Tag: USA

Actual experience with NYC’s congestion relief zone tolls, a pro and a major con

Bradley FarlessLeave a comment
A screenshot from the NYC 311 website showing information about excluded roads

If anyone is wondering how it’s going now that it’s implemented, I thought I’d leave a few thoughts here.

I drive to work daily. I live in the central Bronx and work in south Brooklyn by the Verrazzano Bridge. My commute takes me down the Westside Highway into the HLC Tunnel or down the FDR and across the Brooklyn Bridge, then down 278. So, I don’t go into the CRZ daily, but the change in traffic patterns affects me because I use the same roads for a leg of my trip as people who do.

The implementation of the toll has been both good and bad for me, but more good than bad, if I can get a billing issue fixed.

Pro:

Improved Commute Times

Initially, traffic was heavily reduced to the point that I was getting from the central Bronx to the Verrazzano in about 45 minutes. After about a week, traffic evened back out as people figured out new commutes and/or decided what they could no longer afford in order to get to work every day.

My commute time to work is about the same as it was before. I leave my residence in the Bronx around 7:20 AM and it takes me about an hour to get to my place of employment in south Brooklyn. Some days it’s 50 minutes and some days it’s 70 minutes, bust it’s usually about 57 minutes. That is consistent. The return trip is where I’m seeing massive gains. It used to take me an hour and a half to two hours to get home most days. Now, my trip home is about 50 minutes to 70 minutes.

I’m saving time on my way home mostly because of reduced traffic going into the Hugh L Carey tunnel that connects Brooklyn to the southern tip of Manhattan. Without traffic backing up onto 278, I can either roll through the tunnel quite rapidly or continue up to 278 to the Brooklyn Bridge, continuing my trip north on either the West Side Highway or the FDR.

Basically, I’m saving about three and a half to four hours a week on my commute times. That’s a huge bonus for me because it gives me more time in the evenings to relax by myself or with my wife before jumping into the regular routine of getting ready for the next day.

Con:

False positives on toll cameras

The biggest issue I’m facing right now is being incorrectly billed for trips into the CRZ that I didn’t make.

Despite my staying outside of he CRZ on my daily commutes, I noticed on my EZPass billing that I was being charged the CRZ $9.00 toll every single day. Why? I followed the rules. I didn’t want to be tolled so I didn’t go into the toll zone. Not that I have any reason to leave the highways on my daily commute anyway. Was someone spoofing my plate?

Nope. Turns out that EZPass is incorrectly billing anyone who uses the HLC the CRZ Zone Toll automatically, no matter if you turn onto the West Side Highway and continue out of the congestion zone or not. As soon as you exit the tunnel, they’re tolling you for both the tunnel and the CRZ.

This isn’t supposed to happen. The West Side Highway and the HLC Tunnel are excluded roadways. The only time you should encounter the CRZ toll in relation to the HLC Tunnel is if you exit the tunnel and turn onto Trinity Place, which is a local road with a right exit just before you hit the West Side Highway.

I had a long conversation about this with an EZPass employee who at first was trying to tell me, based on information from her supervisor, that using the HLC makes you subject to the CRZ Toll. I had to point out that the plan as presented by the city and on the 311 website says otherwise. She wound up putting in a ticket for me to have the charges removed from my account, but it could take up to 21 business days for me to see whether or not that happens.

EZPass is illegally tolling people who are following the rules and they don’t even seem to be aware in general that moving from the excluded HLC to the excluded West Side Highway is supposed to be congestion relief zone toll-free.

How was this flaw overlooked during their supposed testing phase? And why would EZPass employees not have an understanding of how tolls are supposed to be applied in relation to the Congestion Relief Plan? Do I have to call back every month to dispute charges? Or will this get fixed? We’re only 21 days into this new program, but these seem like pretty big flaws.

Summary

I was very opposed to the CRZ toll when I first heard about it. It wasn’t until about a month before it was implemented that I realized that it would probably make my commute faster since I have to travel past Lower Manhattan. If I had to pay $9 when I occasionally visited my mother or went shopping in Lower Manhattan, I was ok with that. And I’m still ok with that, as long as EZPass stops billing me for not going into the CRZ.

“Why ain’t you rich?”

Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, ‘It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.’ It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: ‘if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?’ There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.

