Andrea Bernstein

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation) When I interviewed New York City Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith last week about public versus private transit, he had pretty clearly-thought out views on the matter:

"I think what you want to do right is more transportation and if there’s more transportation there’s more of a role for both TWU [Transport Workers Union] workers to be fully employed, not laid off as we’re facing, and more private transportation as well, and I think one way to think about this is that there are a lot of people living in this area needing to go to a lot of places and we ought to take the most substantial, densest routes and they ought to be run by the government-run transit systems and then the smaller areas need to be serviced by vans or cabs or whatever. So I don’t view it as this or that, I view it as how to increase the whole of transit in the community.

But as WNYC's Matthew Schuerman reports, the economics can get tricky. When entrepreneur Steve Lowry - know as "Mr. S "-- who runs buses to the Poconos, took over an old MTA route, passengers were grateful. But it turns out Mr. S's buses are a bit shabbier, and have drawn a bit more regulatory scrutiny, than customers would have expected with their old X29 bus from Coney Island to Manhattan. WNYC's Matthew Schuerman has the full story.

(Matt Dellinger, Transportation Nation) You won’t find a clearer policy statement than the domain name for NoTrain.com. The web site was created on behalf of Scott Walker, the republican gubernatorial candidate in Wisconsin, who in a new campaign spot takes a stand against a proposed Madison-to-Milwaukee rail line. Rather than build the $810 million dollar federally-funded “boondoggle,” Walker says, he’d like to “fix Wisconsin’s crumbling roads and bridges.” He’s worried for the “hard-working families who are going to pick up the tab” for a train they may never ride.

The undercurrents are of states rights and fiscal responsibility. The television ad and the open letter that appear on the web site are directed not so much against Walker’s Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (who supports the rail plan), but against President Barack Obama, who won the state of Wisconsin two years ago by nearly fourteen percent.

Walker isn’t the only Republican gubernatorial hopeful employing the roads-vs-rail rivalry in a state that voted for Obama. California nominee Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO, has complained that issuing bond debt for high speed rail is unwise in the current economy. She wants the plans put on ice. In Ohio, candidate John Kasich has proposed repurposing the $400 million in stimulus money set aside for faster trains serving Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati, and using that money for roads. And in Maryland, Republican challenger Bob Erlich has taken issue with Governor Martin O’Malley’s goal to “dial up mass transit.” Erlich says he wants to see a better balance of highway and transit projects, and has suggested that a number of commuter rail projects be converted to a bus program.

The party is not monolithic against rail.

Photo: Union Square Subway Station via Foreign Policy Magazine

New York has the most influence beyond its borders of any global city, followed by London, Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong. That's the conclusion of a panel assembled by Foreign Policy magazine, which ranked the world's top 65 cities. Chicago is sixth, Los Angeles seventh and San Francisco and Washington are numbers 12 and 13 respectively. The list aims to "measure how much sway a city has over what happens beyond it's own borders -- its influence on and integration with global markets, culture, and innovation."

Like all such lists, it's subjective, and provocative, but also instructive. And it certainly explains why New York has a keen eye on London's and Paris's transportation solutions.

Half the world's population is now urban, the accompanying article notes, saying:

"What happens in our cities, simply put, matters more than what happens anywhere else. Cities are the world's experimental laboratories and thus a metaphor for an uncertain age. They are both the cancer and the foundation of our networked world, both virus and antibody. From climate change to poverty and inequality, cities are the problem -- and the solution. Getting cities right might mean the difference between a bright future filled with HafenCitys and Songdos -- and a world that looks more like the darkest corners of Karachi and Mumbai."

What do you think of the rankings?

-- (Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation)

(Brooklyn, NY- WNYC) Advocates for the disabled have now officially charged the NYC MTA with violating the Americans with Disability Act over its bus line cuts. The suit claims the transit agency has discriminated against those with disabilities who can't ride the subways because they are in wheelchairs or have other physical or mental disabilities that make it almost impossible to navigate New York's subway system. The vast majority of New York subway stops don't have elevators. Ailsa Chang first covered this story earlier this month. Click here for the full story.

