Alex Goldmark

Red Hook, Brooklyn. (Photo (cc) by Flickr user f.trainer)

The head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey wants to use the agency's clout as landlord to get more dock workers of color hired.

Patrick Foye said, "I regret having to say it, but the docks at our ports on both the New York and New Jersey side appear to be one of the last bastions in the region of what can only be described as  deliberate racial and gender discrimination."

He said that dock workers are approximately 85 percent white and over 90 percent male, citing statistics from the Waterfront Commission. "This is not acceptable," Foye told union members and academics gathered for an NYU event about low pay rates for airport workers Wednesday.

Foye also called the racial and gender homogeneity of dock workers, "inexcusable inertia with respect to fair and diverse hiring." The PA head, who is took his post in November, promised strong action. The Port Authority owns the docks and leases the property to freight shipping and other companies.

"I intend to use every tool at our disposal," he said, "including leases with new customers, lease extensions and modifications with our existing customers, and most importantly, conditioning the Port Authority's future investments of billions of dollars in improvements on first reaching acceptable, concrete and enforceable, diversity hiring plans."

The International Longshoremen's Association, the union representing workers at the port of New York and New Jersey, controls hiring for new dock workers. At hearings last year, the ILA argued that they could not find sufficient non-white candidates for stevedore positions. The ILA did not return TN's requests for comment.

Top stories on TN:

Most of BART's subway cars are as old as the system itself. Replacing them is a billion dollar venture, but there's no U.S. firm to build the new cars. (Link)

Heads of transit agencies take another swipe at the House transpo bill. This time saying it would make bond issues more expensive. (Link)

Houston opens its first HOT lane for solo drivers. (Link)

NY's Gov is considering turning the old Tappan Zee bridge into a greenway. (Link)

NY State will sell off 500 vehicles on eBay to raise money. (Link)

As gas prices rise, President Obama will speak later today about America's energy future. (Marketplace)

Something to look for: The Obama administration wants to raise oil royalties by 50 percent (Gas2)

The auto bailout was the whipping boy for candidates at last night's GOP presidential debate. (Hill) Video: (CNN)

BART cop wont face charges in platform shooting. (Bay Citizen)

Car sharing standard Zipcar invests in car sharing upstart, peer-to-peer startup Wheelz. (Autoblog Green)

Portland changed the law to allow peer-to-peer car sharing and may become a hotspot for the sharing model. (Treehugger)

Electric delivery trucks get a boost from the U.K. government. (Treehugger)

Football pays for transit. The Steelers are footing the bill for free rides on Pittsburgh's new light rail line for three years. (AP)

Washington D.C.'s DOT posted some transpo pics from the vintage vault. Above, a walk signal crica 1947. (DDOT Flickr)

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About a quarter of employees who work in area airports — including some who have jobs in security — make wages that are below the poverty line, according to a new study released Wednesday.

In the past two days New York state and the Chicago  Transit Authority have both announced plans to sell transportation related holdings to raise money.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement: "By selling unneeded equipment and supplies, New York State will reduce operating costs and cut back on excess spending and inventory."

Nearly 500 vehicles will be made available at the newly created, and still not quite live, website, NNYSStore.com starting in April. The state says many are less than 10 years old and have high mileage. The state already has an Ebay account dating back about a decade.

Chicago says it's transit agency has about $70 million dollars worth of bus and train parts, about a third of them obsolete and almost half untouched for years. So before the parts depreciate anymore, the CTA wants to sell them off.

If you know of other states looking to sell of their transportation equipment as a new way to make ends meet and make government more efficient, let us know.

