Kate Hinds

Top stories on TN:
Detroit Insiders Dish on Feasibility of New Fuel Efficiency Standards (link)
This Woman Created an Underwater Wheelchair to Feel the Freedom of SCUBA (link)

At the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte (photo by Jody Avirgan/WNYC)

The Obama campaign will air an eight-minute video on the effect of the $85 billion auto bailout on Wednesday night. (Detroit News)

Meanwhile, check out Google's driverless car, which is on display at the Democratic National Convention. (Tweet via Detroit News reporter David Shepardson)

NYC's taxi fare increase will start going into effect today. (AP via WNYC)

Delays plague NJ Transit buses in the overcrowded Port Authority Bus Terminal. (Wall Street Journal)

The federal government is preparing to exercise its new authority over public transit safety in the states. (The Hill)

A truck containing Secret Service equipment was stolen -- then ultimately recovered -- in Detroit. (Detroit Free Press)

Case study: Istanbul is using BRT as a band-aid when it really needs a suture. And it's not alone. (Atlantic Cities)

Plastic not accepted: a technical glitch caused MARTA vending machines to demand cash only this weekend. (CBS Atlanta)

Traffic jam in the Toronto area? Blame undisciplined drivers. (The Star)

Hoboken's car sharing program is having positive results, but some locals are complaining about the parking. (New York Times)

Sydney has released a draft of its new $100 billion, 20-year master transportation plan. (The Australian)

Bus drivers in Auckland -- locked in a pay dispute -- are striking every Monday for the next nine weeks. (Radio New Zealand)

What can bridge the divide between Democrats and Republicans? Atlanta's airport. (Marketplace)

Video of the day:  a white fox steals a girl’s ticket on the Metro — and she follows him to a world between the subway and the surface. Talk about your unexpected subway encounters!

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Top stories on TN:
BREAKING: Bloomberg: NYC Bike Share to Launch in Spring (link)
Key Politicians Throw Support Behind Cuomo’s Tappan Zee Bridge Plan (link)
On Eve Of New Law In New York, Long Distance Bus Haulers Jockey For Curb Space (link)
NYC Mayor Bloomberg: No Date Yet for Bike Share Launch (link)
Montana’s State Fair Highlights Agriculture — And Oil Drilling Equipment (link)

Pipeline construction in Texas (photo by Ray Bodden via flickr)

A Texas landowner says TransCanada threatened him with legal action if he didn't allow the Keystone XL pipeline to run through his property. (NPR)

Meanwhile, when this type of oil spills, "it's a whole new monster." (NPR)

The Obama administration will make nearly half a billion dollars in unspent highway funds available to states that promise to use the money to create jobs and improve transportation. (AP via Washington Post)

California transportation officials have spent millions of dollars making overpriced, unjustified repairs to houses the state owns in and around Pasadena -- houses it purchased years ago to bulldoze for a never-built highway. (Los Angeles Times)

Brooklyn Boulevard? A 2.5 mile stretch of Brooklyn's Fourth Avenue will get a massive safety upgrade -- and maybe even a new name. (DNA Info)

The ACLU wants to know why nearly 500 police departments in 38 states are photographing -- and possibly storing -- vehicle license plates. (Marketplace)

New York Daily News editorial: the pedestrian is always right, says NYC Council's Jimmy Vacca. And "cars are, overwhelmingly, the biggest threat to pedestrian safety in our city." (link)

Can't find legal on-street parking in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood? Go ahead, park on the sidewalk -- you won't be ticketed. (San Francisco Chronicle)

An aviation-company executive contends he was not picked to serve on the board of Orlando International Airport because he would not raise money for Republican Gov. Rick Scott. (Orlando Sentinel)

An estimated 6,500 drivers were fined for Olympic motoring offenses, Transport for London has said. (Telegraph)

Residents of Naples, Florida, won't get to vote in November on whether they want to allow JetBlue to land at the Naples Municipal Airport. (Naples News)

A NYC subway conductor saved a trapped kitten from the tracks of the Franklin Street shuttle. (New York Daily News)

 

The Tappan Zee Bridge (photo by Joseph A. via Flickr)

The county executives of Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam counties are finally giving their official blessing to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's $5.2 billion plan for a new Tappan Zee Bridge -- now that he's agreed to form a task force to firm up future transit options.

The current bridge plan includes dedicated bus lanes, but no timetable for bus rapid transit on either side of the Hudson River crossing.

Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino says that discussion is now back on the table. "Unless there was going to be some transit options," he said, "this bridge would just have the same old congestion and pollution and problems that the current one does. It would just look shinier."

Astorino has been pushing for a 12-mile BRT corridor. He said that he, Rockland County executive Scott Vanderhoef, and Putnam County executive MaryEllen Odell have been in talks with the governor for a month.

The transit task force will make recommendations within a year.

The county executives sit on a council that must unanimously approve the Tappan Zee Bridge plan to make it eligible for federal funding. That vote had been delayed, but now it is expected to move ahead quickly.

