Thursday’s Headlines: Driving Us Crazy Edition

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Now, the news:

The Times’s latest report on global warming specifically blames a chief offender: drivers.
Want to save the subway? Pot to the rescue! (NY Post, NYT)
So much for learning about a clean undercarriage on the dirty underground. (NYDN)
Twitter suspends an MTA parody account for, apparently, being too accurate. (NYDN)
New Jersey transit riders will get their own mini L-pocalypse. (NYDN, WSJ, NY Post)
The Times says Bleecker Street is doing great. Remind those pro-parking people in Queens that there’s no parking along a long stretch of Bleecker most of the day. People shop by bike and foot, you know.
An eloquent Families for Safe Streets member won a settlement in his case. (NY Post)
And finally, the gang that couldn’t shoot straight has found work in Coney Island (NY Post)

Maggie

This story wasn’t explicitly about streets, it just prompted me to look up how long of a Citibike + subway ride it is to commute from Gracie Mansion to City Hall. A lot of New Yorkers would be grateful for an easy commute like that.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/nyregion/de-blasio-nyc-mayor-city-hall.html?
Larry Littlefield

“The report, citing BDS Analytics — a leading source for cannabis industry data — says the legal pot industry in North America reached $9.2 billion in 2017 and “is projected to generate $47.3 billion over the next decade.”

As a result of less spending on other things, and due to people spending less time doing things other than just being high? Another easy fix, for people used to something for nothing at the expense of some other people at some other time.

Why not prostitution? We can get in on the ground floor? Why just $47.3 billion? What happens when Madison Avenue starts marketing the hell out of pot?

It’s the just enough rope to hang themselves economy. Isn’t our tax take on Wall Street enough of a profit off vulnerable and shortsighted people?

https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2018/09/24/the-just-enough-rope-to-hang-themselves-economy/
iSkyscraper

The WTC closure is super annoying, given all the past weekend closures over the last few years (only the PA can make the MTA construction look speedy), but the real insult is not running weekday direct services during the WTC closure.

PATH is going to make thousands and thousands of extra riders coming from the airport, Newark and Jersey City waste 7 minutes of their lives waiting for the train to reverse in Hoboken instead of running a direct weekday service to Manhattan? Restore the direct services until midnight during the closures, just like they used to exist on EVERY weekend prior to 9/11.

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/47beed0e9644f53d264cfd8cd76fc75416c3c237505a39a28f228f46e5456721.jpg
Legitimategolf

I am not sure where I stand on cannabis legalization. On the one hand, legalization would be nice for the marketplace and also benefit the mainstream economy. On the other hand, I can readily buy it just about anytime– completely tax-free. Come to think of it, screw all that tax revenue, let’s just keep it illegal because, y’know, gateway drug. Right Andy? Meanwhile now states like Michigan are leaving so-called progressive New York in the dust.
Andrew

Wouldn’t it make more sense to run through service between Newark and Midtown, overlaid with a short Hoboken – Exchange Place service? As laid out here, Newark – Manhattan passengers have to transfer at Journal Square and also sit through the Hoboken layover. (At least at the Manhattan end – I’m not familiar with the Jersey City end – the ferry terminal is too far west to be of much use to most weekend riders.)
iSkyscraper

You’re not wrong at all, I think the better good might be served by a NWK-33rd route. However, the PA seems hell bent on the idea of running that Newark traffic through to WTC via ferry and thus is keeping that route. It also would mean Hoboken passengers bound for Manhattan doing their own awkward reverse (which includes 2 flights of stairs and some wonky elevators) at Newport onto a crowded train, and that’s a lot of traffic to inconvenience on weekends. At least the transfer at JSQ is across a platform onto a waiting empty train and usually quite smooth.
Joe R.

Here’s my take on it. The 50 year so-called “war of drugs” was a monumental failure. People who want to take this stuff will. Not just pot, but the hard stuff. End result is thugs getting rich and turf wars which killed thousands and thousands of innocent bystanders, not to mention many DEA agents and cops. And for what? It didn’t stop people from buying this stuff.

This is why I say legalize pot, legalize harder drugs, legalize prostitution. Legalize all of it, tax it, and regulate it. While we’re at it, stop the big chains like Walgreens or CVS from selling it. Let it be a cash cow for mom and pop stores. By legalizing it you take away some of the allure, which might actually decrease use. And you keep low-life thugs from getting rich off it, then taking over the streets. Remember we tried prohibition. More people drank during prohibition than before or after. Meanwhile, organized crime made lots of money, while the streets ran red with blood. If we get some tax money to help the MTA it’ll just be a nice bonus but there are lots of reasons to legalize drugs. At the very least some of the tax money drug users pay will cover part of their eventual medical bills, just as taxes on cigarettes do.
Larry Littlefield

Legal pot and assisted suicide is what later born generations of Americans will be offered in place of Social Security and Medicare, when Generation Greed gets through bankrupting the country.
1ifbyrain2ifbytrain

Generation Weed?
Joe R.

My guess if when we start taxing pot and any other currently illegal drugs, we’ll probably reserve at least a portion for the medical costs of users. Or it’ll go into the general fund with the same end result. Hopefully the MTA will still see the bulk of the tax.

I’m actually in the camp for assisted suicide. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I have no children to take care of me should I ever be unable to live independently. I definitely don’t want to spend my last years in a nursing home waiting to die. Same thing if I sustain an injury which makes me dependent upon others for basic functions, or unable to walk or use my hands. I’d like the choice to sign a paper so I can be put down if any of that happens. Basically it’s the same thing we do to our pets when their quality of life has reached the point it’s no longer worth living, with no hope of recovery.
AnoNYC

New York City’s mobility crisis has reached a tipping point

https://ny.curbed.com/2018/12/6/18128007/new-york-city-mobility-crisis
Andrew

Newark to Midtown may be relatively unimportant on weekdays, when NJT has frequent service on a parallel corridor, but on weekends NJT service into Manhattan is very irregular to allow for single-tracking. And while the ferry is convenient to the world Financial Center, only a tiny share of weekend PATH riders are going to the WFC – most simply want to reach a subway connection. To cut off Newark from direct Manhattan service on weekends makes no sense.

On weekdays, Hoboken is an important NJT connection point; far less so on weekends. That said, direct service from Hoboken to Midtown could still be offered if there’s enough of a market for it.
AMH

Imagine having a mayor who truly engages with New Yorkers. Imagine having a mayoral race with real choices among mature adult candidates who are knowledgeable on the issues facing the city..