What should I wish for, Mother?

A gentleman caller:

Administrators at St. Peter’s Girls High School have mandated that juniors wanting to attend the May 22 prom must be escorted by male companions.

Even students unaffected by the sudden policy change at the New Brighton school said they don’t understand the couples-only rule.

“I just heard about it now; they can’t go unless they have a date,” said senior Deanna Stropoli, 17, of Dongan Hills, who is attending tonight’s senior prom with a boyfriend. “I think it’s kind of messed-up. Some people aren’t going to be able to go.”

There is no such restriction on the senior prom.

School interim principal Florence Bricker wouldn’t comment this week on the policy, which is a change from previous years, and St. Peter’s R.C. Church Monsignor James Dorney said it was strictly a school matter.

Other Staten Island all-girls high schools polled by the Advance said yesterday they have no such policy for their junior proms.

The city Department of Education doesn’t have a formal policy governing proms at public schools, but a spokeswoman said yesterday that a dates-only dance would be “highly unlikely.”

“It wouldn’t happen in public schools — everyone’s invited,” said DOE spokeswoman Margie Feinberg, although she said prom arrangements are up to each school.

St. Peter’s always has declined to divulge its student numbers, but the total is thought to be less than 300. The couples-only policy might have been enacted with an eye to boosting attendance at the prom.

But seriously, who has a prom on a Thursday? When did that happen?

Why you would want to discourage someone from using technology that gets like 80 miles to the gallon, I don’t know:

The city’s scooter owners aren’t pleased with Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion-pricing plan. London’s system, on which New York’s is based, excludes scooters and motorcycles from fees, but here they’ll be charged half-fare, $4 (assuming they use a special E-Z Pass). “They’re addressing the problem backwards,” says Jonathan Perkel, a founder of the New York Scooter Club. “We’re part of the solution. In London, they exempted scooters, and people started riding them, and that took a lot of cars off the road.” He’s mad at Transportation Alternatives, the bicycle-advocacy group, which helped develop the proposal. “They’re not interested in any change that wouldn’t favor bicycles or mass transit,” Perkel says.

Because the sooner they get out, the more quickly they can become unemployed and start having children:

The policy would prevent eighth-graders from moving to high school if they score poorly on standardized English and math tests or fail to pass certain core classes. The teachers union, principals union, and parent groups have opposed it. Proposed by the mayor in his State of the City address, to be official the policy requires the approval of the Panel for Education Policy at its meeting tonight. Since Albany transferred control of the city schools to the mayor in 2002, the panel has never vetoed a mayoral policy.

Panel members — including the five appointed by the borough presidents and eight appointed by Mr. Bloomberg — have usually lined up behind proposals, ever since four years ago, when Mr. Bloomberg averted a veto by firing two appointees who were set to oppose a policy the night before the vote. That policy, cracking down on so-called social promotion by making it more difficult to move out of third grade, is a model for this one.

Manhattan’s representative, Patrick Sullivan, is set to vote against the eighth-grade policy today. In a statement, the president of Manhattan, Scott Stringer, said he asked Mr. Sullivan to vote no because retaining students “rarely works.”

I understand why parents would want to avoid challenging their children to become educated — and I even get why a borough president would prefer a dysfunctional school system — but what’s the deal with the unions? More kids staying in school more years means more jobs — win-win.

Or you could dangle a ridiculously generous incentive like free parking for hybrids:

New Yorkers who purchase hybrid cars would receive a novel perk under legislation proposed by Council Member Hiram Monserrate: free parking for a year.

“Obviously in the backdrop of global warming and $4-a-gallon fuel, the question is what we should do as a municipality to consume less,” Mr. Monserrate, who represents parts of Queens, said in an interview.

If the legislation passes, drivers with receipts for hybrid cars could apply for permits granting them the right to free use of parking meters for a year after their initial purchase.

According to Mr. Monserrate, the advantages of such a move would not be limited to the environment.

“It might help in a small way to activate new car sales, which I think is good for the economy. And no one can deny that it would be good for car dealers and the workers at the plants,” he said.

While the cost of the proposal was not immediately clear, Mr. Monserrate said tax revenue from increased car purchases could help pay for it.

“Whatever the city loses on a few quarters, we will gain in the city tax portion of purchasing a new vehicle,” he said.

Members of the City Council encourage the mayor to encourage the Port Authority to pay more to New York to offset the perverse benefit New Jersey drivers will get if congestion pricing is implemented. No, really:

City lawmakers want New Jersey drivers to pay up under the mayor’s plan to charge motorists to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street.

Currently, Garden State commuters are exempt under the congestion-pricing plan because they already pay a bridge or tunnel toll to get into the city.

But about 20 City Council members signed a letter asking Mayor Bloomberg to push for a Jersey fee — or get the Port Authority to contribute more to the city’s mass-transit network.

“We are concerned that the burden of paying for congestion pricing will fall too heavily on New York City residents,” the letter reads.

The problem with instituting congestion pricing is that to make it fair, you have to start charging everyone $8 to go anywhere:

The New York State Department of Transportation brought its second round of PlaNYC neighborhood parking workshops to Long Island City on Tuesday, where community members had a chance to weigh in on several parking options.