Governor Cuomo has spent the summer lining up local support for the bridge. On Thursday, he sent out a delighted email trumpeting the executives' support.

"Building a new, better bridge to replace the Tappan Zee and ending the dysfunction that has delayed this project for over ten years has been a top priority since I took office,” he said. “County Executives Robert Astorino, Scott Vanderhoef and MaryEllen Odell have consistently supported our efforts to replace the Tappan Zee and I am pleased that they are pledging to vote for our plan to build a safer, transit-ready bridge that will reduce congestion, provide a dedicated bus lane, and create tens of thousands of jobs. We will continue to work with local leaders and stakeholders as we move forward with one of the biggest and most critical infrastructure projects in New York.”

Thursday's announcement also won support from another corner: advocacy group the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, which has long been pushing for mass transit options for the new bridge. The group's executive director, Veronica Vanterpool, said in an email that "this bridge project is taking a turn for the better." She added: "A firm commitment from Governor Cuomo’s office for dedicated bus lanes on the span from day one is a real victory that will improve commutes for bus riders and drivers from the day the bridge opens. But, without additional measures for bus rapid transit in the future, the bus lanes themselves will do little to address the mobility needs of the I-287 corridor. This initial investment shows that the governor’s office has moved beyond the rhetoric of “transit-readiness” to a concrete transit provision."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg (center), flanked by Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro and Brooklyn City Council member Domenic Recchia at the New York Aquarium (photo by Arun Venugopal)

[The Mayor said on Friday the system won't launch until next spring.  Here's our post on it.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg isn't putting a date on when New York's delayed bike share program will be up and running. The program was to have launched July 31, but that date came and went. The mayor has attributed the delay to unspecified software issues.

"We're trying to figure out when we can put a date that we're sure or reasonably sure that it will work," Bloomberg said Thursday.  He also said, without explanation,  the city is "getting very close."

Bloomberg was speaking at a press conference trumpeting the new shark exhibit at the New York Aquarium.

New York's bike share, at 10,000 bikes, is by far the largest planned bike share anywhere in North America. The next largest system is in Washington, which is about a fifth that size.

An ambitious bike share program in Chicago has also been delayed, and a vendor who lost the bid has sued, saying that city's transportation commissioner, Gabe Klein, had a conflict because he was a consultant on Alta's bid to New York City. A spokesman for the Chicago mayor has said Klein recused himself from the Chicago negotiations and that the suit is baseless.

Alta is also the vendor for Boston's "Hubway" bike share. That program was also delayed by several months, though officials there declare the system a success and are expanding it.

On Thursday, Bloomberg said the reason for the delay is straightforward.  "Look," he said. "Everybody wants to say there's a secret agenda here. The software doesn't work. And putting it out when the software doesn't work, it wouldn't work. Period. And so we're trying to figure out when we can put a date that we're sure or reasonably sure that it will work. And we're trying."

"Everybody - a lot - the fascinating thing is those people who screamed they didn't want bicycles are now screaming 'where are they' so I guess we've come a long way and [are] going in the right direction. Nobody would put it out quicker than me."

Alta Bicycle Share, the company picked by New York City last September to run its program, was supposed to have had at least 1,000 bikes on the street on or before July 31, according to its contract with the city, which Transportation Nation has obtained.

Thereafter, Alta was supposed to have added at least 75 stations per ten business days, building to 7,000 bikes by September 30.

Bloomberg said Thursday there were no penalties for a delay.

"It's all private money. And the people who've put up the money, particularly the two big sponsors, Citibank and MasterCard, are fully aware of what's going on and they have been as supportive as you possibly can be. The city loses because we don't have bicycles, but the city doesn't lose any money or anything, and we all want to get it done as quickly -- but you've got to do it right."

The city's Department of Transportation and Alta have been ciphers on the delay. Even Citi Bike's official twitter account has been dark for a week.

 

 

Image from bike share contract (photo by Kate Hinds)

 

 

 

Top stories on TN:
Politics Heating Up Over 45% Toll Increase For Trucks On NY State Thruway (link)
Florida Congressman Mica Triumphs over Adams in “Most Negative Campaign Ever” (link)
Pending Budget Cuts Could Hit FAA Hard (link)
NYC Pedestrians, Open Your Eyes! (link)

A street in Los Angeles (photo by lumierefl via flickr)

Since the 1960s, auto-related emissions are down 98 percent in Los Angeles. (Good)

According to the latest U.S. Treasury report, the cost of the auto bailout is just north of $25 billion -- over $3 billion more than previous estimates. (Washington Post)

Good luck finding a seat on the Acela: between New York and Washington 75 percent of travelers now go by train-- up from just over a third prior to 9/11. (New York Times)

Meanwhile, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney still wants to defund Amtrak. (The Hill)

As the drought wreaks havoc on the Midwestern corn crop, several governors are asking the federal government to end the ethanol mandate. (Marketplace)

Google announced that its Maps feature now has public transit schedules for more than 1 million bus, train, subway, and tram stops around the world -- encompassing nearly 500 cities. (CNET)

