Andrea Bernstein

Museum of Arts and Design bike exhibit: "sleek to retro-cool."

The Transit Cuts Edition:

WNYC: NJ Transit Cuts Started Sunday

Jesse Jacksons rallies with transit workers in Cleveland to protest 12 percent service cuts and 80 layoffs.... (Plain Dealer)

...but Detroit had him first! He was there protest that city's 100 layoffs. (Free Press)

The Times chronicles the social death that occurs when a bus line stops.  Kinda like when "Cheers" closed...

And In Houston, Mayor Annise Parker's criticisms of transit agency become fodder for Republican Governor Rick Perry in his re-election campaign. (American Statesman)

But, hey, the Olympics helped transit: Ridership up almost 20 percent in post-Olympics Vancouver. (The Province)

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation) The city has chosen local artist Molly Dilworth to paint the five pedestrian plazas at Times Square and Herald Square. Dilworth topped some 150 competitors to win $15,000 and the honor of having her designs installed at the “crossroads of the world” beginning in July and remaining for 18 months. City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan says Dilworth’s designs, called “Cool Water, Hot Island” are based on a NASA-heat map of Manhattan. Sadik-Khan says the blues of the design will complement the oranges and reds of Times Square’s billboards.

Tim Tomkins, the head of the Times Square Alliance, said in an interview with WNYC last month that the design competition was meant to integrate the Times Square pedestrian plazas into the New York City streetscape, and attract locals as well as tourists to the plazas.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg closed parts of Broadway to car traffic a year ago. Some businesses and motorists objected because they said it scrambled traffic patterns, but Mayor Bloomberg’s traffic analysts disagreed. In February, citing data that traffic in most directions was flowing more quickly and pedestrian safety had improved, the mayor said he would make the plazas permanent.

The plazas have been derided by most cabbies, but have drawn scores of city planners and designers from around the globe, who see the plazas as a model public space.

On Friday, the Times reported that the plazas have slowed some bus routes, though the DOT vigorously pushed back, arguing that consolidation of the routes means buses come more frequently, and that few passengers experience the longer times because they are measured over the routes' entire lengths.

Last summer, the city put out mesh lawn-chairs in the plazas, which were widely derided. Those chairs were scooped up mid-summer and replaced with metal café tables. The café tables will remain in the new plazas until a more permanent design is selected in late 2011.

Dilworth’s work is characterized by large, colorful, abstract, site-specific paintings, including many on Manhattan rooftops. Here's the artists' flickr feed.

The city has chosen local artist Molly Dilworth to paint the five pedestrian plazas at Times Square and Herald Square. Dilworth topped some 150 competitors to win $15,000 and the honor of having her designs installed at the “crossroads of the world” beginning in July and remaining for 18 months.

The president starts the process for fuel standards for trucks.

From today's Rose Garden ceremony.

"And today, we’re going even further, proposing the development of a national standard for medium- and heavy-duty trucks, just as we did for cars and light trucks." 

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation) -- "Bixi roulera de Washington a Washington" announces the website of the Montreal-based BIXI bike sharing company today.

Here's a partial (and somewhat loose) translation from the French: "The capital of the United States, Washington, District of Columbia, its neighbor, the city of Arlington, Virginia, as well as the campus of Washington State University, situated on the west coast, in the state of Washington, are adopting bike share systems like the one that made its debut in Montreal just a year ago. Starting this fall, 1,100 new BIXI's will be available in one of 114 stations that will be installed in the heart of the Washington/Arlington area, and 30 will be available to students on the campus of Washington State University."

Click here for interactive map

NY Times: Ped Plazas Slow Buses. Ouch, two of NYC DOT's favorite constituent groups -- bus riders and pedestrians -- pitted against each other. True wonks can read the full report, which presents a somewhat muddier picture than the headline would indicate.

