Andrea Bernstein

NYC Transportation Commissioner Sadik-Khan, MTA Employee Demonstrate Off-Board Bus Payment (photo: Brian Zumhagen/WNYC)

(With Brian Zumhagen, WNYC) New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his transportation chief, Janette Sadik-Khan,  were on hand this morning on 34th Street to hail the launch another "Select Bus Service" route in New York City on what has notoriously been one of the slowest bus routes in the city -- the 34th Street crosstown.  "You can walk faster," Sadik-Khan was once fond of pointing out of the route which passes Macy's flagship store, Penn Station, and the Empire State Building.

The planned improvements, including off-board payment, and allowing boarding at the back door will no doubt improve bus speeds, as they've done on Select Bus Service routes in the Bronx and along First and Second Avenues.

But the changes a far cry from what Sadik-Khan once described as the city's first "true Bus Rapid Transit." As originally envisioned, the 34th street bus lines were supposed to be physically segregated from the car lanes, preventing delivery trucks, cabbies, and disoriented tourists from driving in the bus lanes, as they are known to do on select bus service lines along First and Second Avenues, despite warnings of $115 fines.

The earlier plans would have made the 34th St line  more like the bus lines that glide by rows of traffic in cities like Bogota, Colombia, Mexico City, and Istanbul.

Bogota's Bus Rapid Transit Lanes, Right, Are Segregated from Car Lanes (photo: Andrea Bernstein)

But after an outcry from, among others, some large 34th St businesses, New York City's plans were scaled back.  "There were three different plans we submitted to community boards, and this is the one we selected," Sadik-Khan said today.

Sadik-Khan focused on  focused on the changes that will make the buses faster, including off-board payment.

Commuters now have to put their Metrocards in a machine at the bus stop and get a proof-of-payment receipt before they board, and they can enter the bus through the front or the back door.

Sadik-Khan says the new system will reduce delays, just as it has on the other two corridors where it's been introduced. "It's been a great success on First and Second Avenue, same thing on Fordham Road. So every time we've unveiled this, we've seen travel times get cut and ridership go up, so it's a great new model for bus service in New York City," she says.

Long Island commuter Amanda Kelaher takes the 34th Street crosstown bus from Penn Station to First Avenue every day. "It is really crowded, so it probably will help," she says. "You can get on in the back, they said, as opposed to going to the front, which is much easier, I guess. We'll see how it goes."

But some riders say they're not so happy about the changes. Beatrice Lebreton has taken the Select Bus Service line that's been running on First and Second Avenues since 2010, so she's familiar with the proof-of-payment system. "And every time I go get my ticket, I miss the bus," she says, erupting in laughter. "Just that extra step in the morning is not very convenient."

Once riders have their receipts, they need to hold on to them, because so-called "eagle teams" of transit police roam the SBS lines checking for proof-of-payment. Passengers who can't produce a receipt face a fine of $100.

Transportation Commissioner Sadik-Khan says more enforcement is on the way for 34th Street, with cameras coming to the corridor next year to make sure cars stay out of the bus lanes.

"We're very excited about the package of improvements, and we think it's going to be a much safer, smoother, faster ride for people on 34th Street," she says.

 

A $1.5 million overhaul of Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza has been completed. The Department of Transportation added more walkways, bike lanes, and street dividers in order to make what was once the most dangerous intersection of the city safer.

A toll collector, circa 1940 (photo: Washington State DOT)

Voters in Washington State have narrowly rejected a measure to sharply limit the way tolls are spent in that state.

According to the Washington State Secretary of State, the measure came up short, garnering 49.07 percent of the vote, to the 50.93 percent of some 1,125, 817 voters who cast ballots.

The almost-even split likely won't clarify the debate over how transportation projects should be funded, a key issue being debated in Washington as we write as well as in statehouses across the country.

At issue in this election was whether tolls could be spent on projects other than the roads on which they're collected, whether the state could charge variable tolls, and whether a light rail extension could go over the I-90 bridge, approved by voters last year, would go forward.

The measure was mounted by conservative activist Tim Eyman, a well-known Washington State gadfly, who viewed it as a way to ease the pain of "the 97 percent of us who chose to drive every day."  Measure supporters were far outspent by opponents, which included Bill Gates and employees of Microsoft.

Washington Governor Christine Gregoire last night released a statement as the measure was trailing:  "I am pleased tonight that I-1125 is failing – and that voters recognized the short-sightedness of this initiative," she said. "Had this initiative passed, it would have greatly inhibited our ability to fund significant road improvement projects. Tonight, it appears we will keep that forward momentum and continue to invest in regional solutions to improve traffic, transit and congestion."

But the narrow defeat has those in favor of limiting transportation spending crowing.

I think they're walking on the thinnest of thin ice," Eyman told the Associated Press Tuesday night, when the results were too close to call. "It's hard to view this thing as anything else but a very successful effort."

