The defeat of the West Side stadium is a victory for New York. It presents an opportunity to do what should have been done in the first instance – to put up for sale to the highest bidder the rights to build above the rail yards in a nonrestrictive manner. The only way to do this is to open the bidding to all the public without political coercion or interference and to sell the rights without restriction as to use or zoning.

Instead, the city has just seen a billionaire mayor, with a reputation as a shrewd businessman, get taken to the cleaners by an assemblyman who represents the Lower East Side. Mr. Bloomberg ladled out hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money to Mr. Silver’s district in return for – well, for getting his project blocked. Mr. Bloomberg was left looking like some fresh arrival in the big city who paid for his kitchen renovation in full in advance, only to see the contractor take off before starting the job.

These columns have long been skeptical of the idea of a taxpayer subsidy for the stadium, and Mr. Silver did the city and the state a favor by saving the $600 million in direct subsidies proposed – and who knows how much more in indirect subsidies. Better to lower taxes across the board. But New Yorkers know enough about Mr. Silver to know that he had no such high-minded motives.

We part ways with the stadium’s absolute foes. If the Jets want to step up to the challenge of building on the site without subsidies by taxpayers and can win the right in an open bidding process that is not distorted by political and zoning constraints, we’d be all for it. It’s become too easy in New York to kill big projects, much easier than to get them built.

Sometimes New Yorkers could be forgiven for wondering whether, if the current class of politicians, lobbyists, and advocacy groups had been around when this city was being built, many of New York’s treasures – from Central Park to the Brooklyn Bridge and the Lincoln Tunnel – would exist. And we have some sympathy for the mayor’s frustrations as he nurses his Olympic dream.

But some of the city’s biggest projects were built by private enterprise alone, starting with the subways and our greatest buildings and railroads. At a time of limited public funding and scandalously high taxes, projects seeking public funding will have to compete against each other. We’d like to think that yesterday’s actions open the possibility that the MTA rail yards can be put up for auction to the highest bidder in a way that is not restricted as to zoning or use and noncoercive as to process, a position that has been espoused by The New York Sun for months.

In this way, the public’s interest will be served. We are encouraged as to the potential the MTA can attain by last week’s announcement of the $1.8 billion price being paid for the Trump development and by yesterday’s $3.6 billion purchase by Prologis of Catellus Development, a California company formed, ironically, from the land holdings of the Southern Pacific. These acquisitions prove that there are billions and billions of dollars looking for great development parcels, and none, we think, is better than the opportunity presented by the West Side rail yards.

The best course for Mr. Bloomberg going forward is to run on the platform that got him elected in the first place – the idea that he is a businessman who believes in principles, particularly market principles, and in low taxation. He shouldn’t have let himself be lured into the game of squandering public money for political payoffs to Mr. Silver. He can recoup the high ground quickly by rescinding any deal with Mr. Silver and letting the market have its say, downtown, uptown, West Side and East.