The day after US DOT head Ray LaHood whipped off a scathing letter, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority pushed back against his criticism. (WAMU)

A man from Portland, Oregon, drove more than 160 miles to track down his stolen bicycle and confronted the suspected thief on camera during a sting operation he set up with some pals. (NY Daily News)

Two Australian airlines are under fire for a policy that prohibits adult men from sitting next to unaccompanied minors. "As soon as you board [the plane], you are a potential pedophile," said one unhappy male passenger. (International Business Times)

In San Jose, where five times as many streets need repair as the city's budget can provide, the city's transportation director has some straight talk about spending: "We're giving priority to the roads going to our job centers," Mr. Larsen says. As for neighborhood streets, "we'll have to neglect those until there's more money." (Wall Street Journal)

Chinese automakers are recalling 23,000 cars sold in Australia because they have asbestos in them. (Detroit Free Press)

Everybody rides for free today on Hampton's light rail system, which is celebrating its first birthday. (Virginian Pilot)

After coming under criticism, Atlanta Public Schools announced that it is adding bus routes and stops so that children won't have to walk  through dangerous neighborhoods. (Atlanta Journal Constitution)

The ACLU is taking the Justice Department to court over the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most recent policies for using global positioning systems to track people. (National Journal)

Mayors: got an idea to improve urban living? Your city could win $5 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies. (WBUR)

One potential safety measure, employed in Canada, is explicit signage. (photo by Marcin Wichary via flickr)

In the greater New York City region, older pedestrians are almost two-and-a-half times more likely to be struck and killed by a vehicle than those under age 60.

That's the conclusion in a new report by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign (TSTC), which also found that elderly pedestrians in the NYC area suffer higher fatality rates than the national average.

According to the TSTC, between 2008 and 2010, 435 pedestrians aged 60 years and older were killed on the region’s roads. That age range makes up just over 18 percent of the area's population -- but accounts for 34 percent of pedestrian fatalities.

For those who walk slower, it can be difficult to cross an intersection before the light changes. That's partly why the older a pedestrian gets, the more likely she is to be hit and killed by a car. Those aged 75 years and older fared worst of all, with a fatality rate 3.09 times the rate of those under 60.

According to the report, "older pedestrians in Litchfield County, Connecticut have the highest fatality rate in the region, representing 75 percent of all pedestrian fatalities in the county, but only 22.1 percent of the population."

Nassau County, Queens and Brooklyn in New York and Hudson County, New Jersey, rounded out the top five of worst counties for elderly pedestrian safety.

 

 

Pedestrians! Pay attention! (photo by -- and shadow of -- Kate Hinds)

(UPDATED with new photo) That's message of a new street treatment being tested by the New York City Department of Transportation. We photographed this one at the corner of Second Avenue and 79th Street, on Manhattan's East Side.

The sign faces people about to step into the intersection and cross the street -- meaning it's oriented to pedestrians, not drivers or bicyclists.

The message comes at a time when nationally, streets are getting less safe for pedestrians. The federal government recently released a report that found pedestrian deaths were up 4% in 2010. Another report says older pedestrians in the New York City metropolitan area are more than twice as likely to be killed by cars or trucks than those under age 60.

We asked the NYC Department of Transportation all kinds of questions about the LOOK! street marking: Is it part of a campaign to combat distracted walking? Will there be more markings? If so, where and when?

Department spokesman Seth Solomonow declined to elaborate. "We'll be get back to you when we have more info," he said.

But a colleague recently snapped a photo at a bus shelter -- also, as it turns out, on the Upper East Side -- that makes it clear the LOOK signs are a larger campaign. "Traffic injuries are avoidable," reads a poster. "Look before you cross the street."

Seen on an Upper East Side bus shelter (photo by Caitlyn Kim/WNYC)

And, as the blog Bowery Boogie notes, the signs are also making an appearance downtown.

Top stories on TN:
Freight Carrier’s Ad Campaign Aims To Make Infrastructure A Hot Topic During Presidential Election (link)
BREAKING: Ray LaHood Condemns DC Airports Authority Board: “We Are Outraged” (link)
See Our Abandoned Bike Art Exhibit. Yeah, We Said Art. (link)
Analysis: Picking Ryan Means Picking Fight on Transportation (link)

Countdown clock in Boston's South Station. (Photo courtesy of @MBTAGM)

Today, Boston T riders will learn when the next train will arrive: the MBTA is finally turning on the system's countdown clocks. (Boston Globe)

No more CAPS ONLY: new mixed-case street signs are coming to NYC -- as is a new font called Clearview. (New York Times)

Three California state senators initiated an independent examination into construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge after problems were discovered within Caltrans' testing program. (Sacramento Bee)

Bike thefts in London have risen by a third in five years. Meanwhile, arrests for thefts and the numbers of bikes recovered by the police are down. (BBC)

Olympic athletes loved London's Underground. Like silver medal-winning hurdler Lashinda Demus: “I simply like riding on public transport.” (New Yorker)

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel opinion: Should nearly $2 billion in taxpayer dollars be spent on a highway expansion project that will increase segregation and ignore the needs of people of color in the Milwaukee region? (link)

