Protest the building of the westside stadium in NY

Our teachers, policemen and firefighters are underpaid, public schools are grossly underfunded here, the homeless population is growing daily, yet NY politicians want to build a 600 million dollar football stadium on the westside, please, write the offices and protest against their inevitable decision.

http://www.newyorkabc.org/

We need educated children and well paid public servants, we dont need another football stadium and more pollution.

Please write them against their decision. Thanks.

 

That's great and all, but I'm a Giants fan, and it's a bitch to get to the Meadowlands on Sunday. The new stadium rules

 

So rather than having security with a large police force and firefighters and having public schools with enough money for classes and books, you want a stadium?! Dear god, that's amazing.

 

I thought the Jets and Giants were footing the majority of the bill

 

hey thats what the romans did, instead of solving the problems of the roman people, the emperors just had games at the coleseum."damn, my kid cant read and i got robbed last night. ooohh the giants game is on."

 

So if we build the stadium, the police will disappear? And books will vanish? And teachers will cease to exist? NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

You make it sound like this stadium will bankrupt the city, or even make a dent in our budget, which it won't. Private investors and individuals will pay for most of it, but as a techinicality the city has to chip in some. Plus, the stadium will pay for itself and more in a few years. Think of all the (taxable) profits that vendors and businesses will make both in the stadium and in the general area. Resturants, parking garages, gift shops, memorabilia stores, etc. all pay state and federal taxes on whatever profits they make, which in case you didn't know, is what pays for teachers, police, firefighters, and books.

Plus it's easier for me to see a game, which is essentially all that matters.

No.

 

what do you mean, no?

 

Read the rest of my post, it explains why you're wrong.

 

well the romans had the praetorian guard as police and had good schools. but they could have made things a hell of a lot better for the ordinary citizens. it just seemed a little reminicent of that, thats all

 

the praetorian guards were not police how we see them...they protected generals and such...

 

You probably won't read this since your attention span is probably short, but this was Taken from the site:

• The stadium plan is an enormous diversion of at least $600 million in public funds from schools, housing, public safety, and other important initiatives to help a football team owner from New Jersey build a new stadium.
• The public funds that would be devoted to this project alone almost exceed the total cost of any other stadium in this country.
• The bill to the taxpayers will be much higher than $600 million - when all the City and State contributions to the stadium are included, such as: the value of the MTA's prime waterfront land, transit improvements, adjoining parks, pedestrian bridges and tunnels, parking garages for Jets fans, and other infrastructure.
• This money is being spent at a time when the city has closed six firehouses, public schools are grossly underfunded, and both the city and the state face massive debt that has recently resulted in large increases in taxes. This is money that could otherwise go to rebuilding Lower Manhattan, our schools, and our firehouses, or providing better health care and more affordable housing to those who need it most.
• If the Jets use PILOT's (Payments in Lieu of Taxes) to help finance their $800 million stadium contribution, as has been proposed, some portion of stadium revenue would be spent on repaying the Jets debt to individual bond-holders rather than going into government tax coffers, amounting to yet another taxpayer subsidy for the Jets.
• Even the City Independent Budget Office's most optimistic projections for City and State revenue from the stadium are far below Jets estimates. Should revenues fail to meet those rosy projections, the City and State may have to cut services, raise taxes, or borrow more money to service the debt created by building the Jets stadium.
• The influx of 75,000 event patrons all at once, (with the street-vendors and the additional people always on hand for such events) will choke transit stations, sidewalks, and streets, leading to high levels of traffic, air, and noise pollution.
• The Jets have yet to explain where the 16,000 cars and 100 buses coming to Jets games would park. 16,000 cars would require more than 70 acres of parking lots and garages.
• When 75,000 fans leave the Stadium after a Jets game the area street network would be overwhelmed with people, and traffic would approach gridlock conditions.
• The Jets claim that 70% of the fans coming to the Jets Stadium would use mass transit. No stadium in the country has such high transit use. The highest level of mass transit use by NFL fans appears to be Baltimore at 24%. Currently 4% of Jets fans use mass transit. Surveys of Madison Square Garden have established that, even though the Garden is located directly over Penn Station - the busiest transit hub in the city - only about 50% of Knicks and Rangers fans use mass transit.
• A Jets game, would attract approximately 16,000 cars - a volume equal to the morning rush hour totals at the Queensboro Bridge, the Queens Midtown Tunnel and the Lincoln Tunnel combined. Traffic will clog crossing points as far away as the Queens Midtown Tunnel on the East Side.

Placing a 75,000 seat stadium in Manhattan would overwhelm the local environment with noise and air pollution from traffic, sewage overflow to treatment plants, and a harsh burden on Manhattan's already measured supply of water and electricity.

• The stadium will create 7 million gallons of additional raw sewage and waste water per Special Event day to be piped to the Harlem treatment plant on the Hudson River. In heavy rains, excess sewage will end up getting dumped untreated into the Hudson.
• For the 5 years of stadium construction, air pollution will double or triple in nearby Westside areas.
• Traffic on Special Event days will keep away patrons of theater, restaurants, and shoppers who use the bridges, tunnels, and public transit.
• The air pollution resulting from this worsened gridlock will negatively impact the quality of life for everyone in the affected neighborhoods surrounding the West Side.
• Contrary to what the Jets claim, this will dampen further development of surrounding businesses and residential buildings.

