The Great New York Psyop: How NYC Leaders Keep Auto and Rail Commuters Equally Angry

That's right, folks, as citizens bicker and protest above ground, the MTA's been forced to suspend work on a Second Avenue Subway (SAS) initiative city officials have been proposing in some form or another since the 1920s, yet only got the green light to start its first stage in 2017. Isn't the Big Apple just the best place ever? Though MTA officials tout the work stoppage on the SAS construction project as temporary, without a funding source, it's anyone's guess when or even if work will resume again.

Indeed, portions of the construction to extend SAS line tunnels from 96th Street to 125th Street and Lexington Ave will continue at a trickle while work to find funding for above-ground construction related to the project drags on. But if this current work stoppage is any form of litmus for the affair, chances are good this is just the start of the headaches to come. Whether team car or team mass transit, everyone's getting tossed around, screwed over, fleeced, ripped off, and downright bamboozled. But my big question on the matter is simply, why?

Why, in that name of all that's good and holy, is the financial health of one New York City public works project hopelessly, and irreparably tied to continuous implementation of another? Is there a reason it seems like city officials plan proceedings to pit pro-car and anti-car New Yorkers against each other deliberately, ultimately ensuring both sides feel their needs and opinions mean as much as toilet paper to the folks in charge? Do the City of New York and the MTA even want to complete these projects?

Forgive me as I don my foil hat and doomsday prepper MRE rations, but am I wrong for thinking it all feels fishier than the pollution-ridden striped bass right out of the Hudson? Not that I'm an expert on New York State public works funding or anything. But even so, it feels like there should be a lot more than one primary source of funding for the Second Avenue Subway that isn't directly tied to a congestion charging plan that was under active litigation for months before Governor Kathy Hochul pulled the plug indefinitely.

Of course, the federal government did agree to throw NYC $3.4 billion to finish the Q-line linkup in East Harlem. But let's be real. In New York City, that amount of money can keep a project going for the construction site equivalent of about five minutes. In total, this grant only accounted for roughly half of the SAS extension project, leaving the rest of that $3 billion and change bill at the feet of cabbies, delivery van drivers, independent contractors, carpoolers and rideshare jockeys that make up the bulk of Manhattan's automotive traffic.

Of course, there's the occasional cheeky twerp like me who cuts through Times Square to take the toll-free Queensboro Bridge instead of the Throgs Neck or Whitestone to Queens on trips from New Jersey. But most other people? They don't drive in New York unless they have a damn good reason to do so. I.e., because their livelihood is on the line if they don't. These people would've been hit the hardest under the congestion charge plan that would've gone into effect this month. But those plans are dead now; the SAS extension seems destined for years, if not decades, of delays, and New York's terminal congestion problem is no closer to being solved than it was 20, even 30 years ago.

This brings me back to my original point. Do you ever get the feeling that New York City leadership is just dragging us along at this juncture? In short, do you feel like they don't really want to complete the congestion charge plan or the SAS extension? Is it better for those in charge if both issues are kept in stasis as political footballs while proponents of pro-car or pro-train legislation are used as pawns to keep the whole shebang going in perpetuity for generations? No shade to one side or the other of the political aisle, as this kind of thinking is a blight of bipartisan proportions.

As I've said time and again, until I'm stuck talking to myself in a semi-conscious delirium, there can and should be a solution that satisfies SAS extension funding without bending necessary commuters over the knee for a spanking to make it happen. You can find ways to ease Manhattan's automotive traffic without penalizing drivers for having the gall to drive their work truck into Manhattan from Queens to fix a renter's leaky drain pipe. But if you ask me, the current state of affairs is how it is because the whole thing was just one big psychological operation, a psyop, if you will.