Top stories on TN:

WMFE asked John Mica's constituents what they think of his House transportation bill. They don't know it exists. (Link)

These two charts show the average U.S. driver is emitting less CO2, but still driving a lot. (Link) Though a little less. (Link)

All the airlines raised fares last week, passing on gas price hikes. (Link)

See what NYC's$1.4 billion Fulton Street Transit Center will look like when completed in 2014 (Link)

The transportation bills will get a "tune-up." (Politico)

U.S. Chamber of Commerce reps are traveling the country to raise support for a new transportation funding bill. (Transpo Issues Daily)

Chicago is channeling more than $7.3 million in tax bus rapid transit” line downtown. (WBEZ)

Meanwhile, the Chicago Transit Authority says millions of dollars have been wasted on unused spare parts. So it is selling them off. (WBEZ)

Older drivers make up 8 percent of miles driven but 17 percent of accidents. (TRIP via Politico)

The auto bailout is still a major issue in the Michigan primary. (Marketplace)

Local advocates are running radio ad to pressure NY's Gov to add transit to the planned Tappan Zee Bridge. (Observer)

Cincinnati has broken ground on a new streetcar. (SoapBoxMedia)

Detroit's troubled transportation authority is getting a new leader. (AP in the Republic)

Berkeley Calif. enacts a law to protect cyclists from driver harassment. (Streetsblog)

This is what $1.4 billion will buy you.

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority released new renderings of the $1.4 billion reconstruction of the Fulton Transit Center, partially damaged after 9/11 and long in need of an upgrade.

TN got a sneak peak at the construction in June, but here are architectural renderings of what the final product is likely to look like adapted from presentation given by the MTA to a local community board and first reported about by DNAInfo.

A 53 foot skylight will give the main atrium a vertical feel rare in NYC subway stations.

Parasols are being installed on the Fulton Transit Center's "Oculus" to regulate the light that will spill into the atrium below.

The Atrium, as pictured, will be a vast

Street Level

Second Level

Third Level

Platform Level

Dey Street Concourse

WBEZ's Chip Mitchell reports that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is steering $7.3 million towards a long promised bus rapid transit route downtown where half of commuters currently travel by bus. As we reported at the time of his election, Emanuel's transportation plan is largely a transit plan filled with bold promises for intelligent transportation systems.

WBEZ on the latest BRT announcement:

"Emanuel’s mayoral transition plan last year promised a “full bus rapid transit pilot” within three years. The pilot, according to the plan, will include “dedicated bus lanes, signal preemption, prepaid boarding or on-board fare verification, multiple entry and exits points on the buses, limited stops, and street-level boarding.”

"The Chicago Department of Transportation is keeping lips tight about its design of the downtown line, known as both the “East-West Transit Corridor” and “Central Loop BRT.” It’s not clear the design will include many of the timesavers listed in Emanuel’s plan. A CDOT plan announced in 2010 would remove cars from some traffic lanes, rig key stoplights to favor the buses, improve sidewalks, install bicycle lanes and build specially branded bus stops equipped with GPS-powered “next bus” arrival signs.

Chicago is also slated to get $24.6 million in federal money for the BRT plan. For details on the route and other bus upgrades, go to WBEZ.

Trends in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions since 2007. (Chart by Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle, U. Mich)

*An earlier version of this post used November's EDI data and stated a different level of reduction in CO2 emissions.

Top stories on TN:

"We have one of the strongest passenger rail programs in the history of transportation," Ray LaHood tells The Takeaway. Plus, there' money to pay for improvements he says. (Link)

The transit tax break has been buried deep in partisan fighting in Congress. It could, maybe, still get extended. (Link)

Sketch comedy show Portlandia shows what moving apartments with bikes instead of moving vans would be like: way more hilarity. (Video)

Amtrak is asking for creative rider photos of trains and train travel. This one was submitted by nick009! on Instagram, hashtag #amtrak

The latest on the House transportation bill: it's been split into three, thrown into question by the tax cut deal, and put on hold for recess. (Streetsblog)

Big oil donates big money to Congressmen who support the PIONEERS Act, (7.6 times as much) the oil and gas drilling portion of the house bill. The money trail: (MoneyLight)

The Senate version of the bill had plenty of support, but not anymore. Reason: "non-germaine" amendments. (Transpo Issues Daily)

Amtrak kicked off it's newest high(er) speed rail service from Chicago to Kalamazoo, Mich. (Planetizen)

Airlines are passing on their higher fuel costs to customers. (Marketplace)

A new poll shows more GOP Michigan voters are likely to support a candidate who opposed the auto bailouts, Romney. (The Hill)

Manhattan's street grid is 200 years old. Can't make it to the Museum of the City of NY exhibit honoring the occasion? Here's a nice summary w/pics. (Architects Library via Planetizen)

The NYPD doled out 48,556 summonses to bike riders in 2011. That figure was reported by Executive Officer of the Transportation Bureau, John Cassidy at a hearing held by the NY City Council Wednesday on NYPD policies for traffic investigations.