The future of air travel could be San Francisco to JFK in less than an hour, via 'hypersonic' commercial jet. (GigaOM)

Scotland is building what may be Europe's largest hydrogen bus fleet. (Fife Today)

Teenage driving laws are getting tougher in the U.S. -- both reducing traffic deaths and inciting cries of "nanny state" incursions into personal rights. (New York Times)

Subways are rolling again after a 10-day strike in Buenos Aires, but the tentative labor deal sounds shaky. (AP via ABC)

Gas prices are relative: filling up the same 39-gallon tank of a Chevrolet Suburban in Venezuela costs $3.51. In Norway it's $394.68. (Bloomberg)

Graphic: how Atlanta voted on its failed transportation referendum. The urban core voted yes; outlying areas, no. (Atlanta Business Journal)

And: in the wake of Georgia's failed transportation vote, transit advocates want the Clayton County Board of Commissioners to stop putting off a call for a binding referendum for the county to join MARTA. (News-Daily)

Remember how The Economist predicted Brazil's infrastructure wouldn't be ready for the 2016 Olympics? Now, Brazil’s president says her government will invest nearly $69 billion to improve transportation systems by the end of 2014. (AP via Washington Post)

Saudi Arabia will create several female-only cities to boost the country's productivity. Meaning: the country wants to lower the unemployment rate for women, while remaining true to its Wahhabi-sharia roots. (Atlantic Cities)

California's legislature passed a bill that would bar BART and other government agencies from shutting down cell phone networks without a court order. (San Francisco Chronicle)

(UPDATED WITH MWAA RESPONSE) The head of the U.S. Department of Transportation says the board controlling the Silver Line is out of control and "in desperate need of reform."

Ray LaHood has sent a blistering letter to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority questioning the board's ethics and laying out steps the authority must take to get in line.  Co-signed by the governors of Virginia and Maryland, as well as the mayor of D.C., the letter is an unflinching condemnation of "an organization that conducts much of its business behind closed doors."

The MWAA oversees the DC-area airports as well as the ongoing construction of the Silver Line, one of the largest and most expensive infrastructure projects in the region. A recent audit this spring slammed the MWAA for weak oversight, overspending, conflicts of interest, lax ethics, and lack of transparency.

And, if today's letter is any indicator, things haven't improved much since then.

The letter reads: "We are outraged by ongoing reports describing questionable dealings, including the award of numerous lucrative no-bid contracts to former Board members and employees and the employment of former Board members. It has become clear that MWAA's policies and procedures are deficient and lack the safeguards necessary to ensure the principled oversight of nationally and regionally significant assets."

The letter goes on to list eight steps the MWAA must take to bring itself in line with "best Federal practices" and "regain the trust of the public we all serve."

Michael Curto, the chairman of the MWAA's board, said in a statement: "We acknowledge the concerns of the Secretary of Transportation, our elected officials and others, and we are committed to restoring public trust wherever it is lost and to earning and assuring the confidence of the people we serve."

Curto says the MWAA is "making significant progress in a number of areas," and goes on to list eight ways the Authority is reforming.

Read the letter Ray LaHood sent to the MWAA in its entirety below.

MWAA Letter

Top stories on TN:
Analysis: Picking Ryan Means Picking Fight on Transportation (link)
See Our Abandoned Bike Art Exhibit. Yeah, We Said Art. (link)
New York Beats London in Tourism During the Olympics (link)

A homeless dog riding Moscow's subway (photo by AlexRK via flickr)

NJ Transit will become the first commuter railroad in the nation to offer online ticket purchasing with a pilot program that allows people to buy tickets for its train to the Meadowlands and print them from a home computer. (Asbury Park Press)

Hundreds of homeless dogs populate Moscow's subway -- and some of them even know how to navigate the system. (Switchboard/NRDC)

Mayors and other officials from Florida to Louisiana will be in Alabama this week for a conference to discuss restoring passenger train service in the region. (AP via News Herald)

At a recent community meeting about the Tappan Zee Bridge project, people aired worries about a possible future with $14 tolls. “I will not come over that bridge at gunpoint,” said one. (Journal News)

Meanwhile, the Staten Island Advance is bitter that Governor Cuomo said tolls on the future Tappan Zee are 'too high.' "We don’t recall him saying anything that straightforward when the Port Authority raised the base toll on its crossings to $12," opines today's editorial.

General Motors Co. is recalling 10,000 vans over fire risks in North America. (Detroit News)

Rear-door boarding is speeding up buses in San Francisco. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Brazil might have trouble attracting infrastructure investment. "The 2016 Olympics and 2014 football World Cup will happen in a country where only 14% of roads are paved," says The Economist.