(Andrea Bernstein-Transportation Nation) Quick! Which saves more energy: line-drying your clothes or setting your washer to cold water wash? Drinking from a can with new aluminum or a bottle with recycled glass? How much more energy does it take to run central air than to run a room air conditioner? Do trucks consume twice as much energy to transport goods as trains -- or more? (Answers at the bottom)

If you're not sure, you're in the mainstream, according to a new Columbia University Survey. The survey found people tend to believe small actions -- like turning off lights, save more energy than they actually do. And that only a tiny fraction -- 11.7 percent -- cited insulating their homes or replacing inefficient appliances as the "most effective thing they could do to conserve energy." In fact these energy-saving measure are the most effective thing they can do.

When it comes to transportation, respondents similarly got it wrong.  They tended to overestimate the energy savings in driving more slowly, but significantly underestimate the gas saved by tuning up their cars twice a year.

When it came to transporting goods, respondents knew airplanes use more fuel than gas, but had no idea trucks use ten times as much gasoline as trains.  Most people said trucks and trains were about the same.

There's  a problem with the survey - it's not a randomized group, but a survey taken of Craigslist respondents, who were paid $10 for their efforts.   Study author  Shahzeen Z. Attari acknowledges that was a budget decision (truly randomized polls are costly to perform)  but maintains the group was sufficiently heterogeneous to produce meaningful responses.

Answers:  Cold water wash, aluminum, three and a half times as much energy, and ten times as much.

(New York, NY - Collin Campbell)  Five years of data and 7,000 crash records are showing a rich picture of collisions between pedestrians and cars in New York City.  They're at the lowest point in recorded history, the Bloomberg Administration says, and the analysis released today may inform policy decisions to push them lower.

Among the findings from the mayor's announcement today:

•    Male drivers are involved in 80% of crashes that kill or seriously injure pedestrians.  They're only 57% of registered drivers in New York City.
•    Private vehicles – not taxis, trucks or buses – are involved in 79% of crashes that kill or seriously injure pedestrians.
•    Pedestrian fatalities in 2009 were down nearly 20 percent from 2001.

(Houston -- Wendy Siegle,  KUHF) "Wrong way Driver Detected! Wrong Way Driver Detected."   That's what Houston-area highway dispatchers hear when a motorist enters the Westpark Tollway going in the wrong direction, enabling patrols to quickly get to the scene. The technology was installed after a triple fatality in 2006 resulting from a wrong way driver. But the devices are costly, putting them out of reach of many transportation agencies, Full story,  here.

First, let me say I'm having a hard time letting go of the moniker "Freedom tower," even though I know the replacement for the Twin Towers' new name is "One World Trade."   I was there when it was named, and I'll be there, I hope, when the 1776-foot tall tower is complete.

(Detroit -- Jerome Vaughn, WDET).   Detroit is buzzing about word of a leadership change at GM -- it's almost as big news as the Flint serial killer.   The Editor of Autoline Daily John McElroy says GM's new CEO,  Dan Akerson "fits the bill perfectly for what the[U.S] treasury wanted."  But, he adds "if GM is  going to have only finance people running the company-- we saw the trouble that it got into in the last decade by having those kind of officers in charge."

McElroy also notes that the company's 1.3 billion profit this quarter  "is not a surprising number" and that " what everybody seems to forget is that  the Obama administration came into town a year ago, waved a magic wand, and made all of GM's and Chrysler's legacy costs disappear, pouf, they're gone...that was not done by the people who are running GM right now."

McElroy's prediction for the future of the industry: "Three, four years from now the auto industry in Detroit is going to be rocking like we haven't seen in a long, long time."

More on Detroit from today's New York Times "Detroit Goes from Gloom to Economic Bright Spot."

Photo: Bureau of Land Management

(Billings, MT -- Jackie Yamanaka, Yellowstone Public Radio)
"When the temperature gets above 85 degrees everybody comes out." So says Tim Finger, of the Bureau of Land Management of river access sites in rural Montana. Popular fishing and boating sites cause jams, but Finger says building more parking isn't in the cards

"I just did that last year. No matter how big of a site we construct we're not going to be able to deal with that real large spike. I can't keep building new parking lots and expanding them. " Finger says shuttles to and from the river access sites are a better idea.

