A Laugh Riot: “The Daily Show” Takes the Pulse of New York City After Widespread Deployment of CitiBike System

June 12, 2013 at 7:33 pm

This is a laugh riot.. love the subtle jabs (and not so subtle at times) from Jon Stewart and his crew.. Apparently the pooer sections of the city seem to be more in love with the system than the upscale ones (i.e., uppity parts)

Despite the little negative publicity often encountered, the bike share system in NYC seems to be growing at a record pace. Here is a graphic from fellow Twitterati and NYC-er, Stephen Miller, that tells you how much the city loves the shiny blue bikes.

NYC's CitiBike - Growth in Membership and Usage

NYC’s CitiBike – Growth in Membership and Usage

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Taming the Traffic! Streetfilms debuts another gem in the Moving Beyond Automobiles video series

April 5, 2011 at 4:51 pm

(Source: Street Films)

This nice video from StreetFilms provides a brief overview of the concept of traffic calming and highlights some examples from cities across the country.  Do check out the other videos from the Moving Beyond Automobiles series. Have you ever observed such “calming” measures in your neighborhood?  Now that you have seen this, the next time you step out onto the streets you may notice a few of these measures deployed in your neighborhood.  If you don’t recognize them, would you like to share with us what traffic calming features work well in your neighborhood?

Streetsblog: What If Everyone Drove to Work Inside Manhattan’s Central Business District?

August 10, 2009 at 5:37 pm

(Source: Streetsblog)

Sure, knocking the MTA is a favorite local past time, particularly for the politicians and press who are practically guaranteed a “Hallelujah!” chorus for every barb (today’s scandal: fat cat transit workers poised to rake in cost-of-living allowance!!). But despite the MTA’s problems, as Michael Frumin points out on his Frumination blog, the city’s streets and highways can’t hold a candle to the subways when it comes to moving commuters into and out of Manhattan’s Central Business District.

Parsing data derived from 2008 subway passenger counts and the NYMTC 2007 Hub Bound Report [PDF], Frumin writes:

Just to get warmed up, chew on this — from 8:00AM to 8:59 AM on an average Fall day in 2007 the NYC Subway carried 388,802 passengers into the CBD on 370 trains over 22 tracks. In other words, a train carrying 1,050 people crossed into the CBD every 6 seconds.Breathtaking if you ask me.

Over this same period, the average number of passengers in a vehicle crossing any of the East River crossings was 1.20. This means that, lacking the subway, we would need to move 324,000 additional vehicles into the CBD (never mind where they would all park).

At best, it would take 167 inbound lanes, or 84 copies of the Queens Midtown Tunnel, to carry what the NYC Subway carries over 22 inbound tracks through 12 tunnels and 2 (partial) bridges. At worst, 200 new copies of 5th Avenue. Somewhere in the middle would be 67 West Side Highways or 76 Brooklyn Bridges. And this neglects the Long Island Railroad, Metro North, NJ Transit, and PATH systems entirely.

Click here to read the entire article.

Transportation Reauthorization (STAA) Updates: Media Round-up June 24, 2009

June 24, 2009 at 10:02 am

(Source:  Minnesota Public Radio, The Hill, The Trucker, Detroit Free Press, Transportation for America)

Image Courtesy:USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood's Blog - Fast Lane

Legislative Journey Begins:

Congressman Jim Oberstar’s transportation bill starts its legislative journey today with a draft session scheduled in a House of Representatives subcommittee.

It’s the one of the first steps toward a vote for the bill, which would nearly double current spending. The Obama administration has proposed postponing reform, but Oberstar says waiting dooms the country to years of delay on transportation projects.

Oberstar’s Surface Transportation Authorization Act would provide $337 billion in funding for highway construction, $100 billion for public transit and $50 billion to build a nationwide high-speed rail system–a grand total of nearly $500 billion over six years.

Funding for the bill remains sketchy, though Oberstar promises details as it progresses. There’s been no talk of increasing the federal gasoline tax which hasn’t been raised for 16 years.

Oberstar rails against the Obama administration position, saying an 18-month delay, given how Congress does its work, translates into a four-year wait for federal money from a new federal transportation bill. Oberstar’s timeline for finishing work on a new federal transportation bill is ambitious. He wants a vote no later than just after Labor Day.

