Wednesday’s Headlines: Hometown Hater Edition
Big Dog Excelsior Car Guy let loose big time at the other guy from Queens yesterday.
"There was a headline in the Daily News once: 'Ford to City: Drop Dead,'" Gov. Cuomo said during a press briefing. "What Ford did pales in comparison to what Trump is doing; not only did he tell New York City to 'drop dead,' Trump is actively trying to kill New York City. It is personal. I think it's psychological. He is trying to kill New York City."
The eye-opening rant contained some juicy details and illuminated the status of some outstanding projects. According to Cuomo, the president's pathological hatred for his hometown explains why we can't expect any federal aid for transit (or Cuomo's boondoggles, such as the LaGuardia AirTrain) as long as Trump is in office:
He won't approve the Second Avenue Subway!...He won't approve the AirTrain to LaGuardia. And you want to talk about really ironic, repugnant logic? You know why he won't approve the AirTrain to LaGuardia? He says he has to do an Environmental Review statement. The same President who has lamented about the delay of Environmental Reviews and how they take so long, and how they stop development and how bad the SEQRA is and how the environmentalists are all full of baloney when it comes to ANWAR. Now he says, "I can't approve the AirTrain from LaGuardia that's been talked about for decades because I have to do an Environmental Review. Now Trump, as the environmental bureaucrat. How incredible is that?
He won't approve congestion pricing for the MTA. What does he have to do with congestion pricing? Nothing! It is just gratuitous. It is just gratuitous. There is no federal involvement with congestion pricing. Their approval is purely technical and it's been over a year — we passed it in New York State. He won't approve it. He won't rebuild the tunnels between New York and New Jersey that are dangerous. They're Amtrak tunnels. Do you know who owns Amtrak? Who owns Amtrak? The federal government owns Amtrak. They're his tunnels. They're decaying. I went to the tunnel; I took a video of water seeping into the tunnel. I took a video of bricks crumbling. I sent them the video. He watched the video. Still, no money to fund the Amtrak tunnels. This weekend, they stopped FEMA funding from cleaning schools and trains. "We want students to go back; we want schools to reopen." But you don't want to clean the schools? Students should go back to a dirty school? Is that what you want your child to do? Gratuitous and arbitrary, and now no federal funds for New York City and New York State post-COVID.
Between the guy from Jamaica Estates and the guy from Hollis, we're really on the F(-----) train, so to speak. Several outlets covered.
In other news:
- The MTA decried the loss of federal emergency funds for subway COVID cleaning (NYPost).
- Cuomo, like so many, also predicted carmageddon, i.e., that the state will experience choked roads, slower commutes and more depressed transit ridership as activity ramps up this fall (NYPost).
- A subway hero explained how he helped a man who fell on the tracks (NYDN).
- The estimated costs of the Hudson Tunnel jumped $275 million (Mass Transit).
- A proposal for rebuilding the Port Authority Bus Terminal wants to bury the notorious eyesore underground (NYPost).
- PR move alert: Implicit-bias training changed NYPD officers' attitudes, according to an internal report the cops gave the Wall Street Journal. We're not seeing much evidence yet of the training street-side (WSJ).
- A sociologist argues in a NYTimes op-ed that it is possible to reduce racial disparities in police vehicle stops.
- NYPD precincts won't vacate the streets and sidewalks they barricaded during the recent protests, and we'll have to take Commissioner Shea's word for it that they're shut for good reason (NY1 via Twitter).
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