 

Senator Barbara Boxer

We'll have more analysis at the mark-up this week (November 9), but in the meantime, here's the statement on the release of the Senate Transportation reauthorization bill, along with links to the bill and the bill summary.

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Ranking Member of the Committee, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee, and Senator David Vitter (R-LA), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, today released the bill text for Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21), bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the nation's transportation programs for two years. Senators Boxer, Inhofe, Baucus and Vitter are all co-sponsors of MAP-21.

Senator Boxer said: "I am proud to be Chairman of a committee that has joined together across party lines to write a strong, job-creating transportation bill. I believe that our bill will not only protect the 1.8 million existing transportation jobs, but we will also create up to an additional million jobs thanks to the way our bill leverages federal funds. My deepest thanks to my Ranking Member, Senator Jim Inhofe, the Subcommittee Chair, Senator Max Baucus and Subcommittee Ranking Member, Senator David Vitter."

Senator Inhofe said: "I commend Senators Boxer, Vitter and Baucus for their work in striking the right balance on our highway bill, and I am pleased to join them as we unveil it today. Yesterday's votes on both the Democrat and Republican infrastructure bills showed that there is a strong bipartisan majority in the Senate that supports putting Americans back to work by building our roads and bridges. I look forward to working with my EPW colleagues to pass this bill - which is proven to help strengthen our economy and create jobs - in the committee next week."

Senator Baucus said: "Maintaining a strong transportation system is a proven way to create jobs and keep America strong and competitive, something we need now more than ever. Because Montana is a highway state, we know firsthand that the smart transportation investments in this bill will deliver big returns in construction jobs in the short term and they will support American commerce around the country and around the world for years to come. This is a bipartisan package everyone can support."

Senator Vitter said: <"I'm encouraged that we've found an efficient way of addressing some of our most important transportation needs. The American people - and many American businesses - depend on reliable infrastructure, and I'm glad that we were able to find some common ground with this bipartisan bill."

The legislation maintains funding at current levels, reforms the nation's transportation programs to make them more efficient, and provides robust assistance for transportation projects under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program to leverage state, local, and private-sector funding.

Here are the:  bill text for MAP-21 and a bill summary.

Issuing residential parking permits is one of those things that seems so self-evident to some New York City residents that it’s unimaginable it hasn’t happened already. But parking experts say they could have unintended consequences.

Parking Sign, not in New York City (Photo (cc) by Flickr user Smaku)

Issuing residential parking permits is one of those things that seems so self-evident to some New York City residents that it’s unimaginable it hasn’t happened already. At a city council hearing on Wednesday, Council Member Leticia James, who represents the area around Barclay’s Center, future home to the Brooklyn Nets, summed it up in her characteristically emphatic way: “A residential parking permit program would discourage all-day parking by commuters who use neighborhoods, as is the case in downtown Brooklyn, basically as a parking lot.”

Brooklyn Heights resident Michael Serrapica put an even finer point on it.  “This is a residential neighborhood, it’s been completely overrun by people from outside of the neighborhood who otherwise could pay to park in a commercial garage.”

The council voted 40-8 in favor of implementing a parking permit system, with one abstention.  But the bill doesn’t mean the system is going to be put into effect -- that requires a vote of the state legislature.

Still, even the prospect of a parking permit system got the saliva glands flowing for many New Yorkers.

And yet, for the New York City department of transportation, parking permits can produce a set of unintended consequences, excluding a group of people some neighborhoods need to accommodate.  Deputy transportation commissioner David Woloch ticked those groups off:  “those using local businesses and services, residential visitors, in-home workers, residents parking rental cars or car-share vehicles, and deliveries.”

Rachel Weinberger, a University of Pennsylvania Professor and Brooklyn resident -- who lives, BTW, not too far from Barclay's Center herself -- sums it up:

“Where I live, a typical lot width is 19 feet. You could park about 1.25 vehicles in front of each building. At the same time most of the units are three families. If everyone had a car and a permit there would be 2.4 times more vehicles entitled to park than spaces. In many NYC neighborhoods they would serve as a "hunting license" meaning you would be allowed to hunt for a space but there are no guarantees you would find one," she said.

In testimony before the city council, Woloch also invoked the term “hunting license.” “One potential unintended consequence is therefore that residents can find themselves paying Residential Parking Permit (RPP) fees for the same privilege they currently enjoy, namely, circling for scarce parking spaces.”

Weinberger also voices a concern that RPPs could “have an adverse impact on commerce. For example, if your RPP completely restricts visitors' parking, shoppers or restaurant customers will take their business elsewhere. If the restriction is something like only RPP parking from 10:30 to11:30 that will prevent commuters from using your area as a park and ride lot.”