The DOT conducted its first round of meetings in November to assess the needs of several communities in the city and continue discussion about possible parking options to offset the potential effects of congestion pricing.

The second round of meetings explored four options in depth. Consultants from Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc. — the firm representing the DOT — also provided data from a recent parking study conducted in Long Island City.

Many western Queens residents said parking is already severely limited in their communities. Others fear congestion pricing would cause an influx of even more commuters who park their cars in the neighborhood and take the subway or the bus into Manhattan.

The recent study surveyed 343 residential parking spaces in Long Island City at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on the same day and at 5:30 a.m. the following morning.

According to the data, 60 percent of the vehicles seen at 6 p.m. were still in the same spots at 5:30 a.m. Out of the vehicles parked overnight, 47 percent were registered in the neighborhood, 55 percent were registered within Queens, 66 percent were registered within New York City and 82 percent were registered within New York State. Eighteen percent of the cars observed were registered out of state.

All four of the plans proposed on Tuesday focused discussion on the possible issuance of residential parking permits. The first would require a permit during designated hours (between 8 and 24). The second would require a permit only during a one- to two-hour period, which would mean non-permit holders would be forced to move their vehicles during that time.

The third option, a variation on the first, would have the same stipulations, but also allow commuters to purchase a permit for $8 a day. The fourth option, similarly a variation on the second, would also allow commuters to purchase a daily permit for $8.

“None of this has been decided,” noted consultant Scott Gierig, who emphasized that the purpose of the workshop was to gauge community response to each of the proposals.

Some City Council members are suspicious of a plan to allow more vegetable pushcart permits because of the competition it may create with bodegas that don’t even sell vegetables to begin with:

Under a bill introduced in December at the mayor’s request — with the backing of Council Speaker Christine Quinn — the city would issue 1,500 new permits for street pushcarts to sell just fruits and vegetables in “underserved communities.”

The carts would be confined to specific areas — identified by police precincts — and would be monitored by health inspectors and the police. Violations could lead to the seizure of carts and fines.

If approved by the Council, the measure will call for phasing in 750 permits per year for two years, with 500 earmarked for the Bronx, 500 for Brooklyn, 250 for Queens, 200 for Manhattan and 50 for Staten Island.

While commending the health goal, participants in a hearing by the Consumer Affairs Committee questioned whether the green carts would hurt neighborhood supermarkets, bodegas and greengrocers.

The skeptics suggested other alternatives, such as allowing stores to set up their own fresh fruit and vegetable stands outside their premises, or providing tax incentives.

“It is going to cause harm,” said Councilman Miguel Martinez (D-Manhattan).

Councilman John Liu (D-Queens) questioned whether “this green cart proposal actually makes sense.”

“Maybe we should be licensing vendors to sell suits outside, and lingerie,” scoffed Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn).

And Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) cited the warring interests of merchants and street peddlers.

“Welcome to the politics of food,” he said.

How stupid are New Yorkers? Not only can a cupcake store clear more than enough to pay its $30,000-plus rent but it can open a second Manhattan location, too:

There are few small businesses that can comfortably afford a $400,000-per-year lease in Manhattan.

There are even fewer ones that can do so selling cupcakes.

Magnolia Bakery, the West Village destination well-known for its butter cream-frosted baked goods, celeb appeal and its cameo in SNL’s “Lazy Sunday” digital short, has recently opened a second domain on 200 Columbus Ave. at West 69th Street. Owner Steve Abrams, who is a 20-year Upper West Side veteran, always believed the neighborhood could embrace the business, but didn’t quite anticipate the orders when it opened its doors on Jan. 19.

“It’s been beyond expectations. Opening day, we ran out of product,” Abrams said. “I think the volumes are going to be very similar [to downtown]. Just the way they manifest will be different. Downtown is touristy. . . . . They’re not buying a dozen cupcakes. Here it’s all families. People buy in bulk.”

A) Who steals a nativity scene? B) Would they really then hold it for ransom? Many questions, few answers:

The Bayside Business Association’s Bell Boulevard Nativity display was stolen Dec. 28, marking the first theft of the organization’s creche in the five years it has been available for public viewing.

BBA President Judy Limpert said she noticed it had disappeared Saturday after seeing it at 41-16 Bell Blvd. just the day before. The small building sits across from a small Northfork Bank office and alongside the Bayside Long Island Railroad station

. . .

Limpert said the all-white resin figures were not particularly heavy, but had cost about $250.

Although she said the association would buy another display if necessary, the BBA head said she still held out hope the perpetrators would simply return the item.

“If the reason for taking it was some kind of political statement, then we’re willing to talk,” she said.

Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside) renewed efforts last month to convince the DOE to permit nativity displays alongside the menorah and star and crescent in schools for holiday displays; current DOE policy bars the appearance of deities in schools.

Limpert also said that if the theft was a matter of need, accommodation could be reached. “If they took it for their own use, we will donate one to them.”

