From NY1:A proposed rail tunnel under the Hudson River may never see the light of day.
New Jersey governor Chris Christie is expected to scrap the nearly $9 billion tunnel, which would be the most expensive transportation project in the nation.
Christie is meeting with his transit team today to review cost estimates for the project.
He says he will not sign off on New Jersey's $2.7 billion share of the project unless the state has a way to pay for it.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said New York City cannot afford to pitch in.
"This is not something the city can put money into. We're building our own subway extension, number 7 [line], because the state didn't give us money," said Bloomberg. "We just don't have -- we need more schools, we have a lot of other capital projects that this city has to do."
Now it's time to once again point out how hypocritical this statement is coming from Bloomberg, who seems to have no problem finding billions in taxpayer money for every unnecessary and unwanted boondoggle imaginable. But infrastructure? Nah...
13 comments:
This tunnel would benefit NJ almost exclusively. NY should not put any money into it.
n.y.c.,a sanctuary city because of bloomberg would not need more school buildings if he stopped the invasion of illegal aliens and their anchor babies.
I guess that our Chinese Overlords and our Arab Oil Kings have told our middle management elected leaders not to build any American infrastructure that may reduce our dependency on their oil and imported cars. Yet our elected leaders have billions of our tax dollars for Iraq and Afghanistan infrastructure that never seems to get built either. With our tax money billions going to the same Chinese and Arab consultants and contractors.
How come there are always billions of dollars available for projects like sports stadiums and luxury condominiums ? We need relief from traffic, we need hospitals, and we need subways that don't shut down after a heavy thunderstorm. The very basic needs of this city are going unmet, and even going into reverse, as the mayor lays off firefighters. Eventually, the Mayor and his Deputy Mayor Goldsmith will and ask New Yorkers to call 311 instead of 911 in cases of emergency. Already, the city has rolled out a shoddy 911 dispatch system, now they are deliberately slowing down response times and then reporting fake 911 response time by not counting the time we spend with the 911 dispatcher. This city is going to the crapper.
The political benefits which will come from favoring one construction contractor over another will fall on politicians who will be in office ten years from now. There's no political reason to work on anything that no immediate government-controlled cash out.
Future taxpayers will have no money anyway because of unfunded pensions to retired public sector employees and entitlements paid out to non-taxpayers.
There will be one person pulling the wagon and ten people rinding in the wagon.
To Anon No. 2: Not really. Schools in this city (particularly the high schools) were overcrowded a long time before there was an immigration issue. The Board/Department of Edcuation has never been very good at planning for community growth or needs.
Our transportation infrastructure rots while China builds 300km/h intercity bullet trains and Shanghai gets a new subway line a year.
Neither party has the will, and the private sector has no short-term profit motive, to make long-term investments in the infrastructure that this country needs to stay internationally competitive. Remember that the next time an 80 year-old water main breaks in your neighborhood.
I wonder what the Mayor is thinking of when he stated there are other capital projects.
Sure there are : He's kicking in over $ 10 million dollars for Marty Markowitz's Asser Levy Park Amphitheater.
The total capital expense for this boondoggle of a venue is over $ 70 million & growing everyday.
The Mayor talks about schools, infrastructure improvemetns etc.
Isn't building Marty's Amphitheater a fantastic way of wasting millions of our taxpayer dollars ?
Don't blame the private companies for this one. The government took over all the local transit in 1940 by not allowing private operators to raise the fare as their costs rose. Since then it's been a political game of subsidies to mass transit riders. It's an early appearance of socialism or at least total control of a sector of the economy by the government.
Bloomberg The Liar Dictator.
A tunnel to NJ should be funded exclusively by NJ not NYC or NYS. If the FEDS wish to fund the whole thing then maybe we should look to grab the bucks and build tunnels between Brooklyn and Manhattan or Queens and Manhattan or other infrastructure that would greatly ease the current traffic flow. How about building the lite rail to LGA and connecting it to the Subway system? Or getting electric trolly buses running down Queens BLVD or elsewhere deep into undeserved areas of Queens?
Bringing taxpaying commuters in from NJ should be partially funded by NYS.
Paul Krugman of The New York Times exposed the bad government decision to cancel the commuter tunnel. To the anonymous author of the comment about the Chinese bullet train, it is not only about staying competitive. It's also about planning for basic needs, like making traffic more manageable over existing (aka ''old'') bridges and tunnels. If our government can't even handle a fundamental need like traffic management, how can we expect it to handle difficult issues like jobs creation, education reform, and retirement solvency for its citizens ? Like, really, this is a BIG sign that our government has become paralysed by the actions of short-sighted politicians. We need bold leadership, leaders with a vision and the political courage to fix the problems -- that a reasonable government should be able to be counted upon to fix. Instead, we have what we have. We have known better days, and we know that we shouldn't settle for this kind of crap.
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