In Europe, RPPs have been used to discourage parking and driving, part of that continent’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to Michael Kodransky, a parking expert at the Institute for Transportation Development Policy. He writes in an email: Permits “can be used to meet a variety of goals — like as a cap on the parking supply in conjunction with off-street parking regulations (forbidden/frozen) or to encourage cleaner vehicle use (e.g., in London certain boroughs vary the cost of a permit based on a vehicles emissions mostly based on their engine.)”

In Amsterdam, Kodransky notes, “off-street parking construction is forbidden since residents already have on-street spaces.” There is, he writes, a ten-year waiting list there.

However, in both these cases, the permits are used as revenue generators. The state bill supported by the NY city council would send revenue to transit, though there’s little evidence that council members are actually seeking big fees for drivers. One council member who voted against the plan, Lew Fidler, expressed concerns that at the end of the day, fees would go up. “And we’re just going to move the problem from one neighborhood to the next until everybody in the city of New York is paying for the right to park on the street."

ITDP’s Kodransky thinks that permits around a stadium could work, but only if the city were will to charge "a lot" for other on-street parking spots.

“If residential permits are issued, then I think all remaining spaces should be priced with sharp increases on game day to dissuade folks from driving (especially since terrible gridlock is in fact already forecasted and outlined in the environmental impact statement). If the on-street prices remain cheaper than parking in the arena garage, drivers will certainly put in the time to look for cheaper alternatives on 5^th Avenue, 7^th Avenue, Vanderbilt, Fulton, Dekalb or any other commercial streets where residential permits are less likely to apply while current prices are too low for a game-day scenario.”

As Transportation Nation has reported, that’s exactly what has happened on the streets around Yankee stadium.

The city says it is studying an option for permits around arenas on game days, and promises a report in early 2012.

 

 

2011 is a light year for transit and transportation ballot measures, but one in Washington State has transportation advocates nervous.

And it's a key bellwether for how voters are feeling about spending on big transportation projects a year after midterm elections saw big gains for candidates vowing to curb spending.  Many of those candidates are now part of the powerful Tea Party caucus in Washington, which has blocked any new taxes and pushed huge spending cuts.

Sponsored by a conservative activist, Tim Eyman, the Washington ballot measure would curtail how tolls could be spent, limiting toll collections for only the specific project being tolled.   The measure would also halt variable tolling, seen as a key tool by transportation planners to ease congestion at peak times, but seen as inherently unfair by the measure's sponsors, who tout the measure by saying "Tolls do not vary.  They are the same 24/7 and everyone pays."

Measure 1125  would also bar the expansion of Seattle's light rail across the I-90 bridge over Lake Washington, which was approved by a ballot measure last year.

According to the 'Yes on 1125'  homepage, the measure "stands up for the 97 percent of us who chose to drive everyday."

The measure has opponents trying to cough up that chicken-bone, and furiously fundraising.  So far, Microsoft (based in Washington) employees, including Bill Gates himself, have contributed $700,000 to fund more than 2 million worth of television ads to block the proposal.

The Seattle City Council recently voted 9-0 to oppose the measure, arguing it would excessive drain funding for key transportation projects.

Proponents have far fewer resources, but the "I'm Mad As Hell But Not Going To Take it Anymore"-inspired measure is so far even in the poll.

The vote next week comes as Washington, DC politicians are grappling with how to fund the transportation bill.  The results could be used as ammo by either side in an argument about how transpo should be funded -- and how big its dreams should be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Washington's Key Bridge

Accompanied by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the President left the White House at 11:16 this morning for the two-and-a-half mile trip over to Washington's Key Bridge, one of the structurally deficient bridges that some 210 million Americans cross daily.

According to materials released by the White House, the DDOT says the Key Bridge needs $20 million for repairs, which has been deferred to 2015 "due to a lack of funds."  The White House says if the Jobs Act passed, that work could start in 2013.

The White House also today released a report on the "economic benefits from investing in infrastructure."

"It makes absolutely no sense," said a shirt-sleeved Obama, "when there's so much of America that needs rebuilding.  This week, Congress has the chance to do something about it and pass a bill that will put hundreds of thousands of construction workers back to work rebuilding our roads, bridges, airports and transit systems."

The President called for "bold action by Congress."

This will be the final pitch the President makes in front of a bridge before Congress votes.

That could come  as early as today as the Senate is set to vote on the infrastructure portion of the jobs act -- some $50 billion for roads, transit, and airports, and another $10 billion to seed an infrastructure bank.

There's zero chance the bill will pass, since it's funded with a 0.7 percent surcharge on wealthy earners, which Republicans have vowed to oppose under any circumstances.

However, the White House sees clear political benefits in continuing the discussion, anyway.   "He won't be the only one still talking about it," said one Democratic strategist.  "Infrastructure investment is supported by Democrats and Republicans, by business and labor, by the Chamber of Congress and the AFL-CIO, so it won't go down without a fight."

It's a particularly potent issue in states like Ohio and Michigan, seen as must-win for the President in 2012.