LaHood told a Senate Appropriations transportation panel last week that he wants to work in the 18-month extension for the kinds of program changes that lawmakers seek.

“Our number one priority is to fix the Highway Trust Fund, to pay for it, to find money, and along the way here if we can have the discussions about these other things, I think we should,” LaHood said.

But Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat and the committee’s chairman, said: “Conversations are great; passing legislation is hard.” She said she was “concerned about some of the lack of details … You’re offering a general framework for us, but we can’t wait very long for a proposal.”

Unlikely Ally – K Street:

Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) has a powerful ally in his battle with the White House over the highway bill: K Street.

Trade associations, unions and business coalitions are getting behind the House Transportation Committee chairman in his push to complete the $450 billion measure before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. The Obama administration has argued the transportation reauthorization bill is a bridge too far for an already jam-packed legislative agenda and wants to extend the current law at least 18 months before Capitol Hill can take on new reforms.

But lobbyists are arguing that the debate over how best to pay the increased transportation funding Oberstar is proposing — whether it is through raising the tax on gasoline or taxing vehicle mileage — cannot wait any longer.

But the administration has opposed lawmakers who wish to raise the gas tax to pay for the new transportation bill. LaHood and others argue the new tax hike would be overly burdensome on the pocketbooks of ordinary Americans during the recession.

Lobbyists believe the legislation, which will help fund repairs not only to highways but to transit systems and railroads, will provide a boost to the nation’s economy, much like the stimulus package was designed to do.

For his push to finish the bill before the end of the fiscal year, Oberstar can expect to find support among many of the trade associations that have been lobbying the transportation reauthorization this year. Like AAPA and LIUNA, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the Associated General Contractors of America are also supportive of the Minnesota Democrat’s desire to complete the bill in 2009, according to statements they released last week.

Many praised several reforms that were included in Oberstar’s blueprint released last week, including creating a Transportation Department Office of Intermodalism to better organize the nation’s transportation system and a national infrastructure bank to fund transportation projects.

Strong provisions for monitoring drug and alcohol abuse by truckers

The draft of the new highway reauthorization bill authored primarily by Rep. James Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee contains strong language requiring the Secretary of Transportation to establish a clearinghouse for records relating to alcohol and controlled substances testing of commercial motor vehicle operators.

It’s a clearinghouse long desired by federal officials and trucking executives and would be designed to keep repeat substance abuse offenders from jumping from company to company.

The clearinghouse would be a repository of records relating to violations of the testing program by individuals submitted to the DOT.

The bill requires the clearinghouse to be in operation not later than one year after the enactment of the new highway bill.

Under the present system, a CDL holder can fail a drug test and be fired from his or her present employer, but is not required to tell a prospective new employer about the failed test.

D.C. Metro Crash Spurs Transit Funding Debate

Public transit advocates seized on Monday’s commuter rail crash in Washington to make the case for overhauling the country’s transportation system.  Authorities were still searching the wreckage Tuesday when Transportation for America, a coalition of interest groups and local officials, cited the deadliest crash in the Metro’s 33-year history to make the case for advancing a new transit authorization bill on Capitol Hill this year.

“In the big picture, what we can say is that we have underinvested in taking care of our infrastructure, roads, bridges and public transportation,” said James Corless, director of Transportation for America.

Lawmakers from around the Washington area also spoke of the need to pay for rail projects in the wake of the crash, which killed nine people and injured 76, although some cautioned not to draw conclusions before investigators determine what led the two trains on the red line to collide.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) called for a congressional hearing Tuesday to help determine how the crash occurred.

Norton, after meeting with officials of the National Transportation Safety Board, expressed outrage that the older car in the crash wasn’t retired, as those officials had recommended years ago. She noted that Congress once heard safety officials testify for more funding to maintain the Metrorail system, and that appropriators have failed to fully fund their request.

“Congress had the ultimate wake-up call yesterday,” she said. “The only appropriate response is to begin to eliminate the crash-unworthy cars with this year’s appropriations.”

Streetsblog Special – What’s Wrong With SAFETEA-LU — and Why the Next Bill Must Be Better

April 27, 2009 at 2:25 pm

(Source: Streetsblog)

Ultimately, SAFETEA-LU’s greatest failing may have been its failure to articulate a truly multi-modal vision for the nation’s surface transportation network. Essentially a continuation of 1950s-era policies, it repeated the same-old same-old about a need to complete the Interstate highway program, directing billions of dollars to state DOTs to pour asphalt and expand roadways. Nowhere did the legislation suggest a need to adapt to a future in which American dependence on automobiles and fossil fuels must be dramatically reduced. That’s the challenge faced by Congress today.