About 250,000 people ride a bike each day in New York city, and  about 500,000 ride at least several times a month, according to the New York City Department of Transportation.

At the start of last year the New York Police Department cracked down on cyclists breaking traffic laws. Bike community protests erupted, compromise was gingerly reached, and outrage faded. The pace of ticketing, however, did not abate.

By the end of 2011, police handed cyclists 13,743 moving violations -- those are for less serious infractions like riding on pedestrian-only paths in parks, or riding on a sidewalk. Most of the summonses last year -- about 35,000 -- were the more serious criminal court summonses for infractions like running red lights.

By comparison, Cassidy said the NYPD's specialized truck enforcement units issued about 25,000 tickets to truck drivers.

Overall, police issued more than 1 million traffic tickets.  Cassidy did not specify an exact number.  More than half the tickets he said were for four categories of infraction: using cell phones while driving, not wearing a seat belt, speeding, and disobeying signs.

After an extensive crowdsouring project to map the scale and scope of the bike crackdown by Transportation Nation, NYPD leaked to the New York Post that they issued 14,000 tickets to cyclists who broke the law between January 1 and May 26, 2011. The Post reported that was more than a 50 percent jump over previous years.

In New York City, bikes count as vehicles and must obey all traffic laws unless posted signs or signals say otherwise.

Here's the loan application. We'll have more soon.

TIFIA LOI - Tappan Zee Bridge

Ghost bike along the Hudson River bike path (photo by Kate Hinds)

The City Council is holding a joint hearing Wednesday to determine if the NYPD is thoroughly investigating traffic crashes following a number of high profile cases involving cyclists being killed or injured by vehicles that did not result in criminal charges.

The most noteworthy case was the death of Mathieu Lefevre in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, last October. A truck making a right turn struck Lefevre then dragged him and his bike almost halfway down the block. From evidence released after Lefevre's parents filed a Freedom Of Information request, it appears as though the truck hit Lefevre twice, kept driving and parked nearby. When identified later by police, the driver said he didn't know he hit anyone. No charges were filed.

"I would like to know police enforcement policies in terms of bike safety and truck enforcement,” Council public safety committee chair Peter Vallone told WNYC. Vallone said he gets consistent complaints from constituents about trucks breaking the laws without receiving tickets, and on lapse police follow up to traffic crashes.

Police did not respond to requests to clarify their policy on investigations. Sources said they were concerned police only investigate traffic crashes if there is a death or a police witness.

But based on a review of incomplete data available to transportation safety advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, the group’s general counsel and policy analyst Juan Martinez said, "if you don’t leave the scene and you’re not drunk, there’s almost no chance you’ll be charged."

Martinez's group advocated for Haley and Diego's Law which was billed as a crackdown on careless drivers. The statute took effect in 2010 and could be used to bring charges in cases where no clear traffic law was violated, but the driver is at fault.

Steve Vaccaro is the Lefevre family's lawyer. He says Haley's law could allow for charging the truck driver. "Given the facts here, that the driver somehow managed to run over the cyclist with his front driver-side wheel, and drag the cyclist for 40 plus feet… and his bike," he said, "we think it is unlikely that the driver didn’t notice."

The City Council is holding a joint hearing Wednesday to determine if the NYPD is thoroughly investigating traffic crashes following a number of high profile cases involving cyclists being killed or injured by vehicles that did not result in criminal charges.

Florida Congressional Districts

Representative John Mica will run in his current, but remapped, Congressional District 7 in central Florida. The nine-term Republican Congressman and current chair of the House Transportation Committee was dealt a re-election hurdle with  Florida's redistricting plan that pitted several formidable Republican candidates against each other. Mica waited until after two others declared in which districts they would run before committing to his own.

