A NYC Three For All

Three lightning bolts from the dolts that govern Gotham.

• The wood and coal-fired ovens that bake our delicious New York pizzas, are bad.
• E-bikes are good, but they’re also bad. 
• Congestion pricing is going to be good.

Uh-huh.

This past week, the first in the nation congestion pricing plan cleared its last hurdle.

Expect that by next spring or so, you’ll be paying a hefty toll to drive below 60th Street in Manhattan.  The politicians haven’t said how much it will be, but whatever the amount, it will hurt poor and middle income New Yorkers the most.  

It will hurt the workers who have to drive into Manhattan.  It will hurt the folks who can’t shlep their tools, machinery and equipment on the subways.  It will hurt the people who have to visit loved ones in the hospitals, or have to go to doctor appointments.  That’s who’ll be hit the hardest. The rich people will moan about congestion pricing but they’ll pony up.  Who will bear the financial burden for this bright idea?  The people who can afford it the least.  

Billions of dollars will allegedly flow to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, an agency that is already so so good at managing our tax dollars.

Congestion pricing is just for capital projects.  It isn’t going to close the MTA’s $2.5 billion dollar operating budget deficit that’s looming in 2025.  Service will have to be cut, and ridership will go down, down, down.

Congestion pricing is a horrible, regressive tax that will drive more people away from Manhattan and out of New York.

The wizards of New York’s elected class glibly blow off the increased air pollution that congestion price will cause in areas outside the pay-up zone, but they are apparently very concerned about the air we breathe when we order a slice of pizza.  

They believe an urgent way to shrink the city’s carbon footprint, is to turn the heat up on the handful of wood and coal pizza ovens in the five boroughs.

The city’s Department of Environmental Protection drafted new rules to require the owners of those old ovens to pay tens of thousands of dollars to install smoke scrubbers.

Do you think the Mensa members that run New York can possibly find another way to save the planet and preserve our perfectly charred pepperoni pizza?

But wait, there’s more.  Here’s another gem from our elected geniuses. 

Three years ago, the New York City Council plunged headlong into legalizing e-bikes and e-scooters.  

What a great idea!  We’ll say it’s illegal for them to go over 20 miles per hour and we’ll say they have to obey the traffic rules.  What a joke.  Ignoring rules is a New York state of mind. 

And the batteries for the e-bikes?  What’s the issue?  They’re so good for the environment.  Just plug them in for charging, no carbon emissions!

Wrong, wrong and recklessly wrong.

The bootleg lithium-ion batteries that power many of the e-bikes that zip in and out of traffic and terrorize our sidewalks, are incredibly dangerous.   They go faster than cars and they run red lights with glee.   They flaunt every rule you can think of, with impunity.  Their batteries have caused numerous violent explosions, hard to battle fires and needless deaths. 

I lay this travesty right at the doorstep of the city council members that had zero vision as to the implications of their legislation.  They legalized the e-bikes without doing their due diligence when it came to battery safety and pedestrian safety.  

Now, says Manhattan State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, “The issue of e-bikes is the number one constituent complaint that we get in my senate office.”  

Our elected representatives want to stuff the e-bike genie back in the bottle with workaround legislation. Let’s make them register their bikes and get insurance. Yeah, right. I have news for these dumbbells, it ain’t gonna work.

Flaunting rules and regulations in New York City is as predictable as thunderstorms in July.  It’s woven into our way of life.  It’s probably too much to trust the city council to think, and think being the operative word, about the real-world implications of its decisions.  Otherwise we get what we have now; e-bike bedlam.

The chaos on the streets, sidewalks and subways of New York, makes the death this past week of Richard Ravitch much more poignant.  Ravitch was a civic-minded real estate developer who helped New York avoid bankruptcy in the awful 1970’s.  He rescued the MTA from at a time when the transit system was on the verge of financial collapse.  He briefly served as Governor David Paterson’s lieutenant governor when Paterson needed someone with big-boy pants to shore up his administration. 

Ravitch, even though he supported congestion pricing, was a progressive with a brain.  He had gravitas, credibility and clout.  He had vision, he had a plan and he produced results. 

Instead of a Dick Ravitch, we now have Kathy Hochul, Eric Adams, the New York State legislature and the New York City Council.  

Are we good with these rocket scientists?  You tell me.