The President was back at the White House at 11:50.  He meets with Senate Democratic Leadership in the Oval Office this afternoon, and heads for leaves for the G-20 summit in Cannes, France, this evening.

With pool reports.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is investigating several tarmac-delay related incidents from the surprise weekend storm that left some passengers stranded for hours.

(Photo by Fringehog/Flickr)

Using private companies to enforce "red-light" laws often gives those companies an incentive to raise money, rather than improve safety.

That's the conclusion of a new study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

The study found the regular use of disincentives for things like lengthening the yellow light lights, which it says would improve safety but reduce revenue.

However, the report doesn't take a position on whether red light cameras overall are a good idea -- just on whether it's right to hand over enforcement to private companies.

Most studies show that red light cameras reduce the most deadly collisions, but those studies have been criticized for being pro-red light camera.

As for motorists, almost everyone hates 'em.

A draft study done for the city has found an extension of the number 7 subway to Secaucus, New Jersey, would cost far less than the NJ Transit tunnel Governor Chris Christie killed last fall — but would lose only about 5,000 of an expected 130,000 riders per day.

Mitt Romney (Romney Campaign photo)

Mitt Romney is making the Obama administration's support for two high-end green car companies a campaign issue.

"The Obama administration has shoveled $1 billion out the door to two California-based electric car manufacturers. Fisker Automotive got a $529 million loan from the Department of Energy; Tesla got $465 million," Romney penned in an op-ed in the Orange County Register.

Romney's op-ed follows a Center for Public Integrity/ABC News investigation into the loans.  That investigation found production problems at the politically-connected high-end "green" car companies, Tesla and Fisker.

The facts present an opening for Romney, who writes:

"Fisker investors, including Al Gore himself, have donated more than $1 million to political campaigns – primarily Democrats. Tesla, for its part, has financial backing from a fundraiser who bundled hundreds of thousands of dollars for the President's campaign; Tesla's CEO is also a major Democratic donor who has poured money into Obama's campaign coffers."

But perhaps the most searing for the administration: "Tesla's next vehicle is expected to list for $57,400. Fisker's car, already a year behind schedule, will cost $97,000."

Ouch.

The Obama administration is defending the loans, saying they'll be used to create jobs in Delaware and California, not Finland, and that the funds are for mass-market sedans -- not high-end cars.

But the optics are bad.   President Obama is busy on the trail promoting his image as a populist fighter for blue-collar auto workers.  The last thing his administration wants is to be defending loans to well-connected European companies that produce high-end cars.  Ouch, ouch, and ouch.

You can bet Romney keeps his rapier sharpened on this one.

 

Obama stumping for jobs act in Millers Creek, NC

President Obama continues to barnstorm the country for the American Jobs Act.  He'll stop in Nevada today -- Harry Reid's home state -- and Denver on Wednesday to push portions of the American Jobs Act, which includes $60 billion infrastructure proposal -- $50 billion in straight-up spending, and another $10 billion for an infrastructure bank.

Most of the $50 billion in spending is targeted for repair work, which can get money out the door much more quickly than the new "shovel ready" projects in his earlier stimulus.

But handicappers give the bill almost no chance of passing.  So you can read the President's trip to key swing states -- Nevada and Colorado, both of which he won in 2008, and both of which held on to Democratic Senate seats in 2010 while states all around were going red -- for what it is: a chance to shore up support where support will be needed in 2012.

Here's an excerpt of the President's Remarks at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada:

And three years later, it's clear that a big chunk of Washington has not gotten the message yet.  Just look at what's been going on since I introduced my jobs bill in September.  Now, this is a bill that is filled with proposals that, traditionally, Democrats and Republicans have supported in the past:  tax cuts for workers and small businesses; funding to rebuild our roads and our bridges and our airports, our infrastructure, our transportation system; putting construction workers back on the job; hiring back teachers and cops, firefighters; giving incentives so that veterans are able to find work when they come home -- because, I promise you, if you've laid down your life or risked your life for this country, you should not have to fight for a job when you come home.  (Applause.)

 

So those are the proposals contained in this bill.  It's a bill that's fully paid for -- by asking those of us who make more than $1 million to pay a little more in taxes.  Independent economists, people who look at this stuff for a living, say that it's the only plan out there right now that would create jobs in the short term as well as lay a foundation for economic growth in the long term.  One economist said it would create nearly 2 million jobs next year -- 2 million.  And by the way, that economist did not work for me.  And polls show that an overwhelming majority of Americans support the proposals that are in this bill -- Democrats, independents and Republicans.

 

So we've got huge challenges in places like Nevada.  We've got a jobs bill out there that is paid for and addresses those challenges.  The question is, why, despite all the support -- despite all the experts who say this jobs bill couldn't come at a more important time, when so many people are hurting -- why the Republicans in Washington have said no?  They keep voting against it.  Now, maybe it's just because I am the one sponsoring it.  I don't know.  But last week, we had a separate vote on a part of the jobs bill that would put 400,000 teachers, firefighters and police officers back on the job, paid for by asking people who make more than $1 million to pay one-half of 1 percent in additional taxes.  For somebody making $1.1 million a year, that's an extra $500.  Five hundred bucks.  And with that, we could have saved $400,000 jobs.

