NEW YORK CITY — Chicago’s Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel took an extraordinary swipe at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, both Democrats, on Monday over the Big Apple’s subway crisis — bragging about the Windy City’s subway system in the New York Times.
Cuomo declared a state of emergency last week for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the wake of a derailment on top of countless delays — and commuters spotting their trains being held together with zip ties.
Cuomo and de Blasio have feuded over who is to blame for the crisis that has flooded local news on an almost daily basis, particularly on the question of funding. Cuomo is eyed as a potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, while it is likely that de Blasio has ambitions for higher office.
But Emanuel, a former Obama White House chief of staff, rubbed salt in the wound with a piece called: “In Chicago, the Trains Actually Run on Time” and mentions Cuomo by name in the opening paragraph, in which he reiterates the woes of the Washington and New York transit systems.
“Meanwhile, in Chicago, a recent survey found that 85 percent of passengers are satisfied with service on our transit system, the nation’s second most used,” Emanuel brags.
How have we done it? First, we put reliability ahead of expansion. We focused relentlessly on modernizing tracks, signals, switches, stations and cars before extending lines to new destinations. Unlike New York, which has spent billions to reach Hudson Yards, or Washington, which has concentrated on trying to reach Dulles Airport (both laudable projects), Chicago has improved the existing system.
He writes that “unlike in New York’s subway” Chicago’s system has not been troubled by breakdowns and delays. He writes that unlike in Chicago, it is the mayor, not the governor who is in charge of making trains run on time.
Emanuel does use some of his energies to criticize President Trump, arguing that “[r]ather than Rather than tweeting about violence in Chicago, President Trump should be looking to Chicago as a model for the infrastructure investments and economic growth he wants to replicate across the country. “
But Emanuel soon goes back to his shots at New York, arguing that a modernization of the transit system is “one reason Chicago’s economy has expanded faster than the economies of New York and Washington, and faster than the national average for the last five years.”
Emanuel’s piece largely ignores that New York’s subway system is significantly bigger and more complex than Chicago’s. It also ignores the number of other serious problem Chicago is facing.
As Breitbart News has previously reported, Chicago was hit by nearly 4,400 shootings and nearly 800 homicides in 2016.
Last week Trump announced his intention to send in “federal help,” tweeting that there have been 1714 shootings in the Windy City this year.
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY
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