The point of charging people who ride in a taxi an extra dollar is what exactly? To make it less desireable to ride in a cab? No, the point is to lower asthma rates:

Hailing a cab in the city’s proposed congestion zone could add a dollar to the fare if a state commission’s recommendation is sent to Albany and the City Council for approval.

The Congestion Mitigation Commission is set to recommend today four scenarios for the implementation of the mayor’s congestion pricing plan, which would charge drivers about $8 to enter and drive in most of Manhattan during peak hours.

One scenario would charge taxi passengers $1 for trips that originate below 60th Street.

Now that an ambitious expansion of the Javits Center is all but dead, maybe we should reconsider that subway stop:

Two years after the Far West Side was rezoned for large-scale development, a growing number of elected officials, environmentalists and community groups are questioning the city’s and state’s plans for the area.

The city has set aside $2.1 billion for the extension of the No. 7 line from Times Square to the Javits Convention Center and the West Side railyards, the rights to which the Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to auction off for high-rise residential and commercial development. But in an effort to stay within the budget, the city recently eliminated one of two stops along the 1.1-mile extension from the current tunneling contract.

Representative Jerrold Nadler; the city comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr.; and other officials said in a Dec. 19 letter to Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff that it was “imperative” that the city build that subway station, at 10th Avenue and 41st Street, as part of the extension, work on which began last month. Not doing so, they said, would “represent a failure to the area’s growing residential population” and “puts at risk several million square feet of potential commercial and residential development.”

Those officials suggested financing the station by diverting money from projects that could be put on hold temporarily, like building a tree-lined boulevard between 10 and 11th Avenues, from 34th to 39th Streets. Those projects are part of the city’s larger vision for rebuilding the Far West Side.

A tree-lined boulevard? Where did that come from?

How could a subway extension project with only one stop be cut back any further? It’s possible:

The MTA and the city are moving ahead with a planned extension of the No. 7 subway line to the Javits Convention Center, but much of the original project may be scrapped to stay on budget, officials said yesterday.

The agency is expected next week to approve a $1.1 billion contract to dig the extension from Times Square west to 11th Avenue, then downtown to a terminal at 34th Street.

Not only will plans for a stop at 41st Street and 11th Avenue be eliminated, but the MTA may not even build a planned shell for a future station.

. . .

Normally, the MTA wouldn’t spend $2.1 billion to add a single station, but the city is footing the bill as part of its development of the West Side rail yards.

There is an option to build the station shell for $500 million more, but the MTA would be responsible for overruns and doesn’t have the money. Transit advocates called the decision to possibly eliminate the station a grave error.

“The real irony is that there are many more homes and businesses near the 10th Avenue station than near the Javits station,” said MTA board member Andrew Albert. “The bottom line is this is going to cost us a lot more later.”

Broadway producers look for that lucrative tween market, which obviously has more cash than it knows what to do with:

For Broadway producers, 10-year-old Jamie Carroll looks like an ideal theatergoer: she downloads scores off of iTunes, is a fervent proselytizer when she likes something and has lots of friends, two of whom she brought along to a recent Saturday matinee of “Legally Blonde.” “A lot of my friends say it’s the best musical they’ve ever seen,” she said.

Maybe. But Jamie’s father and her 14-year-old brother would not join them, considering the show too girly. Even her mother, Tacey Carroll, was only present as a chaperon: “This is a little more for them,” she said, echoing several other mothers at the theater, one of whom even dropped off her young charges and went shopping.

And that’s the rub for Broadway producers, for whom teenage and tween girls have become the demographic of the moment, wooed by marketing campaigns and featured as central characters in a flurry of shows in development, including “13,” about a teenager from New York who is transplanted to Indiana; “Princesses,” which is basically “High School Musical” meets “Gossip Girl”; and a musical adaptation of the movie “Clueless.”

Increasingly, though, some worry that the sugar-and-spice enthusiasm may be misplaced, because while teenagers and tweens may be helpful in creating a hit, they are far from enough to ensure one. For that, you still need grown-ups — lots of paying grown-ups — to want to come to a show.

*Just kidding, Mr. Mamet! We can’t wait for that Duran Duran thing to end to see your next play staged!

This is fancified lawyerspeak for what exactly? A cab driver’s right to unencumbered privacy? Who knows:

Officials with a taxi-driver advocacy group and the Taxi & Limousine Commission are slated to meet today with a federal judge after the drivers’ group filed a class action lawsuit Wednesday to keep global positioning technology out of the city’s 13,000 yellow cabs.

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which orchestrated a two-day strike earlier this month, and eight individual drivers filed the suit against the commission, saying the GPS technology is unconstitutional. A lawyer for the plaintiffs said the opposing parties were to meet in court Thursday at noon.

If no resolution is reached, cabbies may strike again, the alliance said.

. . .

Of the eight individual plaintiffs, six allege that they refused to sign a contract with one of four vendors of the GPS technology. They now face costly penalties and suspension of their medallions, according to the suit. The other two argue they would have to pay for the equipment even though one leases the cab, and the other owns his cab but not the medallion.

