Kate Hinds

Tappan Zee Bridge (photo by waywuwei via flickr)

The New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (NYMTC) has postponed a meeting about the status of the Tappan Zee Bridge. But New York State officials are saying it won't slow down the state's ambitious timeline to replace the span.

NYMTC is a regional planning body made up of government officials from New York City, Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley. The group had scheduled a vote next week about whether to move the bridge replacement into its short-term transportation plan.  According to a NYMTC spokesperson, the vote is "part of the federally-required process that will enable the project to move forward to receive a record of decision."

Meaning: if NYMTC doesn't unanimously back the Tappan Zee replacement, the federal government won't okay it -- or designate any funding for the $5 billion project.

But an NYMTC email states the scheduled July 10th meeting won't happen--at the request of the County Executives of Rockland, Putnam, and Westchester Counties. The council said the executives wanted more time "to review the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Tappan Zee Hudson River Crossing Project."

Officials say the FEIS could be released by the end of July.

Rockland executive Scott Vanderhoef and Westchester executive Rob Astorino have been vocal proponents of putting mass transit over the Tappan Zee Bridge. In an email, Astorino said the decision to postpone the vote was common sense.

"Why would we have a vote before seeing what’s in it?" he said. "Getting as much information up front will pay big dividends in terms of building a bridge that’s affordable and meets the present and future needs of Westchester, the region, our state and our nation.”

MaryEllen Odell, the Putnam County executive, called the decision to postpone the vote until the FEIS was released "good government." "You can't make a decision on a project until you've seen everything that you can possibly see," she said, adding that she wasn't looking for anything in specific -- nor did she have any serious concerns about replacing the bridge. "It's not really making any more of a statement other than 'we want to see the final document'...it's really important that this project happen. But what's more important is that it happen the right way. This is really just about making sure that whatever we're signing our names on to, where we're spending taxpayer money, is a project that works fiscally (and) is environmentally responsible and sensitive to our area."

New York State Thruway executive Thomas Madison put a positive face on the deferred vote. "The New York Metropolitan Transportation Council’s decision to wait for a full review of the Final Environmental Impact Statement [FEIS] before voting on the new Tappan Zee Bridge will give us time to make sure community stakeholders are fully informed and will in no way delay the project," he said in a statement.

But the FEIS won't be light reading. (You can see a photo of the draft EIS here.) There are some 3,000 comments from members of the public, and the county executives will likely have questions about financing -- and tolls.

Shanghai traffic (photo by http2007 via flickr)

The United States filed a complaint against China with the World Trade Organization over what it says are unfair trade practices for imposing new duties on American-made cars.

According to the complaint, which was filed by the United States Trade Representative on Thursday, "the United States has requested dispute settlement consultations with China at the WTO in an attempt to eliminate these unfair duties."

Last year, Beijing imposed import tariffs ranging from 2 percent to 21.5 percent on larger cars and SUVs exported from the U.S. In 2011, the U.S. exported more than $3 billion of these automobiles to China.

China has argued that General Motors and Chrysler have benefited from government subsidies, enabling the companies to sell cars at less than fair market value -- thereby hurting the Chinese auto industry.

Word of the complaint came as President Obama kicked off a two-day bus tour of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Ohio, a swing state, is home to thousands of auto workers.

"Americans aren't afraid to compete," said the president, speaking at a campaign event in Maumee (OH).  "We believe in competition. I believe in trade...so as long as we're competing on a fair playing field instead of an unfair playing field, we'll do just fine. But we're going to make sure that competition is fair."

White House spokesperson Jay Carney noted that this is the seventh such action taken against China, and denied the timing behind the announcement was politically motivated. "The fact is this is an action that has been in development for quite a long time." he said. "It simply can’t suddenly be a political action because it happens during the campaign."

China's once-booming auto industry is decelerating due to its slowing economy -- and its government's own efforts to get a handle on traffic. Earlier this month, Guangzhou became the third Chinese city to put a cap on annual car sales to combat growing traffic jams and pollution.

You can read a copy of the letter the USTR sent the WTO here.

 

 

Note on a newsstand on the West 86th Street downtown 1 platform (photo by Kate Hinds)

This newsstand is refrigerating the chocolate.  Twizzlers, apparently, are impervious to heat.

