This is why Buffalo is Buffalo

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

So Schroeder decides to try and get in the way of the Brown machine. Tries to do his job at Comptroller. You know...checks and balances and all. Well Brown doesn't like this so he calls up his friend Andy. Gets Andy to deal with the problem by 'promoting' Schroeder to commissioner of the state DMV. Now Brown doesn't have a pest in his back pocket.

The Democratic machine at work folks. Running NYS into the ground for the last 50 years.

[WNYresident]

It won't change unless you change out the players.

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

It won't change unless you change out the players.

Don't agree. The players change. It's the system that remains. Dems controlling everything is why Upstate and Western NY is a dumpster.

[WNYresident]

I meant players as in the group... The Dems.

A while back I did a story about a salesman and a well.

The sales man marketed the well water to everyone in town. For years that well water was fine. People were happy. He would market his well water and people were buying it....

Then one day the water started to go bad. Just a little at first but over time the water just got worse and worse.

Another guy *** his own well and started selling his water. His water wasn't as bad as the first guys water.

The first guy saw this and started to trash the second guys water. "It's bad for you!!!!!" My water is better for you! "His water will kill our community"... blau blau blau..

The first guy started to change the containers he was selling the water in... even lied on the label how good his water was for you. In the end it was still the same ol crappy water. That is how I now see political parties. You have to change the well and stop using that water. Makes no difference what bucket or bottle you are using.

I whipped that up fast. I'm busy today.

Here's an example that hits close to home:

The town of Cheektowaga will never change as long as the same political party controls our town board. I just read on facebook that 90% plus of our town employees are committee people. I don't know how true that is but I find this troubling.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/7867...0895448773214/

We have our supervisor who is the Vice Chair of the Erie County Democratic Party. I find this a conflict of interest big time. The supervisor "endorsed" another Erie County Democratic candidate when Jim R had to step down. Did our Supervisor interview more than just that one person or because the Erie County Democrats gave that person the endorsement did our Supervisor go along with it.


I want a town board who put's the "property owners" best interest first not their political party they belong to.

This is no different than if a Supervisor was an "officer" of a private sector business. Could that Supervisor work with a person from that business and recommend them to do business with the town? I think there are ethic rules against that. Why don't these rules apply with this?

If 90% of the party's committee people work for us don't you think the people on the town board are going to make sure they have their support come election time?

[joe d.]

I meant players as in the group... The Dems.

A while back I did a story about a salesman and a well.

The sales man marketed the well water to everyone in town. For years that well water was fine. People were happy. He would market his well water and people were buying it....

Then one day the water started to go bad. Just a little at first but over time the water just got worse and worse.

Another guy dug his own well and started selling his water. His water wasn't as bad as the first guys water.

The first guy saw this and started to trash the second guys water. "It's bad for you!!!!!" My water is better for you! "His water will kill our community"... blau blau blau..

The first guy started to change the containers he was selling the water in... even lied on the label how good his water was for you. In the end it was still the same ol crappy water. That is how I now see political parties. You have to change the well and stop using that water. Makes no difference what bucket or bottle you are using.

I whipped that up fast. I'm busy today.

Here's an example that hits close to home:

The town of Cheektowaga will never change as long as the same political party controls our town board. I just read on facebook that 90% plus of our town employees are committee people. I don't know how true that is but I find this troubling.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/7867...0895448773214/

We have our supervisor who is the Vice Chair of the Erie County Democratic Party. I find this a conflict of interest big time. The supervisor "endorsed" another Erie County Democratic candidate when Jim R had to step down. Did our Supervisor interview more than just that one person or because the Erie County Democrats gave that person the endorsement did our Supervisor go along with it.


I want a town board who put's the "property owners" best interest first not their political party they belong to.

This is no different than if a Supervisor was an "officer" of a private sector business. Could that Supervisor work with a person from that business and recommend them to do business with the town? I think there are ethic rules against that. Why don't these rules apply with this?

If 90% of the party's committee people work for us don't you think the people on the town board are going to make sure they have their support come election time?

This will NEVER happen...no matter what Town or City you can speak of...to many people owe their livelihoods and positions in local govt's' leaders...A whoelsale ghange is nearly impossible..and that is what it would take...anywhere! " TO THE VICTOR...GOES THE SPOILS!"

[grump]

Leftie, here’s another reason Buffalo is Buffalo. The Magnificent Ambersons who run NFTA are at it again, wanting to pour taxpayer millions into the long abandoned DL& W (decayed, lousy & worthless) terminal downtown and make it an “attraction”. Thankfully, the federal government denied an NFTA application for $19 million to piss away on completing “studies” and other associated crappola. (What this denial says about NFTA’s antic delirium about acquiring $150 to $200 million to expand a decaying subway that no one wants and no one rides it will be interesting to see.) Undeterred, NFTA announced that it is already setting aside material for the coming plan, which will be announced if NFTA can ever find the money to complete the “study”. All this after the clods running this outfit were forced to admit that they deliberately ignored system maintenance for years. The article in the shoe shine rag ended on an unintentionally funny note...that future expenditures for the site improvements might have to be delayed because the retaining wall that prevents this mess from sliding into the Buffalo River is so broken down that sink holes are developing around it and it requires immediate repairs. Without repairs to the retaining wall the whole kit and kaboodle could end up in the river. God willing!

[WNYresident]

Well wouldn't an expanded subway put us on the path of a greener society? Isn't that what we want?

