Joyce Hogi

917-743-0865

I am Joyce Hogi and I have lived in the Bronx for over 30 years in the area surrounding Yankee Stadium. I speak as a resident who has witnessed and indeed lived in the snarling traffic that consumes our neighborhood. I speak also as a taxpayer who strongly objects to subsidizing garages to bring more traffic to a neighborhood that is trying to rebound as an area to bring up children and add more parks and housing; to make the area more liviable.

New York has such creative, smart people. This is an ill-conceived project and one we as a community urge you to reject. The new Yankee Stadium will have about 5,000 fewer seats than the House that Ruth Built. Adding 3 new parking garages at such a high cost to the taxpayer does not make economic sense. Why should the public subsidize the construction of public parking? We spend millions on public transportation and now we plan to spend millions to encourage them not to take it?

Now that plans for building a Metro North station at Yankee Stadium are in place it becomes more urgent that the Melrose station on the New Haven/Harlem lines be improved and the 161st Street subway station be upgraded that would benefit this up and coming neighborhood year round. Surely this is a better use of taxpayers’ money. We object to garages that benefit the Yankee fans 80 – 90 days a year while providing little revenue to the city and no benefits to the community. Building these garages is just “induced demand” for drivers ~ providing an incentive to drive into an already overburdened neighborhood.

Even more troubling is the selection of the development company to build the garages. In April 2007 it was the Bronx Community Initiatives Development Corporation. Now a name change brings us Bronx Parking Development Company. It’s the same salesman in a new suit.

Don’t we as New York City residents have a voice in this matter? These are our taxes! The City has to do better by its residents!