New York
House Transportation Bill Too Extreme for Some Republicans
The House GOP's transportation bill is legislation only Big Oil can love. By eviscerating dedicated transit funds, killing programs that support safe streets, and linking transportation funding to oil drilling in the Arctic, the bill has managed to alienate everyone from environmental advocates to the ultra-conservative Club for Growth.
February 8, 2012
Bikes Belong to Help Six Cities Build Protected Bikeways
Six cities will adopt innovate street designs for safer cycling over the next two years as part of a new program from Bikes Belong.
February 8, 2012
Streetsies 2011: The Local Edition
Yesterday, we started our year-end 2011 round-up. We lamented transit cuts in places where transit is more important than ever, cheered the successful ballot initiatives that will fund transportation lifelines, took a moment to explore the nuances of some difficult issues, and called out Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin for some hare-brained ideas about the best way to spend money.
December 29, 2011
NJ Senator Lautenberg Introduces Bill to Limit Bridge and Tunnel Tolls
Last summer, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey raised EZPass tolls from $8 to cross a bridge into the city during peak hours to $9.50, with planned increases to $12.50 in a few years (cash tolls are increasing somewhat more). Tolls for five-axle trucks will rise as high as $125.
December 16, 2011
Chuck Schumer on Niagara Falls Highway: “Tear Down This Road”
Most members of Congress are excited to cut the ribbon for a new stretch of freeway, but it's a smaller set indeed that will stand up for the removal of a highway, no matter how neighborhood-blighting. As of yesterday, count New York Senator Chuck Schumer among their number.
December 13, 2011
Transportation Projects Chosen For Federal Fast-Tracking Lean Multi-Modal
Last month Streetsblog asked whether President Obama would select transportation projects that reduce congestion, improve air quality, and create jobs when he picked several infrastructure investments, among those recommended by agency officials, to fast-track. The selection of these projects, intended to help spur short-term job creation, could avoid the mistakes of the 2009 stimulus program, which funneled billions to “shovel-ready” projects that will also promote sprawl. Leading up to the announcement, the president’s rhetoric seemed to indicate that the administration would opt for road maintenance and transit projects rather than newer, wider highways.
October 11, 2011
Transit Union Challenges NYPD Order to Help Arrest Fellow Protestors
After Saturday's arrest of 700 Occupy Wall Street protestors, the New York Police Department ordered bus drivers to go to the Brooklyn Bridge, and transport protestors to police facilities for holding and processing.
October 5, 2011
Stimulus-Backed Programs Struggle to Stay Alive After Funds Run Out
In an old supermarket space in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, a diverse community of bicycle aficionados are getting greasy. Young and old, Latino and white, they are truing wheels and replacing cables and adjusting brakes in L.A.’s newest, and completely unplanned, bike co-op.
June 29, 2011
USDOT Announces Funding For Transit Projects, Minus ARC Tunnel
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood yesterday announced $1.58 billion in New Starts grants that will fund 27 transit projects around the country. The only major difference between this list and the list of proposed projects that came out in February 2010 is the glaring absence of the ARC tunnel project that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie unceremoniously axed last year.
June 28, 2011
T&I Field Hearings Pick Up Where They Left Off
According to a Transportation Committee staffer, a tentative schedule for the previously postponed field hearings is taking shape. Three hearings were postponed last month when debate ran long (until 4:30 a.m., in fact) on H.R.1, the house bill that cut $61 billion from the FY2011 budget.
March 16, 2011