The Obama administration disappointed me yesterday, as Ray LaHood put the official kibosh on the auction of airline slots at New York airports. This means that we all will continue to enjoy the pleasures of sitting on the JFK tarmac for an hour before missing a connection. At least we have that national HSR network to fall back on!

I was particularly disappointed with the reasoning, such as it was:

I think it’s a little contradictory to say on one hand we are going to limit the number of slots and actually take them back, and then say all of a sudden we are going to auction them off. I think it’s a contradiction in the kind of activity people here are looking for…

Er, yes. On the other hand, LaHood said that federal money would still be available to New York if it managed to enact a congestion pricing plan. Given the dire straights in which the MTA has found itself, this would seem to be a major incentive, but of course Albany leaders, including those from the city, have been particularly boneheaded about this stuff of late.

At any rate, it’s important for planners and leaders — everyone — to understand that airline slots and blacktop space are scarce resources, and that if users aren’t charged for the right to use them, they’ll be overutilized and clogged up, until everyone’s experience is ruined. Folks need to pay for scarce resources. That this also happens to provide an efficient source of government revenue is just icing on the cake.