Broadway As Walkway

From David Seifman at the New York Post:

The Great White Way will turn into a great walkway.
In a stunning Midtown makeover, Mayor Bloomberg announced today that traffic lanes along Broadway from 42nd to 47th streets and from 33rd to 35th streets will be torn up starting Memorial Day and transformed into pedestrian plazas until at least the end of the year.
PHOTOS: Broadway as a Pedestrian Mall
"By making targeted adjustments at Broadway's two main pinch points, we believe we can ease traffic congestion throughout the Midtown grid," Bloomberg said. "We are going to closely monitor the results to determine if this pilot works and should be extended beyond its trial period."
The $1.5 million pilot program will discontinue vehicular traffic from 47th Street to 42nd Street and from 35th Street to 33rd Street - connecting Seventh Avenue through Times Square, where it is currently bisected by Broadway, and improve traffic flow on Sixth Avenue through Herald Square.
Bloomberg said the result will be simplified traffic patterns, longer green lights and reduced travel times across Midtown.
All car traffic going east and west through Times and Herald Squares will not be impacted and travel times are expected to improve on some of those streets, Bloomberg added.
In addition, the plan is expected to improve bus times on the avenues for the more than 75,000 daily passengers.

We love Broadway and we are frequent visitors toTimes Square and Herald Square (Macy's). We hope the new configurations works out but we don't want to see the hustle and bustle of Broadway disappear. The day that Broadway becomes a calm, languid oasis (or anything approaching same) is the day Broadway dies.

'Obama Robin Hood'

From Ryan Donmoyer and Aliza Marcus at Bloomberg:
President Barack Obama is proposing the first tax increase on high-income earners in 16 years to help pay for sweeping health-care reforms, asking the U.S. Congress to cap the tax deductions for affluent Americans.
The move would reverse a course set by former President George W. Bush of lowering taxes for high-income people, the cornerstone of his administration’s economic program.
“It’s a clear repudiation of Bush’s policy,” said Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland in College Park. “It’s more Obama Robin Hood.” . . .
Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the No. 3 Republican leader in the House, said Obama can expect a wall of opposition to his proposed tax increase. Roughly half of Americans earning $250,000 are small-business owners, and the proposed increase will stifle the troubled economy, he said.
“There will be overwhelming opposition from the American people and House Republicans to the idea that we should raise taxes during a recession,” Pence said in an interview. “Raising taxes in a recession is not a strategy for recovery.”
Representative Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican, said in an e-mail, “You cannot help the job seeker by punishing the job creator. This is exactly the wrong time to be raising taxes on anyone, not the least of which are our small businesses that create new jobs in America.”
The administration also proposes in its budget plan to use revenue from the sale of greenhouse-gas emission permits to help finance a tax credit for some workers and offset higher energy costs for low- and middle-income people.
"Soak the rich" always sounds appealing at first blush.
But the closer you look the worse this idea gets.
Still, I'm sure Obama & Co. will not be disuaded.
And no one should be surprised that Dear Leader is moving in this direction.