Andrea Bernstein

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation)  New York City's Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, will phase in on-street parking increases over the next six months.  The move is part of the Mayor's so-called "budget-mod," an amendment to the existing budget to close projected shortfalls.

The city will up the rates from $2.50 to $3.00 south of Manhattan's 86th street, and north of 86th Street parking will go from $0.75 an hour to $1.00 an hour.

City hall officials are noting the city's rates are still way below market rates for parking, which can run around $20 an hour in Manhattan. The city is also looking to increase the deployment of muni-meters, which allow for differential pricing according to demand.  Officials say this isn't just about increasing revenue, but also helping retailers by ensuring greater turnover, and thus more open spots for potential customers.

Look for more so-called market flexible parking pricing in your future.

From the NYC DOT:

Immediate Release RELEASE # 10-057

Thursday, November 18, 2010

NYC DOT AND MTA/NYC TRANSIT ANNOUNCE CAMERA ENFORCEMENT OF 1^ST/2^ND AVENUE BUS LANES BEGINS MONDAY

Authorized by Albany, bus lane cameras will speed transit by deterring unauthorized use

New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman/CEO Jay Walder today announced that bus lane camera enforcement of the new, exclusive Select Bus Service bus lanes along First and Second avenues will begin Monday to further enhance bus service and speed travel for the 54,000 daily riders of the M15.

Mayor Bloomberg at a Press Conference with Spiderman, announcing Comic Book for Job Seekers

(New York, NY -- Jim O'Grady, WNYC) ARC is dead. Long live ARC in a different guise.

Yesterday’s announcement that the city is seriously exploring sending the 7 subway line to New Jersey spent today rippling through press conferences and urban planning groups. At a press conference to announce a comic book to help job seekers, the mayor said the crush of riders between New York and New Jersey continues to rise, and that reality demands more cross-Hudson transit capacity.

“The problem hasn't gone away,” said Bloomberg. “You still have to make sure that people from New Jersey can get into the city for jobs and for shopping and entertainment and New Yorkers can get out of the city to go to do things in New Jersey.”

The mayor stressed that sending a subway into New Jersey would create a connection like the ARC commuter train tunnel but at half the price. Whereas ARC would have stretched from New Jersey to Herald Square, a 7 train extension would be shorter. It would start at 11^th Avenue and go west, saving costly boring under Manhattan.

Bloomberg said his staff is reaching out to discuss the idea with Governor-elect Cuomo and Governor Christie, who have yet to give the project any support. Cuomo told reporters today “I only know what I read in the newspapers. Obviously it’s a proposal that I would need to research before I have an opinion.“

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation)  It's been a bit of an unhealed wound for transit advocates -- the redirection last year of some $160 million in revenue collected by the NYC MTA to New York State's General Fund.  Facing its own multi-billion budget gap, the state Senate helped itself to some $160 million in dedicated revenues for transit, driving the MTA's budget gap to $800 million and helping bring about the most severe transit cuts in more than a generation. At a press conference today announcing an environmental settlement, New York Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo was asked if he'd do the same.  Here's his answer:

Cuomo: "I understand the concern. Everyone -- especially in a declining budget environment, where we are now, everyone -- we just met with the environmental groups. They're very concerned that nobody raids the funds that should be going to the environment.

"People who are involved in transit want to make sure nobody raids the funds that are involved in mass transit.  I understand the concerns, and that's the balance of putting together the budget."

REPORTER: That means you're not committed to allowing the money --

Cuomo: "You can't say -- money is fungible to a certain extent. There are a lot of needs the state has to fund and it's the balancing of those needs that will be done through the budget process."

Andrea Bernstein, WNYC reporter and director of the Transportation Nation blog, talks about the Bloomberg administration's tentative plan to extend the 7 train to New Jersey.

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation) New Jersey Governor Chris Christie killled the ARC tunnel twice, but it still won't die.

Now New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to build a transit tunnel under the Hudson, extending the number 7 subway train -- a new line under construction -- to New Jersey.  The project is projected to cost $5.3 billion, about half the ARC's pricetag.

Once, it  almost seemed like Mayor Michael Bloomberg was indifferent to the project's death.  "We are not a party to this," the Mayor said at a city hall news conference as the ARC tunnel was flatlining.  "This is a Port Authority Project...They have their own financial problems and they can afford some things and not others."

But around the same time

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration is seriously exploring extending the No. 7 subway line to New Jersey. The project would connect New York transit riders to New Jersey at abo...

