New York City Boosts Donald Trump's Ego and Risks Lives

Several weeks ago, the City of New York quietly closed the northbound 72nd street exit ramp from the Henry Hudson Parkway, the highway that runs along Manhattan's west side. The closure was first billed as temporary but is now being billed as permanent.

The city's decision to close this exit ramp was to assist Donald Trump and his backers with making his multiple residential buildings directly south of the exit appear to be part of the affluent and more desireable Riverside Park area to the north. The city wants to assist Donald Trump with the fiction that these buildings are part of a very pleasant neighborhood community by removing the traffic that flowed between the two.

Not only does this exit ramp closure not build a fiction, but it risks lives. A large part of New York's Upper West Side is now virtually inaccessible to emergency vehicles that would be coming from other parts of the city in an emergency and that would otherwise need to exit at the 72nd street location. This area includes Lincoln Center, parts of Broadway, a large part of Central Park and ABC's headquarters. If New York didn't realize earlier how important it is that emergency vehicles can access large areas, something like yesterday's incident in Minneapolis should remind us.

Additionally, the closure of the exit ramp has created unbearable congestion in the area 7 blocks north of the ramp which has now become the closest exit. This area, which used to be a quiet New York City neighborhood is now overrun with cars racing through it to get back to the larger area where they had originally sought to exit.

We are in a day and age when the entire world has lost interest in Donald Trump and when he has exposed himself for being a greedy, self-centered, nasty, unpleasant and egotistical maniac. New York City needs to get with the program, to stop risking lives, and to tell him that enough is enough.