As New York City Goes

  • Thursday, December 5, 2024
  • Jerry Summers
Jerry Summers
Jerry Summers

Some of the negative narrow-minded critics in our community have occasionally made obviously political oriented remarks about the current status of minor conditions in the Gig City. The exaggerated topics of discussion such as traffic snarls, crime rates, 98 toxic dump sites, the 2012 federal consent judgement in federal court by EPA for a few hundred million bucks and numerous other false accusations are obviously designed to prevent our fair city (and county) from becoming the “next Atlanta or Nashville”.

However our forward thinking civil servants (and a few politicos) who endorse the subjective point of view that our “bowl confined Inner City” will soon fill up with unwelcomed new citizens is just “BS” (in the immortal words spoken by one public office holder in their rebuttal comments to the Wallethub classification of our beautiful village as the “Worst City in America”).

Concerns over the ultimate costs to the taxpayers to solve the issues stated above can probably be eliminated by following the pending proposal of the governor of the Empire State, Kathy Hochul, as it applies to traffic congestion in the Big Apple (NYC).

Since it has been reported to a local civic club by one of the publicly paid bellringers that the former “Dynamo of Dixie” will soon have an additional 60,000 new beautiful apartment dwellers on our traffic free wide thoroughfares, here’s the announcement of how to deal with the problem as adopted by one of the Sanctuary Cities:

“New York City: New York plans to revive a $9 congestion mitigation charge for driving in Manhattan starting in January, Gov. Kathy Hochul. New York City’s congestion pricing program was initially to have charged a toll of $15. Hochul said the toll will support $15 billion in debt financing for mass transit improvements.”

(If Gig City grows as predicted a similar strategy may be on the local horizon, if federal and state free grants should be eliminated or reduced. The revenue producing prospects for such fine areas as Alton Park, the Southside, Scenic and Ochs Highways, Frazier Avenue, Dodds Avenue, etc. are unlimited in the anticipated population explosion of the future!)

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If you have additional information about one of Mr. Summers' articles or have suggestions or ideas about a future Chattanooga area historical piece, please contact him at jsummers@summersfirm.com)

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