Full story, here.

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/gohsuket/2550771432/

(Oakland, CA -- Casey Miner, KALW) CalTrans raised tolls on the Bay Bridge July 1 during peak hours, from $4.00 to $6.00 -- and for carpools, to $2.50, from nothing. What happened?

Five thousand fewer cars are using the Bay Bridge each day, and BART, the cross-bay commuter train, saw 4500 more riders. The full story here.

Only 25 percent of San Francisco Bay Area residents use mass transit -- but local planners are serious about trying to get that number up. As KALW reports, local political glitterati are getting behind a new bus terminal, which they one day hope will be a hub for rail, buses, and BRT.

Photo: Michael Drury

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation) New York City continues to give less space to cars, more to...um...other pursuits. Lower Manhattan's street grid is the only part of New York that still looks like Amsterdam, and businesses there have been pining for outdoor cafe space. Now, the city has converted five parking spots to a "pop-up cafe," where residents can dine and chat.

The spaces contain wooden platforms that support steel planters with with herbs and 15 folding tables with two chairs apiece. Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said the experiment was about creating "high performing streets that work for all user" -- and that this location works out, the City will expand the program next summer.

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation) There have been some interesting political alliances in the transportation world -- former Charlotte Mayor Pat McGrory, a conservative Republican, has been one of the nation's biggest backers of transit. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg,  also a Republican, who has also run on the Republican line, has found himself lauded by scrappy environmentalists who would probably otherwise hang with the far left. But when Bloomberg last spring appointed a former Republican Mayor of Indianapolis -- and adviser to George W. Bush -- to oversee Parks, Environmental Protection, and Transportation, a bit of a frisson shuddered through the transit world. Turns out Goldsmith is a huge supporter of congestion pricing, which he's called "terrific" and "imperative." He loves BRT and has seen it in operation in Curitiba, Brazil. He's studied bike share and thinks it's compatible with the short distances New Yorkers travel. But does he love bike lanes as much as Janette Sadik-Khan? Here's a bit of his exchange with me --

BERNSTEIN: There was some thought -- the commissioner wanted to have bike lanes all the way up First and Second Avenues. And then that plan was pulled back and that was around the time that you were coming and there was some speculation that was because you were concerned about that. Is there any truth to that?

GOLDSMITH: No. Not exactly. The mayor and I are concerned about getting the balance right. How to make the city more livable in a way that doesn’t create ancillary byproduct problems. And how extensive the bike lanes should be and where they should be is a legitimate question. I had a conversation about this with the mayor this morning. You know, he is interested in getting the balance right. He asked me a lot of questions and asked Janette a lot of questions about it, as he should, and I’ll continue to work on it.

BERNSTEIN: That was a very evocative ‘not exactly’. Can you expand on that?

GOLDSMITH: No.

Audio, and full transcript, after the jump.

(Andrea Bernstein) There's a big problem with New York's pedestrian plazas -- nothing to eat. In Times Square you can sit in the middle of Broadway, but you have to go to Starbucks for a coffee to sip at your cafe table. Assuming, that is, you don't want to ingest a dirty water hot dog. Now, New York City's DOT says it will unveil what it's calling a "pop-up cafe, an innovative, new temporary public space in Lower Manhattan." It will provide "room to sit, eat, or enjoy a cup of coffee, enhancing enjoyment of the streetscape and increase business revenues in Lower Manhattan.

Pix coming tomorrow.

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation) It's become de rigeur for major cities to have a sustainability plan -- but one of the largest and most comprehensive has been New York's PlaNYC. The plan has been a driving impetus for New York's bike lane expansion, its conversion of schoolyards to playgrounds, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg's support for converting the Great White Way to a pedestrian plaza.

Now, after importing the former Republican Mayor of Indiana, Stephen Goldsmith, to be Deputy Mayor of Operations (in charge of Transportation, Parks, Environmental Protection, and other departments) , New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is tapping David Bragdon, former President of the Portland, Oregon Metro Council, that greenest of green cities, to run the New Ycrk City Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability.

