[ad_1]
I wish I had mentioned the undeniable fact that the M.T.A. tends to overspend its budgets. The connection between the Long Island Rail Road and Grand Central, which opened a year ago, is impressive, but it was expensive: $11.1 billion. In 2017, The Times reported that an accountant found that 200 people who were being paid $1,000 a day to work on the tunnel seemed to have no reason to be there. (They were laid off.)
Readers tended to be pretty cynical about the city’s intentions. Bruce Grossberg is a member of the transportation committee of a community board in central Queens. Speaking for himself, rather than in that official capacity, he wrote, “I continue to see congestion pricing as a land grab masquerading as a transportation policy.” He predicted it will mainly benefit Manhattanites. “In return, the residents of the outer boroughs get a promise that perhaps, maybe, somewhere over the rainbow, the revenues from congestion pricing will be sufficient to implement a capital plan” — that is, investment in mass transit.
Susan Paston, who lives inside the congestion zone, wrote: “If residents of the wealthy Upper East Side and Upper West Side don’t have to pay, neither should we; traffic from 60th Street to 90th Street is more congested than traffic below 30th Street. In addition, in another presumably unintended consequence, many or most of the physicians in private practice in our downtown residential areas are said to be looking for office space above 60th Street for fear their out-of-zone patients will find new doctors rather than pay to enter the zone.”
“Every city that has ever introduced congestion pricing improved mass transit first. New York City didn’t,” Steve Ross of Revere, Mass., wrote. “Every major city sharply restricts taxi cruising in its congested midtown. New York City does not and will not.” He added, “My prediction for New York City: Just another tax, and don’t expect any subway improvements.”
Tim Schwartz of Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J., wrote: “Unless mass transit is convenient for everybody, including New Jersey and Connecticut residents, I’m against the congestion tax. I’m also sure the M.T.A. will still be in financial trouble and searching for more revenue streams.”
[ad_2]
Source link