Photo: NYTimes.com

You know what? Let's just give up on this whole congestion-pricing business. We're now convinced it'll make no difference, anyway. Keeping a car in Manhattan is such a profoundly terrible idea, such a profoundly impractical one, that clearly those inexplicably sold on it won't be deterred by a little additional fee. Witness a test case reported in today's Times: A Long Island family that regrets not having snapped up a private parking space in Chelsea for $168,000 when they had the chance. Turns out it would have made a great investment property, with spaces in the neighborhood now going for $225,000. (The kicker is that, in several new condos, your $200,000 parking space comes with a $50 monthly maintenance. That's right, for a swatch of poured concrete.) So who pays this kind of money? Well, our heroine is a Long Island mother of three kids, ages 7, 9, and 11, who is brought to Manhattan at least twice a week by "her children's modeling schedules." We rest our case.

For Parking Space, the Price Is Right at $225,000 [NYT]