“For many of these employees, mass transportation may add hours to their travel schedule.” Shock horror! Is The New York Times defending private transportation over public? Maybe. And you sure gotta look for it; the statement is buried in the middle of Michael Barbaro’s story about Big Apple Mayor Bloomberg’s latest executive fiat, “ordering city agencies like the police, parks and health departments to give up nearly 700 city-owned cars, a cherished perk for their workers.” (I think Barbaro added that last bit.) Hizzoner’s beancounters reckon the move will save the City $20m over two years. The Gray Lady says that an indeterminate number of the vehicles being shipped off to the worst resale market since the Paleolithic Era will be Toyota Priora. In fact, “The city estimates that most of the cars have a resale value of about $2,000 at auction.” Despite the aforementioned loss of bureaucratic efficiency and a depreciation hit that makes John Gotti look like social worker, the paper welcomes the move. Kinda. “It would help blunt criticism that City Hall practices a form of vehicular hypocrisy, telling ordinary New Yorkers to use mass transportation while at times clogging the streets with its own city-issued cars.” Amen. I think.
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Note how the Gray Hag refers to those not amoungst their beloved god “Government” (taxtaker parasites) as “Ordinary”.
Used Priora for 2000?Wow I’m not up on American
used cars pricing.Thats a bargain isn’t it.
I would think the cab companys are going to scoop them up.Didn’t New York force the Taxi industry to go Hybrid?
I’ll bet the cab companys can’t wait to dump thier bullet proof Crown Vics.
Removing 700 city cars from the road, Mr. Bloomberg’s memo said, would help the city meet its goal of reducing carbon emissions from city government by 30 percent by 2017.
This is just a stupid statement. Unless these cars are going to the crusher all they’re doing is shifting carbon emissions somewhere else.
The availability of good/better used cars sends bad/worse old cars to the crusher.
an added benefit not mentioned is that this will free up a few hundred sorely needed manhattan street parking spaces. these cars clog up my downtown neighborhood something fierce.
Non emergency city employees should only be allowed to have these, if there is a justification for them having any vehicle at all (i.e. multiple daily site visits):
http://www.westwardindustries.com/momex/NavCode/go4
Or maybe not, it looks like these are actually expensive. I hear that buses allow for stops at multiple locations.
@mikey :
Didn’t New York force the Taxi industry to go Hybrid?
A mayor’s plan doesn’t make it law. Besides, they’re holding off on it.
http://tinyurl.com/8xtsuh
It has to make business sense before it makes environmental sense.
Besides, the subway is heavily used, and new yorkers tend to be more energy efficient than anywhere else in the US. Bloomberg does what he can, but when most people in the country drive to work by themselves it’s just a drop in the bucket.
The fleet dumping is a cost cutting measure. Recession.
I wonder if anyone in Cal-ee-forn-ya is paying attention to this type of budget cutting. Good on NYC for doing the right thing. These perks are ridiculous for city workers. Their perk is they get virtually guaranteed employment, not access to free wheels. Only question is how many cars remain in the city fleet.
jkross22:
It’s in the link:
“City agencies must relinquish at least 10 percent, or about 685, of their 6,800 nonemergency vehicles by the end of March, according to the memo from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, which was sent on Wednesday and obtained by The New York Times.”
The car pictured won’t get sold. It is used by parking enforcement agents to ticket parked cars. Their numbers will grow the worse the economy gets, along with speeding tickets for less that 10 mph over the limit.
The stop and go of trolling the city’s curbsides is probably a good application for the Prius.
The NYTimes’ Michael Barbaro got it totally wrong from the first paragraph. These city cars are not “perks” — they are only allowed to be used on official business. Except for cars issued to deputy mayors, commissioners, council members, few of the cars talked about go home with the employee. Most are parked on city property during non-work hours except for official travel. The implication that the situation is otherwise is completely misleading.
Furthermore, most city employees except police, firefighters, teachers and sanitation workers have a residency requirement to live in the City of New York. If they are non-emergency personnel, the article’s idea that mass transit isn’t accessible to these employees to get to their jobs is just flat-out ridiculous.
Basically, if a city agency has use of 20 cars in its fleet, it’s going to lose 2-5 of them. That means the department’s budget won’t be used towards having to insure, gas, maintain and take depreciation on those vehicles. They’ll still be used to go where the subway or other means aren’t feasible, like the far-flung reaches of Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn. There will be fewer cars to go around, and those employees will have to either plan ahead or use other means — i.e. subway, bus, bicycle, whatever. Some will gripe about it, most will adapt. And yes, this move is probably more recessionary than environmental, but either way it’s long overdue.
Finally, I’d love to know where Mr. Barbero got the idea that a Prius with 50,000 miles is worth $2,000. That’s not what his source said. Lousy research, I guess.
Hmm, I hope they realize that when the city workers are all taking the subway, that none of them will give a rats ass about the surface streets falling apart.
Well, Landcrusher,
Bloomberg takes the subway to work—Both he and I think having city workers take the subway is great. Many city workers are in the habit of pulling their cars up on sidewalks to park, because they get parking placards. Their cars are likely some of the most driven cars in the city, besides taxis, because a parking placard is like a golden ticket which lets you park wherever you like. You don’t need to troll for parking spaces, and you don’t need to pony up for a garage space.
Personally, I’d love to have a placard. But I do realize that they are anti-social.
City workers park in front of fire hydrants, on sidewalks, and in front of hospitals… Cars on sidewalks are particularly annoying for disabled people, the elderly, and for most anyone walking around. Also, subways are very squeaky and loud, and I think that since the majority of people in manhattan take the subway to work, it makes sense to have city workers do the same (unless they pony up for a car themselves).
Maybe then we’ll have notification about when the next train is coming, better service, and quieter trains.
If most people drove to work, I would agree with you.
edited for spelling.
Bravo, Nick2NY.
Landcrusher, your statement is pretty sweeping in its generalizations. The commissioner in charge of the NYC streets, Department of Transportation, is a bicyclist whom I’ve ridden with. She’s also a realist. The DOT knows that trucks and commercial vehicles are what keep the city going and have no interest in seeing the infrastructure deteriorate further just because of how they get to work.
Anybody else divide 10 million dollars pa by 700 cars?
Ouch.
Yo, NY guys,
Do what you want, it’s your city. I made a sweeping generalization because I was talking about a large group of people. There will obviously be a few with positive attitudes and mission orientation. However, when you stated that it may make the subway’s run better, you essentially made my point. The 10% dirtbag rule is the norm, 20% is bad, and 30% will kill you. What that means is that if 30% of the workers stop caring about the streets, you will see your streets deteriorate to a disgraceful level.
I will be happy to be proven wrong. However, I am not a cynic without cause. TINSTAAFL applies to everything.
I wonder if hizzoner has thought about asking around at the used car lots? There’s plenty of places to sell cars fast in NYC, surely they could get a better price than that. And not have to worry about title, tags, etc etc.