Among them was Ford Motor Company, which sent two teams of 30 employees in the spring and the
fall; Ford also generously contributed $59,000 to GLWD for capital improvements.

( From the 2006 Annual Report: http://www.godslovewedeliver.org/pdf_files/annual_report.pdf )

Imagine: God’s Love announces that they will phase in bicycle delivery of meals to their homebound patients, with a seed planning grant from the 2008 Braking the Cycle Ride.

Imagine: Taking a cue from the FreshDirect truck/foot model, dozens (hundreds?) of eager bike volunteers begin delivering hot meals more efficiently than their truck/van fleet ever could before. (There is a reason virtually every restaurant delivery service uses bicycles.)

Imagine: GLWD saves tons of money on fuel and maintnance. Less spent on overhead means more can be spent on meals. GLWD goes organic!

Imagine: Congestion Pricing is the best thing that ever happened to GLWD.

Be the change, God’s Love!

More on Braking the Cycle:

Braking the Cycle AIDS Ride 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6B4l9f7z-M
(ashtma inhaler cameo at 1:45)

* Benefits the HIV/AIDS services of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center.
* Three days, 275 miles
* Spectacular route from Gettysburg to Manhattan
* Friday, September 26 to Sunday, September 28, 2008
* Fully-supported, clearly marked route, with abundant support vehicles and rest stops every 15 miles.
* All riders must arrive in Gettysburg by 5:00 pm on Thursday, September 25
* All meals, snacks and lodging included from Friday morning through Sunday afternoon.
* Sleep in hotels, two people per room.
* Limited to 140 riders.
* $85 registration fee, $3,500 fundraising minimum.
* Training and fundraising support anytime from your rider coach. Ask the coach a question.

They don’t have that experience with the DOT. I think people used to pay parking tickets to the DOT, but now they pay them to the Department of Finance. Let’s say someone pays $1000 in city and state taxes for the year. How many of them know the number of those dollars that are going to the DOT – or whether that’s gone up or down from last year? So the DOT could be just as wasteful with the money, but people wouldn’t be aware of it because they don’t pay the money directly.

The media don’t really help the situation any. When they were talking about raising the subway fares, I don’t remember much discussion of the budget cuts under Pataki, Giuliani or Bloomberg.

Despite that, go to a community board meeting and you’ll hear lots of people ranting about the DOT. It’s pretty well-mistrusted even without that direct connection.

The main point is that the current system of “let’s all pay so that a few people have free bridges to drive over” is so badly broken that it’s worth the risk of the MTA pissing it down the toilet.

Fares go up over time. Does Jan or anyone else think that they don’t or won’t when every other cost is going up. Historically the basic TA fare has followed the basic price of a slice of pizza. The average fare paid is around $1.40 after the increase (less than the COLA increase). Where can I get a slice for that anywhere in Brooklyn?

When fares go up, as they eventually have to, it is customary for the politicians to demand and the MTA to agree that service will improve in a certain way. When the MTA grows to be more dependent on funding by real estate taxes (Mortgage Recording Tax) and that tax fall (no one has repealed the business cycle) MTA operations have to react accordingly.

But supporters of mass transit have to deal with this very basic contradiction in the opposition to fare increases. Why commit more tax dollars, or toll dollars or congestion pricing dollars to such a fucked up system? Why run the trains and buses at all?

The reality is that the MTA is a huge bargain, about 20% of the cost of driving. Yeah, you might want more service at your subway stop but who doesn’t? And how does anyone get more out of the system without someone putting more into it?

If you want to abolish the MTA and start over, be my guest. Call Shelly and Joe. Let me know how it works out.

And by the way, most NYers distrust the MTA more than most local government agencies. That is why that question was asked by pollsters, because of prevailing history where the MTA is concerned. Although nowadays the DOB is giving the MTA a run for its money in the distrust department.

Look at this year alone with the MTA – one fare hike, now discussion of another, 2nd ave line being suspended when two, three years ago the MTA was gaga over it, no more 10th ave stop on the 7 line, no money prior to discussions of last year fare hike and then finding a surplus. The MTA comes out with different numbers every day and they are repeatedly finding a shortfall one day and a surplus the next. There are examples of duplication of people doing the same task within the MTA. I read about the MTA’s legal team and how they have an internal legal team as well as hiring white shoe law firms and how wasteful that is.

In the future it may get better but historically it has been a wasteful place and not fiscally sound internally irrespective of lack of funding or not.

I read this site almost everyday and I see that the pro-CPers (about 3, 4 or 5) regularly insult and attack anyone who questions CP with the regular use of the word “bullshit”.

You’ll note that the people who come on in a respectful way and don’t insult congestion pricing proponents tend not to get insulted or attacked in turn. Lew from Brooklyn, Spud Spudly, Dave and lots of other opponents and skeptics have posted with respect and courtesy and received respect and courtesy in turn.

Born and raised. Whoops! There goes that overgeneralization.”

Sorry, but you have construed your argument improperly. What I did was imply that you might not be from NY. There is no generalization, thus no overgeneralization. It was an implication. Implications and generalizations are different for future reference. You seem to have refuted the implication however messily.