Wheelchair-accessible taxis are now available in Maryland's Prince George's County. (Washington Post)

The escalator servicing Brooklyn's Jay Street subway station is broken about 20% of the time. Meanwhile, NY1 is having trouble getting the list of this year's escalator service outages from the MTA. (NY1)

If you're an overweight passenger and you've been bringing your own seat belt extender to buckle yourself in on flights, the government has an order for you: Stop it. (USA Today)

Apparently it's possible to telecommute to office as a robot, but there are downsides. "I also nearly careened into glass walls, got stuck in an elevator, could barely hear the discussions in story meetings and got little other writing or interview work done while botting into the newsroom," says one robot commuter. (The Takeaway)

Several luxury cars performed badly during a new type of crash test. (NPR; video below)

Top stories on TN:
Cuomo: Toll “Too High” on Estimates for New Tappan Zee Bridge (link)
Calif. Residents File Health Claims Against Chevron (AUDIO) (link)
Word(s) Up: Barclays Center (link)
Sandy Adams Takes on “Rock of Gibraltar” Mica in Battle for US House Seat (link)

A gas station in Southern California (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

One week after a fire at a Chevron refinery in the Bay Area, gas prices in southern California are rising -- fast. (KPCC)

TSA officers say racial profiling is rife at U.S. airports. (New York Times)

New York Post columnist Nicole Gelinas unpacks the math behind Governor Cuomo's Tappan Zee Bridge tolls, and has a reminder: "Look at how Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Christie blamed the Port Authority last year for raising tolls to pay for work it had to do — rebuilding the World Trade Center. (link)

Momentum is building to bring bike share to Seattle. (Seattle Times)

The subway strike in Buenos Aires reached its tenth day. (Buenos Aires Herald)

The board in charge of Washington’s most expensive transportation project in decades is dysfunctional, out of control and secretive, federal officials contend. "I want the people of the D.C. area to know that we don’t agree with what they’ve been doing,” said Ray LaHood. (Washington Post)

Wall Street Journal opinion: don't scrap Delhi's beleaguered BRT. (link)

New York City's delayed bike share program is still taking deliveries. (New York Times)

More than one in 10 new-car shoppers now buy vehicles without taking a test-drive. (Detroit Free Press)

A man on a jet ski who became stranded in Jamaica Bay easily breached JFK International Airport's $100 million security system, walking undetected across two runways and into a terminal. (AP via CBS)

Operation Fare Game -- the effort by Boston transit police to nail fare beaters -- issued over $30,000 in citations in one month. (BostInno)

Amtrak's "Ride with Pride" marketing campaign is aimed at encouraging gay passengers to use the rail service. (The Hill)

A court in Milan found in favor of a parking garage -- and suspended the city's congestion pricing program. (New York Times)

 

File photo of Governor Cuomo at the Tappan Zee Bridge on November 15, 2010 (photo by Richard Yeh/WNYC)

Although senior staffers to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo have been out in force defending the proposed toll hike on the new Tappan Zee Bridge, the governor is now calling the $14 toll "too high."

It's a new chapter in a series of events that started last Thursday evening, when Larry Schwartz, the secretary to the governor, formally revealed at a community meeting that tolls on the new bridge would almost triple when it opens to traffic in 2017.

The current Tappan Zee Bridge, which connects Rockland and Westchester Counties across the Hudson River, is considered to have outlived its useful life. New York State has been working on plans to replace it for almost a decade, and Governor Cuomo has made jump-starting construction one of his priorities.

Although Cuomo had been saying that tolls on the Tappan Zee would go up when the new bridge opens to traffic in 2017, the number -- which one Albany talk show host referred to as "jaw dropping" in an interview with the governor on Friday --  caught many people off guard, and  the backlash was immediate.

But today the governor struck a different tone in a letter to the New York State Thruway Authority, the agency in charge of the bridge. It was the first time Cuomo backed away from the $14 number.

"I believe the projected 2017 toll schedule based on the Federal Highway Administration’s estimate of up to $5.2 billion for the new bridge is too high," wrote Cuomo. "Over the next five years, we must find alternatives, revenue generators and cost reductions that reduce the potential toll increases." It was not immediately clear what a non-toll revenue generator would be.

To lower future tolls, the NY state is banking on lowering the projected construction costs below the federal estimate of $5.2 billion. Another option would be applying for additional grants to the state from the U.S. Department of Transportation. A spokesperson for the governor's office said that three construction bids are currently under review and that the cost will be the last piece of information to be parsed.

While it will take some time to hash out exactly how much toll revenue is required to build the new Tappan Zee, Cuomo's letter had one immediate effect: the supervisor of one Westchester town cancelled a planned meeting to protest the toll hike. "In light of the Governor’s responsiveness to the concerns of residents who object to the toll hike -- there is no need to have the meeting on August 15th," reads a notice on the Greenburgh web site.

(photo by Amy Pearl)

The finishing touches are going up on Brooklyn's Barclays Center -- the home of the future Brooklyn Nets, due to open next month. This week the name was hung on the arena.

(photo by Amy Pearl)

The subway station's name was changed to reflect the stadium three months ago.

And the bollards around Atlantic Terminal? They're being updated, too.

