Today’s Headlines

  • DeFazio: Make Wall Street A$$holes Pay for Infrastructure (Infrastructurist)
  • The MTA Says It Needs $600M to Keep Going… (News)
  • …So Why Did the MTA Just Give Forest City $100 Million? (Atlantic Yards Report)
  • Another Innocent Mom Killed in Area Cop Car Chase. (WPIX 11) 
  • Cy Vance Vows to Carry on in the Tradition of Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau (News, Post)
  • DWT: Driving While Texting is Worse than Driving Drunk (Oregonian)
  • One Story You Won’t See in Today’s Paper: 97 Dead in Car Wrecks (Yglesias)
  • Lower East Side Community Board Member Opposes New Crosswalk (Lo-Down)
  • Use it or Lose It: States Are Spending Their Transportation Stimulus Dollars (NYT)
  • A Mega-Project Walking Tour With RPA’s Bob Yaro (Urban Omnibus)
  • The Sad State of Transit Advocacy (2nd Ave Sagas via Streetsblog.net)
  • Straphangers Campaign: The No. 7 Line is the Least Schmutzy Subway (NYT)
  • Ruth Madoff is Forced to Ride the F Train: The Horror (Post)
  • The New York State Senate Just Gets More Embarrassing (Politicker) 
  • Rick Lazio Proposes to Abolish the State Senate (Daily Intel)
  • It’s Official: I’m Using Twitter Obsessively. Help! (@naparstek)
  • Larry Littlefield

    “Why not make those finance guys that we all hate so much pay for it?”

    Um, because we can’t retroactively tax all the money the stole in the past that was counted as income in past years?

    And (I hope) people won’t be stupid enough (again) to allow them to steal that much in the future.

    I’ve been wrong when being optimistic before, but this time I believe attempts to “restore confidence in the markets” and set up the next band of suckers are less likely to be successful. After all, most Americans are so deep in debt that they have little wealth to seize.

    And unlike the political class, the Wall Streeters have to con people to take their money, not just seize it.

  • Moser

    What’s wrong with you Aaron?

  • Rick Lazio: Still a grandstanding idiot.

  • I see that Zipcar is now charging the 5% MTA bailout tax on their rentals. This is on top of the 8.38% sales tax and the previously existing 6% NY rental car tax. That’s just shy of 20% of a car rental paid in taxes!

    This means that I, a very occasional driver who basically only ever rents a car if I’m going somewhere outside of the city, am being forced to pay exorbitant taxes so that daily car commuters can be allowed to continue to drive into Manhattan for free. And it feels like a kick in the teeth.

    Eric Adams, I’m pissed off at you personally about this because you are my Senator. If the Senate still exists by the next time you are up for election, I plan to help give you the boot.

  • SB’s Today’s Headlines seems as good as any venue for this complaint:

    Can the MTA run /anything/ well?

    I signed up for the EZPay MetroCard, as I’m a long-time EZPass customer and figured I’d indulge their attempt to win my confidence by parallel branding.

    So they ding my Visa for $30. On the same day, I receive my magic autorefill MetroCard, /and/ a letter saying the Visa charge has been denied. Yet the charge is on my statement, and customer service says my new magic MetroCard’s balance is $30.

    I verify the credit card on file with Customer Service. All seems well.

    The next morning, my EZPay MetroCard stops working. A station agent tells me the error means my card’s been ‘disabled,’ and that I must to throw it away, and call customer service.

    I buy a conventional MetroCard and call customer service. They claim they have no policy of disabling cards, blame me for damaging my card, and issue me another one by mail.

    The next day, before it arrives, EZPay dings my credit card for /$40/.

    I call the MTA to cancel. They confirm that I have a $70 balance, and that it’s their practice to charge any new credit card they see, even if there’s already a balance on the MetroCard.

    So, from the customer’s perspective, the EZPay MetroCard is a program whereby you pay the MTA undue monies, in exchange for no services rendered and some runaround.

    In before the “Similar to the experience of riding the train” jokes, and amused that I ever bothered…