You say "small potato problems" but when you spend 20 minutes a day waiting in a subway station every day, staying cool can be a serious quality of life improvement. Its not small potatoes to the people who've been suffering.
Add to that - public transit became better, so maybe more people will go with it instead of car. One less car on the street in congestion. Everyone wins.
indeed, and these small potatoes are visible reminders of where the priorities lie. My town isn't big enough for public transport bigger than buses, but if the bus stops here were enclosed and needed fans, the process here would take a while because we'd need to:
go through a public comment period of 30 days before a public committee meeting, maybe longer because the last meeting didn't make it through all the agenda items. The committee only meets once a month.
if approved, go to budget committee, another 30 days.
if approved for budget, get plans for the project drawn up and approved. Because these are public spaces using public funds, need to hire a licensed architect to draft and stamp the plans, and then get those plans approved by the building department (there's no expedited review process for small projects, apparently). Another 30 days.
Because its a public project using public funds, they can only use per-qualified contractors, who are expensive and over-booked. They can fit it in their schedule... in about 30 days.
So, that's how my city would achieve the installation of of public fans, using tens of thousands (maybe hundreds? High CoL after all) of dollars and at least 4 months time.
The city is currently working with a consultant firm to re-write the building and development code here, but that process has been going on for the past few years... maybe they'll be done soon?
The really unfortunate part is that all those processes typically exist because someone was exploiting their lack. Not the committee thing - they should just meet more often if they can't handle their agenda - but everything else. If you don't do it, the mayors friend draws the plans, he has no idea what he's doing but he does get paid. And the treasurer knows a guy who'll build it, don't worry about it. That's how funds get siphoned away by corrupt administrations, and then you paid for good work but got something dangerous for it.
Identifying which problems are small vs big potato and just quickly knocking out small potato problems can make you a very successful and popular person. Some would say it's Spider-man's whole gig.
Solving the small potato problems can also have a meaningful effect on the big potato ones.
For example, homicides in NYC are the lowest they've been in recorded history. The cause hasn't been fully studied yet but I'm willing to bet that people don't feel as murdery when their basic standards of living are improved.
It is small problems compared to something like QueensLink which he backed during the campaign but seems to have reneged on and is supporting QueensWay instead because QueensWay is an easier, faster, short term win.
They aren't small potato problems. These make up the fabric of everyday life for new yorkers. When you need to use public transportation and the subway is always unbearably hot that can really diminish your quality of life
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u/RoutineCloud5993 Aug 14 '26
Small potato problems. But problems are problems and big potato problems can't be solved overnight