Be Suspicious When A Politician Says He Or She Only Wants To Help The Children . . . Or The Environment (Or In Sheldon Silver’s Case, Both!)

So when Assembly Speaker Silver says that the health benefits of congestion pricing “aren’t clear,” what he really means is “there’s no way we’re going to allow you to collect hundreds of millions of dollars, no strings attached, like that troll Robert Moses sitting under the Triborough Bridge,” which in turn can be boiled down to the snappy slogan “Manhattan below 86th Street is not your own little private Triborough Bridge”:

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, in his strongest language yet against Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to charge people who drive into the most congested parts of Manhattan during the day, questioned the health benefits of the proposal yesterday. He also suggested that many of the environmental goals Mr. Bloomberg has outlined could be accomplished without congestion pricing.

His comments suggested that two hours of testimony by Mayor Bloomberg at an Assembly hearing on Friday had not swayed the Democrats who control the chamber. Mr. Silver even seemed to outline new concerns, saying that the plan could actually hurt areas with high asthma rates.

“The children of the South Bronx, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Harlem, among others, are the ones who have been exposed to a lot of pollutants,” he said. Not only would those neighborhoods not benefit from the plan, he said, “some of those areas will become parking lots with people driving around the neighborhoods looking for parking spots in order to avoid congestion pricing fees.”

“There is a plan that can be put together that would obviously alleviate the environmental negativism of what takes place in Manhattan right now,” he said, but added that it could be done “with or without” congestion pricing.

. . .

But Mr. Silver’s remarks underscored that he may once again serve as the mayor’s foil in Albany. His opposition doomed the mayor’s plan to build a West Side football stadium for the New York Jets. Asked about parallels to that battle, Mr. Silver harked back to the mayor’s contention then that a Manhattan stadium would not cause undue congestion.

The stadium, Mr. Silver pointed out, would have been “right in the middle of this congested zone.”

“At that time, a year ago, there obviously was no congestion,” he added, facetiously. “We can even put this stadium to attract 100,000 people to come in right in the middle of the zone and there was no problem.”

. . .

Mr. Silver’s skepticism partly reflects the wide concern about the plan among the more than 100 Democrats who control the Assembly.

“I’m sort of torn here,” said Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr., a Bronx Democrat. “On the one hand, I really want to address the environmental issues,” he said, but added that he was concerned that congestion pricing could mean “that folks from other places are going to park their cars in my community” or that the toll would end up being a tax on his constituents without much benefit.

“I think in its present state,” he said, “there are too many concerns, certainly for us to rush to any judgment.”

Mr. Silver said that he was left with “a lot of questions.” But he did not say outright that he would reject the plan, and said that it was “very possible” that an agreement on some environmental plan for the city could be struck by August.

Thirty Seconds Over Broadway Junction

These people are going to get really, really good at gauging commercial breaks:

In three years, the easiest job in New York will be L train operator — whose only job will be pushing a button every 30 seconds to prove he’s still breathing.

The trains will be so automated, they’ll be able to start, stop, speed up and slow down without any human help.

The operator will take over only in an emergency — such as a passenger falling off a platform, or if the automatic system fails.

Normally, the operator’s only duty will be pushing the button to prove to the system he’s awake and capable of springing into action.

If he or she doesn’t push the button, the train will come to a stop.

And then there’s the concept of the “dead man’s switch”:

It’s the updated version of the current “dead man’s switch” — which is part of the train operator’s controls.

Unless the operator keeps downward pressure on it, the brakes engage immediately.

. . .

Train operators say the dead man’s switch is most often activated when operators fall asleep at the controls.

Often, when that happens, “they report that there was no cause for the brakes to be [activated], and that maybe someone pulled the brake,” one veteran train operator said.

“Sometimes, it is released by accident. If you hold it down hard and then let it up a couple of inches, it will go off.”

The Volvo-Driving Latte-Sipping Ira Glass-Worshipping Public Radio Old Maid Demographic

Believe me, I like Jonathan Schwartz as much as the next guy, but if you overdo the branding thing, there’s the real and present danger of turning “public radio listener” into shorthand for “cat lady”:

A cadre of New York singles who wake up to National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and listen to podcasts of the network’s “This American Life” are seeking out dates and mates who enjoy public radio as much as they do.

