For some reason, The New York Times op ed department reckons Mayor Bloomberg's campaign to reduce the number of New York City's free parking passes will help his/their campaign for an $8 per day congestion charge. Huh? First, that's a whole lot of people paying bupkis to bring their car into Manhattan (there may also be tens of thousands of counterfeit passes). People who wouldn't be happy paying $8 a day to the city government for the privilege of doing something they're doing day in, day out on the City's dime. Second, they're all government workers. Let me translate: union employees. No single group can kibosh a new government initiative faster than a public workers' union. If you think about it, the best way for Bloomberg to build support for the congestion charge would be to hand out MORE free parking passes. Oh, and to cut down on fraud, Bloomberg's created a new, centralized parking pass authority within the Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau. Fair enough? Uh, well, that department currently accounts for 58k free parking passes.
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What we have here is NYC residents, as well as residents of Long Island, Westchester, and New Jersey subsidizing free parking for city employees, who have no problem displaying these passes when they’re not conducting official business.
So, why should I give the city an additional $40 per week for my daily commute?
Quasi,
Just curious. Why does your company actually locate there? Do the benefits outweigh the costs?
I work for a major cell carrier, and New Jersey is the location of one of the switches. We have other switches in Manhattan, White Plains, and in Nassau County, but there are no openings so I can’t transfer there.