WPCNR THE DAILY BAILEY.  News & Comment By John F. Bailey. June 20, 2007: The Journal News trolley shuttle story in White Plains in this morning’s edition, in which the City of White Plains is seriously considering spending $840,000 a year to run a downtown shuttle, (as reported by WPCNR last week) spending $242,000 of a government grant to buy three buses, after spending $200,000 of taxpayer dollars for a study gives a clue as to how the city might to pay for it.

This is astounding. The BID, which is poised to pounce on an additional $1 Million in assessments when the BID expands which should be happening shortly given the lack of opposition, has been hoping to expand its operations bringing more amenities, street sweepers, full-time paid ambassadors, and advertising banners to the downtown. What they apparently did not know was they are going to pay for the shuttle.

However, we now have a good idea of how the city might pay for that shuttle. They could pick the BID’s pockets under the guise of saying the shuttle will improve BID members’ business in the downtown, and take that $1 Million assessment and apply some of it towards the shuttle, if not all of it . Isn’t it a coincidence that as soon as the BID draws closer to expanding and getting its hands on $1 Million, the city suddenly gets this trolley study and in a lightning round applies for Nita Lowey’s grant? How convenient.

Why don’t we see these things coming?  It is found money. The shuttle routes conveniently move persons through the new BID area to be added, so it is very justifiable. 

But is anybody thinking in City Hall? Is anybody thinking on the Common Council?

The study done at a cost of $200,000 on the shuttle  never went to the populace and the neighborhoods to ask what kind of shuttle would they be willing to use. They asked office parks how many of their population would use it, and that number came in at 25%. The study described shuttles in Chattanooga, Denver, and Alabama. Now what is significant about the Denver shuttle is their shuttles go from huge parking lots outside of town into the city, and run every 5 minutes and every 75 seconds during rush hour.

That is not what is proposed in White Plains. The interval in White Plains is  10 and 15 minutes on the shuttle routes proposed. Hello? I can walk from the train station into downtown in 15 minutes rather than stand there waiting for a shuttle to arrive. We’re paying $200,000 for this “expertise.” Whoever picked these people to do a study? You cannot recommend something that does not fit a “successful” model.

 The study should have looked into The Town of Huntington NY, where a 16-fleet shuttle costs the Town of Huntington about $2,011,000 a year loss. $2 million! And, that is with$472,000 in government assistance.

Consider the isolated Southender

 Often I have wanted to get into town without a car. I have to take the No 5 bus, which runs once an hour on the North Street loop into the transcenter. It would be great if the city fanned shuttles out down Mamaroneck Avenue to the White Plains border, deployed them out Post Road and over to Central Avenue and the office parks to bring persons into the downtown without cars.

Do any of the White Plains proposed routes go out of the downtown? No.  People in the outlying neighborhoods will still be taking cars into town to the train station. The recommendations don’t have any basis for expecting success. A shuttle sounds good and it will make money for somebody, but it may cost BID merchants and we taxpayers a bundle every year. Who gets the franchise is the question. Not to mention the infrastructure.

Besides, with the shuttles stopping on downtown streets, even if you did not have the perpetual construction delays, you’re going to have traffic blockage, tying up traffic even more – unless they pull into the cutouts.  Where’s the thinking here? For this we paid $200,000. 

The city deserved better. But if you go on the study, this shuttle does not make sense. The routes don’t stop often enough. They don’t serve wide enough areas, they do not move people from one end of the city to the other.

But, you watch the BID is going to pay for this. Something they did not tell the merchants, and the merchants did not even think about when the expansion plan was advanced. This may be why Mr. Ammirato expressed uncharacteristic concerns about the shuttle costing too much. He feels a city grope coming on.

And what about Andy’s AirLINK?

Now, the county started a shuttle to the airport this week with no advance advertising. Now the astute transit reporter for Gannettt, Caren Halbfinger, pointed out today the county has only advertised AirLink on the radio.  The county is going to spend $690,000 of taxpayer’s money to run this service then evaluate it, she writes.

Wait a minute: did not the county think of doing an Andy Spano phone call to every family in Westchester – telling them about AirLink? Was somebody asleep in communications? Come on. He could have done that, rather than buying radio time.

