegal street vendors who don't pay taxes? They're supposed to maintain food safety inspectors while also supporting people like welfare fraud churro ladies?
The churro lady and other vendors are banned from subways due to the dangers they create on platforms and the massive food waste sanitation costs.
Let's tax and punish the people who follow the rules to accommodate the people who don't pay taxes and break the rules. Let's double the tax on your pension to pay for people who don't want to have jobs. Let's move some homeless churro makers into your house. After all, it worked in Dr. Zhivago.
Cookie asserts: We need fewer jails and prisons, and alternatives to incarceration for many classes of crimes.
While I agree that imprisoning people for drug possession is not good policy, there are still plenty of robbers, rapists and murderers whose sentences get reduced due to 'lack of prison space'. And there are perps with a list of priors longer than your arm who continue to offend.
Tina Trent:Let's tax and punish the people who follow the rules to accommodate the people who don't pay taxes and break the rules.
And there you have it. The reason that the Tea Party arose and why people are mad at the elites who run the country.
AND the reason that Trump won and will probably win again. We wanted to throw a monkey wrench into the works.
I'm going to do the things I wanted to do, cheat at the things I want to cheat at, and not pay for things I use -- all in protest of the arrest of young black men and the handcuffing of a women selling churros. It has special resonance because I am doing these things in sympathy with and in the name of these downtrodden NYC folks while living here in Wisconsin.
The best subway system in the world is probably the London tube. It is not free, it is highly policed.
Why should blacks be allowed to ride trains? That's cultural appropriation! They didn't build that!
Robert Cook said...
"I suppose NYC could add a congestion charge."
It comes into effect in 2020.
2021 I believe. Damn them. Someone should run for mayor and/or governor on a platform of canceling all this madness.
The ultimate solution to black and brown criminality: stop making things illegal.
The ultimate solution to black and brown criminality: stop making things illegal.
Wonderful, we will now have a new moving homeless shelter.
"At the urging of its mayor, Quinton Lucas, the city council of Kansas City has voted unanimously to make all city bus routes free. The city's light rail is already free to use. This move makes Kansas City the first major American city to make its public transportation system free to use for all."
That was quick.
BTW, our light rail is no more that a roughly two mile line shuttling back and forth between the river market neighborhood and Union Station. It's really no more than a feel-good demonstration project. It's free for reasons unrelated to the rest of Kansas City's public transit system. But it was used as a justification for making the buses free as well.
“ What? Tax the people who don't use the subway to benefit those who do? Explain the justice in that proposal.”
It stops short of banning private cars in Manhattan, which would be entirely justified. Driving a car in Manhattan should be disincentivized and channel people into mass transportation is a good idea. The cars congest the streets and pollute and make noise. The train tracks are there and underground.
I don't get the outrage. The fact is, NYC is already a gigantic wealth transfer machine. Turn the crank a little faster. What difference does it make?
It stops short of banning private cars in Manhattan, which would be entirely justified. Driving a car in Manhattan should be disincentivized and channel people into mass transportation is a good idea. The cars congest the streets and pollute and make noise
Comments like this reveal that, despite her protestations, Althouse truly is a committed Lefty at heart.
Our hostess makes a valid point. The streets of NYC are an insanely expensive amenity, available at no cost to people who have cars. It costs vastly more than the subway system. If the subways and the streets were both privatized, which one do you think would produce the most revenue?
"People don't want to obey our laws."
"Stop enforcing them."
"Will that work?"
"It will lower those troubling arrest stats."
Now. Mexico. There you have a lot of wide open spaces. Room to grow. Via con Dios!
Too many liberals from NY and CA have already moved here. The state is now controlled by the Dems. We had record revenue las year, so of course, they raised taxes.
NM is controlled by democrats and is becoming an economic joke, saved only by oil and gas industries, and the Dems want to eliminate that sector.
Via con Dios, my axx.
Ann Althouse said...
“ What? Tax the people who don't use the subway to benefit those who do? Explain the justice in that proposal.”
It stops short of banning private cars in Manhattan, which would be entirely justified. Driving a car in Manhattan should be disincentivized and channel people into mass transportation is a good idea. The cars congest the streets and pollute and make noise. The train tracks are there and underground.
-------------------
Professah?
Yo inner nazi is showing.
Go to baffroom and recompose yourself.
The Re-Education Begins Here.
"Singapore solution for lifestyle crimes - caning.
Over and done quickly. Not easily forgotten."
Beating predominately black folks may not be a good optic. De Blasio might be able to get away with it, though. Only Nixon could go to China!