“We will fight any attempt by the TLC to encumber our client’s property without due process or which violates our client’s right to privacy under the guise of improving taxi service,” Richard Koehler, the alliance’s attorney, said in a statement.

Tom Robbins outlined some legitimate sounding reasons to oppose the GPS requirement — so how come we get platitudes about privacy rights? They should stick with the facts, assuming that what Robbins reported is correct:

After cab owners began installing the devices in their taxis this year, drivers noted other problems as well: The gadgets often didn’t work. Apparently, there were blackout areas in the city where the credit-card machinery failed to kick in. This resulted in the taxi meters instantly shutting down as well. In the taxi business, a nonworking meter is the equivalent of a “closed” sign hanging in a restaurant window.

. . .

One of the approved vendors, a startup New Jersey firm, has had no experience in taxis or anything else. Another is a Queens company that already services taxi meters and whose wireless credit-card units were panned when originally introduced. Another firm is co-owned by Ronald Sherman, the head of the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, the group that represents the powerful taxi-fleet owners. When the commission originally said it was going to make the equipment mandatory in all cabs, Sherman complained at a public hearing that it would be too expensive. Then he realized that wouldn’t be a problem if he started his own company to provide the units. This he promptly did. Amazingly, his was one of those the commission approved.

The commission’s experts never even examined the product of a British company, Cabvision, whose credit-card and wireless-communication units are already working in 1,000 London taxis. The British proposal was especially intriguing because it offered to provide and install the units for free, just as it does in London.

Unfortunately, the Cabvision proposal was rejected after it was deemed to have missed the deadline. Company owners protested that they’d been assured by taxi-commission officials that a one-day delay in transoceanic mail wouldn’t be a problem. Then it turned out that the agency’s chief contracting officer had opened and read the proposal, even though it is against all the rules to do so once a submission has been rejected for tardiness. Commission officials apologized for the slipup and promised to send the proposal back. When last heard from, the British firm was still waiting for the package.

This somehow qualifies as news at the Post? Someone did something horrifically horrible but we won’t say where because it’s just too horrible:

A crude and tasteless Web site that claims 9/11 was “funny” and the victims “deserved what they got” has provoked a storm of criticism.

The site features a series of heartless jokes, cartoons, and vile photos that make light of the disaster.

Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick J. Lynch blasted the site as “crude, vulgar, hurtful and unpatriotic.”

“The police officers who sacrificed their lives that day, and every day, do so to ensure the freedom of speech that this Web site insults,” he said.

“America’s greatness lies in the tolerance of crap like this - where those responsible would be summarily executed for this kind of offense in a terrorist country.”

The Webmaster, who identifies himself only as “Henry” and “Hank Tom,” invites people to send him hate mail via e-mail or a message board — and many have obliged.

“You better hope we never meet in real life,” wrote one distressed Web surfer. “What happened to people on 9/11 isn’t anything compared to what I will do to you.”

There was no information on the identity of the ghoul who set up the site.

(The Daily News fills in the details.)

Better get all your spending in now because things might not look so good down the road:

City budget officials say they are seeing signs that the soaring revenues of the last several years are coming to an end, and they have begun preparing for belt-tightening in the months ahead.

The anticipated falloff is due in large part to lower expected profits on Wall Street and a projected decline in large real estate transactions.

“The economies of our world and our city are cyclical, and it looks like, sadly, we’re going from one of growth to one of hopefully not decline, but certainly nowhere near as much growth, if any,” Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday at a news conference on the Brooklyn waterfront.

Officials in Mr. Bloomberg’s administration have often warned of shortfalls that never materialized. But this time around, said Mark Page, the city’s budget director, continued fallout in the financial services industry from the national mortgage crisis and recent losses at hedge funds are likely to significantly cut into profits on Wall Street this year.

In turn, that means less tax revenue for the city, and lower real estate transaction fees — an unusually rich source of revenue in recent years — as fewer fat bonuses fuel high-end apartment shopping sprees.

In addition, Mr. Page said, city officials had already been projecting lower revenue from real estate transactions in the current fiscal year than in the year that ended in June because they predicted fewer large deals like the $5.4 billion purchase of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.

. . .

Although city officials are not yet predicting an economic downturn, the city is already looking to rein in costs. About 10 days ago, Mr. Bloomberg sent a letter to all agencies seeking to limit new hiring and warning that budget cuts may be necessary in the coming months.

“As a practical matter, if you start trying to squeeze down marginal spending sooner, you don’t have to jam them down as much to save the money you need,” Mr. Page said in explaining the move.

In the letter, the mayor said he had asked Mr. Page to “closely scrutinize all agency hiring.”

“It is easier and more prudent to tightly manage headcount now, rather than face staff reductions in the future,” Mr. Bloomberg wrote.

(Diane Cardwell is relentless . . . who’s feeding her this? Is her husband still advising President Clinton? The Hillary juggernaut rolls over all the opposition!)

(OK, OK, so that’s paranoid — but if you want to investigate the mayor’s record she really is a good place to start.)