I read this site almost everyday and I see that the pro-CPers (about 3, 4 or 5) regularly insult and attack anyone who questions CP with the regular use of the word “bullshit”. Once in a while I see insults hurled by anti-CPer’s (which might not even be the right name – rather people who don’t support CP or the way it is trying to be passed or the current structure). The vitriol is coming from the pro-CP side on this site. However, go to the Daily News and you will see the opposite where the regular joes are putting down CP on a regular basis with a lot of rants and insults.

How long have you lived in NY? Just wondering.

Born and raised. Whoops! There goes that overgeneralization.

Of course you can’t trust the MTA. But the DOT, the state DOT, the Thruway Authority – not so trustworthy either.

The part that’s nonsense is not the fact that you can’t trust the MTA. It’s the use of that fact to support arguments against restoring any of the money cut by Pataki, Giuliani and Bloomberg – while at the same time supporting throwing money at these equally untrustworthy road-building agencies.

That is lowest form of argument – name-calling. That is what kids do when they get frustrated.

Since you’re a CP supporter, I’m looking forward to seeing you criticize Ruben Safir, George Spitz, Doug Willinger, Omari and all the other anti-CP people who come on here and call names.

Also, acting tip for Jan: dissing the London scheme and implying that c.p. in general is bad for business kind of undermines the open-to-c.p. persona you’ve spend all of five seconds slapping together. Pricing certainly will have an “impact” on business, no one doubts that. That’s why the Partnership for New York City strongly supports it (the concept and—surprise—all the “incarnations” that have been birthed) and Crain’s New York has regularly run positive pieces on pricing even before it became politically possible with the grant.

Likewise (wow, you type fast!) dissing the MTA raises the question of when, and how, you would ever want to fund transit. We have to fund the transit authority that we have, not the perfectly efficient of your dreams. Mass transit requires a bureaucracy, like it or not, and behind every transit system in the world you will find one that is sadly less than perfect. You will also find city dwellers that grumble about this fact, everywhere, but in cities and countries where they have established revenue streams to fund their (horrible, bureaucratic, bloated) transit systems more than we do (as % of economy), they have better, cleaner, more timely transit. As I am interested in that result, I won’t let myself be distracted by cynicism about the labyrinth that additional funding necessarily passes through. Try it sometime!

How long have you lived in NY? Just wondering. Because not being able to trust the MTA is a FACT, not nonsense and you will never sway any NYer with the nonsense argument. You need to understand that long time residents have constant experience with the MTA and that is why the poll question was asked in the first place. It is not spin. To not have asked the question regarding whether people trust the MTA would have been spin. Do you see that? Sure, it hurts CP but wasteful spending hurts the taxpayer and its been going on for decades especially at the MTA. Fact. The sooner you face that then the better the CP plan can be or could have been.

I did check the fact sheet out and the #1 listing is adding more cars to the E and F lines. See my original post and/or refer to the fact sheet.

CP doesn’t have to end with the loss of $354 million. It can be fine-tuned which it should have been prior to three weeks before the deadline.

NYers know bureaucracy and are familiar with MTA misapplication of funds. Its a fact of life here in the city. Again, that secondary question to the poll was asked because the pollsters had history as a lens to evaluate this issue. Thankfully they did that and they were fair in their polling.

And be more precise in your statements. I didn’t argue for anything, I stated my opinion. That is not an argument. I am not taking a position on behalf of anyone else, just myself. So when you said that “this argument is just more smoke and mirrors”, there is no argument.

But I love how you immediately go to the default setting of “smoke and mirrors” regarding anything that seems to go against your (ahem!) humble opinion. That doesn’t help you.

JF, for future reference, when you try to make an argument it is better to have more evidence that saying since I said its true, its true.

The point was not to provide evidence but to save myself from having to type the same thing over and over again. But there is some evidence in that post, namely the fact that the Port Authority raised its tolls very recently, practices congestion pricing, and will use that money for transit links to Manhattan.

Regarding the second link, I see a reduction in traffic in Western Queens. I see that it represents about 10% of Queens as a whole, you know, LIC, one of the new branches of Manhattan. However, I don’t see the other benefits to Qns as a whole.

Maybe you should look harder, because they’re pretty clearly described. Here are the rest of the fact sheets:

http://ga3.org/newyorksfuture/capitalplan_factsheets.html

Just because the same 5 people on here post over and over and over and over and over and over doesn’t make most of Qns and Bklyn for CP.

No, that would be the poll results, which, despite the Quinnipiac spin, show most of Brooklyn and Queens in favor of CP with the funds going to benefit transit. (Cue the “But you can’t trust the MTA!” nonsense.)

However, my point wasn’t about what most of Queens and Brooklyn think, but about where most of the Streetsblog commenters in favor of CP are from.

I am not for CP in its current incarnation

So you’re in favor of the current system? Everyone has problems with the current plan, but every plan that’s been proposed – even Brodsky’s disingenuous proposals – would be an improvement on the current situation.

Here’s the Daily News article you mentioned:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/04/06/2008-04-06_congestion_fee_hasnt_stopped_snarls.html

The current plan is the revised plan, generated by the commission Sheldon Silver demanded.

