Friday, December 19, 2008

A Council that Looks Like New York City

In recent posts, I've documented the low levels of car ownership in the city: in fully three-fifths of City Council districts, the majority of households do not own a car. If the council members were chosen at random, we would expect that at least thirty of them would not be car-owners. Here's that lovely map again:



At this point, I honestly don't know about the transportation arrangements of the incumbent councilmembers, and maybe there'll be some pleasant surprises, but I'd be really shocked if more than a handful were car-free, or even took the subway on a regular basis. I do know that Speaker Quinn is driven around in a ginormous city-owned SUV, despite living just a half hour's walk from City Hall. Lew Fidler drives a silver Infiniti. It's my understanding that every councilmember is given at least one reserved parking space somewhere in Lower Manhattan, and a placard, if not a custom license plate.

If any of you have information on the car ownership or commuting habits of other city councilmembers, please leave it in the comments or send an email.

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