Unlikely all those black limos would be banned in Manhattan, especially with no subway service on the East Side.
“It stops short of banning private cars in Manhattan, which would be entirely justified. Driving a car in Manhattan should be disincentivized and channel people into mass transportation is a good idea. The cars congest the streets and pollute and make noise. The train tracks are there and underground.”
Instead, you are forced to live packed into subway cars with the dregs of society, stinky smelly, people, in your face, confrontal, rude people. Not all, but you have little choice. You ride the subway, and you have little control.
Of course, the big problem is population density. We spend half the year living in a county with an average human density of roughly 4 per square mile (I suspect that the population densities of some other species, such as pre-venisons, may be higher). Since almost all of the human population is on the valley floor, it is quick and easy to get away from almost all human caused noise and distractions. I just wish that my partner could handle the winter cold there.
As for those of you complaining about people taking your land - the answer is money and economics. At some price point, someone will inevitably be willing to sell. I was surprised to find that this part of the PHX suburbs still has cotton fields. They are slowly shrinking, but may never disappear completely. Most of the farmers seem to have some price at which they will sell - the remaining farmers just haven’t gotten one high enough yet. She knows people who hung on too long, and others who sold at a great price and moved from the hard work of farming to the lighter work of attending charity benefits for hospitals, etc. There is, of course, a market price for most things, and as farm land becomes split up and used for residences, the market value of the remaining farm land rises until equilibrium is reached. Luckily for all, if there really is global warming, regardless of cause, we are likely to see significant quantities of farm land magically appear, as the freeze line moves both across Russia (esp Siberia), Canada, and even (for the US) Alaska.
Tina Trent: Let's tax and punish the people who follow the rules to accommodate the people who don't pay taxes and break the rules.
I'm told that's already in the state constitution of California.
“Too many liberals from NY and CA have already moved here. The state is now controlled by the Dems. We had record revenue las year, so of course, they raised taxes.”
“NM is controlled by democrats and is becoming an economic joke, saved only by oil and gas industries, and the Dems want to eliminate that sector.”
To be fair, NM has always been more Democratic than the neighboring states (ignoring that Texas used to be Souther Democrat until modern times). The difference that I see is that it has moved from its blue collar Dem roots to a more yuppified, Californiated type of Dem majority state. But probably not as badly as has CO just to the north. I can remember when the main Dem power centers in CO were the unionized steel mills and mines by Pueblo, minorities in Denver, and the crazies in the PRB (People’s Republic of Boulder). Pueblo is moving towards the Republicans, while much of the rest of the Front Range has moved left.
It stops short of banning private cars in Manhattan, which would be entirely justified. Driving a car in Manhattan should be disincentivized and channel people into mass transportation is a good idea. The cars congest the streets and pollute and make noise. The train tracks are there and underground.
Ann, dahling, that’s brilliant! That would free up traffic for the rest of us who have such important work. Naturally, certain of us would be exempt from this ban. Many of us have been using NYPD placards for decades so that we can park conveniently...as we should. And while the riffraff certainly cannot get carry permits, most of us in the inner circle of the Met Gala planning committee have easily been issued permits because...well because. You know what I mean dahling.
And some of us also have a dacha on the Black Sea. As we should.
Thank you dear. You’re SO brave speaking our truth among these ruffians and deplorables.
- Krumhorn
@ JML
Too many liberals from NY and CA have already moved here. The state is now controlled by the Dems. We had record revenue las year, so of course, they raised taxes
You misread my post. I should have written it better.
I meant actual Mexico. Send our huddled masses to Mexico. Fair is fair.
Ageed. NEW Mexico is pretty well fucked.
There will be another Bernie Goetz.
It’s inevitable.
Ban the cars, the street become an even bigger garbage dump.
There really does have to be a nominal fee, and it has to be enforced. If you don't have a fee, then the homeless will literally start living on the trains. In addition, they will be vastly over-used by everyone else. Just imagine making air travel free- if it were free I would travel every month or every week- subways and other city transport are no different.
Additionally, you can't support public transportation by targeting other modes of transport- the tax base will never stabilize, you will eventually always end up having to find something else to tax. To get a stable base, you would likely have to go for some sort of head tax for simply living in a jurisdiction served by the transport, but even that eventually leads to problems.
Free roads are largely paid for by gas taxes and car taxes- user fees that aren't easily evaded. Something similar needs to be done with buses, subways, and such.
"Luckily for all, if there really is global warming, regardless of cause, we are likely to see significant quantities of farm land magically appear, as the freeze line moves both across Russia (esp Siberia), Canada, and even (for the US) Alaska."