Temperatures on New York City subway platforms can exceed 100 degrees in the summer. Recently, NY1 reported that the MTA was sitting on a 'secret weapon' it could be deploying to cool stations -- giant tunnel fans.

Top stories on TN:
Loudoun County Votes Yes On Silver Line To Dulles Airport (link)
Seen on the Street: New York’s CityBench (link)

(image courtesy of Transport for London)

The Obama administration wants the World Trade Organization to force China to stop imposing duties on U.S. auto exports. (Wall Street Journal)

London businesses which have not yet made plans to deal with transport congestion during the Olympics have been told they must do so now -- or face gridlock in the capital. (Guardian)

Meanwhile: the mayor of London has recorded public service announcements warning locals "there is going to be huge pressure on the transport network." (Atlantic Cities)

Volkswagen is completing its purchase of Porsche. (Bloomberg)

Technology is making carpooling easier. (New York Times)

AAA wants the Port Authority to turn over documents it believes will show whether the agency is violating federal law by spending toll money on the World Trade Center. (Star Ledger)

As GPS systems and smart phone navigation systems thrive, paper maps are on the decline. (AP via TheNorthwestern.com)

A Toronto art project known as Confessions Underground is videotaping people's 'confessions' -- and then putting videos of the recordings on 300 screens in every subway station throughout the city. (CBC)

California lawmakers will vote tomorrow on the plan to start building the state's high-speed rail project. Twist: money for the bullet train will be tied to a deal that would save the popular Caltrain commuter service. (Mercury News)

Meanwhile, farmers in California's San Joaquin Valley are marshaling opposition to the state's high-speed rail project. (San Francisco Chronicle)

And: the KQED team behind Train Wars is trying to make a feature length documentary about California's high-speed rail project. (Kickstarter)

CHART: how California state senate districts would benefit from high-speed rail. (Sacramento Bee)
Rail

The Bronx-Whitestone Bridge (image courtesy of NY MTA)

TN will be spending the holiday watching fireworks explode near large pieces of our nation's transportation infrastructure. We'll be back on July 5th!

A CityBench on Varick Street (photo by Kate Hinds)

New York is in the process of installing 1,000 CityBenches across the city. We noticed today that two have been placed outside of WNYC (TN's world headquarters).

When the New York City Department of Transportation announced the program last year, commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said: "Even New Yorkers need a respite every now and then. So having these points along busy corridors, where people can actually rest and take it all in, is a really important part of what makes the city so great."

(photo by Kate Hinds)

Bonus: the bench is strategically oriented so that users can put their backs to the traffic that often characterizes the Varick Street approach to the Holland Tunnel.

(photo by Kate Hinds)

Top stories on TN:
Is a Subway Mosaic the Best Public Art in America? (link)
Silver Line Vote Tuesday Could Stunt Rail-to-Dulles Plan (link)
US DOT To Spend $29 Million On Improving Transportation Options For Vets (link)
Parking Woes Still Dog New Brooklyn Arena (link)

A woman texting on the NYC subway (photo by Kate Hinds)

Kansas City launches its bike share program today. Side note: the expected high in Kansas City  will be 100°.  (Kansas City Star)

It's not just high-speed rail that's facing a big vote in Sacramento later this week -- millions of dollars in local transportation projects are also on the line. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Averting a subpoena -- at least for now -- the Port Authority began delivering documents to the New Jersey Assembly transportation committee. (Daily Record)

The MBTA says it's fixed a farecard software glitch that prevented people with monthly passes from riding Boston's subway. (Boston Globe)

A London sound engineer created a symphony using synthesized sounds of traffic. (The Takeaway)

New York's Penn Station may be getting a makeover. (Crain's New York)

Three of Atlanta’s pro sports franchises and the Atlanta Motor Speedway threw their support behind the $8.5 billion regional transportation sales tax vote. "The number one reason, year in and year out, that people tell us they don't come to more games is because of the traffic," said a VP of the Braves. (Atlanta Journal Constitution; 11live video)

The combination of a bad economy coupled with infrastructure improvements has reduced traffic congestion in Auckland to 2004 levels. (New Zealand Herald)