 

Most people making more than $1 million, if you talk to them, they'll say, I'm willing to pay $500 extra to help the country.  They’re patriots.  They believe we’re all in this thing together.  But all the Republicans in the Senate said no.  Their leader, Mitch McConnell, said that -- and I’m going to make sure I quote this properly -- saving the jobs of teachers and cops and firefighters was just -- I quote -- “a bailout.”  A bailout.  These aren’t bad actors who somehow screwed up the economy.  They didn’t act irresponsibly.  These are the men and women who teach our children, who patrol our streets, who run into burning buildings and save people.  They deserve our support.

 

This is the fight that we’re going to have right now, and I suspect this is the fight that we’re going to have to have over the next year.  The Republicans in Congress and the Republican candidates for President have made their agenda very clear.  They have two basic economic principles:  first, tax cuts for the very wealthiest and the biggest corporations, paid for by gutting investments in education and research and infrastructure and programs like Medicare.  That’s agenda item number one.  Second is just about every regulation that's out there they want to get rid of -- clean air, clean water -- you name it.

 

Now, I agree that there are some rules and regulations that put an unnecessary burden on business at a time when we can’t afford it.  I mean, we’ve seen this in our travel bureau, where the bureaucracy for getting a visa to come visit Vegas is too long.  We want to get them here quicker; they can stay longer and spend more.  And that’s why, in addition to what we’re doing with the travel bureau, we’ve already identified 500 regulatory reforms that will save billions of dollars over the next few years -- billions of dollars over the next few years.  But unfortunately, so far at least, we have not gotten any willingness on the other side to say that some regulations we can’t give up.

 

We are not going to win the race in this competitive 21st century economy by having the cheapest labor or the most polluted air.  That’s a race to the bottom that we can’t win.  There’s always going to be a country out there that can exploit its workers more, or pollute its air more, or pollute its water more, have lower worker safety standards.  There’s always going to be somebody out there to win that competition.  The competition we need to win is because we have the best scientists, and we’ve got the best universities, and we’ve got the best workers, and we have the best infrastructure, and we’ve got the best resorts, and we’ve got the best ideas, and we’ve got the best system, and it’s the most transparent and it’s the most accountable.  That’s how we’re going to win the competition for the future.  And that’s what’s at stake right now in this race.

 

 

 

Three in four registered voters support the New York City's proposed bike share program, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

Joseph Lhota.

(New York, NY -- Andrea Bernstein and Jim O'Grady) Governor Andrew Cuomo has made his second top transit agency choice in as many days, saying he'll nominate former Giuliani aide Joseph Lhota to run the 12-county transportation agency, the nation's largest.   Lhota is executive vice president of Madison Square Garden.

Lhota's appointment as head of the MTA, along with the announcement yesterday that Patrick Foye will lead the Port Authority, means that Cuomo has now chosen two individuals from outside the transportation world to lead key transportation authorities.

"I am pleased to accept the recommendation of the extraordinary search committee and nominate Joe Lhota to be the next chairman and CEO of the MTA," Governor Cuomo said in a statement. "Joe Lhota brings one-of-a-kind managerial, government, and private sector experience to the job and a lifelong commitment to public service that will benefit all straphangers. I look forward to working together as we continue to reform the MTA, reduce costs, and improve service for New Yorkers. I thank the members of the MTA Search Advisory Committee for their diligent work and thorough review."

One of the members of that committee, NYU Rudin Center director Mitchell Moss, said Lhota would be able to defend the commuter tax in Albany, which has been under attack from Republican lawmakers. "They’ll know he’s a serious guy, he’s a Republican," Moss said in a telephone interview "The whole culture of transportation will require very different leadership now."  Moss said he expected fewer funds from the federal government, and managing relationships with Albany would become key to keeping the MTA funded.

Lhota served in the Giuliani administration for six years, first as budget director and then as deputy mayor of operations. He also worked as an adviser to Giuliani’s presidential campaign in 2007-2008.  He was one of Giuliani's appointees to the MTA board, from 1999 to 2001. Before his work in the public sector, he was a banker at First Boston.

In a statement, Lhota said:  "Millions of New Yorkers depend on the MTA every day and they deserve the most efficient and effective service. Throughout my career in both the public and private sectors, I have initiated reforms that are performance-based and that cut costs, and I look forward to bringing this same approach to the MTA. I thank Governor Cuomo for this exciting opportunity to serve the people of New York."

Reaction among transit watchers, none of whom would speak on the record to avoid alienating the next chief of the NY MTA, was part puzzlement and part wait-and-see.