Not so sure about that. The oceans rising would likely remove arable land faster than the warmer climate would add it. Not that I think any such thing is at all likely. But yeah, if I owned land in Canada, I'd be all for global warming.
"Some New Yorkers have jumped turnstiles in protest of ..."
How can you tell the ones who are protesting from the ones who are trying to save a couple bucks? Oh, I get it, they're white!
Can we all agree that they should be hauled off to spend a night in jail?
"There will be another Bernie Goetz.
"It’s inevitable."
Why?
"But yeah, if I owned land in Canada, I'd be all for global warming."
I live in Minneapolis and I am definitely all for global warming. Supposed to hit -10 tonight and it isn't even winter yet.
Everything must be free!
If something is free, people stop valuing it and treat it like crap. Plus, even at $2.75 a pop they’re overcrowded. Those taxes would have to fund additional service, and with the antiquated switching systems they are already near capacity. A frankly ridiculous idea.
As for banning private cars, another ridiculous idea: First, traffic really isn’t that bad in Manhattan. The worst traffic is on the Cross Bronx, in my experience. Second, a lot of people live in Manhattan and work outside the city, a reverse commute that doesn’t add so much to congestion. But more generally: Why do liberals always want to ban things?
but logic rarely enters into governor Cuomo or mayor bane, really a ban on private vehicles, I don't think so,
If something is too expensive, the solution is to lower out-of-pocket costs by increasing subsidies?
A basic problem in doing this is, the subsidies explode as the actual cost of the service has now become totally invisible to those who use it.
Free subways, free college, free rent, and free TV!: the way for me is, everything's free! Why should the price of anything have anything to do with the cost of producing when our wise rulers can just determine who pays what for whatever?
And don’t forget free health care.
- Krumhorn
It stops short of banning private cars in Manhattan, which would be entirely justified.
This is my unpersuaded face. 😒
Reminds me of an incident--I believe in a New England city but I could be way off--I read about where the local authorities were accused of racism because the vast majority, if not all, of the arrestees were Black. Turned out they were all guilty and that the vast majority of jaywalkers in that town WERE Black. It's even got a nickname: "Blackwalking."
"There will be another Bernie Goetz."
I wouldn't be surprised if the Goetz II surfaced here in Atlanta. You have a woefully underpoliced subway system combined with a huge underclass.
"Reminds me of an incident--I believe in a New England city but I could be way off--I read about where the local authorities were accused of racism because the vast majority, if not all, of the arrestees were Black. Turned out they were all guilty and that the vast majority of jaywalkers in that town WERE Black. It's even got a nickname: "Blackwalking."
That a preponderance of blacks were cited/arrested for jaywalking does not necessarily indicate racist policing...but it could be. To know that, we'd have to know how many white jaywalkers were being ignored and allowed to get away with their offenses. At the state level, rates of drug use and sales by whites and blacks is about even, but rates of arrest and incarceration of blacks for drug use and sales is far higher than for whites...which shows likely racist targeting of blacks for drug arrests and/or prosecution compared with whites.
You say "the vast majority of jaywalkers in that town WERE Black." Does this reflect the statistical data, or is it just an inference based on the predominance of blacks cited/arrested for jaywalking?
Cookie writes:
NYC gets more expensive all the time, as is true in most places in America. People with money--which I am not, which means I will probably have to leave eventually--can certainly enjoy the bounty of NYC without any difficulty.
Please stay where you’re at, Cookie. The culture shock of moving someplace where folks are real human beings will be too much for you.
Subway fares bring in $5 Billion. Lets see 7 million New Yorkers, that, $700/year. Just raise the NYC property taxes, income tax, and sales tax. And get rid of the fares for Buses and taxis.
Just charge white riders extra to cover the cost of the black freeloaders.
Call it reparations.
Show me a well running, clean, efficient subway system anywhere in the world that doesn't charge fares. They may be subsidized, but the best subway systems in the world, like those in Shenzhen or Hong Kong or Tokyo, charge significant fares, and there is no tolerance for fare jumpers and other cheaters.
Just make the subway free
The NYC subway is already too crowded. Making it free would make it unusable. The way to deal with overcrowding is to increase prices.
To make X free, tax everything else!
Not sure what to do about the overlap...maybe the great minds - ahem, Great Minds (TM) - can figure that one out.
Krumhorn,
"stop and frisk"
If New York would stop it's unconstitutional infringement of self-defense and the adequate tools thereof, they would have a lot less need of unconstitutional crap like this.
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