"After consultation with my wife Pat, my family and my supporters, I have decided to continue my public service in what constitutes District 7 in the final map approved by the Florida Legislature, which includes Orange, Seminole and Volusia counties," Mica said in a statement Friday.

This sets up a potentially tough primary for the top transportation legislator as he will face Sandy Adams of Orlando. She's a first term incumbent who also resides in the newly formed 7th district and which now includes about 50 percent of her current constituency according to Sunshine State News.

Mica is well funded however, and says he wants to finish work he has underway. "Weighing heavily in this decision were two major factors, first my commitment to significant transportation projects like SunRail for our community and infrastructure for our nation" as well as projects for  seniors and veterans.

Mica won reelection in 2010 with 69 percent of the vote.

For more updates on all things central Florida, tune into WMFE. Or see the maps and data at the Florida State Senate website.

(Photo (cc) by Flickr user domat33f)

While running a red light on a bike in the U.S. could cost you upwards of hundreds of dollars, several European cities have amended laws this month to permit the practice, mostly for safety reasons.

In Paris, where bike share began and cycling is rampant, the municipal government decreed it legal for cyclists to flat out run red lights, according to The Telegraph. Several reasons were cited. According to officials and public documents about the law, the goal is to reduce bike backups clogging intersections. Cyclists are slower with less control as they accelerate from a stop, making them more likely to swerve or fall into a car lane.

Likewise, a crowded gaggle of them waiting for a green light means they will pack closer up against cars in more dangerous proximity once everyone starts moving at different speeds. Plus, drivers of cars densely packed together waiting for a light may have lower visibility of a cyclist up ahead in a lane over. In all, when there are too many cyclists waiting at a red it becomes a danger.

So, in Paris, bikes can now go straight through a red light or turn right on red at certain pilot intersections when adhering to certain conditions.

Cyclists who grill red lights, as the previously-ticketable act is known in French, will have to yield to any oncoming traffic and, of course, pedestrians. They also must make room for entering traffic turning. Any accidents occurring while they are crossing will be deemed their fault. If the pilot plan is a success, the rules will take effect on 1,700 Paris intersections. The law change was made after a three-year campaign by cycling advocates and following a report that predicts this plan would increase road safety.

Several smaller cities in France have already implemented these rules and in a set of surprisingly similarly timed moves, other cities across Europe have also taken steps recently to let bikes blow through reds this month.

A parliamentary committee in Belgium suggests using new signage to indicate certain intersections where cyclists don't need to stop at red lights. The logic there is to increase the flow of bikes and prevent dangerous and time wasting clogs where too many cyclists are waiting for a green light. They would be allowed to make right turns on red on certain streets as well and signage for cars would bestow additional rights for bike riding in the center of some traffic lanes. Stockholm, Sweden has been considering allowing right on red since last year.

Part of the safety danger is that cyclists are safer in motion and ahead of cars, so an alternate solution is to give cyclists their own traffic lights. That's what is being debated in London.

After 16 cycling deaths in England's capital last year, the city is considering new signals for bikes at busy intersections. One proposal reported by the Guardian would give cyclists a early start on cars.

The issue has come to a head as the city has seen 10 percent yearly growth in cycling coincide with several high profile cases of turning trucks hitting cyclists as both pulled out of an intersection simultaneously.

In the U.S., at least one state has taken similar action, but for different reasons. Virginia made it legal for cyclists to run red lights last year, but only after they wait two minutes. Bikes are too light to set off trigger sensors to change the lights there.

If all these laws pass and take effect, students of cycling will have fresh case studies and new data to determine what policies for sharing the road are safest. For now, American cyclists will just have to continue  stop at red lights or risk tickets.  According to this study, that's what almost two thirds of them do anyway.

Expect a slew of car commercials during Sunday's Super Bowl. No news there. Nor is it surprising that, along with beer companies, Doritos, Hulu, and other advertisers, automakers are shelling out, on average, $3.4 million for a 30 second spot.

