Andrea Bernstein

New York, NY —

Now that it's August and summer travel season is kicking into high gear, more and more people are taking the AirTrain. It connects JFK airport to the New York City subway system and the Long Island railroad. As WNYC’s Andrea Bernstein reports, five years after ...

As July slips into August and summer travel season kicks into high gear, more and more passengers are taking the AirTrain. It connects JFK airport to the New York City subway system and the Long Island railroad. Five years after its inception, the AirTrain has drawn five million passengers a year, despite confusing signage, insufficient information, and a bumpy transfer into New York’s transit system.

It starts, or maybe doesn’t, when you get off the plane.

Bernstein: "The AirTrain."

Passenger: "I don’t know what it is."

At the Delta airlines terminal at JFK, information is hard to come by.

Woman: "I’d take the AirTrain but I don’t know anything about it. I don’t think they do a good job of getting out the information. Where is the information about the AirTrain?"

That the AirTrain exists at all is a bit of a political miracle. About 15 years ago, Mayor Rudy Giuliani tried to kill it because it didn’t meet his vision – a non-stop train from the airport to Manhattan. But Governor George Pataki pushed it through. The result is essentially a shuttle from JFK that links passengers to the New York City subway system and the Long Island railroad.

The trains are clean, the seats are wide, the views are cool. This speechwriter from Los Angeles, was pleasantly surprised.

Man: "It was very easy. Not a problem. And I’m very bad at public transportation."

It’s also WAY cheaper than the other options.

Man: "I think it’s great. It’s either this or pay $45 for a cab to Manhattan and back."

But to get on it – you have to study up, like this PhD from Estonia, traveling with five friends.

Estonians: "To Manhattan? Brooklyn, Queens no."

The problem? There are two possibilities: They can connect to the A train at Howard Beach, or the E, J, or Long Island Railroad at Jamaica.

Bernstein: "Did you figure it out?"

Estonians: "No, we didn’t figure it out…but we will."

And after a few more minutes, they do.

Estonians: "Jamaica train! Ja, Jamaica!"

Signage is both art and science. Ask Sue Labouvie is the head of the design firm Studio L’Image. She’s working on a project in San Francisco to use signs to help people transfer from one transit system to another. So I asked her to evaluate the signage at the JFK AirTrain. She has a mantra.

Labouvie: "Integrated. I can’t help but stress the word integrated, so people feel even though they have to go on different modes, they feel they can find their way and its going to be a smooth transparent thing."

As we take the escalator up to the AirTrain platform, we’re disgorged into minimalist space with the feeling of an empty art gallery.

Labouvie: "This is an area, that I even being in signage, I am always confused."

The Digesting Politics podcast goes live as WNYC reporters Andrea Bernstein and Bob Hennelly talk with Brian Lehrer about the corruption scandal in New Jersey and other local politics over breakfast.

New York, NY —

One of JFK Airport's runways will be shut down for four months next year for renovations, that are intended to reduce delays. Governor Paterson says the slowdown caused by the renovation, will be well worth it in the long run.

PATERSON: As long as there are ...

New York, NY —

The New York City Council is expected to pass a bill today, requiring commercial building owners to allow tenants to bring in bicycles. WNYC's Andrea Bernstein has more.

REPORTER: The bill, which will take effect in three months, removes a major obstacle to bike commuting: the ...

Back in March, St. Cloud, Minnesota was excited. Vice President Joe Biden was in town to announce that the town would be receiving an influx of money from the stimulus plan. The money...

New York, NY —

All three of New York's statewide elected officials have websites that help track federal stimulus funds, but as WNYC's Andrea Bernstein reports, none make New York's stimulus spending completely transparent.

REPORTER: The newest addition to the transparency canon comes from Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, whose openbook.ny site ...

New York, NY —

As travellers take to the roads this holiday weekend, a new study finds poor U.S. road conditions contribute to half of all traffic deaths. And New York and New Jersey pay some of the highest costs for those accidents in the nation. WNYC's Andrea Bernstein ...

New York, NY —

As of Wednesday, all three statewide elected officials have websites that help track stimulus funding, but none make New York's stimulus spending completely transparent. WNYC's Andrea Bernstein has more.

The newest addition to the transparency canon comes from Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, whose www.openbooknewyork.com site allows ...

State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli is the newest entrant in the stimulus tracking sweepstacks, with Open Book New York. The site lets you find the names of stimulus contractors and what theyr'e doing, but only to a point -- where money goes through a local government, the money trail stops ...

New York, NY —

Congressman Jerrold Nadler is accusing the Obama Administration of dropping the ball on the massive transportation bill reauthorization. The Manhattan representative told the Brian Lehrer Show today that the administration was wrong earlier this month to ask for an 18-month delay in expanding the budget ...

