Just when I thought Cuomo couldn't stoop any lower...

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I hate him so much.

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I hate him so much.

Yes, sometimes he can be too good at aping a right-winger, even for me.

I don't know how much politics even play into it.  He's a Cuomo-winger. 

Andrew Cuomo doesn't care about New York.  He doesn't care about the people of this state.  He doesn't care about the wisdom of his decisions.  He doesn't care who he hurts.  He always makes the decision that is politically easiest for Andrew Cuomo.  So, he uses budgetary alchemy that he hopes nobody will call him on.  He would steal candy from a baby, he would sucker punch your grandmother, he would light an orphanage on fire, he would tie a damsel to the rail road tacks, as long as he thought it would be politically beneficial and safe for Andrew Cuomo.  He has no scruples.  As we say in New York, he's gaab-age.

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But as far as I can tell, the officials were acting on the best information they had.

The "best information they had" would have been to listen to the actual professionals at the MTA, who knew that shutting things down this far in advance (when trains and buses can in fact run in a fair amount of snow)  was unnecessary and even harmful.  Cuomo just decided to do it by fiat to look like a REEL LEADUR, without any input from other levels of government or experts within the agency itself.

I assume it was something like this.  The sad truth is that every big storm in a post-Katrina, post-Sandy world is seen partially as springboard for political grandstanding and a demonstration of how serious and engaged you are.  It's crazy because the subway had never shut down for snow before. 

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The Subway didn't close for the giant blizzards of 96' or 06'.  Why not switch to a holiday schedule, shut down pieces of the subway if need be and use the money you generate from metrocard swipes to pay for emergency overtime crews to keep the subway operational?

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What is Cuomo's motive for all of this as alleged?  Why would you want to gratuitously shut down the MTA?  Why would he want to give greater subsidies for highway tolls upstate than subway tolls in the City? The whole thing doesn't quite hang together for me. I bet Cuomo is glad Silver is gone however.

Person A:

White guy, 2 kids, house mortgage, swing voter, makes $120k a year, lives in Nyack, drives a car, uses the subway 1 every two weeks or so. 

vs.

Person B:

Black woman, 3 kids, renter, votes for Democrats 100% of the time, lives in Brooklyn, makes $45k a year. 

Who does Andrew Cuomo care about?  Who does the media, the powers at be and society at large care about?  Obvious, right?

If Andrew Cuomo can take from Person B and give to Person A, he will.  He worries about person A's property taxes, and bridge tolls, and wants to get his approval.  He doesn't care about Person B.  He takes her vote for granted and he realizes that she's been so beaten down by the system that she don't even care or pay attention.

[bedstuy]

BUMP

It occurs to me that maybe I conceded too much: there's a case to be made that you don't need to build a replacement at all! 

My practical side is undecided as to whether the idea to just not replace the TZB when it reaches the end of its life is, erm, a bridge too far in terms of short-term impacts (to say nothing of political backlash from folks who benefit from the perverse subsidies/don't have the imagination to see a better alternative).  But the Cap'n is absolutely right about the environmental, fiscal, and social costs of locking the region into continued car-dependency.  Any sane discussion would have had his point of view in the mix, pushing the Overton Window in a more sustainable direction.

Alas.

You forget that moderate swing voters who live in the suburbs and need this bridge to drive to the Galleria Mall are better than us.   We're disgusting licentious city dwellers and they're pious Cincinnatus-type gentlemen farmers. 

Another fun fact about our beloved Governor, he's trying to steal money earmarked for water pollution management to build this bridge.  As if a bridge is a means of combating water pollution?