In an era where people are eager to find new ways to compromise their privacy, it’s difficult to see how striking over ostensible civil liberties concerns will appeal to the masses of people who only care about getting across town:

New York cabbies are threatening to go on strike for two days next month — an action that could wreak havoc across the city.

The union representing Yellow Cab drivers said yesterday cabbies should strike for 48 hours to protest Taxi and Limousine Commission orders that they put Global Positioning System devices in their cars.

Cabbies claim the devices rob them of privacy by letting the city track their movements, and cost them money.

“This is an issue that is affecting every single taxi driver on the street,” said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of strike organizers the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. “I have never seen drivers this angry before.”

The union yesterday told drivers to stop work for 48 hours starting at 5 a.m. Sept. 5, unless an agreement is reached before then.

The last time city streets were emptied of yellow was in May 1998, when an estimated 11,500 of the 12,187 licensed cabbies stayed home. That strike, also led by Desai, aimed to take on then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to introduce more ironfisted rules for licensing cabbies.

The city’s Office of Emergency Management yesterday confirmed it was drawing up a contingency plan to ease chaos the strike could cause.

Remember, even the TWU couched their arguments in terms of “preserving health care for all working Americans” and look what that got them.

But at least one of the taxi driver unions gets that:

In competing Manhattan press conferences yesterday afternoon, rival advocacy groups said that (1) there could be a citywide taxi strike in September, and (2) there would not be a strike.

. . .

“We are ready to have a 48-hour strike on Sept. 5 and Sept. 6,” said Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, as she stood near a line of taxis outside Pennsylvania Station. “We are ready, willing and able to walk out.”

The Taxi Workers Alliance said in a press release that it wants to work out a resolution with the Taxi and Limousine Commission to avert a strike.

Two hours later, Fernando Mateo, a spokesman for the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, said no walkout was ahead.

Standing in front of the Taxi and Limousine Commission office on Rector Street in Lower Manhattan, he said: “Read my lips: There will be no strike.”

. . .

Ms. Desai said drivers had also complained that they were required to pay 5 percent of credit card fares to their garages as a service fee, and that meters sometimes malfunction when they are connected to global positioning systems.

Mr. Mateo praised the credit card systems, saying they would encourage more trips and higher tips. He dismissed concerns about the tracking systems.

“We don’t have to be radicals,” he said. “You want privacy, you don’t drive a cab.”

“Ready, Willing and Able” — nice way to co-opt a good cause! That’s Bush-like!

Earlier: Privacy Concerns — Quaint Like A Checker Cab.

So if New York City spends $223 million on a congestion-pricing pilot project, the federal government will provide money for bus lanes and bus depots:

The federal government said on Tuesday that it would provide $354 million for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s broad plan to reduce traffic, but left it to the city to come up with more than $200 million needed for the most controversial part of the plan: a system to charge people who drive into Manhattan.

In addition, under the agreement outlined by the United States secretary of transportation, Mary E. Peters, the release of the funds is contingent upon the City Council’s and the State Legislature’s approving the plan, including the new fee on drivers, by next March.

The announcement was mixed news for Mr. Bloomberg, who is trying to establish the first broad-based congestion pricing program in the country, and to raise his national profile on environmental issues. While the federal support helps to advance his initiative, it is now up to the mayor to find the money — through borrowing, appropriation, or perhaps from a private corporation — for what has been seen as the centerpiece of the plan, the new charge on drivers.

In its federal application, the city estimated that it would cost $223 million to install a computerized system to monitor traffic and impose the fee on cars entering the busiest parts of Manhattan, and asked the United States to cover $179 million of that. But the Department of Transportation said it would contribute only $10 million to that initiative. Most of what the department agreed to provide on Tuesday is designated for the construction of bus depots and other mass transit improvements.

Mr. Bloomberg, at a press conference in the Bronx shortly after the announcement, played down the lack of federal money for congestion pricing.

“I think that rather than look at the money we didn’t get, we should look at the money we did get,” he said. “It’s a unique opportunity for New York, and we should really say, thank you.”

When tragedy hits, use it:

In the wake of the fatal collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis, news reports about the poor condition of the Brooklyn Bridge have brought fears of that tragedy close to home.

The iconic bridge was one of only three run by the New York City Department of Transportation to be given a poor rating in the city’s latest annual bridge report card, according to a report by the New York Times. Despite this rating, the bridge was still deemed safe by city officials. Another crucial piece of Brooklyn’s infrastructure, the Gowanus Expressway, was not included in the report, but is in serious disrepair.

To those carefully observing the state of the Gowanus Expressway, which runs along Third Avenue in Bay Ridge, it is increasingly clear that the 45-year-old structure was not intended to sustain today’s heavy traffic load.

“[The structure] is totally inadequate to handle the weight and volume of traffic that it’s getting now,” said Buddy Scotto, who co-founded the Gowanus Expressway Community Coalition. Scotto added that every time an 18-wheeler hits the airbrakes, it takes off half the concrete.

And then there’s the one-hand-clapping sort of riddle about cars and trucks that enter Staten Island but never leave it:

In late 1980s, a federal highway bill was passed that included a provision that eliminated the Verrazano Bridge’s inbound toll while doubling the price of the outbound toll.

