I promise you that cutting MTA's budget won't magically cause it to reform by itself. The MTA needs major structural reform to address underlying structural issues, but that's a plodding years-long process with lots of political bargaining that needs to be driven by pols who are willing to take on a messy fight. Cutting the budget without reform in place is going to make MTA take the easy route to cutting costs: cutting service.

And they're completely free to completely ignore you because they're not democratically elected officials.

Article text please?

Apparently there's a five alarm fire in West New York, NJ that's burned multiple buildings. That's all I could find so that's most likely it. I can smell it on the UES also.

https://abc7ny.com/fire-west-ny-five-alarm-row-of-businesses/12785700/

Because construction costs are out of control. And also because NIMBYs can still stop projects via elected officials.

Sure, it's not an end all be all and I'm not even saying I'm on board with the idea necessarily. I'm just taking issue with the idea that it would be a bunch of bureaucrats in a far off place that wouldn't know what's going on.

Who says they wouldn't be local people? The federal government already employs locally-focused community officials all over the country. They would just have the authority of the federal government.

In theory it's supposed to give "local control" over developments that occur in a neighborhood by proxy of their elected representative. In reality, it often becomes a mechanism by which NIMBYs can stop or stall development. In this case, it did end up getting positive concessions even if that's not what the CM was actually trying to accomplish. But that seems like an exception rather than the rule.

I tend to agree with you, consistent rules that both encourage development and bring the kinds of development people are interested in seeing should displace such a bureaucratic process.

Yeah the crews that put down white paint are completely different than the crews that put down all the other stuff. Their schedules aren't perfectly aligned so there's usually a short gap in completing the work.

Here's an example of the finished product.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/2Ty9cbiDHVhpjerSA

Also this thread is a perfect example of people thinking they're smarter than they actually are.

Yeah, expanding roads always works. 🙄 We can look like Houston with freeways everywhere and still have traffic!