Kurt Vonnegut, “Slaughterhouse Five”, 1969.
Photo by Timur Weber on Pexels.com

This quote could have been published yesterday and it would still be just as true, though it would probably apply to more countries than just the United States now as Capitalist ideals have become more prevalent in other cultures.

No one wants to admit that they’re poor, even if they are, in the United States because there is still an assumption that poverty and unworthiness go hand in hand. If you’re poor, you must be stupid, as Vonnegut wrote, or lazy, or ridden with vices. I wonder how much of this idea is genuinely out there circulating among average people these days.

It seems like more people are starting to understand that you can work hard every day and still have nothing to show for it at the end of the month. That’s how the system is set up, and with increasing wealth disparities and higher prices for even necessary goods, let alone “luxury” items like basic entertainment, almost everyone is starting to feel the pinch. Even the faltering middle-class.

I don’t think the American poor hate themselves, though. I think the American poor hate being poor. I think the problem is just that people tend to think they need to be wealthy before they can be happy. It’s definitely easier to be happy when you can pay all of your bills and live comfortably, but I think we need something more than just material comfort for happiness. It would be incorrect to say that the poorest people in the country need assistance to reach a basic level of security, but I also think there has to be a change in mindset in terms of what we see as worthwhile ways to live.

Think of the people we idolize on television. Think of the Kardashians. They’re wealthy, but are they really role models? Are they what people should aspire to be? Are they worth glorifying? Are they better just because they’re wealthy? I don’t think so. There’s nothing necessarily good about being wealthy and there’s nothing necessarily bad about being poor. The goodness and badness of a person is based on more than that and value in life comes from more than the thickness of a person’s wallet.

I particularly enjoy the bit Vonnegut added about the tiny, poorly put together American flag attached to the register. I see it as symbolizing an idea that continually contributing to the current economic system is essential patriotism, even when you’re barely hanging on. There’s really no reason for our country to be this shabby when the country as a whole has so much wealth to go around. I’m not saying we should be wholly socialist, but I am saying we should have caps on wealth generation that force company executives to fairly distribute company earnings to all employees, say by limiting top earners to a percentage of what the bottom earners receive, including both real wages and stock options, bonuses, etc.

People who start businesses often come to the table with wealth in their pockets. They have ideas, but the employees who help them realize their vision are an essential part of the process. It’s absurd that people working at some of the most successful companies on Earth receive government subsidies because they’re paid poverty wages.

Money is definitely hard to come by and easy to spend. Depending one your circumstances in life, where you were born and what family you were born into particularly, you may never become wealthy, but that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, or not worthwhile. And fuck feeling grateful for being paid minimum wage. It’s called the minimum wage because it’s supposed to be the bare minimum a person should earn to be able to live. It’s not a requirement. It’s a choice. And employers should choose to reward employees who work hard to keep them rich.

The cherry on this quote from Vonnegut, though, is the comment about a pub owner being poor. If Vonnegut thought a small business owner was poor, then what would he think of the rest of us?

A few thoughts on the impact of coronavirus in the USA

Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

I’ve heard that there are conspiracy theories floating around that the US created the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. I haven’t bothered to read them, though I know it began with China denying the virus started there, as if their denial can change reality. We all know the first cases of the virus were from people working in a wet market in Wuhan, Hubei Province, and last time I checked, Hubei is part of China.

What’s the point of pushing culpability onto the US? I saw a news headline that mentioned a group of lawyers filing a class action lawsuit against China regarding the coronavirus. Again, didn’t read it, but I imagine it alleges that China tried to cover up the outbreak by silencing/killing doctors who spoke out, and is continuing to downplay the actual numbers of infected and dead. So, I guess China is worried about financial liability and wants to muddy the waters? Are they trying to “save face”? Is it just to maintain some sort of propaganda within China?

Should a country be responsible for a viral outbreak that starts within its territory? I’m inclined to say yes, but only if that outbreak started because the country wasn’t enforcing proper sanitation protocols regarding contact with animals. I don’t even know what that would mean or how you would enforce that, though. What happens if a salmon virus outbreak starts in Japan because people eat sushi, for example? Eating the fish raw is the whole point.

And what kind of sanctions could you impose that wouldn’t cause the offending country to implode? On the one hand, people would like to have a country that caused massive deaths punished, and maybe some would be ok with the country falling to pieces. On the other hand, having a country disintegrate would be dangerous in many other ways, especially if it’s a country like China which supplies so much of the world’s raw materials.