The plan for a new Jets Stadium hinges on a giveaway of substantial public value to private interests.

• The West Side Stadium would occupy four full city blocks along the Hudson River, a prime Manhattan waterfront development site.
• Instead of the City and State paying $600 million to build the Jets Stadium, the MTA could sell the development rights over the stadium site and the ensuing development would add to the City's tax base.
• Press accounts indicate that the MTA estimates the fair-market value of the MTA's West Side rail yards at approximately $1.2 billion. The Jets Stadium would occupy half of the yards, but the value of this public land is never included in estimates of either the cost of the Jets Stadium or the public subsidy for the Jets Stadium.

The Jets Stadium will make for substandard and costly convention space.

• It is nearly impossible to schedule exposition events in a domed stadium during the NFL season. League schedules are announced less than five months before the season, well beyond the 3 to 5 year planning horizon of most exposition events. Between 5 and 6 months of the year, during the Fall prime convention season, the space is virtually off limits to conventions.
• Stadium floors are inferior to exhibit halls for expositions because they are not flexible and divisible like prime exhibit space. There are problems with lighting, sound and climate control. They are not contiguous to the neighboring convention centers.
• The costs of hosting an exposition in a stadium are higher than in an exhibit hall because of the change over expense (i.e. taking out the playing field) and utility costs for the large volume of a stadium. The Jets propose to house a 200,000-square-foot convention space in a 2-million-square-foot stadium.
• Meeting planners expressed concern that the domed stadium could be a marketing liability for the Javits Center. Traffic, noise and other impacts from a Jets game would deter them from holding events in the Javits Center during the football season.
• In Atlanta, the football stadium makes more frequent use of the convention center for tailgating and other events (14 times in 2003) than the convention center makes use of the stadium (8 times in 2003).

The Jets Stadium will have a blighting effect on the West Side community

• The Jets Stadium would be a massive box (800 feet long, 790 feet wide and 300 feet tall) obscuring the western horizon, blocking the waterfront, dwarfing neighboring waterfront buildings, including the Javits Center.
• The Jets Stadium would occupy prime waterfront land primarily for the purpose of hosting ten football games a year. For the remainder of the year, the facility would have a deadening impact on the West Side. Even if the stadium was used for convention events as proposed, that activity would be buried in a structure with ten times the floor area and would scarcely be perceptible to pedestrians walking the streets around the stadium.
• In other cities, football stadiums have not generated development in surrounding areas.

But hey as long as you get to the game.

 

Those cuts would have been made anyway, and like I said, all the money that NYC is putting up will be more than paid back in taxes. As far as parking, that's why we have garages. Here in the big city, our buildings go up and down - a three story parking garage can also have ten basement floors for parking. A few dozen of them conveniently placed around the stadium will take care of all cars involved.

'Local environment'? Concrete and gravel is hardly a local environment. Noise isn't really an issue either. Outside of a few blocks' radius of a stadium you can't really hear anything at all. I've parked on the street a few blocks outside Yankee Stadium on several occasions and left during the 7th inning, and by the time I get back to my car I can't hear anything (even though the game is still in progress). Our water? Electricity? We have more than enough of both to spare.

There is construction going on literally everywhere in NYC, and it isn't bringing down anyone's quality of life. Manhattan is an island, and being an island we have breezes and winds that blow regularly, taking air pollution out to sea where it doesn't bother anyone.

Now I know your next argument will be "well what about the air pollution being blown out to sea?", and I'd just like to bring up the fact that you would not have a problem with all this if the stadium were being built on the New Jersey coast, and all the pollution were being blown out to sea 50 miles away.

How so?

The same can be said for every major building ever constructed, why are you protesting this one in particular? I disagree with the concept, the Jets should build their own goddam stadium, but if you're going to protest it, then protest the law and not the stadium.

That's a problem, I agree.

So schedule events during the offseason. The NFL has the shortest season of any professional sport after all.

I really don't think convention space was one of the main things that the new stadium was expected to be used for.

The West Side isn't a terrible beautiful or scenic place as it is, even if the waterfront does look nice.

 

You obviously didn't read the text. Conviently placed where? Tell me that, where?! Surrounding the stadium? What about the businesses and apartment complexes? Think!

What about the people within the block radius genius. Please dont work for the city, I'd hate to live in a place run by you.

We have enough of both, sure, keep living in your magical world. Last summer there was a drought, and again, what about the people who live within the block radius, and have no moving options, moron?

That's the dumbest thing you said so far. We're not constructing humongous stadiums every day stupid!!

Good god you're so dumb. Why stop pollution it will happen anyway? Idiot. You obviously didn't read everything and didn't put much thought either.

Don't try to make an "clever assumption", and that's a really crappy argument. This stadium idea is bad for everyone and everything. Moron.

I'm protesting the STADIUM! I'm protesting THE STADIUM, because it's a bad idea, an eye sore and very unnecessary when firefighters, teachers, and police men ar being paid less than minimum wage workers.

You're not this stupid. No one is this stupid.

Well, you're just what I'd call a lost cause, and beside I wasn't trying to convince you anyways, I knew you'd give reasons against my reply. Try thinking about other things and other people beside yourself, it's actually pretty nice. Everything that goes on in NY affects everyone, and to say it wont affect you is ignorant and moronic. Ciao.