Comments, Portland residents?

Commuters Jam NY's Penn Station Photo: Collin Campbell

(New York -- Collin Campbell, Transportation Nation)  The "massive" tree, as an Amtrak spokesman described it, couldn't have fallen at worse time or in a worse place.

At around 5 a.m. this morning near Princeton Junction, NJ, a storm of branches and leaves came down on overhead wires and an Amtrak signal box. The result fried fuses and shut down signals on a 20 mile stretch of the Northeast Corridor.

Great, just in time for rush hour on one of the busiest stretches of train track in America.

It's the latest insult and injury to New York and New Jersey commuters, who endured delays and humid, 90+ degree temperatures on the ride home.

In May, NJ Transit raised fares 25 percent and cut way back on service. Then, as the NY Times exposed, trains don't run on time anyway. I n New York, dozens of bus lines were cut and two train lines were scrubbed from the alphabet entirely at the end of June.  Trains are twice as dirty as they used to be. There are delays caused by the punishing heat ... and then came the tree.

NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said he didn't even have time for breakfast. "The phone rang and I went to work," he said.  Amtrak spokesman Cliff Cole called it "weird."  "We don’t have any storms or wind,” he said.

Garden State commuters were the hardest hit.  For much of the morning, NJ Transit trains couldn't leave a train yard near Trenton, as switches and signals wouldn't budge, or were limited to helping Amtrak function as it could.

Later, Amtrak workers "walked" trains through miles of track, functioning as traffic cops for miles of signal-less track. Commuters endured delays the reached two hours.  On the way home, express trains were canceled.  The 67-mile ride to Trenton was on crowded, local service.  Amtrak canceled some trains, but had delays under an hour by the end of the day.

Transportation officials saw days like this coming.   Currently, Amtrak workers are using $30 million in federal funds to remove trees close to the track in the Northeast Corridor.  But today, for the boughs of the mighty Princeton Junction tree, it was too late.

(Washington, DC, WAMU) Earlier this summer, Pennsylvania Avenue got a bike lane leading up to the home of a certain famous resident. Officials say the lane will be part of an 80-mile network of dedicated lanes. Now, life is going to get even better for cyclists in the nation's capitol. This just in from the DDOT:

"(Washington, D.C.) – The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is making safety improvements at the intersection of 16th Street, U Street and New Hampshire Avenue, NW that includes installing the first traffic signals for cyclists in the District. DDOT has also installing contraflow bike lanes on New Hampshire Avenue and “bike boxes” for cyclists on 16th Street as part of this experimental project approved by the Federal Highway Administration.

“We know that this is already a very popular route for many cyclists, but it can be treacherous getting through the intersection,” Said DDOT Director Gabe Klein. “These changes will make it safer without impacting other traffic.”

Will members of Congress now be taking bikes to dash over to their meetings at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

This just in from the Manhattan D.A. :

DISTRICT ATTORNEY VANCE ANNOUNCES GUILTY PLEA OF CARMEN HUERTAS IN FATAL DRUNK DRIVING INCIDENT

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., today announced the guilty plea of CARMEN HUERTAS, 32, in connection with the drunk-driving incident that killed 11-year-old Leandra Rosado and injured six other girls between the ages of 11 and 14. Huertas pleaded guilty to all of the charges against her, including the top charge in the indictment:
Manslaughter in the Second Degree. HUERTAS will be sentenced on October 1, 2010.

"In pleading guilty to the charges against her, Carmen Huertas is acknowledging criminal responsibility for this tragic incident," said District Attorney Vance. "It is my hope that the family of victim Leandra Rosado can derive some small measure of comfort from today's events, and from the fact that her death inspired the swift passage of Leandra's Law. That law made it a felony to drive drunk with a child in the car, and as of this Sunday will require ignition interlock devices in the cars of those convicted of driving while intoxicated. Leandra's Law is a powerful tool for prosecutors and will prevent other senseless deaths from occurring in the future."

According to documents filed in court, the investigation leading to today's guilty plea revealed that