‘A Soviet Traffic System?’

To paraphrase reader Dwight Simmons himself, it is clear he does not know what is doable in this metropolis and what is simply gossamer or even folly [“A Soviet Traffic System?” Letters, May 31, 2006].

The city has just so many enforcement agents to go around. Mr. Simmons’s suggestions of limiting truck operations and controlling taxi movements, among others, would take an army to control, if at all.

I am not advocating just resigning ourselves to our traffic burdens, but simply commenting that the documented success of London and Stockholm’s congestion pricing plans may be – likely will be – effective given our advanced vehicle identification technologies. And we wouldn’t need an army to do so, just a platoon of well-trained technicians and advanced traffic control systems similar to those in use in other American cities.

Simple traffic improvement strategies have their place, but they should not be the main panacean answers for our complex problems. The onset of new intelligent transportation systems must be welcomed.

STEVEN P.SCALICI Great Kills, S.I. Mr. Scalici is a traffic engineer.

‘Fun With the Founders’

Even though a cooling-off period has been invoked by President Bush to try to resolve the “separation-of-powers” conflict triggered by the raid of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the office of Representative William J. Jefferson, the issue may still need to be re solved in the Supreme Court. This, of course, will be of great interest to our elected officials in Washington and, above all, to constitutional scholars [“Fun With the Founders,” Editorial, May 26, 2006].

For most Americans, though, this will be viewed as just another attempt by our elected officials to convince the American people that members of Congress should not be subjected to the same laws as ordinary Americans.

I cannot imagine that the framers of the Constitution had in mind providing a sanctuary for alleged criminal activities by members of Congress to be subsumed under the “separation-of-powers” clause.

Given the recent corruption cases and now the allegations against Mr. Jefferson (supported by lots of “smoking guns” of evidence), perhaps our elected officials should be held to a higher legal standard than ordinary Americans: a presumption of guilt unless proven innocent.

IRA SOHN

Manhattan