You do realize that not a single bridge/tunnel that is tolled in NYC sends those funds to the city itself, right? The NYC-NJ crossings (GWB, Lincoln, Holland, Goethals, Bayonne, Outerbridge) are owned by the Port Authority; the Verrazzano, Battery Tunnel, Henry Hudson Bridge, Throgs Neck, Triborough, Midtown Tunnel, Whitestone, Crossbay, and Marine Parkway crossings are owned by the MTA. Neither of those organizations are city-run. We haven’t discussed it directly but I’m positive you’re tacitly referencing Congestion Pricing, which again will be run by the MTA and funds gained from that will fund transit projects.

The city gets essentially zero money from car drivers directly. The city gets the sales tax on gasoline sales in the city, but that’s no different from me buying a Coke at Duane Reade. Registration fees and licensing fees go to the State. There is literally ONE (1) city-applied tax for car owners and it’s only for people who pay for a garage in Manhattan. If you don’t do that, the city gets $0.00 from you per year for having a car in the city outside of tickets, which are, of course, your own damn fault.

(As a final aside, I own a car in Manhattan, and in fact got an ASP ticket today.)

All of those ideas are insane and completely ridiculous, and were proposed in jest. You can’t tax someone based on them “identifying as a cyclist” nor would tolling bike lanes work. At the end of the day, a bicycle trip taken in NYC nets the city money (it costs essentially nothing and cyclists end up spending money on those trips), car trips cost the city money. Bicycle infrastructure is astonishing cheap, bicycles are space efficient compared to cars, and bicycles don’t shed rubber dust or emissions the way cars do. Prioritizing cycling (and mass transit, can’t forget that) is a net benefit to the city. Every dollar the city spends to get people out of their cars is a benefit to the city.

Okay, let’s interrogate this line of thinking a little further. What do you want cyclists to pay for and how would you collect those fees? Are you suggesting tolling bike lanes? Taxes for bicycle purchases? Bike registration? Higher taxes for people who identify as cyclists? Let’s hear some ideas.

What, pray tell, are you asking cyclists to pay for that our city taxes don’t cover?

I also look at the wild changes from Weeks 2 to 4 as an indication that preseason and even early season rankings are dumb.

This was made using PowerPoint. I utilized the AP Poll rankings for Preseason through Week 9 and the College Football Playoff rankings for Weeks 10-14. I don’t like changing sources midway through the year, but there’s no CFP ranking before week 10 and it’s the only one that “matters” starting that week. I’ve personally found the AP Poll to be more authoritative than the Coaches Poll, which is why I chose to use that for the first 10 weeks.

I’m aware that this chart is extremely busy, and would appreciate any suggestions folks might have on how to make it more readable.