Want to learn more about what's happening on Atlantic Avenue? Read

Top stories on TN:
Tappan Zee Tolls: The Backlash to the Backlash (link)
Highway Expansions Are Only A Short-Term Solution: Expert (link)
Taxi Drivers Share Challenges During Month of Ramadan (link)
Anger Over Chevron Refinery Fire in Bay Area (link)
U.S. Airlines Set On-Time Record: Feds (link)

(photo by erikalinds via flickr)

The auto bailout will be prominently featured in the upcoming Democratic National Convention. (Politico)

Why Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel rides the El. "It’s very convenient. Then there’s the political benefit—that’s the primary reason. A lot of people come up and talk to you, and it’s a great way to have people feel like they can access their mayor." (Businessweek)

Commuting advantage lost: NJ Transit blocked a data feed use to decode track assignments at Penn Station. The mad rush to the platform will now get a little...madder. (Wall Street Journal)

The NYPD says it has Central Park's speedy cyclists under control. (New York Daily News)

Getting the space shuttle Endeavour from LAX to the California Science Center next month will mark the first time a space shuttle has been moved through the heart of a city. (Los Angeles Times)

A San Francisco Superior Court judge denied a request for a pre-emptive halt to Central Subway-related construction work scheduled to start next week. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Will the drought in the Midwest restart conversations over corn subsidies -- and ethanol? (Marketplace)

Denver regional transportation officials face grilling today from state lawmakers over delays in the promised construction of commuter rail in the northwest metro area. (Denver Post)

A year after San Francisco's transit agency touched off a global free speech debate by jamming cellphones to block a protest, the state Assembly approved a bill that would prohibit agencies from disrupting cellphone service without probable cause and a court order. (Sacramento Bee)

Nissan will substantially increase production of vehicles built and sold in North America. (Detroit Free Press)

So you landed on Mars. Now what? It turns out one of Jupiter's moons is on the wish list. (NPR)

Why rent a truck when you can move by bike? Watch a Maryland couple moving house by bike. (No, it's not an episode of Portlandia.) (Washington Post)

 

Tappan Zee Bridge (photo by waywuwei via flickr)

Following last week’s news that tolls on the new Tappan Zee Bridge could nearly triple by the time it opens in five years, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office has mounted a PR campaign trumpeting support for the $5 billion project.

The governor's team has been sending out near-daily emails listing numerous backers of a new bridge--including an endorsement from former New York Governor George Pataki, who had defeated Andrew Cuomo's father, Mario, in 1994. Notably absent from the list of supporters: Rockland County executive Scott Vanderhoef and Westchester County executive Rob Astorino, two elected officials who have yet to sign off on the project in order for it to receive federal funding.

The Cuomo plan would set the new bridge's cash toll at $14, a hefty jump from the current $5 charge. The governor says the increase is needed to pay for the $5.2 billion span, whose "basic source of financing will be the tolls."

Administration officials point out that at the new toll would bring the TZB in line with other Hudson River crossings, like the George Washington Bridge, due to rise to $14 in 2014, and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which costs $13.

The projected toll was laid bare at a community meeting in Ramapo last Thursday -- and Larry Schwartz, secretary to the governor, was careful to back into it.

Schwartz began by repeating the governor's assertion that a comprehensive bus rapid transit system would double the cost of the new bridge. "A full build-out of bus rapid transit on the bridge is $10 billion [leading to] a $28 toll in 2017," said Schwartz. He tried to use that number to make $14 look like a bargain.

It didn't work: the collective chagrin was immediate.

Media outlets ran headlines the next day using words like "tripling," and "steep." Opinion columns fumed that "the logic must be that if commuters already are soaked, they won't notice another wave of cold water." One local official said the toll hike would make the Tappan Zee a "bridge for only the rich" and announced plans for a town meeting on the topic. And Hudson Valley advocates who have been hoping -- so far in vain -- for a robust mass transit system said area commuters "could have few options in the face of higher tolls."

That same day, Cuomo's office sent out a statement implying that the $14 toll was a no-brainer. "On the cost the choice is clear," said Cuomo. "A new better bridge will require about the same tolls as just fixing the old bridge and about half the toll of a new bridge plus a new bus system."

But still: $14 tolls?

"I guess I was pleasantly surprised that the tolls weren't going to be higher," said Bob Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association.

Yaro said that even if the current bridge was not replaced, tolls would go up because the cost of maintaining the 50-year old structure is skyrocketing. "People are not happy that they have to pay increased tolls but this strikes me as a reasonable amount," he said.

The RPA has long advocated for better bus service across the Tappan Zee Bridge. But Yaro says the corridor doesn't need a 30-mile bus rapid transit system, at least right now, because the I-287 corridor has seen a significant drop in traffic over the past ten years. "It is a place where we don't have growing traffic congestion," he said.

Instead, Yaro recommended easing bus traffic across the bridge on either side, and creating a better connection to the Tarrytown Metro-North station. Caveat: building a ramp from the bridge to the station, as some have proposed, would cost too much. "But we've gotten assurances from the governor's office that they'll will work with us and other advocates to look at options to make those connections work, both in the immediate future and as the new bridge comes on line," Yaro said.

