Unless the apps shut down I don't think any kind of protests like this will ever go that noticed by the public. There's close to 100,000 FHVs in the city right now... unless you had a concerted effort, for every driver protesting I suspect there's 10 more to take their place and take advantage of the situation. Plus cabs of course. Uber and Lyft are evil so I'm not bashing protestors but their battle is a pretty big uphill

No idea friend, smarter minds then me are needed to investigate this! I would guess it is very multifaceted, between teaching styles, staffing, the culture of learning, neighborhood makeups, home life, etc. Some things are not easy to address, if you have an area with a lot of students with bad home lives, school can only do so much to help, especially if the system is rigid and can't easily give extra non-educational resources to those students. If a student simply was raised to have a disdain for education, lack respect, etc. that is not something you can easily solve with just money. Are charter curriculums better for these situations? Those are the kind of questions we'd wanna check. I'm not gonna say it's just a case of well union DOE teacher = bad, charter teacher = good. There are definitely bad teachers, regardless of school, but it goes beyond just that.

In recent years parental choice is being championed across the country it seems, so I'm all for raising (or eliminating) the arbitrary cap on charters to give parents more choice. There seems to be big demand from parents, and I can understand why. The last time the cap was discussed there definitely seemed to be a big outpouring of support. At this point it's a fallacy to say just throwing more money at the DOE will "solve" the problems at our public schools, we already have one of the highest spending rate per student yet we still have minority children who can't read proficiently, clearly the issues are more deeply rooted and beyond simply burning money.

Phrasing my friend! That makes sense but it comes off as "is he allowed to do that" haha

There is definite blind hate here cause this seems fine to me. The article even says government transparency groups encouraged both the governor and mayor to serve on the board. I think the bigger question may be why does this board exist to begin with when the MTA already has a board?

Read the article

PSA (Penn Station Access) and IBX are indeed nice but missing some long neglected links. The alignment of the Hell Gate line is just so bad I guess (LONG curve and elevated sections) it is no wonder we never activated it fully with stations, though it should be possible.. It is a good opportunity to activate MNR and even LIRR if there was 1 more station passed Woodside for city commuters for example. IBX I read made Hell Gate incompatible due to the alleged 6 minute target headways, meaning the bridge doesn't have enough capacity for all service (Amtrak, freight, MNR). I don't recall if a full feasibility study for adding capacity was done. A Queens to Bronx connection would certainly be historic, and I think worth studying.

No one wants tunnel portals and highway approaches in their backyard. Northern Long Island has some of the wealthiest areas in the country with vocal opposition. They understandably don't wanna transfer congestion on I-95 in the Bronx to near their towns instead.

The only thing is this is kind of an imaginary number in terms of real money. No fare system on earth can prevent 100% evasion, and we cannot discount the cost of preventing it. We would need NYPD on every single bus in Queens basically lol. I hate fare evasion but I don't see a cost effective way at eliminating it. I am all for more attempts though, whether better spot enforcement and higher fines, but we should note we likely will never fully capitalize on the lost fares

London saw real reductions when it was launched, we will likely see a a reduction but the amount will vary based on what toll scenario is chosen, and I believe London had quite a few exemptions and carve outs

It is a huge part of the problem. Google 'NYTimes 2nd Ave Expose', they explicitly mention union staffing. They found I believe on 2nd Ave and ESA a huge amount of make work jobs and over staffing. One comical note was apparently break rooms need a paid supervisor lol

I feel like doing this like alcohol licenses would be easier, get license then tax at point of sale, as if it were ordinary alcohol or cigs for example. We already had the infrastructure to do this with the state liquor board instead of making this whole new system

While the other poster misunderstood the abatement concept, he gets at an interesting point. I can't find how much taxes in total since the inception of 421a have been abated, but it could be interesting to compare that number and see what could have been done with the money over the years. Would more housing units have been able to be built by the government instead? I.e. if we stopped this abatement and just directly build subsidized housing with the future tax revenue that would have been abated (ideally better than NYCHA, in my dreams...) would we have more or less affordable style housing?