“I was a little surprised that Joe Lhota rose to the top of that pool,” said an official from a previous mayoral administration. “He understands inter-governmental relations and he understands the politics but he’s more of a political operative than a manager.”

Both Cuomo and outgoing MTA chairman Jay Walder have said in the past few weeks that the next chair did not need to have a transit background. “I think it is helpful to have a knowledge of mass transit,” Walder said at the NY MTA’s September board meeting. “I don’t know that it’s an absolutely essential quality.”

Lhota fits that profile. His resume shows no transportation posts. But he did manage large governmental agencies in the Giuliani administration and ran the city when the mayor was out of town. Since then, he has navigated the executive suites of the Cablevision Systems Corporation, which owns Madison Square Garden. And Lhota has served as a board member at the City University of New York for the past ten years.  Lhota was one of two board members who did not support withholding an honorary degree from playwright Tony Kushner last May.  The vote to table the degree past last spring’s commencement was much-criticized and later reversed.

The precipice on which the NY MTA teeters consists of several difficulties: a 2012-2015 capital construction plan with a $10 billion dollar shortfall; a looming contract negotiation with Transport Workers Union Local 100 that, by all signs, will be acrimonious; a threat from a group of state legislators to cut the dedicated revenue stream that is the regional payroll mobility tax, which last year contributed $1.3 billion to authority coffers. That’s about an eighth of the authority’s operating budget.

Sources differed on Lhota’s ability to rise to those challenges. The NY MTA needs someone “who can handle the union relationships, the crisis of money, and Lhota will get it faster than most people,” said one.

But others don't expect Lhota to be a voice for transportation in the way Jay Walder was.  Walder came from London Transport and is headed for a job running Hong Kong's transit system.  In his tenure as MTA chief he pushed for several innovative transit measures, including countdown clocks, real time information, and better communication with customers.  But his relationship with the union was toxic, and Walder presided over the MTA's deepest cuts in more than a generation.

Said Kate Slevin of the advocacy group, Tri-State Transportation Campaign, "We hope Mr. Lhota’s business acumen will help guide the agency towards more sound fiscal footing without compromising service and affordability for the system’s 8.5 million daily riders. We also hope he will continue the innovative service improvements executed by his predecessor, including subway countdown clocks, rapid bus service, and nonstop tolling."

Cuomo also appointed two women to serve in key transportation posts:  Nuria Fernandez, a former Federal Transit Administration official and Chicago Aviation Commissioner, who resigned under pressure from then Mayor Richard Daily after failing to close a deal with United Airlines.  Fernandez will serve as the the MTA's CEO, and Karen Rae, who worked in the  Obama Administration on high speed rail, will serve in the Governor's office as Deputy Secretary of Transportation.

(Photo Kate Hinds)

In a city where you can have four people and five opinions, three in four support the city's proposed bike share program, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

Pollsters asked "New York City is starting a program to rent bicycles.  This will add 10,000 bicycles to New York City streets and create park lots for bicycles.  Do you support or oppose this program allowing people to rent bicycles in New York City?"

Among young people, the number supporting bike share rises to 87 percent, as close to unanimity as you'll ever see in a poll.  Bike share is the least popular in Staten Island, but even there, bike share is supported 52 to 42 percent.

Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Men, Women, Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics said they would want "bike rental lots" (presumably bike share stations) in their neighborhoods, as did residents of all the boroughs except Staten Island, and ,members of all age groups except for those above 50.

However,  only 45 percent said they'd used the bike share, compared to 53 percent who said they wouldn't.

The poll found support for bike lanes overall holding steady at 58 to 37 percent.  But when asked if they wanted more bike lanes in their neighborhoods, New Yorkers were divided, with 46 percent saying yes and 48 percent saying no.

The poll of 1,068 registered voters was taken October 12-16, and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

 

Last March, Mayor Michael Bloomberg dined privately with a small group of guests that included his former transportation commissioner, Iris Weinshall, and her husband, the United States Senator, Charles Schumer.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, at podium, in 2006 when Iris Weinshall (right) was his DOT Commissioner (photo by Eugene Patron via Flickr)

By that time, both Schumer and Weinshall had made known their displeasure over a bike lane that had been built across the street from their home – on Brooklyn’s leafy Prospect Park West.

According to two sources familiar with what was said at that dinner, Schumer asked the mayor: “Can’t you get rid of that lane?”

“You don’t like it?” the mayor responded.  A beat. “I’m going to make it twice as wide.”

Neither Schumer’s office nor the mayor’s office would comment.

But the clash of two broadly powerful men is typical of the Prospect Park West bike lane story, which was never really about a bike lane. Or rather, it was never only about a bike lane, but rather about the perennial New York City question – who decides what goes where in the densely-packed urban streets we call home, and how they get to decide.

