Just one more edit.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg via ABC News: “The protesters are protesting against people who make $40- or $50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That’s the bottom line. Those are the people who work on Wall Street or in the finance sector.” In fact the mean payroll per worker in the Finance and Insurance sector in Downstate New York was $231,822 in 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Essentially, anytime the government tries to do anything for the serfs, those who have or believe they have a veto seek to charge a toll. You want to do something for cyclists? What’s in it for me?
“Jim Trent, 65, founder and president of the Queens County Farm Museum, used to hop on the Q79 to get to the museum. But now it requires an arduous 2-mile walk or a pricy car service since he doesn’t own a car.”
Someone should tell this hipster that his elected officials, presumably reflecting the views of the majority of his neighbors, believe he is not a “real New Yorker.”
A variety of explanations is given for the fall in bus ridership. One that isn’t mentioned is the increase in bicycle transportation. Take it from me, almost no one who has actually tried getting around by bike would choose a bus instead, unless they were physically unable to ride. Bus trips tend to be shorter than subway trips, either to the subway or in directions the subway does not go. Bikes are faster, given you don’t have to wait for them, and no less confortable in inclement weather, given that wait for the bus is outside. And with the fare increases, biking is a lot cheaper too.
This doesn’t apply when you don’t have a subway, where buses are used for longer (and faster) trips. But it may well be factor in New York.
In theory, you have to be a ‘certified artist’ to live in Soho. But the rules have been ignored for years. But now suddenly banks and the city are getting tough on the rules, and some are lobbying to remove them. For fans of equal protection, opponents of speicial privilege, and one annoyed by liberal hypocrisy, this promises to be a source of much amusement.
Today the Transit Worker’s Union, transit riders and managers are free to make unlimited demands because they can pretend the money would fall from the sky instead of coming from another party to the negotiation. But the money didn’t fall from the sky, it was stolen from future transit workers, riders and managers.
This is not what I would have expected based on what I was taught. It appears that if a nuclear plant stops working for whatever reason, it self destructs.
You have to look beyond the particular issues of concern to this blog to the broader meanings. How did these sort of people, by and large, end up running our governments, unions, corporations, even our non-profit orgnaizations and in some cases churchs, for a generation? And what will be consequences going forward?
The author could be a troll. Or it could be a consultant. And environmental reviews do not have empirical data — since that requires ‘before’ and ‘after.’ They have models based on the ‘worst case’ that are routinely litigated.
Clearly, if you have a snow emergency, or perhaps a ‘severe snow emergency’ as distinguished from a less restrictive snow emergency, people have to be told not to drive. Anywhere. Period.
