Posts Tagged → bike lane
New York City is dangerous and dirty
In the past three years I have had the unhappy necessity of visiting Manhattan a number of times for business and family. Last June was the last time I went, and hopefully the last time I have to be there until the place is cleaned up from top to bottom.
Last June I took the pickup to move our daughter out. She lived in New York City for eight years, from undergrad through dental school, and until the last couple of years she enjoyed her experience tremendously. But when we had loaded the last of her things into the bed of the truck, she got into the cab and said “I can’t wait to leave Manhattan. It’s so sad, because I used to love this place. But now it is dangerous and dirty and I want out. Let’s go.”
Manhattan is now looking like its worst days back in the 1970s and 1980s before Rudy Giuliani was elected mayor. Trash is blowing around everywhere, thugs hang out and loiter and saunter along every street and park bench, homeless bums are living in the parks and on building steps. People are being attacked on the sidewalks by demented mental patients prematurely released before their treatments are completed. People exit a restaurant and are immediately punched, kicked, and robbed by young people who laugh about it.
The police do nothing about this dangerous chaos because the Manhattan district attorney believes that holding criminals accountable for their violence and destruction is somehow mean, or wrong. And so the criminals now rule the streets, as an official policy.
The old Diamond District on 47th Street is a shell of its former self. A thousand years of jewelry making and watch making and world class talent all concentrated into one city block is now gone, because some communist in power decided that all this material excess violated some notion of “equity,” and so the jewelers and watchmakers were driven out. It is a sad ghost town now.
An old friend of mine who lives in Manhattan complained about how her own restaurants, which her architect husband had designed, and into which she had invested great amounts of time and money, were torched and looted in the riots of 2020. When I asked her if this destruction was a result of political failure, she went straight to blaming the Bad Orange Man. Who does not live in NYC, was not on city council or mayor of said city, and who had no control over the policing of Manhattan’s streets. It is impossible for me to understand the mental state of a person who appears sane but who reflexively blames their own mistakes on someone hundreds of miles away with no involvement in the matters that have made said person so unhappy.
So long as the citizens of New York City continue to believe they can vote for self-destructive policies and for the political candidates who promote them, and yet expect a different outcome than the mess we see, then Manhattan will continue to descend into madness and filth.
Making matters worse, the prior administration of mayor “Bill DeBlasio” (this is his fictitious name), had embarked on one of those “It only makes sense on paper and in terms of vague feelings” massive landscape changes. Such as turning streetside parking all over the city into un-used bike-only lanes and on-street dining for restaurants. Even going so far as to fill in empty spaces where people used to park with gigantic flower pots and concrete containers. Anything to make NYC unfriendly to car drivers.
This makes no sense, because Americans in general and visitors to New York City in particular still drive cars. But such is the power of blind ideology: “Because all cars are bad, then places to park cars must also be bad.” This is crazy stuff, and it has resulted in a congested city being even more congested, even less user friendly and less accessible than it used to be. Which was difficult enough. If this gigantic failure is how you measure success, then further natural failures will continue to follow. As we see even right now today, failure is considered success in Manhattan.
I am glad I do not live there and don’t have to go there.
The concrete planters need a place to park where cars should be able to park. Because “cars are bad”
Median areas that used to offer car parking and delivery vehicle offloading are now clogged with concrete in order to stop “bad cars”
Rental bikes lined up in the most expensive and colorful virtue signal possible. No one uses these. But someone somewhere feels good about the symbolism
An empty and unused bike lane where cars used to park. Cars still need parking spaces, but don’t expect to find them in Manhattan, where virtue signaling is most important
Go ahead and make sense of NYC’s parking regulations. Try.
Restaurants have fully enclosed “outdoor” dining in the street, where cars used to drive and park. The cars still need to drive and park. Just more congestion and more exhaust fumes trying to navigate all the pointless virtue signaling
Dave Schankweiler for Harrisburg Mayor
All politics is local, and while it is easy to talk about and pay attention most to the biggest political issues that play out on a national scale, the fact is, at the end of the day, much of our political life is determined by local government.
Therefore, David Schankweiler should be Harrisburg’s next mayor.
Because he is a successful entrepreneur with a fresh approach to solving Harrisburg’s seemingly intractable problems, Dave deserves a shot at contributing to Harrisburg’s seemingly endless recovery. Recovery from what, you ask?
Well, for many years Harrisburg has been dominated by just one political party that has implemented a disproven, debunked, and obviously failed set of ideas and practices. This nonstop assault on the citizens of Harrisburg has driven it deeper into financial and social failure, driven the best wage earners out of the high tax city, and made corruption a way of life among the political elites.
When Eric Papenfuse was a candidate, I asked him at a forum if he would get the $100 million criminal Harrisburg incinerator situation sorted out legally, and he said Yes, People Will Go To Jail for that. And then eight years later….Papenfuse failed to deliver. He did and said nothing. Nothing happened, there was no accountability. Why? Because Papenfuse craves to be part of the Harrisburg inner circle that pulled off that illegal scam heist in the first place. Papenfuse is not a reformer, or an agent for change, or an agent for the rule of law. He is a paid lackey, a hired gun, an enabler of criminal insider dealing.
Papenfuse has been questioned about some of his own real estate investments since he was elected mayor. Like using his office to damage local businesses so, it appears, he can buy up their property for cheap. He did the same thing with Mike Brenner, who leased a property to the City of Harrisburg Public Works Department. In that case, Papenfuse was over two years behind in rent, and then he refused to pay any rent, and then he tried to steal Brenner’s property through eminent domain. But a county judge stopped him in court. A mayor who doesn’t believe in the rule of law, who uses his mayor’s office for personal gain…this is not what elected office is about.
Frankly, Papenfuse is a crooked thug whose greatest claims to fame are reducing the number of road lanes for daily commuters into the city, so that bicyclists have their own lane….Right next to a pre-existing bike lane that was also in dis-use for lack of regular bicyclists. This has caused more car accidents and greater daily commuting delays, but Papenfuse has mindlessly punched that politically correct “green” box on his hit list against the citizens of Harrisburg.
While Harrisburg’s school district remains a national disgrace and catastrophe, there is not a whole lot that any mayor can do about it. The citizens and parents of that school district have to want it to be better, and they have to force the issue. A good mayor can help rally those parents and families of school children, but why would Papenfuse do that? He is in lockstep with the white liberal-run unions that have repeatedly burned the city’s school district to the ground for decades.
Schankweiler represents a breath of fresh air, a positive and professional face, voice, and an experienced hand. He is not an incumbent, he has no history of being owned by the various power brokers in the city, and being mayor of Harrisburg is not a lifetime appointment. Harrisburg needs a change for the better, and Schankweiler is it.
Please vote for Dave Schankweiler in the upcoming primary election.
