EDITORIAL
HOW TO REACH US
TIMESLEDGER |10 QNS.COM | JAN. 3-JAN. 9, 2020
READERS WRITE
“Investing in transportation is a
no brainer” (Stacey Pheffer Amato
& Phil Goldfeder -- December 19),
but finding funding to pay for it is.
Amato and Goldfeder failed to
explain who would pick up the tab.
NYC DOT has been unable to obtain
approval of a $97 million Federal
Transit Administration New Starts
Full Funding grant agreement to
pay for the $231 million Phase 2
Woodhaven Blvd Bus Rapid Transit
along the same corridor for four
years.
Even if the MTA considered being
the project sponsor, the odds
of obtaining a similar funding arrangement
for a $4 billion federal
to support a $8 billion total cost for
reactivation of the Rockaway Beach
LIRR service are nonexistent.
The MTA has no interest in
sponsoring or pursuing funding
from City Hall, Albany or
Washington.
There is no funding included
in the $51 billion MTA 2020 - 2024
Five Year Capital Program for this
project. Ditto for the current State
April 1, 2019 - March 30, 2020, or
NYC July 1, 2019 - June 30, 2020
municipal budgets.
Don’t be surprised when this
project is not included in the upcoming
MTA Twenty Year (2020 - 2040)
Future Capital Needs Assessment
Report. It was due to be released by
the end of December 2019.
No one has offered millions in
funding to pay for the next step,
which is a formal Environmental
Review. This is supported by conceptual
and preliminary design
and engineering. It supports the
environmental review process and
refines estimated project costs.
Without this, the project is dead
and buried. The environmental review
process would have to follow
the National Environmental Protection
Act. This would be part of the
formal process to become eligible
for Federal Transit Administration
funding.
Larry Penner
Great Neck
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NYC DOT needs funding!
Governor Andrew Cuomo likes to portray himself
as a champion of immigrants and the working class,
and if that were the case, he blew a golden opportunity
to prove it by choosing to veto legislation from two
Queens lawmakers — State Senator Jessica Ramos and
Assemblywoman Nily Rozic — that would legalize the
use of electric bikes and scooters across the state.
Both chambers of the state legislature voted overwhelmingly
in favor of the bill in June, but in his veto
statement, Cuomo took issue with the absence of a helmet
requirement and other safety measures.
“Failure to include these basic measures renders
this legislation fatally flawed,” Cuomo added.
Why didn’t the governor simply negotiate with the
two Queens lawmakers to work the language into the
bill in the first place?
By signing the legislation into law, municipalities
like New York City could legalize e-bikes and provide
relief to the estimated 40,000 food delivery workers in
New York City, many of whom have been subjected to
an on-going NYPD crackdown against e-bikes in which
delivery workers are fined $500 and many times have
their e-bikes confiscated.
“Our state has failed to help tens of thousands of
New Yorkers who desperately need relief from the punitive
measures taken against them every day for merely
doing their jobs,” Ramos said. “New York criminalizes
delivery workers who are merely trying to make an
honest living and slaps them with thousands of dollars
in fines, effectively ruining their ability to support
themselves and their families.”
With a stroke of his pen, Cuomo could have ended
one of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s more wrong-headed
policies during his six years at City Hall. The mayor
launched the crackdown on e-bike usage by delivery
workers because he heard too many complaints during
many of his town halls more than two years ago without
ever presenting statistics that proved what a danger
e-bikes were to pedestrians.
Cuomo could have made the mayor look bad, which
has become something of a bloodsport for the governor.
But he didn’t.
A report appeared last month in the New York Post
quoting sources who said Cuomo was on board with the
legislation until Ramos criticized him in the New York
Times last October in an article about the State Democratic
Party’s plan to kill third parties in New York
such as the Working Families Party.
The bill passed by the Senate 56-6 and 137-4 in the
Assembly and Cuomo could have wiped away the mayor’s
ill-conceived crackdowns on low-wage delivery
workers.
That’s not how a champion of immigrants and the
working class rolls.
A SUCCESSFUL WARRANT
The NYPD’s 112th Precinct poses with a small stockpile of weapons that was recovered on Dec. 27 from a
home on 67th Road in Forest Hills. Multiple guns were taken from the residence as a result of the search.
Read the full story on QNS.com. Photo via Twitter/@NYPD112Pct
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