PRESS RELEASE
New York Governor Appeals to Trump for Federal Aid for New York City Transportation Disaster; LaRouche: Get an Action Plan!
May 23, 2017 (EIRNS)—New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wrote to President Trump May 21, asking for Federal aid for New York City’s transportation crisis. While the governor’s letter emphasizes that the "state of disrepair at Penn Station has reached the tipping point," and calls for help to lessen the impact of cutting back trains to Long Island in July and August while Amtrak makes needed repairs, Cuomo states, "Amtrak’s need to cut service this Summer has created both a short-term crisis and dramatically exposed the system’s chronic problems."
That’s an understatement. In fact, across all modes of transportation—air, subway, roadway, tunnels, rail—the N.Y./N.J. Metropolitan system is inadequate, dangerous, and in breakdown. Even Cuomo states,
"As in most emergencies, this is not a political issue and bipartisan officials [sic] will agree that we need immediate help. This situation affects the entire northeast region."
An action committee has been commissioned by Lyndon LaRouche. His "Manhattan Project" effort has already collaborated with engineers and other experts in recent conferences and discussions. Dr. Hal Cooper, a Seattle-based surface transportation engineer, who attended the Manhattan Project ’New Silk Road’/America events last month, has already identified some of the key principles relevant to a New York City system re-design, including the need to create a "loop" for trains to pursue different directions, and not have trains stopping and ending service as they do now at Penn Station.
In the case of aviation problems, a New York civil engineer, at an April event, described the crisis at LaGuardia Airport. Originally built in 1939, and with several overhauls since, the facility has in recent years been operating with numbers and types of take-offs and landings, way over capacity. Now, the upgrade construction process (started last year) has caused such congestion, that passengers opt to leave their taxis some distance from the terminal, and hoof it to their flights.
Cuomo’s suggested remedies—other than help with bussing commuters while repairs are underway, is to privatize Penn Station, and make other financial-mechanistic changes. A couple of weeks ago, Cuomo and N.J. Governor Chris Christie already wrote to Amtrak CEO Charles W. Moorman, asking that Penn Station be turned over to a private management company.
A real action plan is required, on the scale of an upgrade of the whole transportation system, along with the most advanced, rapid construction methods, and back-up logistics. The model is what China is doing with its entire nation, and the Belt and Road corridors.
LaRouche said today, to pull the competent people together, get international input, and organize the approach.
"Physically, it can be done. Get on it. It can work." This is what has to be done. "Make a war-cry about it!"
