The city's new municipal ID program is the largest of its kind in the country, offering thousands upon thousands of New Yorkers—including immigrants and the homeless—identification they would otherwise be unable to obtain. Unfortunately, the initial rollout has been bumpy, and some applicants have been forced to book their appointments as far in the future as August. Thankfully, the city's decided to step up its efforts, and they're offering those with the longest wait time appointments as early as next week. THANKS DE BLASIO (seriously, thanks!)
The city initially planned to accommodate 300,000 appointments per year, but the program's proved so popular that 218,000 people have already signed up since its commencement on January 12th. Naturally, officials are a tad overwhelmed, but plans are already in place to mitigate the municipal ID madness—they'll be building two new enrollment centers, doubling staffers assigned to processing applications and adding 70,000 new appointment slots.
And to make things even easier for applicants, the city's moving up nearly 43,000 appointments that had been scheduled the furthest in the future, offering new slots to applicants on an average of 135 days earlier. Hopefully this will appease critics of the rollout, who have likened its computer glitches and enrollment overloads to the much-maligned Affordable Healthcare Act rollout last year.