However, this year, savvy advertisers have been especially keen to pre-release the best ads for Super Bowl 2012 to get buzz going early through You Tube and social media. So, if you're willing to spoil your Sunday ad surprise, here's a roundup of the car commercials created for the Super Bowl.

(Oh, and by the way, do women drive cars? See if you can spot any women in these ads driving (not sitting on a couch in their underwear.))

According to Ad Age -- which has done some thorough tracking of NFL and Super Bowl ad trends -- the big winner so far has been the teaser ad and later full release of present day Matthew Broderick living out some famous moments from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Initially the teaser ad at the top of this post was "leaked" without attribution, leading to online speculation of what might be coming from Broderick. Then Honda dropped this full version of its CR-V ad with more than two dozen references to the '80s film classic:

Like many of the other ads below, this strategy earned over 10 million views before the weekend even started. Here are the rest of the pre-released Super Bowl car commercials, our favorites on top.

KALW's Julie Caine overcomes her fear of speeding cars and messy helmet hair in this audio essay. Listen as Caine gets a lesson in urban cycling. Not a proverbial lesson, but a literal one, while attending a class in urban biking offered around downtown Oakland. The East Bay Bike Coalition teaches free classes in cycling safety and etiquette on the city streets funded entirely by sales taxes.

Click to listen:

Some of the lesson are pretty basic--like checking your brakes before heading out to ride--but as Caine learns on the road, there are some behavior strategies that can increase her sense of comfort and reduce her chance of being hit, like being visible and predictable on the road.  Some other safety tips advanced cyclists might know are covered too like how to 'take a lane' when it is too narrow for both cars and cyclists.

A few interesting bike facts spill out along the way like that the vast majority of bike crashes don't involve cars or pedestrians, just the cyclists falling over on their own.

Bonus: credit to Ben Trefny KALW's executive news editor who is the first voice you hear in this audio. He's out of breath because he hosted the entire Crosscurrents program on cycling in the Bay Area while riding his bike 23 miles around town.

Read Caine's full thoughts on the class at KALW.

Since 1992, thousands of cyclists have gathered on the last Friday of every month to show off their bike pride by getting in the way of auto traffic on city streets in the Critical Mass demonstration rides.

As part of KALW's special bike coverage, we bring you the history of the most prominent bike protest institution, as remembered, in a lovely audio montage of reminiscences from the movement's three founders.

As they explain, biking in San Francisco was rough and tumble in the early 1990s: "Drivers used to throw things at you and tell you to ride on the sidewalk." Anger was daily and universal, they tell KALW, "a lot of obscenities ... people would pound on their horn."

So a mass ride to reclaim the streets for cyclists one night a month was planned. "The beginning of it was essentially a bunch of people who had been talking about the idea of riding together as a political statement as an act of reclaiming the city," explained the third founder.

About 50 people came from the first one, and within a year 1,000 riders were showing up for the monthly ride, originally called "the commute clot".

That's not such a catchy name for spreading a movement, so the founders tell KALW how the term critical mass came to be. They adopted it from a documentary by Ted White, Return of the Scortcher, where cyclists at a Chinese intersection documented in the film have to wait until there is a critical mass of bikes in order to break into the intersection and stop oncoming car traffic to cross as group, in safety.

Today, the gatherings take place in hundreds of cities, drawing thousands of riders in the biggest cities and follow no set route, blocking car traffic completely on avenues as the bike horde meanders through urban centers. Often times, the un-permitted rides provoke police responses that lead to arrests.

Listen to the full story of the start of critical mass, and how the unplanned routes came to be the norm.

Seventeen miles of bike lanes have been painted in San Francisco since summer 2010, and more are in the works, including the city's first parking protected bikeway--a bike lane separated from car traffic by a row of parked cars.

Other plans include removing a lane of parking or of traffic to lay down a dedicated bikeway. That might cause a backlash as similar moves have in other cities.

KALW discussed all this and more with the San Francisco Bike Coalition's executive director, Leah Shahum, who says there will need to be some "creative solutions" for lessening the impact on drivers.

Here's an interview by KALW's Ben Trefny with Shahum.

Full transcript at KALW.