That’s democracy.

I mean, we are up against the clock here aren’t we? It is already 2009. We are supposed to reduce our carbon emissions by 80-90% in less than 41 years. Is that even possible will all of the time we have already lost?

Rising sea levels are going to make the subways difficult to maintain at some point – hopefully not too soon. But even a modest rise in sea levels will result in frequent flooding of the subways. This is why I do not support any new subways projects (2nd Ave) and I agree with Aaron that above ground public transit has to be the way forward.

As we all know, we need to take the surface back from the cars. But every time we come up with a plan, Albany blocks it.

I think the best short term goal would be to get some kind of home rule back in New York City. It is completely absurd that upstate politicians have any power whatsoever on what we are trying to do here in the city. Just to install more red light cameras has to be OKd by people who do not live here? You can’t make this stuff up!

Is it even possible to get home rule back? I don’t think we can accept this reality anymore. We can run against the current crop of jerks in Albany, and perhaps Paul Newell’s attempt to unseat Shelly was the reason he came around on tolling the East River bridges. But wouldn’t home rule make things a lot easier for us? Is this a pipe dream?

You can’t replace a full subway line — or even half of a subway line — with BRT unless you’re running 10 buses at a time every 4-8 minutes throughout the day. The SAS has a purpose, and it’s needed. Kill the 7 line if you want to kill a superfluous project. If we start killing new subway lines just because they’re expensive, nothing will ever get built, and I don’t see why the city — and transit advocates — can’t fight for and develop BRT and new subway lines at the same time. As Cap’n Transit has noted a few times over the last few months, they shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.

Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, it seems like a bad time to spend that money. But when is it ever a good time to do it? It has to be done, and that’s that.

- Variable time-of-day pricing.
- Removing or reducing prices on some of the far-out, transit-poor crossings like the Cross Bay Bridge.
- Getting rid of the toll plazas and swinging arm gantries at EZ-Pass crossings so cashless drivers don’t have to slow down.
- Restoring two-way tolls on the VZ Bridge.
- Killing the Second Avenue Subway project, replacing it with BRT and finding a way to redirect those funds elsewhere.
- Lifetime free passes for state legislators.

The list goes on.

Some of these ideas are probably political non-starters. Others could be pretty appealing legislators.

And how about this: Instead of dropping a plan on the state legislature, give them a process — a kind of transportation policy symposium for legislators. Brief them on MTA financing issues, the irrational state of current road pricing and show them all of the new technologies that are available for road pricing today. Give them a bunch of different examples for how they might work out a balance between tolls and fares and MTA financing needs. Then make them be legislators and hash out the deal that works for the majority of them.

The problem, of course, is that Albany doesn’t even have a functioning committee system. So, there’s really no forum for this kind of information exchange or legislative sausage-making. Plus, they just don’t seem to care.

And as far as the political realities involved, it might take a lot of inside baseball and money to win, but you can sure raise the profile of ideas in losing efforts. Eventually, a shot at an actual win emerges. On the national level, things were about as dark as anyone could possibly imagine four years ago, but look where we are now (leadership-wise, at least).

And actually, and ad in the Sheepshead Bay Courier isn’t a bad place to start! It’s fun to throw mud before you actually have a candidate!

As for the Ravich plan, I never thought it was particularly good either, but it was “the last hope”.

> New York City clearly plays a critical and disproportionately large
> role in the health of New York state’s overall economy.

One of the peculiarities of NYS politics is that Upstate (i.e. the rest of the state outside the NYC metropolitan area) likes to believe the exact opposite. They think we’re all on welfare and their generosity in supporting us should be rewarded. This is of course complete nonsense but it sells well up there; there’s a cultural divide too. Upstate is more Appalachian verging on Midwest in character than Eastern. I grew up in that area–they’d just as soon see NYC drop dead.

I wouldn’t put it past him to have done everything for show to appear to be on the right side, and have someone else take the blame. Was any plan every put to a vote in the Assembly? No. So there is no proof he would allow such a vote, and force the members to take a stand yea or nay.

Moreover, New York City play an essential role in the health of America’s economy. It is one of two major cradles of innovation for this country. For Albany to ignore those two very factors is horrifically negligent– not only for their own constituents but for the American economy. Urbanists around the country know when New York suffers, America suffers. We need New York City to thrive now, more than ever.

Thus, the new battle for New York City should perhaps frame the issue in a way that draws attention to these two key issues.

Aaron’s right about getting some decent candidates on the ballot, even just to create buzz. Daniel Squadron is my rep and I told everyone I could to go out and vote for him after Connor really failed to speak up on congestion pricing. Even though I don’t agree with everything he has done thus far, we need a shake up, put all those in Albany on notice.

In my case, because a permanent wage tax would have been borrowed against and only funded five years of the capital plan, leaving the situation even worse in 2014.

“We came a few votes short of establishing bridge tolls on all Harlem and East River crossings…”

That was the good news for those expecting to continue living here more than a few years — and the reason it was voted down.

We came a few votes short of establishing bridge tolls on all Harlem and East River crossings…