De Blasio's War on Carriages

The most pressing issue facing newly-sworn in New York Mayor Bill De Blasio? Horse-drawn carriages:

New York’s new Mayor, Bill de Blasio, wants to remove horse-drawn carriages from the city. In a news conference held before he took office, de Blasio said that he planned to “get rid of the horse carriages, period,” calling them “inhumane” and “not appropriate for the year 2014.” A petition signed by more than 4,500 people called for the horses to be replaced by electric replicas of vintage cars, something de Blasio called “a cleaner, safer, wiser, more humane alternative that will be very appealing to tourists.”

There’s nothing more romantic than touring Central Park on a winter’s evening in the back seat of a replica car to the timeless clip-clopping of a lithium-ion battery.

But in the New York Times, Andrew Rosenthal looks behind the Mayor’s claims:

Let’s not forget that tourists love the carriages and that locals make a living off them. And it’s worth noting that one of the big driving forces hiding behind the anti-cruelty front of the anti-carriage campaign are real estate developers. Is it possible they want to turn the stables in prime Manhattan locations into far more lucrative condos?

New York City is in for some fun times.