Life in the fast lane
From
CBS 2:
A proposed plan could add fast lanes to some bridges and tunnels around New York City that would let drivers bypass traffic for a price.
During a transportation panel discussion in Albany, Queens Assemblyman David Weprin said he would like to add express lanes on bridges and tunnels for drivers willing to cough up the dough for the quick convenience.
The plan would charge motorists for faster travel on bridges and highways that are already tolled, CBS2’s Hazel Sanchez reported.
“Say right now they’re $7.50 to go through the Midtown tunnel. Maybe we could reduce that to $5 or $6 and have the express lane for maybe $10 where people can pay more to have that fast service,” he said.
35 comments:
Weprin is a complete idiot! There will never be such a thing . Traffic crawls on every bridge already and he would take away a lane for the convenience of a few? NUTSO!
What happens to Joe Q Public who won't pay? Now his commute time is lengthened because all of the traffic is squeezed down to two lanes or maybe one lane for tunnels. This idea is absolutely insane.
Just another way for the city to get more money. What a rip off! Wouldn't this just cause more traffic because then they'd be taking away one lane just to make a "fast lane "
The city is running out of space...increasing congestion at geometric proportions by overbuilding...and its infrastructure cannot handle it.
So the city tries to squeeze as much money as it can from its everyday residents for what they call privileges that heretofore were not considered privileges...like being able to get over a bridge in reasonable time. Build...build...
build...and screw up NYC even more, except for the wealthy. Face it NYC is a Kafkaesque Disney World. Soon, real people will not be able to live here. Only super wealthy foreigners will soon inhabit New York. As far as native New Yorkers...
moved to a reservation of crap land in Texas like the other native tribes in history. RIP NYC. Amen!
Leave it to a Weprin to screw us.That's been the family business since daddy Saul's days.
First came congestion pricing. Now it comes in a new wrapper. Pay more for express lanes.
How about limiting how many cars per family are needed by taxing owners beyond two cars? Or curb overbuilding which causes congestion.
Maybe his brother Mark can get him a cushy job in the Cuomo administration.
That won't matter, with all the over development and stuffing neighborhoods like sausages that goes one there will only be tons of parking lanes, no moving lanes.
Any one ever hear of "quality of life".... not in Queens :(
So lemme get this straight: "poor door" apartments bad, "poor traffic lane" roads good?
"Ev'ry morning, ev'ry evening
Ain't we got fun?
Not much money, Oh, but honey
Ain't we got fun?
The rent's unpaid dear
We haven't a bus
But smiles were made dear
For people like us
In the winter in the Summer
Don't we have fun
Times are bum and getting bummer
Still we have fun
There's nothing surer
The rich get rich and the poor get children
In the meantime, in between time
Ain't we got fun?"
Apologies to Whiting, Kahn and Egan.
How about getting rid of the ridiculous boom gates at all the NYC tolls. That slows traffic considerably. Paying a premium for a fast lane? He can go f*%k himself.
Special privileges for the rich. Boy, that's democracy in action.
Man, this city really squeezes your nuts for everything.
What happens if the "fast" lanes get traffic? Do they give you a refund???
Won't work because there will still be choke points due to volume-- why pay more to sit in the same traffic as all us poor shlubs?
Is this all our politicians think of all day...how to rip off hard working Americans!
Yes, Anonymous, the perpetual, 'Cuomo Friends & Family' Albany bureau payroll that Preet Bharara didn't nail yet, where the blood-boiling patronage mill just keeps getting bigger by the hour---without any consequence in sight!
Now, let us see who's ALREADY on the governor's invented job pool so far, for all of his politically failed hacks, that is, all of whom are addicted to city and state, taxpayer-funded money without ever working for an honest day's pay:
First up, we've got the always repulsive, dynastic, Peter Vallone, Jr. (when Cuomo awarded him a cushy job, right after losing the Queens Borough presidency), for whom ANOTHER depraved, criminal sociopath (and Curtis Sliwa beholden, frozen-eggs-baby-factory mama, Melinda Katz!), touched down with her faulty landing gear to snatch up the vacuous, and vastly overpaid post, where the requirements are always 'do nothing/know nothing'---until naturally her OWN time arrives for an upstate patronage job for Cuomo to indulge at the taxpayers' expense (once SHE loses the next election, for which she was never qualified to serve in the first place---and, that's on top of the term that she is currently not fit to serve!)!
