Pleasure Principal

I know I’ve started to think about leaving tonight although nothing seems right:

A rental car drought in Manhattan could leave many New Yorkers stranded in the city or forced to rely on mass transit to travel to the Hamptons and the New Jersey shore this summer.

With car-less New Yorkers relying on rentals for weekend escapes in record numbers, demand for rental cars in Manhattan is expected to reach an all-time high this summer, industry insiders said.

That demand, coupled with a static supply of vehicles, is driving up the cost of renting a car. Prices are up more than 10% versus last summer and are expected to rise higher.

. . .

Industry experts say the cost of buying a new car for a rental company is about 40% higher than it was three years ago. The increased cost is creating a de facto cap on the number of available cars, and trickling down into the bills customers pay when they plunk down their credit cards at parking garages.

Some sedans in Manhattan cost $255 a day to rent on weekends. That includes a hefty 13% tax levied on rental cars in New York. For drivers under the age of 25, who are charged extra to rent, rates can jump to almost $320 a day for some vehicles. Dropping a car off in a different city can add another $50 to the price tag.