Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Economics

More on Rep. Patrick McHenry

By Aaron Naparstek | Aug 13, 2007 | 3 Comments

Grist’s Dave Roberts provides some more background on Rep. Patrick McHenry, the North Carolina Republican Congressman who ridiculed bicycling as a "19th century solution" during debate over the "Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2007." The House bill, which passed on Aug. 4, included a $20/month tax break for bike commuters: That was […]

Who Better Represented “the Little Guy” in the Pricing Debate?

By Aaron Naparstek | Jul 18, 2007 | 22 Comments

New York State Assembly Members Jose Rivera, Richard Brodsky and Adriano Espaillat Mayor Bloomberg and the Campaign for New York’s Future never really seemed to get that the congestion pricing debate was fundamentally going to be a fight about class, and the widening divide between rich and poor in New York City. While the Mayor […]

Times Says: We Must Pay More for Fossil Fuels

By Sarah Goodyear | Jul 6, 2007 | 2 Comments

The New York Times published an editorial today about "an unpleasant and inescapable truth: any serious effort to fight [global] warming will require everyone to pay more for energy." The piece then goes on to dismiss carbon taxes as politically unfeasible, and discusses the merits of cap-and-trade systems, emphasizing that in order to work, they […]

Book Review: Twenty-Three Years to Save the Planet

By Aaron Donovan | Jun 25, 2007 | 8 Comments

When George Monbiot, the popular columnist for the UK’s Guardian newspaper, gets interested in something, he digs and digs until he’s found what he’s satisfied is the truth. Monbiot is interested in global warming, and presents in Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning (U.S. Edition: South End Press, May 2007) a heavily footnoted 215-page brisk and compelling case for why […]

How Americans Get to Work

By Jason Varone | Jun 19, 2007 | 5 Comments

According to a new U.S. Census Bureau analysis of data from the American Community Survey, most Americans drive to work — alone, and public transportation commuters are concentrated in a handful of large cities. From the Bureau’s press release: Despite rising fuel costs, commuters continued to drive their cars in 2005. The survey, gathered over […]

The Perfect Argument for Congestion Pricing

By Aaron Donovan | Jun 19, 2007 | 15 Comments

The Staten Island Advance ran an article last Thursday about a "perfect storm" of crushing Staten Island-bound traffic on the Gowanus Expressway and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. To give you a sense of the frustrated tone of the article, it was entitled "21-Month Nightmare: Agency Offers Zero Solutions for Verrazano Lane Mess." Here’s how it began: […]

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