Incoming New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has already horrified everyone with his bizarre hatred of walkable pedestrian plazas, but his war on anything that's not a car is just beginning. According to the Daily News, de Blasio announced today that he will "get rid of the horse carriages. Period."

Horse-drawn carriages are one of the main ways New Yorkers get around the city. It is impossible to imagine the bankers and captains of industry getting from their uptown mansions to their majestic downtown company headquarters without the services of carriage driver and horse. Yet de Blasio seems intent on making life difficult for the richest and most productive citizens, as well as the liverymen and stable boys, the moneyed tourists who enjoy a ride about town in the manner of the elites, and even the beasts themselves.

As the populist mayor-elect seems determined to kill off the last elegant mode of transport in Manhattan, the gentle carriage horses are likely doomed to the glue factories or "rescue farms." At least de Blasio claims concern for the soon to be unemployed human drivers, promising some sort of accommodation for these working class heroes of Central Park, who will soon face the abyss of being forced out of their livelihoods.

"De Blasio said he would work with existing drivers to set them up with alternative vehicles to ferry tourists around Central Park," the Daily News reports. The question is what kind of alternative vehicles.

Hovercraft have charms of their own, especially if they are in the style of Luke Skywalker's landspeeder from the popular space-opera movie, Star Wars. Hot-air balloons share some of the old-timey delight of horse-drawn carriages, too. But perhaps the best way to illustrate New York's impossible chasm between the teeming masses of the poor and the gilded elite is to have unemployed and homeless New Yorkers chained together in teams of six or eight, either as draft animals pulling a beautiful shining sleigh or simply carrying the wealthy in completely enclosed throne chairs with wi-fi and air conditioning.

[Image via Shutterstock.]