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  1. MM – lights in the middle block are intended to alleviate the traffic backup from turning vehicles by moving the pedestrian flow away from the corner. whether it works or not is up for debate, but that is the intention.

  2. Bloomberg has sown the seeds of his own potential destruction by hijacking the democracy to extend term limits. He didn’t like the rules, so he rather hypocritically changed them. Typical rich-guy tactics at a time when heavy-handed CEO behavior is quite out of fashion. I’m not saying he’ll lose, but it is ironic his corrupt bargain could possibly trigger his defeat.

  3. Montrose;

    re: the term limits issue – I think this is a red herring. The courts have found that his actions in this case were legal. Moreover, he did make himself dictator. He still must win the vote of the people.

    Moreover, I think alot of the organizations who are running around screaming about democracy are being disingenuous. NYC is far from a functioning democracy. Most of our elected officials are decided at the time of the Democrat party primary. Most people have become apathetic and don’t bother to vote, so these primaries are decided by the real people who run NYC: public-service unions, machine politicians, “non-profit” social-service organizations, etc. The result is typical of any one-party rule situation: stooges in the City Council who are both corrupt ane at the beck and call of the civil-service unions. The only thing putting a stop to that is a strong, independent mayor, which is why both Giuliani and Bllomberg were elected. Thompson is a political hack machine politician who will bring us back to the bad old days.

    Lest you think I’m just being partisan, note that this system is the inevitable result of any one-party-rule situation. Nassau County used to be a one-party government and in that case it was the Republicans. At least over there the folks wised up after the corruption became obvious and they gave the Democrats a seat at the table. It’s amazing to me that NYC’ers, who like to think they are sophisticated, allow themselves to be ruled like a banana republic.

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