JoAnne Simon, former chair of the Gowanus Community Stakeholders Group and current state committeewoman from the 52nd Assembly District is concerned about the volume of trucks that ride the Gowanus after a free pass on the Verrazano. “One-way toll on the Verrazano encourages extra traffic,” she said, emphasizing that trucks ride it “to save about $40 a day.”

A two-way toll would “reduce concentration on the Gowanus,” Ben Meskin, who found the Gowanus Coalition with Scotto, said. “There will always be bad traffic, but you have to spread it out,” he added.

Is there a special non-tolled route through Staten Island that the rest of us don’t know about?

In a time when security cameras and EZPass technology — not to mention whatever they’re planning with congestion pricing — are so ubiquitous arguing that GPS technology somehow invades your privacy seems like a stretch:

Taxi drivers on a collision course with the city over new tracking technology and credit card payment systems may play the strike card today.

The Taxi Alliance is widely expected to warn that medallion cabbies will walk off the job Sept. 1 if the Taxi and Limousine Commission holds to its plan to install the new gear in their hacks.

The 8,400-member Alliance has been moving toward a strike declaration for months.

“If the City Council and Mayor Bloomberg continue to stay silent as drivers’ privacy and economics are trampled on, we will strike,” Alliance Executive Director Bhairavi Desai said yesterday.

The TLC said the Global Positioning System tracking devices are meant to be used only to help cabbies get around the city, reunite passengers with lost belongings and perhaps catch criminals who prey on cabbies.

But drivers say the system will invade their privacy, create a new breed of backseat drivers who disagree with GPS directions and cost them money.

Striking over technological changes that actually encourage consumers to use their service more — nice bargaining tactic. Even the TWU didn’t have such a bad public relations position to begin from (it’s about health care for all Americans!) and look where they got.

Those who block the box are indeed vile scum but is it really possible just to change the infraction from a “moving” to a “nonmoving” violation (they’re still moving, right?)? Or maybe no one cares* . . . this, as Hizzoner’s War on Congestion rolls along unimpeded:

Ticketing drivers who block intersections would become much easier under a plan announced yesterday by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg as part of a broader attack on traffic congestion.

At the same time, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city is adding 117 enforcement agents to direct traffic at busy intersections throughout the city.

Under the proposal to deter drivers from blocking an intersection, the infraction, now a moving violation, would be reclassified as a nonmoving violation to simplify issuing tickets, the mayor said. The change, which requires Albany approval, would allow traffic enforcement agents to issue tickets to be mailed later by entering a license plate number into a handheld device. Currently, only police officers and a small number of enforcement agents can issue summonses, which must be given out at the scene.

The new system would reduce the severity of the offense, which now carries a $90 fine and two points on a driver’s license. Under the new proposal, a driver would not incur points but would face a fine of $115. Authorizing all agents (there are currently 2,800) to issue tickets would sharply increase enforcement, officials said.

“One of the major causes of gridlock occurs when drivers decide to cross an intersection even though there is no room for them on the other side,” the mayor said at a Times Square news conference. With the changes, he added, “we’ll be able to increase the number of tickets we issue, which will ultimately discourage more people from breaking the law.”

*Q: Is that legal? A: Do I care?

The idea that an arbitration panel is to blame for what seems more and more like the worst contract ever* seems hard to believe:

With city cops among the worst-paid police in the nation, NYPD officers are increasingly turning down promotions to sergeant — because the pay raise isn’t big enough.

Under the contract imposed by a state arbitration panel in 2005, rookie cops are paid $25,100 a year while in the academy. Their maximum base pay tops out at $59,588 after seven years.

Cops promoted to the rank of sergeant earn just $61,093 — not even $2,000 a year more to compensate them for the increased responsibilities.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said yesterday the pay scale has had “significant ramifications.”

“What’s happened is all the raises have been compacted. They’ve been stretched out. So the desirability . . . of moving ahead in the ranks has been, I think, impacted,” Kelly said.

Of the 20,867 officers eligible to take the Feb. 3 sergeant exam, only 3,856 sat for the test — and just 255 passed.

By comparison, 7,154 of 22,927 eligible officers took the test in December 2003, the last time it was offered before the current police contract was imposed. From that pool, 1,729 became sergeants.

. . .

A cop who recently passed the sergeant exam said he considered not taking the test because of the poor pay. “It’s like, what’s the point?” he said.

The reluctance of many cops to seek a promotion comes as officers are leaving the NYPD in large numbers for other departments that pay more.

And the best news:

City Hall and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association are battling over a new contract. But the talks broke down repeatedly, and the negotiations are now in arbitration.

*See also, for example.

What if instead of engaging in tragedy carpetbagging Al Sharpton held press conferences decrying douchebag cops who take advantage of their position in order to flood vulnerable communities with pounds and pounds of cocaine? I know, I know — not pathetic enough:

A crooked cop pleaded guilty yesterday to chauffeuring his bad-news brother on cocaine deliveries and picking up dirty cash for a Bronx drug ring — all while brazenly toting his NYPD-issued gun along for protection.