Good News/Bad News: Green car maker Tesla to buy closed Bay Area auto plant, but Toyota's Lexus cars get recalled in Japan, US to follow. (SF Gate)

NJ Transit cuts go into effect this weekend....but they're giving away BON JOVI tickets, so who cares? (NJ Record)

Happy Bike To Work Day: Philadelphia to double bike lanes. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Another player struts their stuff for Las Vegas to LA high speed rail. (Las Vegas TV-3)

LaHood to Women: Drive a Truck! (Trucking Info)

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation, May 19) Speaking at a community meeting in New York City's Chinatown, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Wednesday that tolls ought to be considered as an option to pay for the federal transportation bill. That bill has been stalled in a congress laden with (other) legislative priorities and a total non-desire to pursue any of the unpleasant options for paying for the $600 billion bill (gas taxes, vehicle miles traveled taxes, oil taxes, stock taxes, etc.)

In a discussion about what locals would like to see in the bill, LaHood became animated as he said "these are all good ideas." And then he added "The only problem we have in Washington, believe it or not, is finding the $600 billion to pay for it. " Pressed on sources of funding OTHER than a gas tax, Lahood said: "Another way is -don't run me out, okay? Tolling. Some places in the country are talking about using tolls. You can raise a lot of money by tolling." The crowd, (a New York City crowd, after all), applauded.

"Oh good! You like that idea," LaHood said.

I first saw Arlen Specter in September, 1990.  Working for then-New York City Comptroller Liz Holtzman, I travelled down to Washington with her, where she was testifying in the confirmation hearings of Justice David Souter.  Like Specter, Holtzman had been a D.A., and the then-curly haired former Philadelphia prosecutor parried sharply with the ex-Brooklyn D.A. on whether Souter had appropriately applied the rape shield law in a New Hampshire case.  Holtzman argued that Souter had not been sufficiently attentive to the victim’s privacy rights, Specter disagreed.  Strongly.

I first saw Arlen Specter in September, 1990. Working for then-New York City Comptroller Liz Holtzman, I traveled down to Washington with her, where she was testifying in the confirmation hearings of Justice David Souter. Like Specter, Holtzman had been a D.A., and the then-curly haired former Philadelphia prosecutor parried ...

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation, May 17)  With all there is to worry about in Albany -- a months-late budget,  closing parks, furloughing state workers,  closing a $9 billion budget gap-- you can see why State Senators Eric Adams and Malcolm Smith are worried about young men's underwear.   Smith is the latest to take $2000 from his campaign kitty to run bus ads urging young men to raise their pants and "raise their image."  WNYC's Arun Venugopal, um, covers the issue, in his Micropolis blog.

Christopher B. Leinberger has an interesting history of how rail got funded in America in this month's Altantic.  In the early twentieth century, he writes, every city with more than 5000 had a rail system:

""How did the country afford that extensive rail system? Real-estate developers, sometimes aided by electric utilities, not only built the systems but paid rent to the cities for the rights-of-way.

These developers included Henry Huntington, who built the Pacific Electric in Los Angeles; Minnesota’s Thomas Lowry, who built Twin City Rapid Transit; and Senator Francis Newlands from Nevada, who built Washington, D.C.’s Rock Creek Railway up Connecticut Avenue from Dupont Circle in the 1890s. When Newlands got into the rail-transit business, he wasn’t drawn by the profit potential of streetcars. He was a real-estate developer, and he owned 1,700 acres between Dupont Circle and suburban Chevy Chase in Maryland, land served by his streetcar line. The Rock Creek Railway did not make any money, but it was essential to attracting buyers to Newlands’s housing developments. In essence, Newlands subsidized the railway with the profits from his land development. He and other developers of the time understood that transportation drives development—and that development has to subsidize transportation."

Read the full article here.

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation, May 17) Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security was not happy with the very public beating the agency took in the New York tabloids and from New York pols on transit security funding last week.     Last week, after a Congressional Briefing, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Peter King (R-Long Island) went out guns a'blazing, hammering DHS for what they called a $42 million cut in transit security funding and an $11 million cut in port security. The White House says, if you account for stimulus funding, New York got an increase in both these areas.  (Here's the breakdown.)

WNYC's  Bob Hennelly got hold this weekend of a letter Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wrote to Representative Peter King, (R- Long Island)  claiming New York has more than $275 million in port and transit security funds it hasn't spent.  New York officials are blaming FEMA for tying up the funding.   Apparently,  Napolitano, who is from Arizona, has a bit of Brooklyn in her.