[grump]

WNY, if anyone actually rode it that would at least be something like an argument. But no one does so it’s a waste. It makes no sense to build a system that is supposed to make us “green” if no one uses it. It’s the use that makes the “green” you’re talking about. It’s the building that makes the “green” that Il Douche and his campaign contributors think about. Around these parts we get far too much of the latter without any of the former. In this regard, see Riverbend. And the subway still consumes energy and that energy has to be generated somewhere somehow. And because a subway is a static system that can’t be easily modified to address changes in need it has to be coupled with other energy consuming modes of transportation and might actually be less green than other alternatives.

[WNYresident]

Hogwash. People do use it.

Buffalo Metro Rail is ranked 25th in the nation in light rail daily ridership service as of 2013, with 5,058,300 passengers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Metro_Rail


5,000,000 passengers. I wonder how that is calculated.

That would be 13,700 rides a day. If we figure a ride to and from work could be one person. Take 13,700 / 2 ride per day per person... 6,850 people a day use the metro.

What is the yearly budget? Anyone know? I want to see how much money is spent to cart around just under 7000 people.

[grump]

WNY, ridership has dropped over 40% since the early 90’s. It was barely 4 million in 2017. That sounds like a lot but it’s not. And who knows how many are riding just in the free zone or are on student passes. Please, please don’t assume these people are at all truthful in their counting either. They’ve been caught giving sneak raises to their senior executives and then lying about it until backed into a corner. And just because it ranked 25th in some Wikipedia article means nothing regarding its usage. And on the budget you would have to ferret out expenses from a number of budget centers, eg surface transportation group, facilities etc because they spread the cost across of the subway across numerous expense centers, doubtlessly to make it difficult to figure out exactly how much money the subway hemorrhages annually.

[grump]

WNY, Salt Lake City has a population about 30,000 or 40,000 greater than Buffalo’s. It’s light rail system had 18,000,000 riders in 2017. People don’t ride the subway here and they’re not riding in ever increasing numbers. But since NFTA gears all of its “studies” toward determining whether the subway should be expanded and NFTA wants to expand it, magically, all their “studies” show that it should be expanded. Kinda like MSNBC and CNN wanting Hillary elected president and magically all their polling showed that she was clearly gonna win...except she didn’t. Take a look at the plan for the expansion. It manages to miss every major retail and commercial center in that part of Amherst but places something like 7 stops on the UB north campus. If that’s what they want to do they could probably find one of those old kiddy railroads excessed from a closed amusement park and install it at UB. I bet it wouldn’t cost $150 million either. Why, I bet NFTA could do it for half that!

[WNYresident]

You know with $150,000,000 you could buy each of the 7000 a car.

https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/...-on-the-market

If you budgeted about $15k per car (new or used)

$150,000,000 / $15,000 = 10,000 cars.


Just think how much further ahead the city would have been if that project never happened. All those businesses that were destroyed while it was being built.

hindsight is 20/20. You'd think people in government would learn from their mistakes.

Grump... did you hear the one from AOC? Climate warming is suppose to end the work in 12 years.

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

WNY, Salt Lake City has a population about 30,000 or 40,000 greater than Buffalo’s. It’s light rail system had 18,000,000 riders in 2017. People don’t ride the subway here and they’re not riding in ever increasing numbers. But since NFTA gears all of its “studies” toward determining whether the subway should be expanded and NFTA wants to expand it, magically, all their “studies” show that it should be expanded. Kinda like MSNBC and CNN wanting Hillary elected president and magically all their polling showed that she was clearly gonna win...except she didn’t. Take a look at the plan for the expansion. It manages to miss every major retail and commercial center in that part of Amherst but places something like 7 stops on the UB north campus. If that’s what they want to do they could probably find one of those old kiddy railroads excessed from a closed amusement park and install it at UB. I bet it wouldn’t cost $150 million either. Why, I bet NFTA could do it for half that!

TRAX in Salt Lake actually moved close to 19 million people. Since we're doing a comparison, we should also point out that the TRAX system has 3 lines, 50 stations and covers 58 miles. That's:

• 6.3 million per line
• 380k per station
• 327k per mile

The metro is just 1 line, 13 stations and covers 6.4 miles. Using the 5,000,000 rider mark that's:

• 5 million per line
• 385k per station
• 781k per mile

These numbers are for two cities with a similar Metro population. So what's the difference? TRAX goes more places. Period. Mass transit is only as good as the places it services. It's why the morons who are talking about running light rail to the Central Terminal have their head up their ass.

I can guarantee you that if the Buffalo Metro went to UB North and had two stems off it it would produce similar ridership to TRAX. The first stem would run up Elmwood through Buffalo, Kenmore, Tonawanda and then over the Grand Island and then to Niagara Falls. The second stem would go past ECMC, Cheektowaga and then the airport. This would still be a smaller network than TRAX but more productive. Why? Because you could get from one place to another.

This system will not happen of course. Buffalo isn't going to host an Olympics to cover the infrastructure bump that SLC got. But that's not a part of the conversation....

[WNYresident]

can guarantee you that if the Buffalo Metro went to UB North and had two stems off it it would produce similar ridership to TRAX.

Think it could at least pay for itself?

Why subsidize something like that if in the end not that many compared to the population it serves uses it?

I'm getting way more frugal as I get older. Or maybe finally realizing the value of a dollar and why it should not be spent on items with very little return. Most of us will be dead by the time many of the projects we read about make a difference. Sounds selfish but a lot people don't give a crap about helping others succeed while they are trying to do the same.

[WNYresident]

I remember reading articles of the pro metro people and anti metro people. Maybe over the weekend I'll pull some of the old news papers out and post the articles. Seems the people who didn't want the subway were closer on mark than those who wanted it. If you couldn't build the entire plan it should not have been started to begin with.

Plus take into account all the business that were destroyed while building it. They were people also.