Today’s Headlines

  • Malcolm Smith Signals State Senate’s Openness to Bridge Tolls (NYT, AP, NY1, MTR)
  • Silver Actively Campaigning for Bridge Tolls (AP, Crain’s)
  • Placard Abuse Still Rampant in Downtown Brooklyn, Especially Among Law Enforcement (News)
  • Schumer Wants to Jump Start Moynihan Station With Stim Funds (NYT)
  • North Carolina, Flush With Stim Cash, Ignores Need to Rein in Costly Sprawl (Citiwire)
  • Other Broadway Plans Have Come Before, But Did They Give Surface Space to Peds? (NYT)
  • Developers Assisted by Carrion Showered Him With Campaign Contribs (News)
  • Speeding Livery Driver Seriously Injures Three in Bronx Crash, Dies from Collision (News)
  • Thompson, Espaillat Among Local Electeds Rallying Against Bridge Tolls (News, Post, NY1)
  • Hudson Valley Pols Oppose Ravitch Plan’s Payroll Tax (Journal News)
  • Bill Requiring Drivers to Stop for Peds Advances in IL (Carfree Chicago via Streetsblog.net)
  • Larry Littlefield

    Sheldon Silver’s campaign to make New Yorkers grateful to him for soaring (but less than threatened) fares, shrinking (but less than threatened) service, and a deteriorating transit system (remember the plan was to use all the money for capital spending after this year) continues.

    All in all, wouldn’t it be better to stop delaying the collapse, and have those whose past decisions made it inevitable take the blame?

    Unless everyone has learned their lessons from what happened elsewhere, we are heading for an 18-24 month lockdown of real estate transactions as sellers refuse to sell at market prices. Followed by a similar lockdown as banks that have foreclosed refuse to sell the REOs, because they are holding it on their books at the value of the mortgage. Not a lot of real estate transfer taxes there.

    And if people have learned their lessons, mortgages will be marked down and stretched out without any taxable transfers of assets, and losses will depress sales volumes for years.

    So Silver wants to enact his slow deterioration plan, claim to be a hero, and then blame the “unaccountable MTA” (not the past decisions he participarted in) when doomsday arrives anyway.

  • Marty Barfowitz

    Thompson, Espaillat Among Local Electeds Rallying Against Bridge Tolls (Post, NY1)

    I was repulsed by Bloomberg’s hijacking of a third term but William “Weiner” Thompson continues to make me forget about all that…

  • Larry Littlefield

    “Why should people pay for a system that’s not available to them?” said Assembly member Rory Lancman (D-Queens). “I can assure you no one drives into Manhattan for the fun of it.”

    Time to reinstate two-fare zones. The most expensive transit enhancement of the past 20 years, and it apparently doesn’t exist.

  • Re: Developers Assisted by Carrion Showered Him With Campaign Contribs

    I hate to be a cynic, but Adolfo Carrion’s appointment makes me think that the Obama administration’s new catchphrase should be “Keep the Change We Can Believe In.”

  • Larry Littlefield

    (I hate to be a cynic)

    Crossed that bridge a decade ago. Either we get a universal health care financing system at the federal level (and not 50 different funding streams with different deals for different people and none for some) by October, or all we’ve gotten is spare change.

    Damn near every Presidential candidate promised a universal system of some kind, even McCain (who proposed reversible tax credits). No excuses.

  • Rhywun

    Time to reinstate two-fare zones. The most expensive transit enhancement of the past 20 years, and it apparently doesn’t exist.

    Bit ungrateful, aren’t they? They certainly want to have their cake and eat it too. I like to watch these same people’s heads explode at the merest suggestion of extending rapid transit to their neighborhood.

  • Ace

    “Bill Requiring Drivers to Stop for Peds”

    Or at least making cabs slow down before barreling onto 30th Street from 7th Ave?

  • Larry Littlefield

    You missed one:

    http://www.nypost.com/seven/03012009/news/regionalnews/suspending_spree_157511.htm

    “A four-year overhaul of the Brooklyn Bridge starting in June will shut down Manhattan-bound lanes for several weekends, starting next year, The Post has learned. It’s the first major rehab of the 126-year-old span in 20 years, and will cost between $200 million and $500 million, the city Department of Transportation says. The bridge’s signature arches and steel-wire suspension – which haven’t seen a lick of rust-proofing paint since the 1980s – will get a fresh coat.”

    So, the bridge costs $200 million to $500 million every 20 years, plus all the maintenance in between. Who pays for that?

    A little suggestion — if there are no tolls, instead of taking four years and spending $500 million, why not just shut the damn thing down and get it fixed in one year for $100 million? In addition to the money saved, more money would be earned at the BBT.

  • Rhywun

    So, the bridge costs $200 million to $500 million every 20 years, plus all the maintenance in between. Who pays for that?

    We all do, whether we use it or not. And pols want to keep it that way, because it’s easier to rely on a city tax that nobody pays attention to than a user fee which immediately angers the people you want to vote for you again.