Expecting Holland Tunnel Saturday midafternoon traffic
to be light at this time of year, I was sorta surprised
to find it at near-stand-still last Saturday. Trying
to cross Varick at Houston on a bike, I watched FDNY
vehicles of all sorts try long, noisily, and almost
in vain to break through the near-impacted (think
wisdom tooth) tunnel-bound traffic in Varick Street
and Seventh Avenue South.

One curiosity of the morning of 11 September 2001 was
that at the same location, unlike last Saturday afternoon,
sirens weren’t deafening. The emergency route to the WTC
was and is West Street, and that was the route FDNY and
NYPD vehicles took “9/11.”

So what was different 8/18/07 at Varick and Houston,
one block west of the firehouse that lost 11 on 9/11?

Did the seemingly endless road work on West Houston
prevent FDNY quick access to West Street?

Or did tunnel-approach congestion contribute to the
Deutsche Bank NYC firefighter death toll?

Why aren’t reporters asking whether conditions went
from bad to worse Saturday while FDNY equipment was
stuck in tunnel traffic?

And then K.Wylde brings up an excellent point. Who are these low income drivers that can afford to park in Manhattan? Public employees with free parking, +80% of whom have viable public transportation options.

Game, set, match point IMHO. Brodsky’s argument does not hold water. He’s using progressive values about protecting the little guy to defend a small group of entitled motorists that right now effectively drive for free into the most congested zone in the metropolitan area, costing the rest of us billions each year in lost time, wages and higher prices for everything from construction costs to apples.

And ultimately those people are just a smokescreen for the people he is most concerned about – his own wealth constituents that drive through the Bronx into Manhattan for free.