NEW YORK — Kelsey Graham and his wife were on their way to Lincoln Center in Manhattan when they decided that a la carte government had gone too far.
For years, the Grahams had driven from their home in Nyack, N.Y., availed themselves of the free weekend parking at the Tarrytown train station, then taken the train into Manhattan. But this spring, the village of Tarrytown began charging nonresidents $8 to park on Yankee Stadium game days — a fee that startled, and infuriated, the Grahams.
"It's ridiculous — we're supposed to keep track of when the Yankees are playing?" said Kelsey Graham. "Every time you turn around, the government is charging you for something. It's just another way to nickle-and-dime people."
Yes, they're charging you rent to use a piece of their property for a little while, presumably because lots of nonresidents were showing up on game day and preventing residents from parking at the station.
I don't have an opinion on what the "right" policy here, but this is the bad lead off example in an article about the otherwise mostly real issue of governments nickel and diming people. But, parking, unlike birth certificates, are a limited resource that on crowded game days might need some kind of rationing mechanism.