Could New York's MTA deploy giant tunnel fans to cool down sweltering subway platforms? (NY1)

The story behind the ticket that put New Jersey's red light traffic camera program into legal limbo. (Star Ledger)

European airplane maker Airbus is building its first American plant in Alabama. (Marketplace)

The number of uninsured drivers in Texas has dropped dramatically from a year ago — more than 38 percent — thanks in part to a 4-year-old program aimed at getting those drivers either insured or off the road. (Dallas Morning News)

A Spanish syndicate of six banks has agreed to help finance a high-speed train line under construction in Saudi Arabia that will connect the cities of Mecca, Jeddah and Medina. (Wall Street Journal)

Is the stick shift making a comeback among younger drivers? (Detroit Free Press)

Top stories on TN:
DC Bike Shop Owners See Big Returns From Bike Share (link)
Diamond Engagement Ring Is Lost And Then, Against Long Odds, Found On Long Island Railroad (link)
After Long Fight, Congress Passes 2-Yr Surface Transportation Bill (link)
Red Hook, Brooklyn, A Transit Cul De Sac, Gets Real Time Bus Info (link)
Meeting About Sheridan Expressway Ends in Protest (link)
More Texans To Drive This 4th of July Holiday (link)

Bike share in Hangzou (photo by whitecatsg via flickr)

New York Times editorial: the just-passed transpo bill is serviceable -- but eventually Congress will need to raise the gas tax to support transportation.

Today is the 75th anniversary of Amelia Earhart's disappearance. (The Takeaway)

California's state legislature will vote this week on whether to authorize $2.7 billion in bonds to fund its high-speed rail program. (AP via San Francisco Chronicle)

Fare hikes kicked in yesterday for some transit systems, including DC and Charlotte. In Boston, fares are going up an average of 23%. (Boston Globe)

A five-year outlook for the Milwaukee County Transit System lays out a bleak choice between pouring in more tax dollars and slashing bus service. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

DC is looking for companies to advertise on Capital Bikeshare for the first time since the bike-sharing program started in 2010. (Washington Examiner)

Staten Island occupies the top two spots on the MTA's list of highest fare evasion bus routes. (New York Daily News)

BMW and Toyota are pairing up on cell technology, electric vehicle architectures and an all-new sports car. (Autopia)

A brief history of bicycling in China: "first a cultural icon, then a sign of backwardness, and maybe now Copenhagen-style cool." (The Atlantic)

Hundreds of Amtrak passengers were stranded on a train in West Virginia for 20 hours after a storm left fallen trees on the tracks. (AP via Wall Street Journal)

The onrushing wind created by the L train inspires one artist to film people's hair. (link)

The Sheridan Expressway, as seen from West Farms Road (photo by Kate Hinds)

The first community meeting since New York City announced it would no longer study the removal of the Sheridan Expressway was a bumpy one.

Community members rally outside a meeting of the Sheridan-Hunts Point Land Use and Transportation Study (photo by Kate Hinds)

Members of the New York City Department of Planning were in the South Bronx Thursday to give an update on the Sheridan-Hunts Point land use study. But some area residents -- including members of the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance, who led a march to the meeting -- wanted answers about why the city dropped the Sheridan takedown option.

(photo by Kate Hinds)

Tawkiyah Jordan, a project manager in the Bronx city planning office, started off the meeting talking about demographic trends in the neighborhood and said the evening's agenda would focus on land use planning west of the Bronx River.

Kellie Terry Sepulveda, executive director of the South Bronx community development group The Point, asked why the meeting didn't include the Bruckner neighborhood -- which lies on the other side of the river. "From a community perspective they're one and the same."

Jordan said "it has so many complicated pieces I felt like we needed to focus on it separately...this is more a presentation about land use and zoning...in just trying to think about how to get through all the information, it felt like Bruckner Boulevard would be a meeting unto itself."

But Sepulveda said the community had spent almost a decade looking at the South Bronx and decided that the best option was to remove the Sheridan. "Our needs weren't being addressed holistically by the state. And now we're here today having these needs being unmet. And we're concerned."

Jordan countered that the Bruckner neighborhood was "of such importance that it really deserves a deeper look, and in a different way, than the areas we're looking at right now." ("I want you to do the same for the removable option," muttered one meeting attendee under her breath.)

