Gridlock Xmas Nightmare: Obama Fundraisers & the NYC Christmas Tree Lighting on Same Night, POTUS Doesn’t Care
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on November 30, 2011
If Barack Obama can screw up and gridlock the traffic in Los Angeles for hours during his insufferable, never-ending fundraising — as he did in August 2010, October 2010, and April 2011 — no American city is safe.
Therefore, it’s consistent that Obama doesn’t care that he’ll do the same to New York City as he hops about the city, attending several fundraiser events held by the LBGT and others. During the Christmas tree-lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center, one of the worst times of the year for major NYC traffic jams, with or without pop star Justin Bieber as a guest singer.
Which should prove to be an unprecedented nightmare for anyone who isn’t in a presidential limo, what with the added presidential security and multi-road closures. Traffic in Manhattan will suck eggs from 3 to 11 p.m.
Merry Christmas, Big Apple.
Reported by New York Post, Gridlock expected as Obama fund-raiser coincides with tree lighting:
President Obama has an unwelcome holiday gift for New Yorkers — he’ll be coming to Midtown the same day the streets will be impossibly clogged by the Rockefeller Plaza tree-lighting ceremony. He has picked Wednesday, one of the busiest gridlock-alert days of the year, to descend on the area with his motorcade for a fund-raiser and party.
While throngs squeeze into the blocks around Rockefeller Center, where teen heartthrob Justin Bieber will be performing, the president and his entourage will be just a few blocks away at the Sheraton New York Hotel.
It’ll be the double whammy of all traffic nightmares.
“Is it going to be crazy, between Obama, Bieber and the tree lighting? Yes, it’s going to be crazy . . . Nobody is going to be looking forward to it. The already maddening traffic situation is going to be even more maddening,” lamented Rob Byrnes, president of the East Midtown Partnership, a business-improvement district.
The Rockefeller Center festivities always bring chaos to the businesses he represents, Byrnes said, and the simultaneous visit from the president means “additional chaos.”
A city official said 48th, 49th, 50th and 51st streets between Fifth and Sixth avenues will be subject to closures for the tree lighting.
[...]
The New York Republican State Committee criticized his decision to host an event during the tree lighting, which a city official said was scheduled as far back as August.
“If in fact the trip to New York is strictly a fund-raiser, I think it’s a bit selfish on the part of the Democrats and the administration to do so on an evening which is kind of special for many people in New York City,” Republican spokesman Tony Casale said.
Selfish? Yes, of course it is. But for a national leader who tried to scoot around legislative rules to schedule his last-minute TV presser on jobs on the same night, at the same time as a Republican debate a few months back, impacting thousands of New Yorkers’ Christmas tree-lighting evening is small potatoes to the Current Occupier in the Oval Office.
From The Lonely Conservative, Obama to Screw Up NYC Tree Lighting By Attending Fundraiser at Same Time:
Nothing is more important to President Obama than the 2012 election, not even staying away from New York City during the annual tree lighting festival. He will be attending a fundraiser at the same time, causing gridlock for a city that’s already been stressed to the limit by the Occupy Wall Street movement.
From Newsday, Obama, tree lighting promise NYC gridlock:
Wednesday will be a nightmare before Christmas for motorists in Manhattan.
A visit by President Barack Obama and the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting ceremony are expected to snarl traffic from 3 to 11 p.m.
The traffic will be especially mired in midtown, as thousands of New Yorkers and tourists pack into Rockefeller Center to catch a glimpse of the tree-lighting ceremony and musical performances.
To compound the mayhem caused by the massive holiday crowds, Obama will hop around the city for fundraisers near Washington Square Park, midtown and the Upper East Side just as New Yorkers begin their afternoon commute. His motorcade will shut down the FDR Drive and several city blocks during those events.
Former traffic commissioner Sam Schwartz suggested people travel by subway and avoid cars and buses, saying midtown will become “almost immobile at times.
“Anybody that travels into midtown Manhattan with a car [Wednesday] should have their head examined,” he said.
“You will see major gridlock like you haven’t seen in a long time.”
Obama WON, after all. Suck it up, New Yorkers. Blame Bush, a tsunami, Fox News, or ATMs, but don’t dare blame POTUS or you may be called a raaaaacist.
Flashback from Christmas 2010:
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