Then, we have another worthless, City Hall sycophant of great corruption and incompetence, Christine Quinn, and FOISTING her incredible women's rights 'shtick' that Cuomo jumped into immediate action to reward (after SHE lost her mayoral coronation that hustling joker, Mike Bloomberg promised her, and that was ONLY AFTER SHE made it magically possible for 'The Jerkberg' to serve an illegal, third term, ONLY AFTER SHE abrogated all previously adopted public referendum (We The People gave a resounding 'YES' to term limits---TWICE!), and, the voting public be damned!
Finally, if memory serves, didn't one of Jamaica's big embarrassments, Leroy Comrie (not biggest, mind you---there are just too many worthless, political scourges that are polluting Jamaica, and depleting the earth of precious oxygen, whilst feeding off of the black, reductive payroll machine of all public trust betrayal!), recently join Cuomo's Albany 'Slush Fund Express Club'?
I have a better idea: Let's impeach David Weprin forthwith (now that de Blasio will soon, finally be on the chopping block as well---oh, happy day---and kill two birdbrains with one knockout stone!)!
Likewise, let the overburdened, overtaxed, taxation-without-representation laden citizens of Queens County, sound the death knell for King David's dynastic, cradle-to-grave, city government, family criminal enterprise of all LEGALLY organized crime (where even ACTUAL, organized crime family rings could never rival the Weprins' monstrous greed, graft and political heft!!), and send a powerful message to all of the 'other' mangy, Queens County sewer rats, who betray public trust and integrity, with impunity!!
Alas, it's always amazing to see how much puss can be popped out of a pernicious boil like New York City government, when it is finally lanced---but, only when that boil is squeezed by superhuman force and vigor!
Please get to work, Preet---and, remember to suit up in your most protective 'Hazmat' gear before tackling the Weprins' family puss factory of epic, humanitarian (and ecological) fail!
Numbskulls!
Alas, first an embarrassment like 'Papa Cuomo' destroyed all pretense of public trust, integrity---and, honest, ethical, INCLUSIONARY leadership (that leads by example), and now we've got another empowered idiot, in Mario's 'genetically mutated' offspring,' better known as 'Mario 2.0'!
Ladies and gentlemen of Queens, County, New York City and New York State: This is the face of what government tyranny looks like (not to mention taxation without representation, and an endless cabal of systemic corruption, graft, greed, cronyism, nepotism, favoritism, kickbacks, payoffs and cover-ups), and a totally corrosive system that not only created a lawless, vigilante style, anarchistic society that has completely robbed the pockets, freedoms and youth of their languishing constituents---but, they've now DEVALUED all honesty itself---to pathologically treasonous, traitorous and ruinous effect.
The corruption is now worse than nuclear proliferation, as all voraciously, hyper-corrupt politicians (not honest public servants!), continue to be vastly overpaid---ironically for all proliferation that THEY THEMSELVES created---and, the public be eternally duped, bilked, scammed and damned---and, now nuked to ever glowing human ashes and dust!
Props to all you NYC dwellers, how you put up with it and survive amazes me.
They have this around Baltimore and DC on I-95. At one spot I saw the increased bill as $15 on the outer loop I-495.
What happens when they are backed up?
Another scam to separate people from their money to support parasitic government entities.
How about using my tax dollars to improve the roads to meet the increased volume? Improve mass transit to decrease the cars on the road?
A couple more stanzas from "Ain't we got fun":
Landlords mad and getting madder
Ain't we got fun?
Times are so bad and getting badder
Still we have fun
There's nothing surer
The rich get rich and the poor get laid off
In the meantime, in between time
Ain't we got fun?
Night or daytime, it's all playtime
Ain't we got fun?
Hot or cold days, any old days
Ain't we got fun
If Wifey wishes
To go to a play
Don't wash the dishes
Just throw them away
Streetcar seats are awful narrow
Ain't we got fun?
They won't smash up our Pierce Arrow
We ain't got none
They've cut my wages
But my income tax will be so much smaller
When I'm laid off, I'll be paid off
Ain't we got fun?
Kinda relevant, heh?
The glue that keeps Weprin's toupee stuck to his head is seeping into his brain.
Just be happy they don't force you to take a bus,I pay a lot of tax to support utopia and have earned a Fast Pass,when you pay more I'll wave to you in the Elite Lane.
This is disgusting on the face of it. Here are the attitudes involved: 1) Since we can't fix it, we'll allow rich people to bypass what we can't fix. 2)Everything is on a class system-if you can't pay more, then screw you. 3) Everything that used to be available to people in general now must be at a premium (think airline seats which charge now for location, extra room, tilting back, first on/off the plane etc. etc.).
