50 YEARS AGO
Shift to public bus service outlined
The cost of acquisition and operation of the three major bus companies in the Capital Region was pegged at $5.5 million, with taking hinging on $4.8 million in immediate state aid. The Capital District Transportation Authority disclosed its action plan for takeover of the financially troubled United Traction Co., Schenectady Transit System and the Troy Fifth Avenue Bus Co., which were collectively losing $705,000 a year. CDTA director John L. Doolittle Jr. expected the operating deficit to be cut to $555,500 due to the CDTA’S tax-exempt status and consolidation of services but he entertained no visions of profit. experiencing symptoms? It’s absurdly wasteful. It’s blatantly irresponsible.
Cuomo, meanwhile, tells us that as part of the extensive planning for the game undertaken by the Bills, the state and the medical company that’s providing the tests, Department of Health employees traveled to stadiums outside New York where similar protocols are in place to confirm their effectiveness.
Wait, they did WHAT?!? This is the same Health Department, mind you, that says it’s too busy to provide an accurate number of nursing home residents who died of COVID -19. Freedom of Information Law requests on the topic sit unanswered, and the state is sending employees to far-off stadiums?
This is the same state government that, as is becoming increasingly obvious, failed to properly plan for the distribution of vaccines.
If the state spent even 10 minutes on planning for the Bills game, that’s 10 minutes too many.
But Cuomo, stretching to justify the unjustifiable, claims the stadium plan is not really about football. Instead, we’re to believe it’s a “pilot program” that will provide valuable lessons for opening other businesses, including theaters and other places where big crowds might gather.
“If it works there, can you do Madison Square Garden?” Cuomo asked. “Can you do a theater on Broadway? Could you do a certain capacity on a restaurant, so restaurants could start to open safely?”
The rationalization is absurd. A 72,000-seat outdoor stadium is nothing like an indoor restaurant. No lesson from one can possibly have meaning for the other.
Nor is a football game anything like a Broadway show. The NFL and its teams make most of their money from television. Broadway shows, in contrast, rely on ticket sales to pay the actors and keep the lights on.
There’s no way theaters can make a financial go of it at the 9-percent capacity planned for the Bills game, and there’s no way, night after night, they could employ similar protocols. The same is true of concerts or nearly any other performance.
So, don’t fall for justifications. The governor is allowing fans at the Bills game because he can, and that’s that. The whims of Cuomo shift, and we’re just weather vanes.