Yo! You wanna piece of me?

(KALW, May 14) Ever wonder how the Friday Night cyclists' demonstrations became such a (controversial) tradition?  KALW takes a look at the rides' roots in San Franciso.

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation, May 14) In San Francisco, writes KALW's Nathaneal Johnson, paying the transit fare is sometimes seen as a voluntary act.  But the transit system is losing $19 million a year -- and is stepping up enforcement.  Johnson takes a ride with a MUNI "cop".   Meanwhile, in Paris, farebeaters have a taken a different tack.  Instead of paying the fare, they're contributing to a fund for those caught not paying.

(New York, NY - Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation)  In a press release issued yesterday evening,  Senator Charles Schumer lambasted the Administration for what he sees as cuts to New York's terrorism-fighting apparatus.  "For the administration to announce these cuts two weeks after the attempted Times Square bombing shows they just don't get it and are not doing right by New York City on anti-terrorism funding.  We urge them to reconsider this decision.  Instead of distributing funding all over the country, they should focus their attention where the greatest threat exists right here in New York."

According to Schumer, transit security lost 27 percent of its funding, down $42 million to $111 million, and port security lost $11 million, down to $34 millon.  A separate allocation of homeland security money for urban areas, $832 million, has yet to be divided up.

The overall thrust of the remarks, that New York is a number one terror threat but isn't treated that way when it comes to funding allocations, is a long-time beef that New York officials have had with the federal government.

But the White House argues that Schumer (who has been joined in his critcism by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Reps Peter King (R-NY) and Anthony Wiener (D-NY), is flat-out wrong. White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro emails WNYC's Bob Hennelly:

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation, May 11) Senators John Kerry (D-MA)  and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) rolled out a climate bill today, and advocates for and against are poring through its 900 some odd pages.  Streetsblog has an account of what's in it, but basically, some of the revenue from carbon-offsets would go to the Highway Trust Fund for "green" projects, 1/3 to clean planning, and 1/3 to TIGER-grant like projects:  rail, bus rapid transit, bike lanes.

But even while the bill was being rolled out, Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) was mocking the two Senator turnout to present the bill in a tweet, and Senator Harry Reid isn't yet saying whether it will come to a vote.

Transit advocates,  like TforAmerica, are praising the bill's transportation provisions.

Transportation accounts for seventy percent of U.S. oil consumption, and about 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions.

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation, May 12) In New York, no one really obeys traffic laws. Cars roll right through red lights (it was yellow when I first saw it, honestly!), pedestrians step off the curb well before they have the green signal, and even the more law-abiding cyclists routinely go through red lights if there's no oncoming traffic. Bus and bike lanes are routinely loosely regarded, and even in strict "don't block the box" grids cars can't help but inch forward.

In London, more people follow traffic laws. You can ascribe that to the British vs. New York temperament, but at least some transportation watchers say it also has to do with London's network of cameras, so that people are basically watched everywhere, intersections included.

On Tuesday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg traveled to London to observe their network of security cameras. But back at home, his DOT is lobbying for two new bills, one that would allow the city to add about 40 speed enforcement cameras, and one that would allow cameras to enforce bus lanes. Motorists HATE enforcement cameras, and if you google "red light camera" you'll find a battery of lawyers ready to help you fight your ticket.

But camera advocates like Transportation Alternatives argue that speeding is the number one killer on New York City roads, according to the DMV . They point to a study showing when speeding enforcement cameras came to Washington, DC, speeding dropped dramatically.

As for bus lane enforcement -- it's key to New York City's plans to have a workable bus rapid transit system.

But both bills have faced some hostility from Assembly Transportation Chair David Gantt (D-Rochester), who resisted for years before allowing red light enforcement cameras at 150 intersections in New York City (out of 12,000 with lights). Assembly members Deborah Glick and Martin Malave Dilan have put "99"s on their camera bills, meaning they'll get to committee, but both bills have steep climbs ahead.

Despite Mayor Bloomberg's warm and fuzzy feelings for cameras, everywhere.