Heavy on builders, light on planners (with the exception of NYU's Mitchell Moss).  Represented are members of the  airplane, truck, and  long distance bus industries. Missing:  advocates for biking, walking, and mass transit, unless you count real estate executive Peter Kalikow, the former MTA chief. From the press release:

Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure

• Kendra Adams, Executive Director, New York State Motor Truck Association
• Dave Barger, C.E.O., President and Director, JetBlue
• Eugene Berardi, Jr., President and CEO, Adirondack Trailways
• Lillian Borrone, Chairman, ENO Transportation Foundation
• Martin Dilan, New York State Senate
• David Gantt, NYS Assembly
• Robert Gioia, former Chairman, Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority
• Gail Grimmett, Senior Vice President, Delta Air Lines
• Peter S. Kalikow, former Chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority
• Gary Labarbera, President, Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York
• Cheryl McKissack, Recording Secretary, Women Builders Council
• George Miranda, Vice President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, President, Teamsters Hispanic Caucus
• Mitchell Moss, Director, Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, Henry Hart Rice Professor Urban Policy and Planning at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
• Andrew Murstein, founder, Board Member, and President of Medallion Financial Corp
• Vincent Polimeni, Founder, President and C.E.O., Polimeni International, LLC
• Denise Richardson, Managing Director, General Contractors Association of New York
• Jay Simson, President, American Council of Engineering Companies of New York
• Rodney Slater, former Secretary of U.S. Department of Transportation

BRT in Colombia (photo by Gabriel Mendoza Ardila)

Folks, these aren't new, but a reader requested the WNYC series on BRT from 2009.  And if you're interested in transit models from around the world, the stories still hold.

Bogota, Cleveland, Los Angeles,  The Bronx

And: a bonus interview with Enrique Penalosa.

The surprise rejection of red light cameras in Houston won't help the city's budget problems anyway, the Houston Chronicle reports:

The city's decision to turn off its red-light cameras on Monday after voters rejected the devices earlier this month will have a $10 million ripple effect that has dramatically worsened an already bleak budget picture for this year and next, city officials said.
Even before the vote, Mayor Annise Parker's administration was struggling to close a budget shortfall of nearly $70 million through a combination of budget cuts, land sales and fee increases.

(Washington, DC -- Todd Zwillich, Transportation Nation) State and local transportation planners may have had an uneasy sleep last night after hearing that the Senate's top-ranking Republican is backing a ban on earmark spending in Congress.

The impact of Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell's (KY) pledge is still unclear. Senate Republicans are set to vote on a voluntary moratorium on pet-project spending on Tuesday. But McConnell's reversal from earmark champion to reluctant opponent is sure to throw uncertainty into hundreds of transportation projects around the country.

House Republicans have already pledged to forgo earmarks in spending bills that leave the chamber. Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), the presumptive next speaker of the House, has said the GOP majority will stick to the pledge in the next Congress. Now that Senate Republicans may follow suit, money for individual projects could become stickier business in the already murky legislative process.

But Democrats have made no such pledge and instead have defended the importance of earmarks to steering funding to projects in their states. Many Republicans make the same arguments but appear to have been overwhelmed by voters' apparent anger over government spending and the success of anti-earmark Tea Party candidates and other conservatives in the recent midterm elections.

So what will be the impact on transportation projects in the near term? Unclear. Many local papers are already worrying aloud that more cutbacks on earmarks could spell doom for critical local projects. But that may not necessarily be the case. Earmarks have many definitions, but the most common one refers to projects not requested by the White House or a federal agency but that make it into a bill anyway at the request of individual lawmakers. Even if that brand of earmark is avoided by some lawmakers, it would be unlikely to prevent Congress from spending an equal amount of money in a less defined way, leaving specific programming decisions up to federal agencies.

The House in July passed a $70 billion transportation and housing funding bill that contained some 560 earmarks, many for local transit and infrastructure projects. But the Senate has yet to act on the bill. In fact, non-stimulus transportation spending is likely to get wrapped up in a much larger "omnibus" spending bill likely to pass Congress in the next few months. Whether the bill contains any earmarks, and who has requested them, is an open question.

And what about the medium and long term? Earmark spending is a time-honored, if unseemly, practice in a Congress that derives it's power primarily by controlling the nation's purse strings. Will Republicans return to earmarking when the economy improves and there is less political pressure around spending?

We'll know a little more after Senate Republicans vote on the earmark moratorium Tuesday.

(Tarrytown, New York -- Richard Yeh, WNYC) New York Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo toured the aging Tappan Zee Bridge with local transportation officials Monday, but offered no details on how to pay for an overhaul or possible replacement of the bridge.

A state report out last year estimated that a replacement bridge with commuter rail would cost about $6.4 billion. It also concluded that rehabilitation options "are not reasonable or prudent" since any overhaul would be massive and result in similar cost and environmental impacts, but with inferior engineering and retrofits that are complex and inherently risky.

About 150,000 vehicles a day cross the Tappan Zee, a three-mile-long bridge over the Hudson River that connects Rockland and Westchester counties. That's compared to just 18,000 when the bridge opened in 1955, and Cuomo says the situation "typifies" New York's transportation needs.

"There are roughly 17,000 bridges in the State of New York. About 5,000 of those bridges are deemed 'deficient' which means the replacement or repair is a chronic problem," says Cuomo, adding that many of those bridges were designed with approximate life span of about 50 years.

