1406 A Speed Limit to Die For

Okay, please take a seat because you’re not going to believe this when you read it.  And it’s possible you’ll fall over when you do.

All set?

Good.

As of today, the speed limit on the streets of New York has been reduced to 25 miles an hour from 30.

Take some time to finish laughing.

All done?  Good.

Now, when was the last time you managed to go 25, let alone 30?

Right:  It was when you took your spouse, nearly 10-months pregnant, to the maternity ward at 3 on a Monday morning in 1968.  Or when you drove your thoroughly soused husband home to Bayside at about the same time the same number of years ago.

The de Blasio administration wants to reduce pedestrian accidents.  Failing to convince people to not cross in front of oncoming buses, they’ve done the next best thing.

On those rare moments that you can do 30, you’re going to do it.  And that includes times when there is a police cruiser directly behind you.

Granted, there are streets of death in every borough.  But did it ever occur to the Lords of Traffic “Control” to reduce the speed limit on those roads, while leaving the rest alone?

Queens Boulevard.  Flatbush Avenue.  Pelham Parkway.  Places where you actually can take your foot off the brake for 10 or 15 seconds at a time.  That’s where they should be reducing speed.

Even Park Avenue in Midtown or any other really really wide street would make sense, though not between 6am and midnight on weekdays.

You could raise the speed limit to 80 on any side street in Manhattan and it would make no difference.

And that includes even the big ones… 14th, 34th, 42nd, 57th, 72nd, all the way up to 125th.

How about some of the curvaceous streets or the ones that make odd bends or go off into unexpected directions?

Trying to save the lives of unwitting bus magnet pedestrians makes perfect sense, even if for no other reason that accidents slow things at street level.  But lowering the speed limit on practically any road in the five boroughs doesn’t.

Note, this does not affect the highways.

But it’s almost as dumb as minimum speed limits on the Long Island Expressway.  “Minimum Speed 40 MPH,” the signs say.  They could write them in tiny type because chances are you’ll be stalled next to one long enough to read it thoroughly.  Maybe even twice.

Shrapnel:

--There are 13-thousand signaled intersections in New York City.  Many of them have timed traffic lights which theoretically -- and even sometimes even actually -- allow you to travel the avenues without stopping.  The new speed limit will mean they’ll have to reprogram all the lights and you can bet that’s not going to be done in any kind of a hurry.

--The timed lights work for you at the speed limit.  They work at double the speed limit.  But do they work at half?

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2014

817 New York, Welcome to Taipei

817 New York, Welcome to Taipei

This space has called the Taipei subway, the “MRT,” the most advanced and usable on the planet. Now, maybe, years behind, New York’s MTA may be catching up, at least in part.

One of the things that makes the MRT the best is a simple safety precaution. There are Plexiglas partitions between the edge of the platform and the gully where the tracks run. The train pulls in. The car doors line up with the barrier, the barrier section slides away and people get off and on. The train door then closes and so does the barrier.

The NY Daily News reports that in 2009, 90 people were struck by New York Subways and 40 of them died.

It’s not like the MTA had to go all the way to Asia to find out about this kind of thing. AirTrain does it in Queens. Some riders are worried about the cost of installing barriers on so many platforms. We don’t have figures, but eventually the agency settles lawsuits resulting from this kind of injury. People get pushed, they jump. They fall. They sue. Could barriers actually turn a profit despite the cost?

The Taipei subway never misses the gate openings. The trains glide up at speed, stop fast but comfortably right where they must, perfectly aligned. This probably means automation assistance for what we used to call the “motorman,” or “engineer” or driver. Thing is, it CAN be done.

The MRT has other advantages: It’s cheap to ride, it’s clean and you can’t eat or drink or even bring food or beverages -- even chewing gum -- to the platforms. They find you and they fine you.

And they run more trains than you can count. No one waits half an hour for a subway. And the signs tell you when the next one will arrive, and it does.

