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The Trafficist: An Interview With Randy Cohen

2:30 PM EST on November 27, 2007

"It seemed to me that what was significantly undermining the ordinary daily happiness and health and economic life of both me and my fellow New Yorkers was the private car."
   -- Randy Cohen, "The Ethicist"

Open Planning Project Executive Director Mark Gorton recently interviewed New York Times Magazine's "The Ethicist," Randy Cohen, on the ethics of urban automobility. The result has been condensed into a nine minute StreetFilm touching on a multitude of topics ranging from congestion pricing to parking policy.

Here is The Ethicist on congestion pricing:

It would be misleading to say that wise policy decisions neverrestrict individual freedom. They do. What civilization is is therestriction of individual freedom. We have for instance fire codes. Youcan't build your apartment out of kerosene-soaked cardboard because itendangers other people. We have a thousand laws that restrict what anindividual can do because it is singularly destructive to the largercommunity.

This one [congestion pricing] is an interesting policy in that somany members of the community so overwhelmingly gain. And theunfortunate consequences are the restrictions in freedoms that are sotiny.

Clarence Eckerson Jr.
Clarence Eckerson Jr. is the Director of Video Production for NYCSR's StreetFilms and producer of bikeTV. He loves the color purple, chocolate chip cookies, and enjoys walking, biking, and taking transit. He has never owned a driver's license.

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