Monday, June 13, 2011

Delay Tactics?

The NY Daily News, commenting on the EDC ramp hearing of last week characterizes the fight for an honest traffic study as a "delay tactic." What's missing in the story., however, is that the delay that EDC has been forced to endure for the past year and a half has been as a result of its own dishonesty-and that the current effort of the development agency to go forward is a continuation of the same pattern of deceit.

Put simply, the same reason why this ramp application to the state has been delayed-shoddy consultant work that does violence to the truth-is now why WPU has called for an independent study of the ramps' impact on local roads and the Van Wyck. Mike Gerrard says it concisely and accurately:

"Willets Point United attorney Michael Gerrard said the city's environmental study "utterly lacked objectivity."

"The massive Willets Point project will destroy the ability of the Van Wyck Expressway to carry traffic any faster than a snail," Gerrard said after the city's Economic Development Corp. unveiled plans for the ramps at a public hearing Wednesday."

Is this true? Or shall the state step in and subject the city's application to an independent analysis? Clearly there was something amiss that led the state to send the original EDC ramp report back to the drawing board. Has it suddenly undergone a radically righteous makeover?

Hardly, as WPU's Brian Ketcham has pointed out. In fact there is nothing that has really changed in the equation aside from the fact that the SDOT has a new bobble head who appears to take her orders straight from William Street-where she recently received her pay check from.

All of this makes the upcoming hearing before Judge Madden very interesting indeed-and the judge may look at this entire effort with a jaundiced eye since the city seems to feel that it can act with impunity-and contrary to the judge's own decisions.

The reality here is that Kermit the Mayor is a big green hypocrite and is cooking the books in an attempt to force feed traffic onto all of the roads around his boondoggle. When the final chapter is finally written on the Bloomberg administration, Willets Point will be high on the list of blatant examples of dishonesty and hypocrisy.