Less of this...

 Transportation funding from Washington has been heavily weighted toward highway spending ever since President Eisenhower first proposed the Interstate Highway Act in 1956. SAFETEA-LU, 2005’s federal transportation bill, was no exception. It provided $244.1 billionover five years, its revenues raised by the federal gas tax and directed to the Highway Trust Fund, which has both highway and mass transit accounts. $40 billion a year went to highways, most of which was used to expand and upgrade the Interstate highway system; some $10 billion went annually to mass transit.

The $10 billion in public transportation funds is distributed by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for a variety of uses. The FTA administers the urban areas program, which allocates money to metropolitan areas for transit system capital expenses, as well as a rural areas program that helps states pay for rural transit. SAFETEA-LU also included a fixed-guideways formula, aimed at keeping mostly older rail transit systems like those in Chicago or Boston in working condition. Finally, the New Starts/Small Starts program allowed the FTA to fund competitive grants for major capacity expansion such as new subway or bus rapid transit lines.

More of this...

 SAFETEA-LU provided for $40 billion in annual funding from the highway account, the traditional federal source for financing Interstate highways. But under the law, money from the account could actually be spent on more than just roads. Roughly $6.5 billion per year was allocated to the “Surface Transportation Program.” States were allowed to use this money to fund transit and “bicycle transportation and pedestrian walkways.” The “Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program” — about $1.7 billion a year — went to projects likely to reduce pollution, and specifically forbade funding “a project which will result in the construction of new capacity available to single occupant vehicles.”

There’s one problem, though. The federal government may allow such funds to be spent on non-auto uses, but that’s rarely the case.

That’s because, while each metropolitan area has a federally-mandated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) whose role is to establish priorities for transportation investments, state departments of transportation have ultimate discretion over how national highway funds are used. The inevitable consequence? Asphalt-happy DOTs usually choose to invest highway funds in roads, even when MPOs advocate for improved transit or bikeways. According to Transportation for America, only five states — California, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia — have taken advantage of the flexibility of these funds. The rest have spent the vast majority on auto infrastructure.

What’s more, SAFETEA-LU made it easy for states to build roads and hard for them to build transit projects. While funds for new roads were simply distributed to states based on a formula, new transit lines had to undergo the rigorous New Starts process — competing with other projects from all over the country — before winning a share of federal dollars. There was no such required audit for road projects.

Click here to read the entire article.

TransportGooru Headline News Aggregator Dispatch – April 25, 2009

April 24, 2009 at 11:32 pm

LA Transportation Blog – Transportation Headlines for Friday April 24, 2009 b

Streetsblog – Today’s Headlines by 

Transportation for America – Today’s Headlines — 4/24/09by 

  • An ironic beginning to legislative efforts to tackle the nation’s transportation woes. (Associated Press)
  • LaHood is the stimulus package’s biggest Republican fan. (Washington Post)
  • DOT has the highest profile in decades — is this more to do with the times than with the new administration? (Politico)
  • NY Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith has proposed a $1 surcharge on NYC taxi fares to help close the MTA’s budget gap, as well as to pay for highway and bridge improvements upstate. (Crain’s New York Business)

The Infrastructrist -The Daily Dig – High Speed Rail Edition

Posted on Friday April 24th by Jebediah Reed

 

 

TransportGooru Headline News Aggregator Dispatch – April 9, 2009

April 9, 2009 at 11:06 pm

LA Transportation Blog – Transportation Headlines for April 9, 2009

Streetsblog – Transportation Headlines for April 9, 2009

  • Hit-and-Run Drivers Kill Two Women in Separate Incidents Wednesday Night (News)
  • Obama Appoints Federal Transit Administrator (TOW via Streetsblog.net)
  • Tom Friedman Wants a National Carbon Tax Instead of Cap-and-Trade (NYT)
  • The Economist Has Some Questions About High-Speed Rail in the U.S.
  • Brooklyn Paper: Bay Ridge Sidewalk Parking Epidemic Due to ‘Lack of Parking’ 
  • Study: 21 Percent of NYC Cyclist Fatalities Linked to Alcohol (City Room)
  • Sprawl Development Shouldn’t Qualify as ‘Green Building’ (City of Lakes via Switchboard)
  • Jeff Mapes on America’s Bike Renaissance (Infrastructurist)
  • Beijing Extends Car Restrictions Another Year (AP via Planetizen)
  • MTA Gets in the Blogging Game (Metro via 2nd Ave Sagas)

