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Thank you Sheldon
I would like to applaud the New York State Assembly, its members and Speaker Sheldon Silver, for delivering a knockout punch to Mayor Bloomberg’s wrong-headed Congestion Pricing Plan (CPP).
Much as I support the idea of reducing vehicular traffic and alleviating chronic asthma conditions in NYC, most people in Queens were very upset by the CPP. They saw it as a new regressive tax and I agree.
We in Queens have the worst public transportation in the city and the longest commutes in the nation. Folks from outside the city already take tolled bridges and tunnels, so the Mayor’s plan would have hit the people who use the free East River bridges hardest. Being a borough of middle class folks, we use these free crossings because we do not have the extra disposable income to pay for the more direct and expensive methods.
In my lifetime, I can honestly say that southern Queens always is screwed by Manhattan projects. Moreover, you know the additional CPP funds would end up paying for the 2nd Avenue subway line and the Fulton Street station in Manhattan, not spent here in Queens.
I think the proposal was just another way for the Manhattan-centric mayor to make Manhattan an island for only well-heeled, wealthy people, like himself and tourists. By making CPP so cost-prohibitive, it was just Bloomberg’s way of keeping the riff-raff from Queens from having access to our own city.
I feel we all owe a debt of gratitude to Sheldon Silver and the NYS Assembly for not allowing Mayor Bloomberg to bully the residents of Queens into a misconceived plan and for making it dead on arrival in Albany.
David M. Quintana
Ozone Park
5 years ago