Commerce department figures released today show that retail sales didn't have such a bad month in October. Total sales were up six percent from the same period a year ago -- but auto sales were up almost fifteen percent.   Did you buy a car last month?  Tell us why!

Here's one-- there are three other "Taxi of Tomorrow Finalists:  Click here for the others --

From the Press Release: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Taxi and Limousine Commissioner/Chairman David S. Yassky today unveiled the three finalists to be the new, exclusive New York City taxicab. The competition, called the “Taxi of Tomorrow,” will introduce the first-ever custom-built taxicab specifically designed for New York City. The Taxi of Tomorrow project includes a public input campaign where New Yorkers can vote of the features they want to see in the next New York City taxicab. The winning vehicle will be the exclusive New York City taxicab for a minimum of ten years and will be chosen from among several competitive proposals. The three designs selected as the finalists to be the Taxi of Tomorrow are submissions from Ford Motor Company, Karsan USA and Nissan North America, Inc.

Love 'em? Hate 'em?  Vote here

And send us your comments!

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation)  New York's outgoing Governor, David Paterson has been a Saturday Night Live-joke pretty much since he ascended to the post when Eliot Spitzer had a bit of, um, scandal.   Even before two major investigations and Paterson's decision not to run for re-election, he's had a bit of trouble being taken seriously.   But today, he chose a high-speed rail conference in Manhattan to poke his counterpart across the Hudson, NJ Governor Chris Christie,  for making a "somewhat anachronistic" decision to kill the ARC transit tunnel.

Paterson was careful to say,  not knowing NJ's entire fiscal picture, he wasn't saying Christie made the "wrong" decision.  But Paterson said that the entire region's growth depends on increasing transit capacity.

"In the past, even in times of grave financial distress," Paterson said " the Erie Lackawanna railroad was built, and the Erie Canal was built, and that's what made New York the financial epicenter of the entire country."

Paterson himself would like some big infrastructure projects, like a high-speed rail line.  Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo has already written to the U.S. Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, asking for more funding for a New York high speed rail system.   Incoming Republican Governors in Wisconsin and Ohio are sending their high speed rail money back to the federal government, saying the overall cost of the systems would burden local taxpayers.

Governor Chris Christie, who recently killed the nation's largest transit project, the ARC tunnel, says "more science" is needed to convince him that humans cause global warming.  The Huffington Post has the full transcript of his remarks, and an update from Christie's press office.  Christie has become a darling of  Republicans this fall, winning the Tea Party straw poll for President, though he recently told "Meet the Press, there is "absolutely" no chance he'll run for President in 2012, but as for 2016 "I''ll need a job, you know"? -- Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation

Obama on 60 Minutes: Photo: 60 Minutes

Propublica fact-checks Obama's 60 Minutes Interview:

Obama says:

"One of the interesting things about the Recovery Act was most of the projects came in under budget, faster than expected, because there's just not a lot of work there."

Says ProPublica:

"Obama makes a valid point about this being a good time to get deals on infrastructure projects. The recession has created desperate workers willing to work cheaper, and the cost of materials is still relatively low. Obama's point that this was borne out by the stimulus projects is on target. But he stretched the facts -- at least what is actually known -- when he claimed most projects have come in under budget and faster than expected. And so we rate his claim Half True."

But whether the work is done faster and cheaper than expected, that may not address the concerns of many Americans:  did it create enough jobs?   For Obama's thoughts on that, continue reading.

Demand for public transportation is rising, but transit authorities across the nation are facing budget cuts. Many cities are testing rapid transit buses, which are hundreds of millions of dollars cheaper than rail lines. Reporter Dan Bobkoff takes a ride on Cleveland's HealthLine Rapid Transit Bus.  The story is here.

And you can see and hear the whole Marketplace series on the Future of Transportation here.

(Houston -- Wendy Siegle, KUHF)   Houston is best known as the capital of Big Oil.  But Mayor Annise Parker says alternative energy is on the way:   She tells us:    "We're a sprawling city that's built around the automobile. If we can convince Houstonians that electric vehicles are the way to go, then it can work anywhere."  That city struggles to provide enough chargers to meet demand. Full story, on Marketplace.

AND:  In ten years, driving will be nothing like it is today -- cars will "talk" to each other and stop signs, making it harder to crash -- and easier to shop. But can you deal with a car that bosses you around?  Andrea Bernstein's story is here.

And you can see the whole Marketplace series on the Future of Transportation here.

This just issued by Governor Chris Christie's office on talk of Amtrak reviving ARC:

"To repeat yet again, the ARC Tunnel project is over.   While no new conversations have taken place between Amtrak and NJ Transit, the Governor previously tasked both DOT Commissioner James Simpson and NJ Transit Executive Director James Weinstein to work with the pertinent partners to explore fiscally viable alternatives for a trans-Hudson tunnel.  As such, we will continue to explore solutions to the trans-Hudson transportation challenge."

-- Transportation Nation