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(Mario Tama/Getty Images)

by Radhika Marya

Commuters, elected officials, and transportation advocates are rallying against proposed mass transit cuts, a day after the MTA announced it was facing a new $400 million deficit.

Protesters ...

Sidewalk sheds -- those big, brooding structures meant to protect pedestrians from falling debris during building renovations -- are set for a makeover (see gallery below).

The city announced the winning entry from an international design competition intended to make sidewalk sheds less dark and foreboding.

The winner, “Urban ...

The Beame Shuffle. It's a phrase that came about in the 1970s when Mayor Abe Beame used federal money to prevent a fare increase on the subway. MTA chairman Jay Walder's resurrected the term this year to warn of taking similar steps with federal stimulus money.

"We spent more than ...

The first restaurant in the Freedom Tower at Ground Zero opened today -- even though the tower's only just started rising.

A Subway sandwich shop for construction workers went up today. It's attached to a lift on a hydraulic jack that will move it higher and higher as each floor ...

As the MTA prepares to make deep cuts, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood sat down with WNYC's Andrea Bernstein to discuss how much help the federal government should give transit systems and whether the Recovery Act has helped.

Here, WNYC's Matthew Schuerman and Amy Eddings provide context for the MTA's vote to cut services--and explain what it could mean for New Yorkers.

(graphic by Stephen Nessen)

Highlights of WNYC's MTA coverage:

(by Stephen Nessen)

The Newtown Creek that forms part of the border between Brooklyn and Queens is filled with toxins from a century and a half of industrial activity. An underground oil spill there has been causing problems in Greenpoint, Brooklyn for ...

Oils, toxins, and refuse coagulate in the Gowanus Canal (by Stephen Nessen)

WNYC's Amy Eddings has been reporting on the Gowanus Canal and the debate on whether it should become a Superfund site ...

Mayor Bloomberg is calling for more volunteers around the city to help clean up neighborhood blocks and teach free fitness classes to prevent obesity. The call for public service is part of the mayor's 'Give Your BLANK' campaign. It's based on the ...

Oil and debris in the Gowanus Canal (by Stephen Nessen)

The Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn is a polluted industrial waterway, and it has been for most of its 140 years. Bill Appel found this out after buying a house in ...

Adolfo Carrión Digs Potatoes in urban Philadelphia garden (Andrea Bernstein)

Listen:

Last July, Adolfo Carrión, Jr. paid a visit to an urban garden in Philadelphia. In casual khaki slacks and rolled-up shirt sleeves he was digging up potatoes, throwing the long stems into a wooden wheelbarrow, to be turned into compost. The potatoes, he offered, would be good for “home fries.”

Carrión is now the director of the brand-new White House Office of Urban Affairs, part of a campaign promise President Barack Obama made to re-focus attention on urban America.

A small crowd was gathered around Carrión in the garden--the Mayor of Philadelphia, a Deputy Secretary from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, a host of neighborhood activists and a few teenagers. Two of the teens, Amber and Shardae, were standing a bit off to the side, knee-high in collard greens.

The high school students were part of the “Teens for Good” program. The program hires local teens, gives them summer jobs, and sells the produce the raise at a neighborhood farmers market. Amber and Shardae were joking about sneaking a few of the ping pong ball-sized raspberries. But for Amber this was serious.

Last July, Adolfo Carrión, Jr. paid a visit to an urban garden in Philadelphia. In casual khaki slacks and rolled-up shirt sleeves he was digging up potatoes, throwing the long stems into a wooden wheelbarrow, to be turned into compost. The potatoes, he offered, would be good for “home fries.”

Carrión is now the director of the brand-new White House Office of Urban Affairs, part of a campaign promise President Barack Obama made to re-focus attention on urban America.

A small crowd was gathered around Carrión in the garden--the Mayor of Philadelphia, a Deputy Secretary from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, a host of neighborhood activists and a few teenagers. Two of the teens, Amber and Shardae, were standing a bit off to the side, knee-high in collard greens.

The high school students were part of the “Teens for Good” program. The program hires local teens, gives them summer jobs, and sells the produce the raise at a neighborhood farmers market. Amber and Shardae were joking about sneaking a few of the ping pong ball-sized raspberries. But for Amber this was serious.

A groundbreaking ceremony for a Lower Manhattan building raised more dust from officials than it did from the ceremonial shovels.

Brooklyn City Councilman Charles Barron took the podium at the groundbreaking for Fiterman Hall in Lower Manhattan and accused Mayor Bloomberg and other officials of disrespecting him. City University trustee ...

Furtive glances down darkened subway tunnels may be a thing of the past, now that the MTA has set a timeline for installing countdown clocks. They'll display how long until the next train arrives. The authority says more than 150 stations, along the numbered lines will have clocks up and ...

Supporters of a proposed development in Nassau County say they’ve found the answer to suburban sprawl: a concentrated mixture of apartments, offices and retail spaces called The Lighthouse at Long Island. There’s just one hitch: How to get there.

WNYC’s Matthew Schuerman has this report.

REPORTER: The head of Nassau County’s government, Tom Suozzi, is driving through Garden City, Long Island, a wealthy enclave with five-bedroom homes set back from tree-lined streets.

As Mayor Bloomberg campaigns for a third term largely on his record of economic development, his Democratic opponent Bill Thompson says ordinary New Yorkers have been left out of the decision-making process. Whether the city's use of eminent domain for economic development is unfair was up for debate today as ...

New York State will move a step closer this week to opening up the Catskills and the Southern Tier to natural gas drilling, as a key environmental assessment is made public. WNYC's Ilya Marritz explains.

REPORTER: Property owners, energy companies and environmentalists have been waiting more than a ...

Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Archtiect\'s new design for the Barclays Center

The state economic development agency gave final approval today to a revised plan for Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn.

The chiefs of economic development for the city and the state spoke before construction industry executives this morning, trying to reassure them that all was well even in these hard times.

New York Times reporter Charles Bagli, ...