Did you know there was a meeting Tuesday night among representatives of the Department of Transportation, NYPD and Community Board 6 about how crowded Austin Street is and what might be done to make the strip safer and more workable for all?
You do if you’re reading this week’s Central, Mid or North Queens editions of the Chronicle, or visiting qchron.com. We don’t know if other papers have the story. We do know that if it were up to the DOT, we wouldn’t either.
No, no, no — that department’s press office was not at all happy to hear that we had learned about the meeting and had the gall to ask questions about it. The nerve of the press! In America, no less! True, we already had perturbed the office by contacting an actual decision-making official directly, at the recommendation of a knowledgeable source, so we had to get the old “You must go through us!” speech again. Yawn.
But eventually the DOT press people were quite helpful. When the Chronicle’s Christopher Barca asked what was discussed at the meeting, whether the agency would study traffic on Austin, and whether it has a plan going forward, we got this detailed response that was more than we could have hoped for in our greatest reportorial dreams:
“While DOT currently does not have a proposal to adjust traffic patterns on Austin Street in Forest Hills, we are aware of the community’s concerns related to congestion.”
The DOT is not alone in this by any means. This is rapidly becoming standard for city agencies. So why single out the transportation agency? Because it happened to be the one to try to cover up a newsworthy event this week. Luckily another well-placed source supplied the little information we got about the meeting. Like that it had taken place.
But most agencies and officials are getting less prone to answer the questions of a free press. That’s why you see so much “said in a prepared statement” in our stories. No interview allowed; take an email. That’s why the New York Press Club periodically writes letters reminding the mayor of the First Amendment, which then run in these pages. And that’s why Barca made a number of calls and sent several emails over two days to confirm that big secret: that a meeting had been held. Among public employees. On a matter of public interest. Expect a follow-up one day ... if anyone will talk.
17 comments:
expect bike lanes, citibike stations and no parking. no one needs a car on Auston Street. The Subeay is right there Mayor Deblaze
Including his mental illness, which is not such a secret.
This is the least transparent of the last 5 administrations, yet it continues to claim to be transparent.
About a third of Queens workers work out of the Boro, Long Island, Connectivut, Westchester, New Jersey. and are out of reach from mass transit. Ever have to take a subway from Queens to get to Pelham Bay in the Bronx? I drive there every day in a half hour!
Secret, corrupt, lying, whatever.
Vision Zero sums it up - he has none.
Alas, Bill de Blasio and his wife (and her $350,000, taxpayer-funded staff, despite how she is not an elected official!), are a pathological, treasonous, traitorous SCOURGE of epic, humanitarian fail---and, everything (and everyone) below them is a corrosive, decaying product of their entrenched corruption and pathology, as they now DEVALUE all honesty itself!
And, since urgent proceedings for impeachment have STILL not been SO ORDERED by We The People---all city residents can securely bet that the remnants of society will have to totally collapse altogether, before any marginal signs of sanity and stability could ever prevail (as the past, historical grievances of history have already proven)!
As it stands right now, there is a statewide (and global) crisis in honest, ethical, INCLUSIONARY, transparent, accountable, fair and reasonable leadership (that leads by example), and the mayor and his wife---the deputy mayor---personify the crisis---to ruinous effect!
Is there any way to possibly make Austin St. safer without magically expanding the amount of land? There's not enough parking and not enough lanes.
Why is it even a problem if Austin Street is crowded. Are cars going too slowly? Wah-wah! What do we want instead-- a drag strip? Let them stay slow.
Paper sounds a little rebellious for a tool of the establishment. - confused -
You know anything they do will just make things worse. Leave it alone!!!
DOT does that all the time. They privately have a "public meeting" and only make it known to only the anti car people. Then when 10 anti car people show up and are all in agreement about some stupid idea, that makes no sense, they do it and say that they had community involvement.
"Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel." -- John Quinton, American actor/writer
Mayor Big Pussy can't handle the jeers he would get from the area's residents if his staff and the Dumbasses Of Transportation properly announced this. This is going to continue with future sparsely attended meetings.
And as seen with previous town halls, a lot of people tend to get shut out because they astroturf the meets with supporters/sheep. No matter how bad the weather is.
It may be April, but the skells in elected office must feel the Ides Of March.
That's the Di Blasio way of running the city. I'm doing this and if you don't like it too bad!
Vote his fucking ass out.
Everything the pols do is secret - they would not get far with their antics if they were transparent (ever notice how they go ape-shit when the public rarely gets one of its rare opportunities to spring something on them?)
One of the reasons the pols are so cagey is that the public is that we do everything we can to make their sneekly little schemes possible. First, the public is encouraged to be perpetually naive and childlike by being encouraged to have our problems 'taken care off' by the pols - and by doing so, are always ready to always concede the field to them. Coupled with our desire to be part of the 'in crowd' a wiggle of the finger in our direction inviting us to be part of their team (ostensibly to to find a solution) makes most willing tho witless co-conspirators of their schemes.
Alas, Anonymous, our corrupt, entrenched, establishment-rigged City Hall and Albany henchmen (with Bill 'dumb' Blasio and sycophantic Andrew Cuomo leading the way to all graft, greed, cronyism, nepotism, cover-ups, kickbacks and payoffs), both of whom strenuously reinforce a universally depraved and diabolical mantra, credo and maxim that continually maintains: Don't Blow My Scam---And, I Won't Blow Yours---for whom everyone else in the rank and file pays the ultimate price, in perpetuity!
Hence, NOTHING HAS CHANGED AT CITY HALL AND ALBANY, since Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed, and in fact, corruption has worsened exponentially---where REVOLUTION is he ONLY SOLUTION!
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