Readers sound off on truck traffic, childcare costs and tar oil

Brooklyn: Congestion pricing has not been well thought out. During the pandemic shutdown, pollution decreased significantly and there was absolutely no congestion, yet the trucks kept the store shelves loaded, the hospitals supplied, etc.

As a tractor-trailer driver, I now pay $100 dollars a day in tolls going through the city to New Jersey and back to Brooklyn. If I just do one trip a day, five days a week, that is $2,000 a month in tolls. If you add congestion pricing to my bill it will be $4,000 per month at best. If I go around Manhattan, the amount of fuel I burn with the tolls will just about equal the cost and make more diesel burn into the atmosphere. I’m a small business owner in Williamsburg and a born-and-raised New Yorker. If I decide to continue to operate in New York, I will need to pass the cost to my customers. This means everything will go up in price and the air you breathe will be more polluted.

The best answer is not to have congestion pricing but to eliminate single-passenger rides into the city — very difficult, yes, but the facts are the facts. Traffic congestion and pollution are from the single-passenger vehicles with only one person sitting in them. That is the problem. Now, I realize I am not from a higher education background, but I can still read the writing on the wall. Congestion pricing as you have it is just a means of squeezing the working class for more revenue. Joseph Brusca

Bronx: Can someone tell me just what it is the American people get out of the constant increases in the defense budget? W. Twirley

Merrick, L.I.: Re your Dec. 15 editorial “Up and atom”: Waiting around 40 to 50 years for the recent breakthrough in nuclear fusion to be able to clean up the electric grid is not an option to avert the climate crisis. The successful experiment showed scientists only that a net energy gain was possible in the lab, not that it was remotely affordable or practical. Americans like to wait for great scientific inventions to solve problems, but we already have practical, cheap and reliable clean energy solutions: Wind and solar projects with battery backup, plus geothermal heating and heat pumps for efficient home use. New York’s Climate Action Council must impose a strict plan to transition from dirty gas without getting hung up in gas industry dodges like hydrogen and renewable natural gas. Gov. Hochul, please commit funds in your executive budget to close gas plants and require all-electric construction by 2024. Rebecca Marks

Scarborough, N.Y.: So-called bail reform is dangerous, twisted and makes no sense because it rewards people who have literally chosen crime as a lifetime pursuit. Career criminals with 15, 20 or 25 arrests are returned to the streets with no regard for the fact that they have consciously chosen to be antisocial outlaws. The woke liberal argument about rearrest rates is specious because it makes the absurd assumption that every person freed without bail will be apprehended while committing another crime, and thus become a measurable statistic. That is far from the case. Thomas F. Comiskey

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Bronx: Recent coverage of the “Making New York Work for Everyone Action Plan” unveiled on Dec. 14 has recognized the call for critical improvements to housing and transportation, and rightfully so. But the report comes to another conclusion that we cannot afford to overlook — New York’s economic future depends on child care. Right now, childcare programs are hanging on by a thread. Providers make less than 96% of all other workers in the state and home-based family childcare educators most New York parents rely on make even less. Parents cannot pay more out of pocket. This is forcing programs to close and parents to choose between going to work and caring for their kids. The report recommends the state pay providers based on what it actually costs to provide high-quality care, instead of the bare minimum that they currently receive. It’s time to include money in the state and city budgets to make sure that early educators earn a decent living. Steven Morales, N.Y. policy director, All Our Kin

North Brunswick, N.J.: To Voicer Robert Kralick: President Biden did not close the Keystone Pipeline, he halted construction on the Keystone XL, an addition to it. The pipeline transports tar oil from Canada to the Gulf. Tar oil has nothing to do with gasoline. Inflation and gas prices are global, they’re not just in this country. The U.S. still has the cheapest gas prices in the world and they are falling daily. Contrary to your beliefs, a president doesn’t set oil pricing. That comes from oil companies and OPEC. The only one who needs an economics lesson is you, Mr. Kralick. Read up on supply and demand as well as OPEC and the commodities trading of oil. It might enlighten you. Louise Reeves

Manhattan: Shame on New York City, Mayor Adams and all the union presidents who have forgotten the work and effort of New York workers and the protection that Medicare offers. There seem to be funds for every other group but not the retired and elderly workers of NYC. Remember what you said, Mr. Adams, before you were elected? What happened to your pledge to protect the workers in your union, Michael Mulgrave, when you threatened that if the workers choose Medicare instead of the Medicare Advantage program, within three years we will have nothing? Shame on both of you and your supporters. Marilyn Levin

Bronx: It’s very sad and disgraceful that these ballplayers make millions and millions of dollars. The sad part is the father and mother trying to take their children to a game that costs hundreds to pay for the players’ millions. The sport of the game is gone. Ralph Canzone

Clearwater, Fla.: Talk is cheap. And WNBA star Brittney Griner can thank everyone, including President Biden, until kingdom come. But the real test of her “thanks” will be when the National Anthem is played. America will be waiting for Griner to stand up, face the flag, put her right hand over her heart and sing her heart out — the American flag that Griner berated, claiming that it does not represent Black people, got her out of Russia and brought her back home safely. It’s time for Griner to show respect. JoAnn Lee Frank

Staten Island: To Voicer Kerwin Maude: With all due respect, sir, you are an idiot. The Biden administration did not choose Brittney Griner over Paul Whelan. We tried to get both of them released in exchange for Viktor Bout, but the Russians refused to include Whelan in the deal because he was convicted of espionage and because they want to hold on to him as a bargaining chip. I guess your loathing of Biden has blinded you to that reality. By the way, former President Dump had the chance to swap Whelan for Bout and he declined the offer. Finally, why is a guy who lives in Vancouver writing to the Daily News? Don’t they have newspapers in Canada? Nick Portantiere

Ossining, N.Y.: Voicer Wendy Packus, like others in her cult, complains about how good, rational Americans complain about her leader, Donald Trump, calling us “deranged.” Ms. Packus, we are not deranged, we are diligent in protecting our country from that dangerous grifter. The world was warned that this psychologically damaged, sociopathic con man would lay this nation low. His malignant narcissism and his easily duped followers almost ended our democracy. He is still fomenting violent resistance to the rule of law with his delusional, cynical lies. His slavish followers now contest every election they lose because of his lies. His cowardly self-preservation led to hundreds of thousands of avoidable pandemic deaths, a deadly coup attempt and a country in economic and emotional ruin. So forgive us if we want to make sure he never gets anywhere near the White House again. When he finally slinks away to his wretched place in history’s dustbin, we will be happy to never mention him again. Robert Rundbaken