So this argument is just more smoke and mirrors.

Regarding the second link, I see a reduction in traffic in Western Queens. I see that it represents about 10% of Queens as a whole, you know, LIC, one of the new branches of Manhattan. However, I don’t see the other benefits to Qns as a whole.

Also, I’ve seen other posts on here about adding more trains to the E/F lines is a red herring. I am in the 74th & Roosevelt station every morning and there is NO more capacity on those lines during rush hour. Anyone who tries to take the E during rush hour at the Lex ave stop knows that, without a doubt. So again, how does Qns benefit as a whole?

“You realize that most of the people posting in favor of congestion pricing here are from Brooklyn and Queens?” Just because the same 5 people on here post over and over and over and over and over and over doesn’t make most of Qns and Bklyn for CP.

I am not for CP in its current incarnation but I am open to a revised plan and whether we get the paltry $354 million shouldn’t render this idea dead. It should be improved upon regardless of whether it passes or not.

Also, the argument that this will not affect the CBD, take a look at today’s daily news report on how CP in London had a major impact on business (sorry, posting the link isn’t working). That said, whatever is eventually done will have an impact on business.

Where are the serious disincentives for drivers coming from Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut and New Jersey—most of these would only pay an additional $2.00?

The serious disincentives are already in place. If they’re not serious enough for you, feel free to propose raising the charge.

The complaints about New Jersey drivers fail to stand up to any kind of scrutiny, and the complaints about the charge “falling disproportionately” on outer-borough residents are way overblown.

http://capntransit.blogspot.com/2008/03/speaker-silver-and-port-authority.html

Last time I checked, people from Brooklyn, the Bronx, Richmond and Queens were legal New York City residents, fully deserving of the same reductions in pollution and benefits to mass transit as are those of you from Manhattan.

You realize that most of the people posting in favor of congestion pricing here are from Brooklyn and Queens? And that there are anti-CP commenters from Manhattan? Look at the map on the second page of this fact sheet:

http://www.e-benchmarks.com/congestion/factsheets/queens/assembly/am_gianaris_36.pdf

Notice how much of the reductions in pollution and benefits to mass transit “fall” on Brooklyn and Queens.

If you don’t like the current bill, feel free to propose another one and get the many reluctant assemblymembers to sponsor it. Keep in mind that if no congestion pricing plan is passed, the taxpayers of New York City will continue to pay maintenance for bridges that primarily benefit an elite few, and the streets of Western Queens and North and South Brooklyn will continue to be clogged with cars and trucks going out of their way to use the “free” bridges. Doesn’t seem equitable, does it?

So, because I don’t support the bill as it stands, does that automatically make me part of the “anti-CP, anti-transit, pro-congestion, pro-pollution, pro-noise, pro-ped-death, pro-car crowd.”?

I don’t think so. And I think many of you are being overly harsh regarding GLWD.

Where are the provisions for increased traffic enforcement? Where are the provisions for reform at the MTA, that well-known bastion of profligate spending to little effect? Where are the serious disincentives for drivers coming from Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut and New Jersey—most of these would only pay an additional $2.00?

No, the current bill will do little to improve mass transit, will probably not produce much of a reduction to current traffic volume in Manhattan, will likely cause increased traffic and pollution in the outer boroughs, and the costs fall disproportionately upon outer-borough residents.

Last time I checked, people from Brooklyn, the Bronx, Richmond and Queens were legal New York City residents, fully deserving of the same reductions in pollution and benefits to mass transit as are those of you from Manhattan. Drivers from those locations constitute the smallest percentage of drivers entering the congestion zone, yet will pay the highest cost and reap the least benefit. Doesn’t seem equitable, does it?

We need the benefits congestion pricing can bring, but not at any cost. A better plan is in order.

Not ready to throw the hat in yet, but if CP goes down, I nominate Freddie as the official CP martyr.

…in which case the 11/07 David Byrne How New Yorkers Ride Bikes event finale,the Young@Heart Chorus rendition of Bicycle Race was frighteningly prescient…and if CP prevail, it’d make a fine victory song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Ze1ZcqnO0
Queen – Bicycle Race – Uncensored

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle

I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

You say black I say white
You say bark I say bite
You say shark I say hey man
Jaws was never my scene
And I don’t like Star Wars
You say Rolls I say Royce
You say God give me a choice
You say Lord I say Christ
I don’t believe in Peter Pan
Frankenstein or Superman
All I wanna do is

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my

Bicycle races are coming your way
So forget all your duties oh yeah
Fat bottomed girls they’ll be riding today
So look out for those beauties oh yeah
On your marks get set go
Bicycle race bicycle race bicycle race

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle
Bicycle bicycle bicycle
Bicycle race

You say coke I say caine
You say John I say Wayne
Hot dog I say cool it man
I don’t wanna be the President of America
You say smile I say cheese
Cartier I say please
Income tax I say Jesus
I don’t wanna be a candidate for
Vietnam or Watergate
Cause all I wanna do is

Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like

I don’t hear them complaining about CP!