Andrea Bernstein

(Matthew Schuerman, WNYC) Tens of thousands of New Yorkers faced longer and more inconvenient commutes this morning as a result of the MTA’s bus and service cuts. They were most poignantly felt, however, by immigrants who had no idea that the changes were coming because they don’t speak or read English well or at all. (More here)

WNYC reporter and director of the Transportation Nation blog Andrea Bernstein checks in on how service cuts are impacting riders and commuters. WNYC's Matthew Schuerman calls-in after talking with commuters.

How was your commute this morning?  Post your comments here!

(Matthew Schuerman, WNYC)  : Beginning Sunday, 38 bus routes will be cut entirely, while another 76 will run shorter routes or shorter hours. Off-peak subway service will be reduced on 11 subway lines starting Sunday, while two others will be eliminated as of Monday. Along with reductions on commuter railroads, the cuts are expected to save the MTA $93 million annually. The MTA is facing a $750 million budget deficit this year. 

The majority of bus routes will remain the same, however, and every subway station will continue be served, though some of them less frequently.

On air, we've used a somewhat vaguer number.  Our count here includes express buses and routes in the MTA Bus Company. Also, we consider a route eliminated when its number is retired, even if service is improved on a neighboring route to pick up some passengers.

MTA TRIP PLANNER WEBSITE is here.

NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT INFORMATION LINE: (6 am- 10 pm) 718-330-1234.  Ask for "customer service" when you get a prompt.

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation) There's not a transit system in the nation that isn't under water. MARTA in Atlanta is looking a cutting a quarter of its service. The board of the Caltrain, through Silicon Valley, is reserving the option of ceasing to exist entirely. But why is the NYC MTA, the nation's marqee transit system, facing an $800 million budget gap?

Andrea Bernstein, WNYC reporter and director of the Transportation Nation blog, talks about the service cuts and helps us say goodbye to the discontinued bus and subway lines. Also, Richard Yeh, WNYC reporter, talks about what the bus cuts mean for commuters in eastern Queens.

Are you losing bus or subway service? Post your transit eulogies here!

New York, NY —

It's 6:30 in the morning, and most New Yorkers are still in their pajamas. But it's a party on the B51 bus in downtown Brooklyn. I take a seat. Someone else's it seems.

"Miss, I don’t mean to be rude," a rider named Della tells me, ...

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation) Facing system-wide cuts in mass transit this weekend, WNYC has learned New York City is looking to vastly expand it private commuter van network. So-called dollar vans, which actually cost $2.00, operate throughout the city, picking up passengers who flag them down and dropping them off along specified routes. The vans, which are privately operated, are regulated by the city Taxi and Limosine commission, or TLC. According to those with direct knowledge of the situation, the TLC has been quietly meeting with dollar van operators to expand their routes to pick up much of the slack left by bus line cuts. Those cuts go into effect on Sunday, though the expansion of dollar van routes isn’t expected to take place that quickly.

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation)  Since New York began experimenting with select  bus service, there's  been one giant obstacle:  New Yorkers tend to view painted bus lanes (and bike lanes for that matter), as optional.  The city's been stymied in its efforts to suggest otherwise by lack of authority to install cameras which could help police the lane.  But now a few simple words in a legislative deal reached today: "establishes a bus rapid transit demonstration program to restrict the use of bus lanes by means of bus lane photo devices (Part II)" could change on that.  The language still needs a vote, but if passed, the city can begin installing cameras which give the terra cotta lanes some, er, teeth.

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation)  President Barack Obama travels to Columbus , Ohio today to cut the ribbon on the 10,000th Recovery Act highway project.   The move, clearly timed to emit some good news in the cloud of BP spill-related bad news, was heralded Thursday in a conference call by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Vice President Biden's Chief Economist, Jared Bernstein.

LaHood said the news could be even better.  "The problem is getting the governors to enter into contracts through their Departments of Transportation to get these contracts awarded so people can be hired."

(Matthew Schuerman, WNYC). School systems have been under pressure around the nation to cut transportation costs. Minneapolis plans to cut bus service for students who elect not to go to their district schools. Douglas County, Colorado, will start charging school kids to ride the yellow bus. But some 300,000 New York school kids will get to keep their free Metrocards to ride the bus or subway to get to school, under a tentative deal worked out in Albany.

Sources in Albany tell WNYC that New York Governor David Paterson will submit a transportation budget bill tomorrow that would give the Metropolitan Transportation Authority 25 million dollars to save the program. That's not as much as the MTA has wanted. But the bill would include other provisions that the MTA had sought, such as an increase in the debt limit for its capital program.

(Marianne McCune, WNYC) Painting on the protected Second Avenue bike lane got underway overnight.   The lane, which will go north to 34th Street, is part of the city DOT's plan to extend its bike lane network -- though more slowly than promised.

The photo is of the block between 5th and 6th street.

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation) Hunts Point, the Bronx is New York's major food distribution center. There's a fruit and vegetable wholesaler, a seafood market -- and lots of lots of trucks. The area, in the poorest congressional district in the nation (yes, it beats Mississippi, yes it beats Appalachia), also has an asthma rate that is 700 percent of the national average. Now, Down East seafoods has bought a zero emissions truck, with the help of a local development corporation and the local congressman. More, from Marketplace.

