Letters to the Editor
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

‘Highway Robbery’
In your editorial, “Highway Robbery,” November 22, 2005, you refer to the business group Partnership for New York City, who are proposing a “congestion charge” for car users in the centre of the city, inspired by a similar scheme in London.
As an elected member of the London Assembly, I would strongly advise them to forget the idea. Businesses in the charging zone are closing down at a higher rate than elsewhere, as customers do their shopping in areas where they don’t have to pay for the privilege of driving to the store.
Visitor numbers to tourist attractions in the charging zone are down by 5% to 10% more than those outside the zone, for the same reasons. And before the partnership starts working out how to spend the profits, they should be aware that congestion charging in London runs at a huge loss – the mayor relies on fines levied on late payers to make up the shortfall.
DAMIAN HOCKNEY
Leader
One London Party
City Hall, London
United Kingdom
‘ “Genius” of Hunts Point’
Andrew Wolf implies that Majora Carter, Sustainable South Bronx, and other environmental justice activists bear some direct relationship to the industrial decline of Hunts Point — an odd supposition given that Sustainable South Bronx started in 2001, long after the decline had reached its nadir from disinvestment and redlining [” ‘Genius’ of Hunts Point,” Opinion, November 18, 2005].
Sustainable South Bronx is partnering with such humorless wastrels as Hugo Neu Corporation (currently handling New York City’s massive recycling program) on a proposal to develop a recycling industrial park potentially generating 300 to 500 jobs in Hunts Point. With the help of Rep. Jose Serrano, Sustainable South Bronx has been training under-skilled and unemployed residents of the South Bronx in watershed restoration and brownfield remediation, then placing them into jobs that pay good wages to clean up the mess the industrial revolution has left in its wake.
Con Edison was among major funders of the green roof project, which saves energy and money by keeping things cooler in summer, and warmer in winter (not to mention limiting runoff so that sewers don’t back up and spill further toxins into New York’s only fresh water tributary — the Bronx River).
Mr. Wolf, by holding to his belief that people from low-income communities of color see themselves as helpless victims, makes it much easier to dismiss intelligent, passionate, reasoned, and persistent calls for planning, reform, and civic engagement by leaders in both the community and throughout New York City. Such a one is Majora Carter. Such a one is not, sadly, Mr. Wolf.
MICHAEL HICKEY
Manhattan
Mr. Hickey is board chairman of Sustainable South Bronx and a vice president of Deutsche Bank.