David King, an assistant professor of urban planning at Columbia University's graduate school of architecture, was similarly sanguine about a future with $14 tolls  -- even in the face of few mass transit options. "I think if the tolls are $14, that will substantially cut down traffic -- so it doesn’t matter that there's not going to be a dedicated transit lane [on either side of the bridge]," he said. Then he slammed the project's price tag. "We should be outraged just because it’s costing so much, whether it has transit or not."

Meanwhile, as this story was being written, yet another email came in from the Governor's office. “The elected officials of the Hudson Valley know best what their region needs, and on behalf of their constituents, they are calling for a new bridge to replace the obsolete Tappan Zee,” Cuomo said.

According to the Department of Transportation: "The nation’s largest airlines set record marks during the first half of this year for on-time performance, the fewest long tarmac delays, and the lowest rates of canceled flights and mishandled baggage."

The press release goes on to say: "The 15 largest U.S. airlines posted an 83.7 percent on-time arrival rate during the first six months of 2012, the highest mark for any January-June period in the 18 years the Department has collected comparable data. The previous high was 82.8 percent in January-June 2003."

You can read the full report here.

Also this morning, a department within the DOT (the Bureau of Transportation Statistics) released data breaking out June's on-time numbers by airport. The upshot: you want to fly in or out of Salt Lake City, and avoid Newark. "Salt Lake City (90.59) had the highest and Newark (68.51) had the lowest on-time departure performance of the 29 busiest airports in June."

Other highlights:

• There was one international flight with tarmac time of more than four hours: Air Canada Flight 711 from New York LaGuardia to Toronto, which was on the LaGuardia tarmac on June 25 for 248 minutes before taking off.

• In June, the most delayed flights were: JetBlue Flight 24 from New York JFK to Syracuse and JetBlue Flight 23 from Syracuse to New York JFK. Both flights operated 10 times during the month and were 30 minutes late or canceled 80.0 percent of the time, averaging 81 minutes late.

You can see that data here.

 

Top stories on TN:
Readers & Listeners Share Tips On Surviving The Present Penn Station, Identify Remnants Of The Old (link)
Olympics Have London Rethinking Iconic Underground Signage (link)
The Sharing Economy: Bilingual Bike Repair in East Oakland (link)

Sao Paolo (photo by titodixebra via flickr)

On this morning's Brian Lehrer Show: TN's Jim O'Grady and NJPR's Nancy Solomon discuss how to navigate Penn Station. Listen to WNYC in the 11:00 hour!

A Miami real estate and transportation company plans to go ahead with a $1 billion project to build a privately run passenger train service between Miami and Orlando. (Reuters)

The NASA rover that landed on Mars has titanium legs made by a Tennessee-based bicycle company. (Times Free Press)

New York Daily News editorial: "It’s time for a complete update" on the reasons behind New York's bike share delay.

Speaking of which: three delayed urban bike share systems, one software vendor. "In cities like Boston that used the tried-and-true technology 8D offered, bike-share systems have proved effective and popular. In the few cities that have tried to install PBSC’s new technology, including New York and Chicago, delays have held up the launch of the program." (Wall Street Journal)

New York's MTA is testing software that displays expiration dates for unlimited-ride MetroCards when these cards are swiped through subway turnstiles. (Second Avenue Sagas)

Chicago will start experimenting with BRT service on the city's South Side this November. (Chicago Sun Times)

A breakthrough in battery research could lead to cheaper electric cars. (KQED)

NYC's Summer Streets zip line is making an appearance at Herald Square today.

Do basketball arenas spur economic development or not? (Atlantic Cities)

Traffic in São Paulo is so bad that the wealthy are increasingly commuting by helicopter. Meanwhile, the public transportation system is "too narrow in scope, and bursting at the seams." (The Global Mail)

A music critic for the New York Times had a John Cage moment on the A train. "As the train pulled into each station, the muted squeal of the brakes, the opening and closing of the doors and the slight shift in the balance of voices as some people left and others entered, already talking, suggested shifts between connected movements."  (link)

The BART Idiot Hall of Fame: public showcase of shame or exploration into subversive genius? (Laughing Squid)

Bloomberg News opinion: eliminate subsidized parking for public housing and city employees and charge market rates -- it will discourage driving and keep more cars off the road.

America's national parks as subway map: how many stops have you made? (Sierra Club via Good)

(image via the Sierra Club's Facebook page)

Top stories on TN:
MAP/VIDEO: How To Survive, And Occasionally Thrive, In New York Penn Station, The Continent’s Busiest Train Hub (link)
Pedestrian Deaths Rose 4% in 2010: Federal Report (link)
Virginia Breaks Ground on I-95 Express Lanes (link)
Alternate Side Parking Rules Lead To More Driving: Study (link)
Why Transportation Planning Gets It Wrong (link)
Curiosity Rover Lands on Mars, Looks for Life (link)

The Paris Plage, a summer event along the Seine roadway (photo by Josh Clark via Flickr)

Car use is declining across North America. (Canadian Business)