The city’s aggressive effort to install new bike lanes – some 260 miles of them have been added since 2006  -- has roiled many neighborhoods.  But only one group – the one that included Weinshall -- sued to have a lane removed.

And now a fresh batch of emails unearthed by Streetsblog, a decidedly pro-bike-lane website, sheds new light on how this group of influential New Yorkers managed to raise their fight above all the rest, marshalling the services of one of the city’s premier law firms, and then, as the emails show, tried to make sure that information never got out.

“We should never say how we got Randy!”  Weinshall implored, referring to a senior attorney at one of the city’s top law firms. Read on for more on what that all means.  (Click here to hear Andrea Bernstein and Soterios Johnson discussing the story.)

(from email correspondence obtained by Streetsblog)

Prospect Park West runs along the Olmstead-designed Prospect Park from Grand Army Plaza to Bartel Pritchard Square -- a distance of less than a mile.  PPW is populated with elegantly detailed mansions and stately pre-war apartment buildings. The avenue itself is a wide, five-lane boulevard.

Before the bike lane was installed, PPW had two lanes of parking, with three lanes of traffic in the middle. Cars, the city DOT says, would routinely speed – about three quarters would go over the legal limit of 30 mph. So it wasn’t a tough sell to convince the local community board to install a two-way bike lane along the park side of the street, buffered from what would now be two lanes of car traffic by a lane of parked cars.

(images courtesy of the NYC DOT)

Proponents argued the lane would provide a safe place for cyclists to ride and slow down automobile traffic.

In June 2009, the bike lane got a green light from the local community board, the most-grass roots level of city decision making (and not the playground in which the truly powerful tend to play).

Following that vote, influential dissenters began to mobilize. In October, 2009, the Brooklyn Borough President, Marty Markowitz, wrote a letter to transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Weinshall’s successor. “I reside directly across the streets on Prospect Park West,” Markowitz wrote. (Markowitz has since moved to Windsor Terrace, about a mile away.) “This proposal would definitely reduce the number of parking spaces, further exacerbating this already-intolerable situation.”

And, Markowitz noted, he was joined in his request for more extensive scrutiny “by former DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall, who absolutely agrees that the installation of a two-way, barricaded bike lane would cause incredible congestion.” Weinshall, as it happened, had launched the massive expansion of bike lanes while she was DOT commissioner, the one that was to add 200 miles of bike lanes by 2009 (There are now about 500 miles of bike lanes in New York City). “We’re committed to being the safest city for cycling,” Weinshall said in a 2006 press release announcing the initiative.

(from a 2006 NYC press release, when Iris Weinshall was NYC DOT commissioner)

Even so, compared to her successor, Janette Sadik-Khan, Weinshall was a much more traditional DOT chief. Sadik-Khan has worked to radically reshape how people view streets:  not just as pathways for cars, but as parks, cafes, playgrounds, walkways, plazas, and, yes bike-lanes.

Through the fall and spring of 2011, Markowitz pushed his case. In an April 2010 interview with WNYC he called Sadik-Khan a “zealot,” and no less boisterously made his case that the lane was ill-advised.

In June 2010, the city began installing the lane anyway. Sometime around that time, Weinshall contacted Randy Mastro, a lawyer for the well-connected law firm of Gibson, Dunn, Crutcher.  Mastro had been a deputy mayor in the Giuliani administration, at the same time Weinshall had served as DOT commissioner (she stayed on for the first five years of Bloomberg’s tenure.)

At Gibson, Dunn, Crutcher, Mastro is the co-chair of the firm’s litigation practice group, and also co-chairs the firm’s crisis management unit, which makes him The Good Wife’s Will Gardner and Eli Gold rolled into one, but with a temperament most like Cary Agos.

(Clockwise, from top left: Matt Czuchry as Cary Agos, Josh Charles as Will Gardner, Randy Mastro, and Alan Cumming as Eli Gold)

According to the emails published by Streetsblog, on July 3, 2010, Weinshall emailed her daughter, Jessica, a recent Yale Law graduate who had volunteered to work against the bike lane. The email said: “spoke with Randy Mastro he said he would help you with the Article 78” (the legal proceeding).

Streetsblog obtained the emails through a freedom of information request to the City University of New York, where Weinshall works as vice chancellor.

Mastro confirmed in a telephone interview that his former colleague had approached him.  He said she knew of his subsequent legal work, particularly his role in opposing a West Side stadium in Manhattan, when he worked for Cablevision, the owner of Madison Square Garden. That was one of Bloomberg’s most resounding defeats on a decision on how to organize public space.

“I agreed to take a matter pro bono on an issue that warranted litigation,” – the bike lane lawsuit -- Mastro told me.  He’d taken on this kind of case pro-bono before – for example, on whether the Brooklyn House of Detention could expand without an environmental review.

That summer of 2010, he referred the bike lane matter to a colleague, Jim Walden.

