The Subway’s Not-So-Fresh Feeling

The MTA tries to shake the funk off of what has previously stunk:

It smelled like death warmed over to some straphangers. To others, it was rancid excrement.

That stank crept from an elevator at Herald Square. The summer heat acted as an odor adhesive, keeping the foulness lingering well after people were out of the stink zone.

The dirty elevator solicited complaints throughout the week, and it has won worst-smelling elevator from a disabled riders group two years in a row. Luckily for straphangers, a Transit employee with high-powered disinfectant mopped out most of the smell Thursday, but the war on odorous subway stations is not over.

. . .

Cleanliness is a serious subject for New York City Transit, and as part of a new customer service initiative, about 350 more cleaners will be on the roster by fall to keep stations fresher, trains cleaner and platforms and tracks clearer and safer. They’ll also be able to respond to specific stenches faster.

Still, why the big stink at Herald Square and at stations throughout the system? Stations get funky for several reasons, said Bill Henderson who hears rider complaints as head of the MTA’s Permanent Citizens Advisory Council.

“Sometimes the cause is a broken sewer line,” he said. “It could also be something on the surface.”

And unfortunately, it takes a little more than a few spritzes of air freshener, sometimes a lot more. A sewer stank is sometimes caused by construction accidents, and the stink may slowly dissipate even after a cracked line is patched.

He Walks The Line Between Health Policy And Civic Boosterism

Outmigration and a more-educated population aside, you’re living longer because you walk more. Ooh-kay:

In essence, there is a health gap emerging between our massive metropolis and the rest of the country — some X factor that’s improving our health in subtle, everyday ways. In fact, a back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that once you take out those uniquely New York ways to die — AIDS, homicide, etc. — we’ve still added at least 200,000 extra years onto the city’s life-expectancy tables since 1980, making crucial advances in the same health areas the rest of the country struggles with. Like many New Yorkers, I’d moved here with some trepidation — always figuring that the stress, pollution, and 60-hour workweeks would knock about five years off my life. I was wrong — precisely wrong. But where, exactly, is our excess life coming from?

I take this question to Thomas Frieden, New York’s commissioner of public health. Frieden is a wonk’s wonk — a handsome, energetic doctor who has gained a nationwide reputation for his aggressive effort to push New York’s average-life-expectancy figure ever higher. The smoking ban of 2003? The trans-fat ban of last year? You can thank Frieden for both. These measures have already begun to lengthen life spans in the city. The smoking ban had an immediate effect: The number of deaths attributable to smoking has decreased from 8,960 in 2001 to 8,096 in 2005, a drop of 10 percent. Lung-cancer rates should begin to see the same effect a few decades from now, since it takes longer for the body to repair smoking-related lung damage.

But even Frieden admits that public policy can’t account for all the gains. When I ask what the X factor is — where the “excess life” is coming from — Frieden goes over to his desk and returns with a clear plastic statuette. It’s from the American Podiatric Medical Association and Prevention magazine: BEST WALKING CITY, 2006.

“We’ve won it a couple of years in a row,” he tells me with a grin. He’s got a bunch of them kicking around.

Just keep telling yourself that . . .

More Like Stuffed With Bullshit

Is it a case of “jaw arthritis” or is it because he’s scared? Yeah, right — jaw arthritis is for old people:

Could the reign of hot-dog eating dominance be near an end for Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi?

The Japanese competitive eating phenom — and six-time winner of the annual Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating contest on Coney Island — is listed as “day-to-day” due to jaw pain just a week before the July 4 competition, officials said yesterday.

But Kobayashi, who narrowly defeated American Joey Chestnut last year to win the Mustard Belt for the sixth consecutive year, still plans to compete at Coney Island and in the Pizza Hut P’Zone Challenge July 10 in Manhattan.

According to Kobayashi’s blog, jaw arthritis has hampered the perennial eating champion so badly that he can only open his mouth wide enough to fit one finger without pain. Nevertheless, Kobayashi said he intends to defend his title and “be the pride” of his mother, who passed away in March.

Earlier this month, Chestnut, 22, of San Jose, Calif., broke Kobayashi’s world record by eating 59.5 hot dogs in 12 minutes at the Southwest Regional Hot Dog Eating Championship in Arizona. He won a year’s supply of hot dogs, a trip to New York and a $250 gift card. Kobayashi’s previous best was 53.75 hot dogs during the 2006 Coney Island contest.

No, No Need To Explain — It Makes Perfect Sense Why Truckers Would Want To Pay A Congestion Fee

I don’t think it’s being paranoid to think that there’s something kind of — well, very — suspicious about the idea of Teamsters supporting congestion pricing:

Truckers decided to support the plan after Mayor Bloomberg announced that he will reduce the fees for truckers who drive fuel-efficient rigs. Trucks that meet federal guidelines will have their fee cut from $21 to $7. Teamster’s President for Joint Council 16, Gary LaBarbera, says they came to an agreement with the mayor because he understands they must stay on the roads.

This coming after reports that the State Assembly seems wildly uninterested in supporting the plan (after all, Silver is a weighty metal, and sometimes one that is difficult to mine):

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s handpicked Democratic steering committee concluded yesterday that Mayor Bloomberg’s current congestion-pricing plan is “unpassable.”

At a meeting of the committee, which helps guide policy for Silver, the overwhelming majority said they could not support Bloomberg’s plan in its current form.

“There is a very strong growing consensus among rank-and-file members that the city hasn’t presented us with a passable bill, even if they like the concept — and many members don’t like the concept,” said Assemblyman Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester), a congestion-pricing foe.

Bloomberg wants to charge motorists to drive into Manhattan below 86th Street during certain hours and use the revenue to improve mass transit.

Committee members praised Bloomberg for wanting to reduce traffic and improve the environment, but said there are too many outstanding questions to act on the bill.

Members said there are ways to deal with traffic without enacting congestion pricing.

“Certainly in [the Assembly], people feel uncomfortable about charging hard-working middle-class families extra dollars to come into the city,” said Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr. (D-Bronx), who’s on the committee.

Added Assemblyman Steve Cymbrowitz (D-Brooklyn), who supports the concept of congestion pricing: “The bill as written is unpassable.”

Assemblywoman Roan Destito (D-Utica) said the bill “is not well thought out.”

It’s hard to believe that the only thing the Teamsters wanted was a reduction in the fee for more fuel-efficient trucks. I had no idea its membership was so committed to the environment! Plus, it’s not like the trucking industry doesn’t oppose congestion pricing or anything. I’m sure Bloomberg promised them absolutely nothing . . .

Or At Least Make The Prices Match . . . Does Anyone In City Government Read Chinese?

It doesn’t matter if the differential pricing was really just the difference between a take-out and and eat-in, when you have the mayor publicly rebuking you, things have spun out of control:

“If nobody goes to that restaurant, then they won’t make any money and they’ll go out of business,” Bloomberg said when asked about the Daily News’ exclusive Sunday story on the Canal Seafood Restaurant.

“It’s unconscionable to use race on any of these things, in terms of what kind of service, or how you charge, or whatever,” Bloomberg said.

“Go patronize a different [restaurant.] Let capitalism work.”

. . .

The restaurant has denied the allegations, saying it has one menu for takeout and another for customers who eat in the restaurant.