In the last five years, New York has added hundreds of miles of bike lanes and closed parts of Broadway to cars, a re-allocation of street space that has caused no small measure of controversy. But those plans? Child's play, compared to what a group of international planners wants the city to do: tear down the lower part of the FDR drive.

Photo: Terreform and Michael Sorkin Studio

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation) In the last five years, New York has added hundreds of miles of bike lanes and closed parts of Broadway to cars, a re-allocation of street space that has caused no small measure of controversy. But those plans? Child's play, compared to what a group of international planners want the city to do: tear down the lower part of the FDR drive.

It’s a proposal that draws almost immediate – and intense – derision from almost anyone who hears it.

“Terrible idea,” mused Bryan Delaney, kibitzing with his wife, Ibelice, the other night on Grand Street near the FDR drive. “Ridiculous,” snorted Carmen Gund, a teacher walking three small dogs. “People are going to drive into Manhattan regardless, so why not have as many roads to drive into Manhattan as possible?”

Inside the Bloomberg administration, there’s also incredulity. “Tear down a ring road?” said one highly placed city official who didn’t want his name used because he was speaking about the plan without authorization. “That will never happen.”

But architect Michael Sorkin, who drew up blueprints for a radically different lower Manhattan, is a fervent believer in the “if you unbuild it, they won’t come,” school of thought. His plans look sort of like a Brooklyn Bridge park, but on the Manhattan side – manicured lawns, plazas, ferry terminals, restaurants, and lots and lots of open sky. For designs and the rest of the article, go to the WNYC Culture page.

(Photo by Ryan Muir)

Brooklyn resident and soulful singer-songwriter Norah Jones kicked off Brooklyn's open-air free concert season on Wednesday night with a nearly two-hour show in Prospect Park. Some 5,000 concert-goers turned out, huddling ...

(Andrea Bernstein Transportation Nation) Boston's bike share was supposed to start this summer, but it's been pushed off at least until April, 2010. Nicole Freedman, Director of Bicycle Programs for the Boston Redevelopment Authority, explains "we felt like we need more time to ensure we could get the operations correct." Each city's structure for bike share is different. Montreal has contracted out operations to Bixi, Washington's DDOT has hired Alta Bike Share to run the system, and Denver and Minneapolis have non-profits setting up theirs.

But Boston is still working out the details of how its system will be run. Freedman says Boston might have been ready by early fall, but setting up a system so close to Boston's notorious winters didn't seem wise.

The news comes on the heels of announcement by New York that a major expansion of protected bike lanes, seen as a prerequisite for bike share, was being postponed.

But cheer up bike share enthusiasts. As MPR reports, Minnesota's bike share starts tomorrow. And DC's now has a name.

Andrea Bernstein, WNYC reporter and director of the Transportation Nation project, discusses the changes in the bike lanes plan along Manhattan's 1st and 2nd avenues.

New York, NY —

On March 3, New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer “we can’t do bike share until we have safe bike lanes.” (Transcript and audio below.) That was when the city planned to build, this year, 160 new blocks of protected bike ...

(Andrea Bernstein, Transportation Nation) On March 3, New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told WNYC's Brian Lehrer "we can't do bike share until we have safe bike lanes." (Transcript and audio below.)   That was when the city planned to build, this year, 160 new blocks of protected bike lanes along First and Second Avenues, from the Battery to 125th Street.  Those lanes would have helped fill a gaping hole in the city's bike lane map.  From the Flatiron district to Central Park and stretching east from Broadway,  bike lanes are virtually non-existent.  That's a  distance of forty blocks, north to south, and about a mile east to west.

Now, plans to fill in that network on the east side of Manhattan with miles of protected bike lanes have been significantly curtailed.  The city says construction deadlines mean it can only build up to 34th Street this year; it isn't offering a timetable for the build-out.

New York City's announcement comes as Boston and Minneapolis are ready to implement major bike share programs this month; Denver's bike share was launched April 22, and Washington DC is poised to launch a 1200-bike program this fall.  And as Los Angeles, freeway city, is investing $230 million dollars in bike lanes, plus bike stations, showers, and other infrastructure.   As we reported back in February, bike share fever is sweeping urban planners around the U.S.

New York City has taken steps towards implementing a bike share; it has issued a request for expressions of interest, and analyzed -- largely favorably -- opportunities for bike sharing in New York.

Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, widely viewed as a national leader in promoting biking in cities, has organized bike sharing demonstrations at her summer-streets festivals, where she closes some Manhattan streets to cars.   She's brought in her friend, musician David Byrne, to publicize bike sharing demos in Union Square.

But she's also said biking needs to be safe in midtown before New York can begin a bike share, and her plan to "double the citywide total [of bike lanes] in just one year" is on hold, for 2010, at least.  DOT isn't offering a timetable for construction of the First and Second Avenue protected bike lanes, or bike share in New York.  When asked, DOT spokesman Seth Solomonow emailed "As I'm sure you're aware, we continue to explore the feasibility of bike share."

Click here for the audio link to Brian Lehrer's March 3 interview the relevant portion begins at 9:55.

Here's the transcript:

(Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio) Bus ridership is higher than at any point since right after World War II in the Twin Cities   But car commuting still dwarfs transit.    More here.