NYC Mayor Bloomberg Doesn't Get That Streets Are For Cars

Thanks to overpopulation, and some motorists’ inability to treat cyclists and pedestrians courteously, Mayor Michael Bloomberg will be exiling all vehicle traffic from a 7-mile stretch of some of Manhattan’s busiest thoroughfares for three Saturdays this August. The "Summer Streets" experiment, during which a chunk of Manhattan (including the iconic Park Avenue) will be open only to cyclists and pedestrians, will likely involve a lot of the obnoxious, folksy, litter-bugging activities that tend to occur when the appropriate amount of car traffic isn’t present to keep these groups in check. It seems to me that you’d already have it pretty bad if you’re a car enthusiast in Manhattan, what with garage space costing as much as some apartments do elsewhere, and the antics of Bloomberg, who seems determined to take NYC down the same car-hating path as London. But if you can’t even drive your own car on the roads that your taxes build them for, what’s even the point? I’ve driven in Manhattan and don’t find it half as bad as some places I’ve been, like the diabolical car trap that is Chicago. But this sure makes me glad I don’t live there.