Granted, the MRT is newer and smaller than New York’s aching, aging system. But it still can be done.

Muggers and mental cases, jumpers and people without balance? You’ll just have to find a new way to kill yourselves if this project actually happens.

Shrapnel:


--Mayor Mike conducted a “Gun Sting” in Arizona where Arizona residents paid by the City of New York and intimating they might be felons bought guns of the type used in the Tucson shootings at a gun show -- and this was not the first time or the first state. Both the gun club and the ATF objected. The club sited “no legal authority,” the ATF cited its own operations manual, titled “CYA.”

--Is Mike trying to be Crusader Rabbit? No. He’s trying to keep illegal weapons out of town. For that he has legal authority and doesn’t have to answer to the ATF, not exactly the most “nept” of federal agencies.

--In a typically lunatic reaction, Nassau County has filed suit to prevent the state takeover of its finances, which it calls “political.” Sure it’s political. And so were the reasons state administration became necessary. Wake up, guys, you’re an inch away from going belly up.


I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011

816 Chickens Come Home to Roost

816 Chickens Come Home to Roost.

Nassau is the richest county in New York. Or the second richest, depending on whose figures you use. It also is in such bad shape that the state has taken over the running of its finances.

Its present form of government was instituted in 1938, and since that time, only two Democrats have served in the office of County Executive, for a total of 15 out of 73 years.

From ‘38 on, legislative functions at the county level were served part time by leaders of the county’s internal municipalities, also almost Republicans. The “Board of Supervisors” as it was called, fought tooth hammer and nail to retain its composition. But ultimately, the courts ruled that six members weren’t enough -- or constitutional and it was replaced by a 19 member legislature.

Not much changed except expenses grew. Nineteen guys with staff and offices and political campaigns and telephones and stationery, computers and fax machines.

Nassau has more Commissioners and assistant and deputy commissioners and other political appointees than a normal human being can count. All with staff and offices and telephones and stationery, computers, fax machines and heaven knows what duties, if any.

It has an antiquated labor system with extraordinarily generous contracts. Starting salary for a new cop is a little over 34-thousand dollars. But in eight years that can grow to more than 108-thousand, excluding overtime and promotions. In neighboring New York City, a starting cop earns a bit more, but eight years later, the money tops out at 78-thousand. Cop retirements come early in many cases, and the payouts are enough to live on.

Town-based sanitation workers are in about the same boat as the county police. So are many other town and county workers, everyone from prison guards to road crews.

And how do you get the (non police) jobs? First by passing a civil service exam, of minimum challenge. And then, by “knowing” “someone.”

This system has been in place for a century. It’s self perpetuating and now it’s shown as self defeating.

The present county executive is, naturally, a Republican. But by this time, party affiliation doesn’t matter. The county has been politics- battered since it gained independence from Queens in 1898.

Going on 113 years of patronage, wild spending, borrowing and the resulting high taxes, waste, corruption, trickery.

The influence of the hoards of city residents, then largely Democrats who turned Republican after World War II, worsened rather than bettered the situation.

So now, the state has the reigns of the horse -- for the second time in recent history. And it had best do something and fast, lest the richest county becomes the least populous. And THEN where does the money come from?

Shrapnel:

--Nassau County is a complex tangle of overlapping jurisdictions. It has three towns, two “cities” 64 villages and at least that many hamlets, plus dozens of districts: Congressional, State Assembly, State Senate, County legislative, school, library, election districts, fire districts, police departments or precincts. It’s a head-spinner.

--For all but a handful of the last 113 years, the true ruling body has been and remains the Nassau County Republican Committee, which has dominated government at all levels through a network of patronage and pressure. One of its past chairmen was jailed for demanding kickbacks for the party from its municipal workers. Another was involved in questionable land dealings.

--Nassau has the most expensive group of governments in the United States. It has the highest combined tax rates in the country. And its residents pay more in electric and public transportation costs in the state, and in some instances, the country.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© 2011 WJR