Noticing the number of self-proclaimed “NPR aficionados” on online dating and social networking Web sites, the staffers at a local affiliate, WNYC, decided to sponsor a series of singles mixers. These events are led by the station’s popular on-air personalities, and some feature news and pop culture quizzes — not unlike those heard on a long-running public radio program, “Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!”

“Just like certain online dating sites attract a specific type of person, WNYC draws a certain type of listener — someone who’s interested in arts and culture,” a 37-year-old city policy director, Alexandra Warren, said during a station-sponsored under-40 singles event, “This is Your Brain on Love,” held at Williamsburg ‘s Brooklyn Brewery Thursday.

. . .

“WNYC Singles” events cost $35 in advance, or $40 at the door. In an attempt to maintain a gender balance, the station offers a limited number of tickets to women and men. Station officials say women’s tickets generally sell out weeks in advance.

Even Though “Ocean’s Thirteen” Is Total Coke Money It Doesn’t Mean You’re Excused From Completely Ignoring The Salient Moral Messages Of “Traffic”

The rise in cocaine use, as evidenced by many furtive Craig’s List Casual Encounters postings and now exposed for the first time in detail by the crack reporting team at the Sunday Styles section, is directly attributable to the Mayor’s efforts to stigmatize smoking:

But in interviews over the last five months with people in the night-life, entertainment, media and finance industries, all said that cocaine is a prominent part of a night out. Teron Beal, 34, a songwriter and aspiring actor, said he encountered cocaine regularly and does it occasionally — and not only in clubs and bars. “When you’re in meetings and you’re in the studio, it’s offered like coffee,” he said. “If you say yeah, they’re cool with it and if you say no, they’re like O.K., and they just go and do it in front of you.”

“Coke is the new weed,” he continued. “Everybody says that.”

Tom Sykes, a former night-life reporter for The New York Post who chronicled his alcohol- and drug-fueled life in the memoir “What Did I Do Last Night?” said that cocaine is more socially acceptable than smoking. “You could go into a swanky party in New York and do a line and nobody would notice,” said Mr. Sykes, who is now sober. “Pull out a cigarette and people would think you’d pulled out a gun.”

And never mind “Traffic” — these douchebags haven’t even ever seen “Wall Street”:

With Wall Street surging and a 24-hour global economy, young professionals have the money and the incentive to stay constantly wired.

“I do it every day,” said Kristoff, a European transplant to New York who works in finance and would not give his last name. He said he pays $150 for two grams of cocaine. “If I have to work at 6 in the morning and I have to be on top of the game, I’ll do it. I’ll take a gram of coke and make half a million dollars.”

Earlier (I don’t want to point out the obvious and say “much earlier,” but, you know, kind of earlier): Tonight We’re Gonna Party Like It’s 1985, This Just In: Cocaine Sales Remain Strong Through The First Quarter Of 2006.

No, That Smells About Right

The good news is we’ve reclaimed the Hunts Point waterfront and built a brand new park. The bad news is now we understand why no one wanted to go down there in the first place:

Christian Román went to Barretto Point Park on the waterfront in Hunts Point for the first time last month when the weather turned warm.

He was pleased by the lovely landscaping in the new five-acre park, which opened last October with an alluring swath of grass and a soft margin of sand along the East River. But although he liked what he saw, he did not like what he smelled.

There was a foul odor in the air that he guessed was a consequence of the park’s location, wedged between a private fertilizer plant and a public wastewater treatment facility.

“When you enter, you don’t really smell it,” said Mr. Román, a 21-year-old senior at St. John’s University who was born and raised in the South Bronx, where he still lives with his parents. “It hits you when you go near the beach volleyball area. You’re like, ‘Whoa.’ I had to cover my mouth with my shirt and walk a little faster.”

Complaints about odors that emanate from industrial facilities in Hunts Point are longstanding, but the $7.2 million park has drawn fresh attention to the problem, especially now as summerlike humidity intensifies the smell.

“We’re glad the park is there,” said Elena Conte, a coordinator at Sustainable South Bronx, an environmental organization. “People are enjoying it whenever they can. But the unresolved odor issues are a deterrent.”