AASHTO Daily Transportation Update – April 9, 2008

Note:  TransportGooru thanks all the authors for contributing to this headline news summary. This dispatch is made possible by integrating the headline news feeds from the above mentioned sources.  At times, you may encounter a repeat of the same headline news  since they are captured by various individuals working at different organizations.   Please visit the respective source websites if you have any trouble viewing the articles behind the URLs. 

TransportGooru Headline News Aggregator Dispatch – April 8, 2009

April 8, 2009 at 7:33 pm

LA Transportation Blog – Transportation Headlines for April 8, 2009

Streetsblog – Transportation Headlines for April 8, 2009

Transportation for America – Transportation Headlines for April 8, 2009

  • Low bids for construction projects are allowing Maryland to get the bang for its buck through the stimulus. (Washington Post)
  • A new study indicates that transportation spending and investment in green jobs brings a huge economic boost. (Oregonian)
  • Without have access to adequate public transportation, Alzheimer’s patients face a tough road aheadwhen they give up driving. (Associated Press)
  • GM looks to the PUMA vehicle – a self-balancing, two-wheeled scooter – to help solve its business woes. (Wall Street Journal)
  • U.S. PIRG looks at the a few of the potential dangers of privatizing roads.

Note:  TransportGooru thanks all the authors for contributing to this headline news summary. This dispatch is made possible by integrating the headline news feeds from the above mentioned sources.  At times, you may encounter a repeat of the same headline news  since they are captured by various individuals working at different organizations.    Please visit the respective source websites if you have any trouble viewing the articles behind the URLs.  

 

TransportGooru Headline News Aggregator Dispatch – April 2, 2009

April 2, 2009 at 5:29 pm

LA Taansportation Blog – Transportation Headlines for Thursday April 2, 2009

StreetsBlog – Headline News for April 2, 2009

 

Note:  TransportGooru thanks all the authors for contributing to this headline news summary. This dispatch is made possible by integrating the headline news feeds from the above mentioned sources.  At times, you may encounter a repeat of the same headline news  since they are captured by various individuals working at different organizations.    Please visit the respective source websites if you have any trouble viewing the articles behind the URLs.  

TransportGooru Headline News Aggregator Dispatch – April 1, 2009

April 2, 2009 at 12:07 am

LA Transportation Blog – Headlines for Wednesday April 1, 2009

TransportGooru wishes Happy 16th birthday for Metro!
  • MTA Rescue Talks in Chaos as Suburban Senate Dems Balk at Payroll Tax (NYTNewsNY1)
  • 50-Cent Cab Surcharge Was on the Table (NewsPost)
  • Tom Robbins Skewers Comrades Kruger and Espada (Voice)
  • Bill Hammond: Beware an MTA Plan From Three Men in a Room (News)
  • Bike Theft in NYC: How Widespread Is It? Don’t Ask NYPD (City Room)
  • NJ Turnpike Widening a Total Waste of Money (MTR)
  • House Dems From NYC Aren’t Taking the Metro to Work (News)
  • Conservatives Who Bike (Utne)
  • The New Haven BRT Line That Might Have Been (DNH via Streetsblog.net)
  • 60 Years of Transportation Investment Collapse in Giant Ponzi Scheme (Faking Places)
  • Obama Hands TransAlt Critical Task of Rebranding American Car Models

Transportation for America – Headlines for April 1, 2009

  •  Bay Area transit officials are ready to declare that the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency is in a state of “fiscal emergency.”
  • Paratransit riders in Phoenix face tough times. (USA Today)
  • Greenwire looks at the details on emissions standards in the proposed climate bill. (Via New York Times)

Note:  TransportGooru thanks all the authors for contributing to this headline news summary. This dispatch is made possible by integrating the headline news feeds from the above mentioned sources.  At times, you may encounter a repeat of the same headline news  since they are captured by various individuals working at different organizations.    Please visit the respective source websites if you have any trouble viewing the articles behind the URLs.