I don't see this getting better. More and more units are gonna age out and need these insanely long repairs, yet probably the staffing issues will just get worse under this current admin. At this point I don't even think NYCHA can be saved, I think the prudent course would be to create an entirely new agency with more flexible and nimble rules and procedures, and have them start building replacement housing immediately. The entire concept of NYCHA housing blocks is archaic anyways, this type of planning IMO is a failure and just concentrates folks in ugly and cheap housing without access to amenities. The blocks feel isolated and "other", instead of meshing with the communities, like they are behind a barren grassy moat in commie blocks.

Adding onto the other post, it's generally good to apply for grant money when possible, seems DOT figured this project had a good shot of getting approved. The city and state also try to get CMAQ (Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement) grants too. Comes down to timing and whether a project meets the specific scope of grants. They need to time with each round of approval and funding as well. It looks like for example SS4A has a 2nd round opening in April

Fix that damn ped/bike island at the base of the bridge. The bridge is iconic and you roll or walk under a masonry arch to be stranded between streets wider than highways lol with the worst bike lane connects I've ever seen (what the actual fuck are those curb cuts???)

Little early to call it a victory if she says no again. The total lottery percent is 50% (same as before) but in context this project is years in the making and still not even under construction. At what cost in delays is this worth thr fight? If every project continues to be like this I hardly call it a victory

People want flexibility, I'd say make city wide policy that... there is no policy. Instead, let folks coordinate with their team/manager about it and let them figure it out. If a whole team can work remotely, efficiently, then let em. Who cares.

Bruh you could get literally high school volunteers to plant trees, I cannot believe the ONLY option in the REGION is a scandal scarred suslord company to do this work...?

I'd argue it is a bit different, having ghost/defaced plates allows you to do a lethal hit and run. While bikes are not plated and you could hit and run too, contextually one has a much much higher chance of killing you then the other. I rather take my chances with a 100 lb girl on an e-scooter then a 3,000 lb suburban with tinted windows coming from Long Island... but that's just me

No one has any incentive to support any new construction. Everyone is out for themselves. But the city is bigger then you, bigger then me, bigger then any one opponent to development. There are too many council persons and people believing their district is their little fiefdom. "We agree we need housing, but not in our district, go build it somewhere else". That's why we're in this mess today. One45 in Harlem was going to be 50% below market units, you're living in la la land if you think a developer will do 100% below market units without government subsidies, that's just how it works. The big issue here is you and others are envisioning private developers operating supportive or basically fully subsidized housing projects, which is not how it works right now, and is a question for council and the mayor to figure out, whether through new 421a type legislation or an entirely new housing scheme. Private developers will not build unprofitable buildings, accept this and move on so we can start addressing the problem versus just vote no to every new building.

It doesn't make sense that some of the most valuable land (Manhattan) is sitting empty. The THREE block long site south of the UN is clear evidence of real estate dysfunction. It's not even rehab development, it is literally a vacant lot. How is that possible? There's a whole slew of articles out there about this specific lot if anyone is curious. It makes total sense to me to go balls to the walls and activate or re-activate unused or underused lots and buildings. There is space to be found everywhere. The only issue is that this identification does not solve the real problem of can the government (the city) actually operate quality housing at cost that is not NYCHA? We don't want more NYCHA. All we have is the housing lottery right now that is going away as 421a ends anyways, it begs the question if a new government run system is required, but that presents many, many issues of its own. The alternative is identify these plots and lease or sell them to developers which would still create more housing which is good.

I don't believe labor inefficiency is a reason to ignore blatant crime. Accountability is a separate issue for another thread. If you argument is well the MTA commits fraud itself therefore stealing from the tolls is justified, gonna have to disagree on that 1

How, the bridge is free right now? I suspect we'd all be dead before drivers actually paid for the decades of damage they did to this bridge or the other free bridges nearby lol. The BK especially given its age you'd probably save tons removing traffic entirely and reducing the strain and rolling forces applied to the road deck.

I believe DOT is studying that right now. I don't think the bridge can support more structures on it is the issue, given its immense age. It would likely be simplest to close an entire side to traffic tbh, have dual-way bike lanes and pedestrian space, add a ton of river facing benches, could be sick.