Hey, NYC? Just ... go away, OK?

[unixronin]

I'm tired of NYC trying to be the tail that wags the dog.  If it's not one thing, it's another.  You've got the Mayor going around the country making illegal straw-man gun purchases in an effort to blackmail gun dealers into accepting intrusive monitoring of their business that he has no legal authority to do.  You've got NYPD stealing legally-owned Harleys from their owners because of alleged irregularities in the way the VIN numbers are stamped, to the extent that Harley-Davidson sent out letters for all of their registered owners to carry certifying that yes, they really do own the motorcycle they're riding.

And then there's the carpool thing.  NYC will ticket you for riding a motorcycle in a HOV/carpool lane.  Federal law says you're legally permitted to do so.  (It's Title 23 United States Code, Section 166.)  NYC will ticket you anyway.  Last month's American Motorcyclist, which I just now got around to finishing, has a story about a woman who got ticketed by NYC for riding in a HOV lane and fought the ticket.  It took her three years, but finally she beat it, and a NYC administrative board acknowledged that she was exercising a legal right under Federal law and dismissed the ticket.

Most cities would, at this point, concede defeat and accept the inevitable.  But not NYC.  NYC is now trying to overturn the Federal law and get the Federal government to declare motorcycles a danger in HOV lanes nationwide.  Because NYPD wants to be able to keep writing HOV-lane tickets to motorcyclists... apparently, because they can.

You go to hell, NYC.  And NYPD specifically.  You want to be asshats in your own city, hey, that's your problem.  But you don't get to export your asshattery and make all the rest of us in the US live with it too.  We're very glad to have places that Are Not NYC.  And you can't have them.

Disclaimer:

If you live in NYC, and you like NYC, that's fine, I don't have a problem with that.  It's your city, you're allowed to like it.  But I don't have to live in your city, and you can't force me by exporting it to me.

Comments

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Is it that US is sprawling because of the huge subsidies for roads, or rather are there huge subsidies for roads because the country is sprawling?

There's certainly some of the latter, since roads are cheaper than railways. But it's also a lot of the former -- here in Japan people build around train stations, whereas in the US they build around road.

Also, what do you think of New Urbanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism)? Perhaps a little too Disney-fascist, but there is a market for it in delapidated urban centers, driven by young professionals who want a short commute and city services.

Rather than top-down planning, I think I'd rather let drivers pay for carbon-taxed gas and the highways they use, and let the market decide ...

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I'd say New Urbanism seems to be going in the right direction. The steep rise in home values in New Urban communities seems to be a good indicator that they are, as intended, pleasant and desirable places to live. Surely among the most important things about any community is that it should be pleasant and practical to live there.

As far as letting the market decide, well, since I doubt we're going to tear up every city and suburb overnight and replace them all, in a sense building New Urban style mini-communities and seeing whether they take off is letting the market decide. If people move to them and stay there, and ten years from now they're vibrant and thriving, it'll be because they've succeeded. If ten years from now they're empty, decaying and abandoned, it'll be because they failed. But the market won't get a chance to decide if the option isn't there. I know cymrullewes would sooner work a mile from home, or even five miles, than seventy, and so would I — as long as doing so doesn't mean we have to live in a grimy, dreary 19th-century-mill-town row-house or a cramped, noisy, overpriced downtown condo, or for that matter a giant Silicon Valley apartment complex with paper-thin walls and neighbors who file noise complaints every time somebody sneezes.

One could even argue it'd be healthier. Let's face it — how many Americans these days can walk to work, even if they want to? With gas at $4 a gallon or more, how many would walk to work if they could?

[smandal.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm glad when private developers give New Urbanism a whirl, rather than having city councils shove it down.