Could ads be put in the airport, as Ms. Halbfinger points out, there are none.  40 persons rode AirLink Monday the first day. That is less than the 13 an hour the White Plains study says will ride the proposed White Plains shuttles. What is going on here?  There is also no place to park to drive your car to the train station and take AirLINK, since long term spaces are taken in the White Plains Transit Center garage. It has no shot at working without satellite parking for the AirLINK patrons. Gee, I should have charged the county $100,000 for that piece of advice.

This sounds like Andy is spending $690,000 to show that a shuttle won’t work to prove he needs a new parking lot at the airport.

Overheard at the virtual reporter’s bar, “The Front Page”

For those who do not know of it, “The Front Page” is  the virtual bar where the rat dog reporters hangout in fedoras and askew ties, smoking Luckys and nursing bourbon and soda in the wee hours by "Typos" the bartender, who looks a little like Joe the Bartender. Oysters and Finanhaddy are served to all hours. Teletypes line the wall--UPI, AP, clattering away like the old days. The tables are makeshift copy desks with candlestick phones. Smith Corona Typewriters are on the desks to rap out ideas. Your tabs are put on spikes. The coffee is black and really bitter. The glamorous sob sisters in Hedda Hopper pillbox hats, legs discreetly crossed, in tight tailored suits, draw the drooping eyeballs of hardbitten newsdogs. The dames who dig for dirt are looking for a reporter to light their cigarettes. The talk there last night went like this…

Speaking of checks – for something completely different, is city hall in White Plains going to have a news conference complete with Peter Gilpatrick holding up a big blown up check with the Mayor when LCOR presents its $6,000,000 check to pay for half the commuter parking lot down on Bank Street, needed by the city before June 30 to balance the city budget – just a suggestion.

Considering the heroine Probation Officers who assisted in apprehension of robbery suspect on South Kensico Avenue storage facility, how about using the Patriot Act powers to search all commercial storage properties for contraband, weapons, storage of illegal drugs, stolen goods, fencing operations? I bet the police would find a lot of interesting goodies in those facilities. Are they used for selling drugs, for example? Meeting places to sell drugs? And stolen property? Let's use the Patriot Act Powers for good.

And, if White Plains Hospital Medical Center is so well run, why is it losing $4.5 Million a year as one of their executives stated on television on Common Council Television June 4? Remember, they closed St. Agnes and Port Chester’s United for losing similar amounts. And now, the hospital has to expand its emergency room to cope with the increased traffic from defunct St. Agnes and United. If anything the hospital should be experiencing a windfall from the closing of those two hospitals.

And, how long does it take the DEC to clean up a contaminated, toxic dump? 32 years and counting. The dragging the feet on cleaning up the White Plains City Dump is unbelievable. The DEC more and more is showing that it appears to be a government funded employment program for scientists rather than an organization with teeth. It covers up for communities, is not interested when violations are reported such as the sewage leaks into Silver Lake, and tries to downplay situations, and allows communities to cover up embarrassing situations, because that’s what’s going on in White Plains. And how about announcing the total fine by the way? What is City Hall afraid of? What is galling is the contamination has been known about for years and no bureaucrats in the DEC forced White Plains to clean it up.

Oh...and Typos the Bartender wants to know why the School District is not going to release its "Action Plans" for the School's next decase as part of its Strategic Planning until next fall.  The public doesn't know on what the action plans are going to take action (like maybe the budget?)....or what. What a way to involve the community, especially when most of the persons on these action committees are school district personnel. How can they be objective? How can they be trusted to make hard decisions on the biggest drain on taxpayers in the city...the school district.

Typos also whispered to me that there is big time confusion on how many petitions for office you can sign. A Board of Elections type said one petition is all  a registered voter can sign. The head of the Democratic Party said you could sign one petition for three candidates. The election law says you can sign three. Shame on the Board of Elections and the Democratic Party for not promulgating the rules so no one candidate can spread false signing rules. That is a disgrace. In the Board of Elections doesn't know and those Board of Election chairs are getting $100 Gs a year and more to know that -- then they should be ousted... 

More from "The Front Page" to come.