A lot of people have pointed out that this situation shows the dangers of having so much of the world’s production tied up in one country. I agree. I think it’s dangerous for the US to rely so heavily on China for raw materials. It’s obvious why we do, though. The labor there is cheaper so the materials are cheaper. It lets companies price products lower so that companies can also keep wages in the US depressed, allowing for greater wealth concentration.

That’s a pretty dangerous mindset, really. Corporations, with the tacit approval of the US government, have allowed wages in the US to stagnate and fall for decades while allowing an ever greater concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands. It’s a danger to the entire country. If people have no spending power, the economy will collapse. And “the people” aren’t just the rich few. It’s everyone. Capitalism relies on a strong middle class to function properly.

I don’t understand how people can be so strongly in favor of undermining the source of their wealth. Do they think that if the US economy tanks they’ll be ok? Aren’t they worried that the value of their wealth will tank as the US dollar tanks? I’m not an expert in stocks and markets and all that, but it just seems bizarre to me that people who have a vested interest in the economy wouldn’t push harder on legislators to even things out a bit. Or I guess much more than a bit now, considering how severe the income inequality in the US is.

Maybe it’s ok that the US is going through this huge crisis. Maybe it’s even ok that on the other end of it we might not be a superpower anymore. At this point, the only thing super about the US is the US military. Everything else is falling apart. We’re not number 1 in anything. It’s embarrassing and it’s something we should address instead of trying to hide it behind false bravado pretending to be patriotism.

Maybe this is the wake-up call that the US needs to reinvest in the American worker and the American Middle Class. Maybe this is the wake-up call that the US needs to hammer home how important it is to have a national healthcare system that provides services to everyone. A national healthcare system that can act as a single entity, devising emergency plans for pandemics and natural disasters, creating warehouses of emergency inventory that is regularly cycled to maintain its freshness and usability.

Another year…

Bradley Farless2 Comments

I’ve had this blog set up for something like 12 years now. I haven’t really been using it that much recently. It’s not so much that I don’t have things to talk about, but that I don’t know if what I have to say really matters in the grander scheme of things. Or would have any impact anyway.

When I started this blog, I was living in Singapore. Or rather, I started a version of it there on Blogger. Then some other blogs, and then I rolled them all into this blog and kept posting. In Singapore, blogs seemed to matter quite a bit. People took them seriously in a way that they just never did in the US. So, when I posted something, I had an expectation of a reaction of some sort.

Now, and maybe especially now with the rise of Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. etc., posting on a blog is sort of like screaming into the wind, or into the eternal void. You can make a lot of noise, but chances are that no one will hear you or even notice.

And even if you say something really important and meaningful, it hardly matters anymore. Maybe I could add a blue check mark to the title of my blog? I dunno. I think it’s because of the polarization of online content in general. People only want to see what’s loudest on both ends of the spectrum. There’s not much room or interest for what’s in the middle. That’s pretty sad but I guess it must be human nature.

And so I let this blog sort of stagnate.

Beyond that feeling that blogging just didn’t matter as much here, I was having a lot of technical issues with Dreamhost. I still am, actually. I’ve had my blog constantly getting restarted by their server because it’s supposedly taking up too much RAM or eating up too much of the CPU, which seems ludicrous to me. I’ve trimmed it down to being really basic and it hardly gets that much traffic anymore, but it’s still apparently being problematic. I can’t even do updates without the thing crashing half the time. Honestly, I think Dreamhost is just punishing me for not upgrading to Dreampress.

Fuck Dreamhost. Fuck them in their ass.

I’ve been coming to a realization though, that I’ve been thinking about blogging the wrong way. Maybe I always have been. Or maybe I started doing this at some point without realizing it.

There’s a difference between blogging to be heard and blogging for myself.

And I think I was blogging to be heard and when I realized that I wouldn’t be heard, or most likely wouldn’t be heard, I lost interest.

So maybe I should be blogging for me. As a way to get my thoughts down and work through them and maybe come to some interesting conclusions. A professor I took a history course with told me once that you never really know what you think about something until you have to write down your thoughts about it because it forces you to really clarify your opinions. She was right. Thanks, Professor.

So, I’m going to try to be a bit more consistent here, even if what I’m posting is something that is only going to matter to me. I’m not trying to be a news outlet. Just a me outlet.