Yes, to marijuana The price of progress
justice
Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
George Alleyne, Nelson King, Vinette K. Pryce, Bert
Wilkinson, Lloyd Kam Williams
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean Life, M 10 arch 29–April 4, 2019 BQ
By Schneps Media
For more than a decade
now, the movement to
institute congestion pricing
in New York City has
been proposed, debated and
ultimately killed over and
over again. But this time, it
appears that the controversial
proposal is finally going
to become a reality.
As we went to press this
week, it was reported that
Democrats in the state legislature
appeared to have
enough votes in favor of congestion
pricing to include
it in the budget that’s still
being hammered out. Lawmakers
have until April 1 to
get a budget deal done.
What this means is that
very soon, anyone crossing
an East River bridge into
Manhattan, or traveling
south of 60th Street in Manhattan,
will be charged a
toll. The revenue generated
from this plan will be used
to fund much-needed public
transit improvements, even
though it’s hoped that congestion
pricing will encourage
more people to leave
their cars at home when
traveling to Manhattan,
thereby reducing traffic volume.
Queens residents have
long fought congestion pricing.
Opponents say it’s just
another undue expense that
would drain more money
out of middle class pockets.
Skepticism abounds over
whether the state government
will allow these funds
to truly be used for public
transit projects, or whether
this becomes just another
revenue stream from which
to pilfer.
The woeful state of the
city’s public transit system,
combined with the stark
increase in traffic volume
in recent years, have made
congestion pricing a necessary
evil in the eyes of
many. But it needs to come
with changes for the MTA
and for Queens commuters
alike.
For one thing, the MTA
must do more to trim the fat
from its corporate budget.
The overhead in the MTA
is staggering; more than
a quarter of all employees
earns in excess of $100,000
a year at a time that the
authority faces an unprecedented
deficit. Leadership
must be held accountable
to cut costs as the public
is asked to pay more for
improvements.
For this plan to be truly
palatable to all Queens residents,
the city and state
must follow through with its
promise to use that revenue
solely on public transportation
improvements — and
those improvements must
begin almost immediately.
The northeast corridor
of Queens is lacking public
transportation. It needs
help. One such improvement
is the expansion of
ferry service to northeast
Queens, which is already
under consideration. Bringing
ferries to places like
Willets Point, College Point
and Fort Totten would give
residents another affordable
option at getting to and
from Manhattan each day.
Another plan under consideration
is the redesign
of all Queens bus routes,
some of which have been
unchanged for at least 50
years. If congestion pricing
is to become a reality, then
the city and MTA must hammer
out a new bus route
plan for Queens before the
tolls are activated on the
Queensboro Bridge.
The city and MTA must
also fully fund Mayor Bill
de Blasio’s Bus Forward initiative,
which will expand
Select Bus Service (SBS) to
eight highly-used Queens
bus lines. SBS allows for
larger buses, off-board fare
collection and dedicated bus
lanes, all of which aim to
move commuters around
more quickly.
The congestion pricing
plan must also usher the
end of tolls from one part
of the borough to the other
(via the Cross Bay Bridge
linking the Rockaways and
Broad Channel).
The MTA must, within
the next year, take down
the toll gantries at the
Cross Bay Bridge, and the
Marine Parkway Bridge
between Brooklyn and
Rockaway. If we are to pay
more to travel into Manhattan,
then we ought to
have no cost to travel within
Brooklyn and Queens.
The authority must also
reintroduce the Freedom
Ticket, the shelved fare
equalization plan which
would enable thousands of
eastern Queens residents
to afford rides on the Long
Island Rail Road between
points in Brooklyn and
Manhattan. The Atlantic
Ticket plan already in
place, which only takes
Queens commuters as
far as Atlantic Terminal
in Brooklyn, is not nearly
enough.
These are steps that
should be taken right off
the bat, but the congestion
pricing plan must also
serve to provide a down
payment for the future of
public transportation. This
could include the introduction
of new express bus
By Floyd Jarvis
Many people come to the
topic of cannabis legalization
from a range of different
perspectives and positions.
I approach this as a member
of a community that was
adversely affected during the
war on drugs, during the war
on cannabis, and as a rigorous
academic scholar studying
Public and Urban Policy,
Stratification Economics and
Black Masculine Studies.
I want to present some
aspects to this that not everyone
has delved into enough
and to tie together conversations
that are happening
simultaneously yet are so far
apart.
As a 27-year resident of
Canarsie, I am pained by the
position video that Assemblymember,
Jaime Williams
has taken on cannabis regulation
and taxation for New
Yorkers over the age of 21
along with State Senator,
Roxanne Persaud. Assembly
Member Williams’ district
covers, Canarsie, Georgetown,
Mill Basin, Marine
Park, Bergen Beach and Gerritsen
Beach. The 15 residents
that appeared alongside
the elected officials at their
presser are in no way representative
of the larger district
that totals 150,000 and their
feelings concerning cannabis
regulation.
Canarsie, along with Flatlands
and Mill Basin is a powerful
example of Black suburbanization,
these neighborhoods
have amongst the
most dramatic racial population
shifts in the city of
New York during the war on
drugs. Canarsie has a population
of 88,000 residents
with roughly 75,000 of those
residents identifying as Black
or African-American alone,
the most of any Neighborhood
Tabulation Area (NTA)
according to the New York
City Department of City Planning
Population Fact Finder.
According to a May 18 New
York Times editorial, NYT
Report, as a result of such a
high concentration of Blackness,
officers in the precinct
covering Canarsie arrested
people on marijuana possession
charges at a rate more
than four times as high as
in the precinct that includes
Greenpoint, despite residents
calling 311, the city’s help
line, and 911 to complain
about marijuana at the same
rate. The Canarsie precinct is
85 percent Black. The Greenpoint
precinct is 4 percent
Black.
In addition, a 2017 Drug
Policy Alliance report entitled
“Unjust-Unconstitutional,”
shows Canarsie as one
of the 15 neighborhoods
in New York city with high
rates and numbers of marijuana
possession arrests, and
where Blacks and Latinos are
almost the only people arrested
for marijuana. Of those 15
neighborhoods, Canarsie had
the highest median income of
$61,300; more evidence that
race trumps class in policing
the war on drugs. Couple
this data with another
OP-EDS
Congestion
pricing plan must
also serve to
provide a down
payment for the
future of public
transportation.
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Continued on Page 12
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