Paris will transform the roadways along the Seine River into a series of pedestrian walkways and parks. (New York Times)

The Los Angeles Metro's Blue Line — one of the busiest light rail lines in the nation — is on pace to have more deaths in 2012 than any other year in its 22-year history. (Los Angeles Times)

Chicago's bike share program has been delayed until next spring. (Chicago Sun Times)

Boston's bike share program is expanding today and will celebrate with a "rolling launch party." (Boston Bikes)

Several New York City Council members have unveiled a proposal to expand the bike and pedestrian path on the Brooklyn Bridge. (Gothamist)

A week after a close call at Reagan National Airport, the FAA has banned aircraft from flying in opposite directions as they arrive and depart from airports. (Washington Post)

A 70-mile stretch of Amtrak-owned rail that handles about 20 percent of NJ Transit trains accounts for as much as 32 percent of the delays systemwide. (Record)

NJ Governor Chris Christie suggested he might approve transparency reforms at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in exchange for extending the veto power he already wields over the agency to smaller, intrastate authorities as well. (Star Ledger)

The former head of the Port Authority (Chris Ward), now running the U.S. office of construction company Dragados, is disappointed that his company failed to bid on the Tappan Zee Bridge. (Observer)

G.M. ousted its marketing head after finding out he was spreading the price of a Chevrolet sponsorship agreement among several different marketing budgets to avoid spending limits. (Bloomberg via Auto News)

Next week, a judge will decide if American Airlines can throw out its old labor contracts and impose even more severe cuts on the workers. (Marketplace)

A bipartisan group of four governors, including Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, is forming an auto caucus to support policies aimed at boosting the U.S. auto industry. (Detroit News)

Work has begun on Tampa's first BRT line, expected to open next spring. (WUSF)

New Yorkers are warming up to free subway Wi-Fi. (AP)

 

 

Pedestrian deaths rose 4% in 2010 -- marking the first time in five years that the number has risen.

According to a new report released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 4,280 pedestrians were killed and 70,000 were injured in traffic crashes in the United States in 2010.

Three-quarters of those fatalities happened in urban areas. Alcohol usage -- either on the part of the pedestrian or the driver -- was involved in almost half of the fatalities. Nearly one-half (48%) of all pedestrian deaths occurred on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

This follows on the heels of news last month that overall traffic fatalities for the first quarter of 2012 increased by 13.5 percent.

Read the report here.

Alternate side parking sign in Manhattan (photo by Kate Hinds)

Alternate side parking rules -- put in place to facilitate street cleaning -- actually increase driving in the New York City area.

In a soon-to-be-published study looking at driving behavior in places affected by street cleaning rules, a pair of New York University researchers found that alternate side parking (ASP) increases car usage in the New York City region by an average of 7.1 percent.

"Residents may simply make a new trip by car, to work, to school, or elsewhere, that they would otherwise not make, were street cleaning not performed on that day," reports the study, entitled "Duet of the Commons: The Impact of Street Cleaning on Car Usage in New York."

This, despite the fact that the costs of driving in New York can be  astronomically high-- drivers may need to pay for tolls and parking, and almost universally have to deal with traffic congestion and irate drivers.

But like many things New York, location is everything. In denser neighborhoods that are closer to the urban core, car-owning residents are more likely to drive on days when the rules are in effect. But in places further afield -- like in outer boroughs where residents have more access to off-street parking options  -- ASP actually leads to a decrease in car usage on the days the rules are in effect.

Guo found that surprising. "It seemed there should be no impact at all," he said. But when he dug a little deeper -- which meant, in part, that he scrutinized driveways and garages on Google Street View -- he discovered some compelling reasons to leave the car in the driveway once you get it in there.

"Many of the garages are actually very narrow, not facing the street," he said. Moreover, driveways in single-family detached houses in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx are often very narrow. Translation:  once you maneuver a car into the driveway or garage, said Guo, "it's very difficult for you to get the car out and use it again." The cars, he said, are effectively trapped -- and you only take them out for a good reason.

But he pointed out that that applies to only a small percentage of New York City car owners, as the majority don't have access to off-street parking, so the net effect is an increase in driving on alternate side days.

Legislation targeting alternate side -- a bête noire of New York City drivers -- is a perennial political staple.  In 2011, the New York City Council passed a bill that would give each community board the chance to opt out of alternate side parking one day a week — but only if that neighborhood had at least a 90 percent rating on street cleanliness in the mayor's management report two years in a row. And earlier this year the Council passed a bill outlawing the city's "shame stickers" that the Department of Sanitation used to adhere to cars flouting alternate side.

Guo says his study found that if neighborhoods that can reduce ASP rules do reduce them, there could be a reduction of almost three percent in the number of car trips.

"Streets belong to all New Yorkers," he said -- not just car owners. "It's a public space... it's a public treasure. And now only people who have cars actually benefit from that property. So there's a social equity problem here. So by reducing street cleaning, "you're basically assigning more user rights to car owners."

"The Duet of the Commons: The Impact of Street Cleaning on Car Usage in New York" will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Planning Education and Research.