WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Congestion pricing will have little impact on Bklyn drivers
BY JULIANNE MCSHANE
The state Legislature and
Gov. Cuomo passed congestion
pricing on March 31
as part of the state’s $175
billion budget.
Analysts say the move
will only affect between one
and two percent of the Kings
Countians who drive cars
into the distant isle of Manhattan
below 60th Street, but
local cyclists say the scheme
will also transform the commutes
of thousands of Brooklynites
who commute on two
wheels, by reducing the number
of overall cars on the
roadways and leaving more
room for alternative forms of
transportation.
“Brooklyn drivers will
barely be impacted by congestion
pricing, according
to some recent studies, and
it will greatly improve the
overall streetscape south of
60th Street to the benefi t of
thousands upon thousands
of Brooklyn cyclists and pedestrians
that commute into
Manhattan daily,” said Ridgite
Dan Hetteix, a member
of the newly-formed cycling
advocacy group Bike South
Brooklyn .
City data shows that the
amount of cyclists who ride
from the Borough of Churches
into the distant isle has grown
exponentially within the past
decade: an average of 10,429 cyclists
per day rode into Lower
Manhattan over the Brooklyn
and Williamsburg bridges
during the seven-month period
of April to October 2017
— nearly 40 percent more
than the number of cyclists
who rode over those bridges
during the same period nine
years earlier.
The Big Apple is now the
fi rst city in the nation to implement
congestion pricing ,
which will charge a yet-tobe
determined fee to drivers
entering Manhattan within
LIT: Congestion pricing got the green light on March 31 as the state Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo passed
the initiative as part of the state’s $175 billion budget. Getty Images
the affected boundary at peak
times beginning in 2021, according
INSIDE
Read lobster
Local dad and son write a dinner dilemma
CBy Julianne McShane all it a family-style serving of
lobster tale.
A Windsor Terrace author
teamed up with his preteen son last year
to write a pick-your-own-ending picture
book about a dapper crustacean who
finds himself in hot water.
Writer Michael Buckley, who will read
from “Lenny the Lobster Can’t Stay for
Dinner” at Books Are Magic in Carroll
Gardens on April 6, alongside his now
11-year-old co-author Finn, said that the
published story came from a game the
pair played, in which the elder Buckley
would give his son a silly title and ask him
to pen an accompanying story.
“When we were doing it, we didn’t
think it’d be a book,” said Michael
Buckley, who is a bestselling author for his
“The Sisters Grimm” and “N.E.R.D.S.”
children’s book serials. “I thought it was
so cute that I got my phone out and videotaped
myself reading it, and a couple
days later we had some phone calls from
publishers to turn it into the book.”
The story follows the titular lobster,
who is delighted to be invited to a fancy
dinner party — until he realizes that he is
slated to be the main course. Readers can
choose whether Lenny lives or dies — but
if young carnivores pick the fatal option,
the book directs them to go back to a version
in which Lenny makes a break for
it — a change the dad-and-son duo said
they made after editors panned the original
ending for being too grim.
“The first draft was kind of
dark,” Finn said.
“Lenny initially decided that he was
going to burn the house down, and then
eats the people who invited him to the
party,” Michael added. “We had to make
it more friendly, so we made it that Lenny
has a chance to escape.”
The younger Buckley prefers the
new version, he said, but now refuses
to eat lobster in solidarity with his
pincered protagonist.
“I like the ending where he lives — I
sort of feel bad for lobsters now that we
created an adventure for one,” Finn said.
The youngster wrote all the jokes
and made most of the edits, according
to his dad, who focused on the structure
of the story. Working with Finn helped
him see his son in a new light, said the
more established writer.
“It was sort of awe-inspiring to watch
these ideas come out of his head,” Michael
said. “When it was over, it was less like I
had written a book with my son, and
more like I had written a book with
another author.”
The pair are already working on their
next book, “My Pet Pickle,” which Finn
pitched to their publisher on his own.
“Finn talked himself into a two-book
deal — he pitched an idea that I didn’t
know much about, and the editor loved it,”
said Michael.
Story time with Michael and Finn
Buckley at Books Are Magic (225 Smith
St. at Butler Street in Carroll Gardens,
www.booksaremagic.net). April 6 at 11
a.m. Free.
Your entertainment
guide Page 59
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Standing O ............................22
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HOW TO REACH US
COURIER L 2 IFE, APRIL 5–11, 2019 B
to the governor’s offi
ce, which added that drivers
of passenger vehicles will not
be charged more than once
per day.
The Triborough Bridge
and Tunnel Authority and a
new traffi c mobility review
board will determine the cost
of the toll and which drivers
will receive exemptions, according
to a report in the New
York Times, which added that
80 percent of the toll revenue
will be directed to the subway
and bus systems, while the
last 20 percent will be evenly
split between the Long Island
Rail Road and the Metro-
North Railroad.
Proponents of the decadesold
idea have said the pricing
will provide about $1 billion
annually to the MTA, which
the agency could use to secure
bonds for up to $15 billion
to fund improvements to
the city’s beleaguered subway
system, according to AM New
York . And analysts say that
the tolls will impact a marginal
number of Brooklynites:
a rep for the independent Regional
Plan Association said
on the Brooklyn Paper Radio
Show last month that the
pricing scheme will impact
only 1.3 percent of Kings
Countians.
And data compiled by procongestion
pricing organization
Tri-State Transportation
Campaign predicted a slightly
higher impact on the Borough
of Churches, estimating
that 2.4 percent of its commuters
will regularly pay the
charge, and adding that more
than 60 percent of its residents
take public transit and
would benefi t from transit
improvements.
Mayor de Blasio agreed on
April 1 that congestion pricing
will help fi x what he called the
“broken subway system,” and
called the tolls “our best hope
at getting the trains moving
and ending the suffering our
riders face every day.”
Those who oppose the measure,
including Kings County’s
own Assemblywoman
Rodneyse Bichotte (D–Flatbush),
charge that the pricing
amounts to an unfair burden
on the poor.
Other local pols — including
Assemblywoman Mathylde
Frontus (D–Coney Island)
and state Sen. Andrew
Gounardes (D–Bay Ridge) —
signaled their lukewarm support
for the plan’s potential to
improve the subways, but said
they also worried about the
impact the fares could have
on the less than four percent
of their constituents who commute
into the distant isle by
car.
Gounardes — who represents
the transit-starved
district of Dyker Heights,
Bensonhurst, Bath Beach,
Gravesend, Gerritsen Beach,
Manhattan Beach — called
himself “cautiously supportive”
of the plan, but said he
would withhold his full support
until the Triborough
Bridge and Tunnel Authority
released more details on the
Continued on page 12
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