To the editor,
Instead of Sardinia which has a lot of natural beauty, how about Devil’s Island, the infamous French prison??!
Marion Marino
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To the editor,
RE: How About Renaming Downtown ‘Sardinia” (BroadsheetDAILY May 2)
There will be additional problems in infrastructure and capacity to be considered:
1. Sewage
2. Fire
3. Resilience/Sustainability (since most of these new people will be living in a flood zone)
4. Garbage collection & disposal
5. Libraries
6. Active play areas for kids — apart from passive parks
It is human nature to like the idea of more people since I remember easily when you could turn Wall Street/Broadway into a bowling alley on a weekend. But there are a many downsides to this influx that require immediate attention and that should be added to your list of schools, park space, hospitals and transportation.
We are building effectively a new city below Canal Street – and for that matter above as well — and we need here everything that a city would require to be able to function. I can only hope (and without too much faith I am afraid) that our electeds are up to the tasks at hand.
A few ideas:
a. Ban all private transportation below at least Canal Street – This would, in addition to removing vehicles, free up local garage space for other uses.
b. Add affordable large city garaging above Canal Street
c. Ban all on street private parking below Canal Street
d. Add to the free Downtown Connection service to enable easy connections to the new garages above Canal Street
e. Establish one way streets to direct all traffic from the bridges and tunnels to go only up past Canal Street
f. Eliminate the ability for vehicles, except for emergency vehicles, to exit East and West Highways below Canal Street
g. Establish a tax on all construction plus on sales of dwelling, condos, condos with values of $1million+ dedicated to maintenance of the new infrastructures that are going to be necessary. (It is one thing to have a budget for capital construction, and another to have funds for continual maintenance).
h. Break up the few local downtown Community Boards and add CB’s to reflect the additional population thereby giving a larger popular voice to the newly enlarged neighborhoods
I know: All very pie in the sky!
Henry Parsons