Weprin is a douchebag for even floating this crappy idea.
This plan is already used in other cities. A friend of mine lives outside of Atlanta and he tells me it works well. During peak hours you pay a premium to use the fast lane. During less peak hours you would pay considerably less to use it. The big difference is they have enormous modern super highways that are 4, 5 or 6 lanes in each direction so they can spare one lane for this purpose. Here in NY City we have looked upon automobiles as being evil for decades and therefore have not even considered expanding our road systems. Then the developers are allowed to overbuild and overpopulate the entire region. And no one has enough balls to say that we need to ban private cars in Manhattan south of 125 st and possibly downtown Brooklyn during business hours. We also need to cancel all parking privilege passes for private vehicles to all cops, firemen, teachers, federal employees, city agency heads and CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS. This way as president Obama likes to tell us, everyone will have some skin in the game. All of these other suggestions are nothing but money grabs by the politicians.
This "scheme" has to be the gateway to see if anyone will bite -- and you know some will. Then the next step is tolls on all bridges for ALL of us. Again, taxation without asking. How nice.
Income inequality......where's wilhelm?
Versions of this are used in many cities around the country. I suspect it would have limited use in NYC because of the unavailability of "extra" lanes that could be dedicated to it. But generally, traffic control through pricing works and helps push others to use mass transit, which is the optimum solution.
So where do my taxes end up?
You know the taxes we pay that maintain the infrastructure among other things.
I keep hearing that the goal of these policies is to make people use mass transit. Even if the policies were feasible, has any elected official looked at the state of mass transit lately? It is bursting at the seams, and constantly delayed. The dirty secret is that there are too many people here.
I like the idea of a fast pass. I was in DC area and was in bumper to bumper traffic until I saw the fast lane. It was great no traffic but of course you had to pay. But it would not work in NYC simply because there is no room for another lane.
I'm probably a crazy Floridian for asking, but "Where are these fast lanes coming from and spilling out to?" Seems to me you are just getting nowhere in a hurry. And who will let you back in line at the other end? P.S. Interstate 4 fast lanes coming through Orlando
This is a pretty old trick: Most likely he's trying to soften us up by proposing this absurd fast lane tolling scheme so later when he backs Move NYC tolls on all bridges, it looks more palatable in comparison.
Anonymous asked: "Income inequality...where's Wilhelm?" Ha, ha---how I love a good joke!
I'll tell you where Mr. 'Tale of Two Cities' and the 'Bill de Cuomo, 'Tale of Two Faces' impostor is---he's scheming with his equally crooked legal muscle right now to attempt to dig him out of a system of all 'OPENLY PRACTICED' corruption (straight through to the crumbling towers of Albany graft, greed and taxation without representation!), that has now finally returned for both of these depraved, criminal sociopaths (who DEVALUE all honesty itself), with a karmic vengeance!
But, that's what happens when trash is disposed of WAY after its expiration date---it stinks up the entire neighborhood (and, in this case, Bill de Cuomoo expired long before his 'default' mayoral, 'Hijack-and-Hostage' dupe, for whom everyone else continues to pay an even higher price that is not recoverable)!
Hurry up, Preet, and get thee to Albany (again!), so you can finally 'scoop up' the biggest, rotting elephant turd of them all (that you amazingly missed, after last year's nabbing of Silver & Skelos!).
And, bring plenty of smelling salts upon your return engagement---because, THIS colossal turd is stinking up New York State like a massive, raw sewage spill---and, only getting worse by the hour!
Finally, this is causing all working people, and the rapidly vanishing American middle class GREAT, UNNECESSARY DISTRESS and INTENTIONAL HARM, while everyone continues to pay skyrocketing taxes for services that were never rendered in the first place---and leaving the rank and file to their own devices (lawlessness, vigilantism, societal collapse and outright anarchy), and all of this 'MISHEGAS' that has been FOISTED upon us (in the name of voracious, unchecked greed, arrogance and unprecedented cowardice), is unwillingly FUNDED ON THE PUBLIC'S DIME---and, the public be damned!
Alas, New York State will NEVER be right, until the massive tentacles of all city and state corruption are destroyed from their breeding point---and, right now the corrosive breeding points are City Hall and Albany---hence, we're ALL infected by Bill de Cuomo's government hijack, where everyone is imprisoned by their willful malice, and never ending betrayals of public trust and integrity!
I'm not sure if this is a terrible idea or a brilliant one, or both.
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