Throughout that fall, the battle over the bike lane continued at fever pitch.  The New York City Council held hearings, and both opponents and supporters of the lanes staged noisy demonstrations, opened Facebook pages, and took sometimes nasty potshots at each other through a number of media outlets and blogs.

In late December, Weinshall co-signed a letter to the New York Times about the bike lane. The signatories also included two of Weinshall’s neighbors: Normal Steisel, a deputy mayor under David Dinkins (and Ed Koch), and Louise Hainline, then a dean at Brooklyn College, disputing DOT data saying the lane had made streets safer.  “The D.O.T. data produce more puzzlement than enlightenment,” the trio wrote.

“When new bike lanes force the same volume of cars and trucks into fewer and narrower traffic lanes, the potential for accidents between cars, trucks and pedestrians goes up rather than down. At Prospect Park West in Brooklyn, for instance, where a two-way bike lane was put in last summer, our eyewitness reports show collisions of one sort or another to be on pace to be triple the former annual rates.”

This was the first time Weinshall had come forward publicly as a bike lane opponent.

Weinshall and Steisel hewed to an argument common to transportation departments – that cutting lanes for automobiles would pour more cars into less space, slowing traffic, and, they argued, causing more collisions.   But there’s a serious line of thinking among urban planners that reducing automobile lanes cuts traffic volumes, because drivers choose different routes, or forgo cars altogether.

About a week later, Walden, their pro-bono attorney, wrote a private letter to Commissioner Sadik-Khan demanding more data and a moratorium on any further decision-making on this bike lane.  On letterhead noting his firm’s offices in locations including Dubai, Palo Alto, Century City, and Munich, Walden closed by saying “your written assurances on this point will obviate the need for us to pursue legal remedies at this time.”

When I obtained a copy of the letter, I reached out to Louise Hainline, who expressed deep frustration about the city’s reluctance to turn over data. One of the questions I asked:  how was Randy Mastro involved in the case? Hainline didn’t give me an answer, but Jim Walden did, telling me Mastro had asked him to take on the lawsuit.

On the evening of February 4, both TransportationNation.org and WNYC.org published stories breaking news of the impending lawsuit.  Here was my lede:

“It’s a who’s who directory of city government. Iris Weinshall, the former city transportation commissioner and wife of U.S. Senator Charles Schumer. A dean at Brooklyn College. Norman Steisel, the former deputy mayor under Edward Koch and David Dinkins. And the other former deputy mayor, Randy Mastro (under Giuliani) who introduced the group to a colleague at his high-powered law firm, Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher. And what is all this former government firepower being assembled to do?  Remove a bike lane on Prospect Park West, in Brooklyn.”

On Sunday, February 6, the New York Post’s David Seifman ran a story that Senator Schumer had been quietly lobbying to have the lane removed.  According to the report, “sources said Schumer -- who has yet to take a public position on the 19-block bike corridor -- shared his feelings privately with some members of the City Council. ‘He's asked legislators what they're going to do about [this and other] bike lanes," said one source.’

The morning the story appeared, Weinshall emailed Steisel and Hainline, urging them to “check out the post!”

Apparently unaware that I’d already confirmed (and publicly reported) Mastro’s role, Hainline wrote Weinshall back:  “I think Randy Mastro is next. Andrea Bernstein of NPR was acting like a middle school newspaper reporter trying to get details about Mastro’s involvement with the effort the other day.”

Which provoked the response:  “We should never say how we got Randy!”

In my phone call with Mastro after the emails were made public, he expressed bafflement at that email, emphasizing that he and Weinshall had been colleagues in the Giuliani administration and it didn’t surprise him at all that she would reach out to him. No evidence has emerged to suggest that Senator Schumer was in any way personally involved in the effort to recruit Mastro, other than by being married to Weinshall.  Neither Senator Schumer’s office nor Iris Weinshall would comment for this story.

However, the fact remains that this particular group of city residents upset with a Bloomberg administration decision – and there are dozens, if not hundreds, of such groups all around the city at any one moment – was able to mobilize a high-powered law firm on its behalf.

The law firm aggressively pursued the suit, penning hundreds of pages of legal motions, arguments and briefs, appearing repeatedly in court, subpoenaing a boatload of officials and community leaders, and FOILing thousands of emails from project proponents.

Even so, that big law firm lost its case.  On August 16, Justice Bert Bunyan ruled the lawyers had missed the statute of limitations by not filing within months of the installation of the bike lane in June 2010. He dismissed the plaintiffs arguments that the deadline for filing had been extended because the lane was “experimental,” saying the plaintiffs had been unable to furnish proof for that.   He did agree that the city hadn't properly responded to the group's Freedom of Information request, and ordered it to do so.

The group is not giving up. On September 26, it filed a request with the court to appeal.  Its resources continue, undiminished.

 

The clash of two powerful politicians is typical of the story of the Prospect Park West bike lane, which is about much more than a about a strip of pavement – it’s about the perenni...