One after another several Westchester politicians made their way to the microphone to tell anyone with a driver”™s license in the county what they already know: the area”™s roads are crumbling and something must be done about it.
The Jan. 17 event was a press conference presented by Rebuild NY Now at the Teamsters Local 456 Union Hall in Elmsford. Rebuild NY Now describes itself as a partnership of supporters looking to raise awareness about issues impacting New York state”™s infrastructure.
Assemblyman Thomas J. Abinanti (D-Greenburgh, Mount Pleasant) was adamant in his call for immediate road repair.
“We all agree, enough is enough,” he said. “It”™s time to go forward and fix our infrastructure.
“We”™re setting an example for those who are cynics, who say government is ineffective. The most basic thing that government can do is to make things safe. Our roads are not safe. They are dangerous.”
A press release provided by Rebuild NY Now after the event stated that 10% of state and locally maintained bridges in New York are rated in poor condition. In 2017, the New York State Department of Transportation projected that 2,116 bridges will become structurally deficient by 2022, reflecting an almost 100% increase since the DOT”™s last evaluation in 2009.
“I hear from my constituents over and over again about the cost to repair their vehicles, and how afraid they were when they hit a pothole unexpectedly on one of our state roads,” Abinanti said. “At Macy Park (in Ardsley), not too long ago, I held a press conference with a group of female motorcyclists from the city of New York. They spoke about how one of their members totaled a motorcycle when she hit a pothole on the Saw Mill River Parkway.”
Rebuild NY Now says New York should allocate $35 billion in the 2020 budget “to stabilize the infrastructure crisis.” It also stated that crumbling roads cost the state”™s drivers $1,600 annually, totaling $24 billion statewide. It added that recent studies show that every billion dollars spent on infrastructure repair and development creates more than 28,000 jobs.
“How can the state say we are going to build new bridges, we are going to fix LaGuardia Airport, but we are going to ignore the roads and bridges that everybody uses every day,” Abinanti said. “And don”™t tell me the money is not there. We could have a bond act.
“I just read that the state of New York is investing $500 million to build half of a project that a private developer is going to complete in upstate New York. It is going to produce 600-and-something jobs. That”™s like $850,000 a job. Think about the number of roads that we could pave with that $500 million. You shouldn”™t need a lunar lander to drive down (Route) 9A.”
Several officials rejected even the possibility of a middle-class tax increase to pay for infrastructure improvements. Abinanti had a different segment of the population in mind regarding a funding source.
“There was just a report ”¦ that said there are 300 billionaires in the state of New York who are really not paying their fair share of taxes,” he said. “They have wealth that is three times the state”™s annual budget, so there are people in the state who could contribute a little bit more. There are lots of different ways of finding money for something that”™s so important.”
