A Stitch in Haste

New York City is jumping on the "free" (i.e., taxpayer-subsidized) Wi-Fi hysteria:

The city is quietly installing a free Wi-Fi network at ten parks across the city.
...
The service is already available in Battery Park. The Parks Department says it should be up and running in Central Park, Union Square, Washington Square, and Riverside Park in mid-to-late fall.

Prospect Park, Flushing Meadows, Orchard Beach, Van Cortlandt, and Pelham Bay will be wired in early 2006.

Some hasty stitches:

--Why install Wi-Fi "quietly"? Wouldn't it help if people actually knew about it?

--Why no mention of the cost?

--Does it really make sense to rig New York's parks for Wi-Fi when they are so seasonally limited? How many people lie down on the Great Lawn to surf the web in February? Perhaps that's why the private telecommunication companies such as Verizon don't offer it. Go figure.

--In order to use Wi-Fi in a park, you must: (a) have a laptop, and (b) actually use the park. So every single New York City taxpayer who does not meet both criteria is being taxed for the minuscule fraction who do. This is somehow a manifestation of what New York City's notoriously extremist liberals call "economic justice"?

My guess is that all these considerations are well-understood by the hack politicians and bureaucrats behind this project. Which is exactly why they're not publicizing it.