New York, NY —

Today's the last day of public school in New York City. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz has been on the commencement speech circuit. Here's part of his address to the graduates of Boody Middle School on Avenue S.

The Digesting Politics podcast goes live as WNYC reporters Andrea Bernstein and Elaine Rivera talk with Brian Lehrer about the mess in Albany and other local politics over breakfast.

Dicite Latine et vincite!

Didn't you know that speaking Latin is the ticket to winning citywide office? Clearly for Mark Green, it is.

(For the record, Mayor Bloomberg's campaign website is translated into 14 languages, from Haitian Creole to Polish. Latin is not one of the them. )

Here's Green's statement:

MG vow: Either a budget modification or do more with much less.

It's wrong to try to destroy a charter-mandated 178 year old city office by budget strangulation rather than by charter change. And it's absurd that an office intended to be a watchdog over City Hall is being gutted by City Hall. Since when do we allow speeders to bar radar guns or Wall Street to shrink the SEC? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

It’s one thing for the mayor to favor mayoral control of education with conditions (which I support)…but quite another to favor mayoral control of the watchdog over him. Nor does blaming a financial crisis – the same excuse offered to extend term limits -- pass the smell or laugh tests; it would be understandable for all similar city offices to share the sacrifice, but not to selectively cut only the watchdog office 40 percent.

WNYC reporter Andrea Bernstein has been reporting on Bus Rapid Transit plans from Bogota to New York City. She talks about busses in cities around the world. Then Janette Sadik-Khan, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation discusses the results for New York's pilot BRT programs ...

New York, NY —

Say you’re standing on Second Avenue at rush hour, and you need to get downtown fast. You look uptown, at six lanes of traffic crawling along. Delivery trucks are double parked, bus drivers are waiting for a long line of passengers to board, and there ...

Say you’re standing on Second Avenue at rush hour, and you need to get downtown fast. You look uptown, at six lanes of traffic crawling along. Delivery trucks are double parked, bus drivers are waiting for a long line of passengers to board, and there is not a free taxi in sight. In 10 years time -- planners hope -- you’ll be able to get on a bus that feels nicer than the newest subway, and get downtown just as fast. But to embark on that future, New Yorkers will have to make some tough choices about whether to privilege mass transit or private cars. I have been listening in on the debate.

Facilitator: It’s like a subway train that operates in its own track –- without tracks. Rubber wheels.

A few dozen Bronx residents are attending a one of a series of work shop on bus rapid transit in New York.

Facilitator: Also, has subway-like station spacing.

Staffers from the MTA and the city DOT are showing mock-ups of what a New York street might look like.

Bus Rapid Transit – using buses like trains. You pay before you board. The bus pulls in, multiple doors open, you don’t have any stairs. There’s a lane only for buses, and stops about every eight blocks. BRT is working already in Istanbul, Mexico City, and most notably, Bogotá, Columbia

Vincente: In Bogotá, fugeddabout it that was out of sight!

Anna Vincente works for the Bronx environmental group Nos Quedamos. She was part of working group that travelled to Bogotá to see how that city has made it vastly easier to get around while greatly reducing pollution.

Vincente: If you could do something like that, that would be phenomenal because then you don’t have to worry about long lines. When we were in Bogotá Columbia, that went like (snaps fingers) that was fabulous.

But to get to that level of fabulous, a city has to be willing to make choices –- eliminating some street parking, for example, and taking lanes of traffic from private cars. Technology is readily available to turn red lights to green for buses. But there’s a catch.

Gualtieri: It reminds me last summer when I went to the Bronx zoo with my family in the car.

Retiree Richard Gualtieri got caught on the flip side.

Gualtieri: From the entrance to the Bronx zoo took a half an hour because it was constantly red so it could be green for the Fordham and it was unbelievable, half an hour, hungry kids.

The Fordham. That’s the so-called select bus service that links Upper Manhattan to the Bronx. It’s not BRT. It's a regular bus, with steps. But it shares some BRT features.

The orange bus rapid transit line in Los Angeles has been running since 2005. The BRT -- as it's called -- runs 14 miles along the San Fernando Valley on abandoned train line. It imitates a train -- with station stops, pre-paid boarding, and signal priority at red lights. This ...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the unemployment numbers for May this morning. The numbers may give a sense of how quickly the U.S. can expect economic recovery. David Leonhar...

Lard was once the most common fat for baking, but came to be seen as dirty and unhealthful. Now, food scientists have shown that home-rendered lard isn't as bad for your health as,...