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Consolidate the Bridges with the Thruway, He Said. It’ll Be Efficient


 

It is almost a throwdown joke, a cheap laugh; “I’m from Albany, and I’m here to help you.”

So it is with some skepticism that we should view the proposal from Gov. Andrew Cuomo to consolidate the NY State Bridge Authority with the Thruway Authority. Efficiency in government, it sounds almost seductive, doesn’t it? Who doesn’t want efficiency? It’s all transportation, right? Surely the bridges and the roads go together, right?

Well, yes, they do. But experience has shown us that these bridges – the Bear Mountain, the Newburgh- Beacon, the Mid-Hudson, the Kingston-Rhinecliff and the Rip Van Winkle – are maintained in a high state of repair (the deck of the northern span of the Newburgh- Beacon needs replacement, but that is another story). They are plowed and sanded when they’re supposed to be. They are operated well and, I think, pretty efficiently. So what would combining the state Bridge Authority with the Thruway Authority accomplish, exactly?

My skeptical spidey sense tells me this: It would make it extremely easy to raise the tolls on the Bridge Authority bridges, and funnel that money into the maw of the Thruway Authority, including to help pay for the new Tappan Zee. Er, excuse me, the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge. We’ll pay more, the increase on the Tap will be a bit more palatable, and the things under the governor’s control continue to expand.

Friends, I am pretty sure that there is nothing the governor in the blue windbreaker can do to make the Bear Mountain operate more efficiently that isn’t already being done. Let us hope our political leaders sound the alarm. This is a heist, a wealth transfer from the mid-Hudson to the Thruway Authority. Plus, we’ll get worse service. New York state needs a lot of things. Breaking the things that already are working well is not one of those things.

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The departure of Andy Byford as head of the NYC Transit Authority is a big, huge deal. It jeopardizes the significant headway made in just two years in improving subway and bus service. Even worse, it puts at risk significant further progress.

It is true that the system is far larger than one man. But this is a loss, and a big one.

I wonder why he might have left? Oh, right, the governor wanted him out. He has better ideas, better plans.

This kind of help, remember – focusing on the glitzy, the new stations instead of the signals – is why the subways were in such a state to begin with. Alas.

So far in January, the record of breaking things is, well, almost unbroken!

Douglas Cunningham is editor of the Putnam County Courier and the PCNR, in Cold Spring. Reach him at 845-265-2468 or at editor@pcnr.com.

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