Disgraced former Manhattan Transit Officer José Torrado, 31, admitted in Manhattan federal court that he drove his brother, Edwin, on drug deliveries and picked up the drug money between 2002 and 2005.

He quietly hammered out a plea deal with prosecutors last month.

Torrado’s role in the illicit operation surfaced after his brother and four other ring members were busted in September 2005, when authorities seized 135 kilograms of cocaine — worth about $4 million on the street — that had been stashed behind a false wall of a truck in The Bronx.

Torrado was a transit cop for five years before he was forced out last November.

Councilmember Tony Avella won’t take the pay raise the Council voted itself. Something about “principle”:

After denouncing a recent pay hike for his colleagues, Queens Councilman Tony Avella said yesterday he won’t accept the $22,500 raise to his current $90,000 salary.

“For me this was a matter of principle, and I believe in putting my money where I put my mouth,” he said.

But he admits, “My wife isn’t too happy.

Previously, the maverick Democrat had said he was considering accepting the raise but donating the money to charity. Had he done that, he could have boosted his tax deduction for charitable contributions and also hiked the eventual value of his pension, which is pegged on gross earnings.

I don’t get it — what’s the point of grandstanding then?

It’s hard to fathom why a Councilmember representing Staten Island would be trying to make it more difficult to get to Saten Island, but thankfully apparently nothing will come of the proposal to start charging tourists to ride the Staten Island Ferry:

One of New York’s few free rides could be sunk by the city government’s desire for new revenue.

City Council member James Oddo wants to start charging tourists who take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry.

“It’s a way of taking the burden off New Yorkers,” said Mr. Oddo, a Republican who represents Staten Island, said. “How much do tourists pay for the Circle Line?”

At Mr. Oddo’s urging, the city’s Independent Budget Office recently released a report called the “Estimate of Revenues and Costs of Staten Island Ferry ‘Tourist’ Fares.”

The report examined fares at $1, $2, $3 and $4, while taking into consideration the extra costs that the program would incur, such as adding ticket vending machines and gates. The report also assumed that annual ridership would decline as fares rose.

About 57,000 riders take the Staten Island Ferry each week. Of those, about 41,000 are Staten Island residents.

According to the report, fare revenues would exceed costs and create a surplus at every dollar increment above $1. At $2, the city would profit about $4 million a year; at $3 about $7 million a year; and at $4 about $10 million a year.

. . .

The Staten Island Ferry became one of the few commuter ferries in the country to offer unlimited free rides in 1997 when a 50 cent fare was tossed to the wayside by Mayor Giuliani in what was seen as a reward by the Republican mayor to one of the only reliably Republican parts of New York City. Presently, the estimated annual budget of the New York City Department of Transportation for the ferry is about $80 million.

Previously: But Then Who Would Ride The Ferry?

Borough Presidents . . . what is it they do again? Perhaps they discuss that very issue when they get together:

The five New York City borough presidents agree on many issues: The need for more affordable housing; their common struggle to control development and traffic in their communities, and their desire to preserve their office budgets from further cuts.

. . .

All five chief executives — Staten Island’s James P. Molinaro, Marty Markowitz of Brooklyn, Adolfo Carrion of the Bronx, Helen Marshall of Queens and newly elected Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer — gathered yesterday in the Roadhouse restaurant in Sunnyside [Staten Island] for one of their semi-regular meetings.

God willing, the lines at the Shake Shack may get a lot shorter now:

The Shake Shack in Madison Square Park — famed for stellar reviews and airport-length lines — has been hit by the city Heath Department with 15 violations that total an astounding 140 points, officials said.

A passing grade is 27 points or less.

The violations include vermin, evidence of flying insects, food-handling workers sneezing, coughing and failing to wash their hands after visiting the toilet, contamination of food and food kept too warm.

. . .

The news left diners a bit shaky.

“I don’t usually eat meat, but I decided to get a burger,” said a woman who asked not to be identified. “It’s really distressing because I know people that work for this organization, and they’re fabulous.”

“This is my third time,” said Jeemin Lee, 27, a student from Atlanta. “It’s in the park, they have good prices, and they don’t use frozen meat. But if it’s dirty, then I definitely won’t come back here.”

This, however, is just poking your finger in the 80% lean raw patty of fate:

Some customers aren’t bothered by the fuss.

“I’ll probably come back,” said frequent diner Stefanie Chinn from Manhattan. “I haven’t gotten sick yet.”

“Yet” . . .

Hizzoner says that the 505 surveillance cameras going up around the city are not meant to catch terrorists more than they are there to nab petty criminals. Is that supposed to make anyone feel better?

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said yesterday that the main purpose of the 505 surveillance cameras soon to pop up in 253 spots around the city is to fight everyday street crime rather than catch terrorists.

“The crime that we worry about day in and day out mostly is street crime,” he told reporters during a news conference. “That’s what we’ve got to bring down.”

Bloomberg said the likelihood of a terrorist attack is hopefully lessened because of the city’s prevention measures, intelligence-gathering and counterterrorism work.

The surveillance cameras, which will be installed in high-traffic, high-crime areas, are key to combating street crime, the mayor said.

“When there is a crime committed, one of the first things the police do is look in the neighborhood and see if there’s a camera in a store that’s been running, that may catch the perpetrator,” Bloomberg added.

Fair enough — I don’t mind them getting a little Big Brother on us if it can help them figure out who busted my windshield — but isn’t the idea of a Homeland Security grant to focus on the whole problem of wackos with bombs? Or maybe I’m naive for assuming that’s what they’d use it for:

At about $18,000 per camera, the total system will cost in excess of $9.1 million, to be funded with federal homeland security grants, said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly during a hearing before the City Council Public Safety Committee Tuesday.

Police are now in the process of picking a contractor to install the cameras — closed-circuit televisions that will likely not be monitored in real time but will provide footage for police to scour after a crime happens.

Meant to act as a deterrent as well, the cameras will be highly visible under signs reading: “Area Under NYPD Video Surveillance.”

And not to get all, you know, ACLU about it, but people on Staten Island don’t have even the slightest pretext that these have anything to do with terrorism:

Many [cameras] come courtesy of the borough’s most avid proponent of surveillance cameras, Councilman James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn), who has allocated nearly $1.5 million toward them. He funded cameras that now record the bustle in six public schools. A $35,000 surveillance system he funded for the Jewish Community Center in Sea View helped catch two teen-agers who set fire to center property in December 2004.

Oddo reported that the city Housing Authority has given him the go-ahead to install closed-circuit televisions in the Berry Houses and South Beach Houses. He is now working on getting the money through City Council capital funds.

Councilman Michael McMahon (D-North Shore) offered his own list of hot spots yesterday, mostly delis and other retail operations that have become the focal point of drug deals and other crime.

His suggested sites include the Arlington Terrace Apartments, the corner of Brabant Street and Harbor Road in Mariners Harbor, a stretch of Richmond Terrace in Port Richmond where prostitution has been reported and Castleton Avenue at the corner of Port Richmond Avenue in Port Richmond and the corner of Broadway in West Brighton.

Schools, public housing, parks — you get the idea what these cameras are really used for. And with the mayor saying flatly that is what they’re used for, well, there you go.

Parole officers argue that Total Quality Management techniques aren’t necessarily applicable to every work environment:

A detailed questionnaire that allows felons to judge the performance of their parole officers has the officers up in arms, claiming the ex-jailbirds are in no position to evaluate their work.
The survey, a rough draft of which was obtained by The Post, asks ex-convicts about their employment status, drug use, living arrangements and how well their parole officers work with them — a query that makes the officers livid.

“Do you know what a field day these violent felons, these vicious criminals are going to have?” asked an incredulous Parole Officer Manuelita Clemente, a council leader with Division 236 of the Public Employees Federation.

. . .

According to law-enforcement sources, the questionnaire was e-mailed to regional directors and area supervisors from parole administrators in Albany late last week.

Sources also said the opinion polls will be distributed in waiting rooms of parole facilities, allowing ex-cons to fill the sheets out before their visits with the officers.

. . .

Among the queries that have parole officers steamed are: “My parole officer cared whether I completed parole . . . yes or no” and “Was the parole officer very interested in your problems on a scale of 1 (no) to 5 (yes).”

“I am not supposed to be interested in them; my job is to supervise them,” said one parole boss who found that question particularly offensive.

“Some” (read: the New York Sun) are questioning how much New York spends on clergy for its city jails:

The case of New York’s embattled jailhouse imam, Umar Abdul-Jalil, is causing some to call into question the existence and size of the city’s prison chaplain program, which costs taxpayers more than $1 million a year.

As top city officials decide whether to fire Abdul-Jalil for his remarks to a conference of Muslim students last year, the case has raised questions about the city’s use of taxpayer funds to provide chaplains for inmates in municipal jails. The city’s Department of Correction employs 21 full-time and 19 part-time chaplains from the Muslim, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish faiths.

Critics have suggested that the city’s employment of clergy is a misuse of taxpayer dollars when other major municipalities, including Los Angeles and Chicago, rely on volunteer chaplains to serve their inmates. The city, which has employed clergy in its jails for decades, says a volunteer-based program would not work for the around-the-clock needs of its jail system.

. . .

At a conference in April 2005, Abdul-Jalil said the “greatest terrorists in the world occupy the White House” and urged Muslims in America to “stop letting the Zionists of the media dictate what Islam is to us.” The imam also said that Muslims were tortured in a city jail.

. . .

In Los Angeles County, which at 21,000 inmates has the nation’s largest municipal prison system, chaplains provide ministerial services entirely on a volunteer basis, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department, Steve Whitmore, said. The same is true for about 9,000 inmates in Cook County, Ill., which serves Chicago.

New York City, meanwhile, allocates $879,395 a year to pay the salaries of its 21 full-time chaplains, according to the mayor’s preliminary budget. That does not include the costs of benefits such as health care or pensions, nor the compensation for part-time chaplains and administrators such as Abdul-Jalil, who made $76,602 as the department’s director of ministerial services.