(photo by Kate Hinds)

"It seems to me, if you separate Bruckner Boulevard from all the other communities, it feels to me like a sense of divide and conquer," said local resident Elisabeth Ortega.

"It's not!" said Jordan. "But that's how it feels!" said Ortega. "And if not today, when?"

Ortega spoke bluntly of "feeling shafted" by the city's decision to take the Sheridan removal off the table. "Without any conversation! Without any transparency whatsoever! The fact that it's just off the table! How can it be off the table when you've got people here who feel so strongly about it!" She continued: "It just hurts to hear you say 'well, we're just going to deal with the Bruckner at another time.'"

The Sheridan Expressway (photo by Kate Hinds)

"I know that there's extreme dissatisfaction with not just the process but with the way things have been communicated and decided," said Jordan. "And I understand that that conversation is not going to stop today. And that many of the people in this room will probably continue that conversation. That is fine. What we are here to do today --"

Sepulveda interjected. "Will the city continue that conversation with us? That's why we're here. Because if not there's nothing left for us to discuss. Respectfully, Tawkiyah, respectfully."

Jordan said what was important to remember is that "there are actual opportunities to create change, and to make improvements in all of the neighborhoods we're looking at."

"We need to allow them to give their presentation" said another man in the back later identified as a member of Bronx Community Board 3.

After some more back and forth, Jordan got to the point. "If what you want to hear me say is that the removal option is back on the table, I don't have the right or power to say that. But what I do have the right and the power to talk about tonight is what we can do in the neighborhood....that conversation is one that can be had, but that's not one I came here prepared to talk about tonight." She tried gamely to keep moving the meeting forward, but another burst of questions from the back derailed her.

Eventually Nnenna Lynch, a senior policy adviser to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, stood up. "We're happy to meet again to talk about the transportation analysis," she told the room. "As far as what we're going to do..."

"Yes or no, please," said Julien Terrell, a community organizer for Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice. "Yes or no please? Are we going to be able to talk about our recommendations within the context of removing the Sheridan? Because that's the only way getting access to our waterfront is actively going to work."

"We're here tonight to talk about land use," said Lynch. "If you'd like to continue the conversation about the removal option, we're happy to do that -- we just don't think tonight's the proper forum."

And for about three-quarters of attendees, that was the end of the meeting. "Our communities are under attack! What do we do?" yelled Terrell. "Stand up fight back!" shouted meeting attendees. And, chanting, the group walked out.

While the meeting about land use continued inside the building on Intervale Avenue, members of the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance congregated outside.

Cerita Parker (photo by Kate Hinds)

Some were hopeful. "I'm going to write to the president of the United States," said Jimmy Graham, an area resident. "He won that battle over health care."

But Cerita Parker, an activist with the South Bronx advocacy group Mothers on the Move, was disheartened. "I feel insulted by the whole process. For the people who make the decisions to not even be here -- it's an insult and a slap in the face as well," she said. "I just couldn't sit there and hear her talk about 'well, we're going to do the Bruckner at another time.' The Bruckner is a part of the whole deal. And all of that area encompasses the Hunts Point Market. Obviously we are not the big stakeholders in the Hunts Point Market. And I feel that once again the community has been given the shaft."

But remaining inside, according to a spokesperson for the city, were people who held a productive meeting about land use. "This is far more than a study about a transportation artery – it’s about planning for the future of neighborhoods around the Sheridan. We're looking for ways of achieving the objectives in the study that the community identified in previous workshops," said the spokesperson, adding the city is committed to improving issues of waterfront access, pedestrian safety, strengthening retail corridors and providing affordable housing in the South Bronx. "And we're looking for ways to do that collectively with the community."

Top stories on TN:
Fed Transportation Conference Report: Not a Touchdown. More Like A Field Goal (link)
Heath Care Architect Baucus: I Was Focused on Transpo Bill (link)
Court Rules NYC Taxis Need Not Be Wheelchair Accessible (link)
Transportation Bill Conference Report Released (link)

Political metaphor? (photo by Kate Hinds)

A vote on the transportation bill is coming today. (Reuters)

Meanwhile, conservative groups are hastily ramping up opposition. (The Hill)

And transportation advocates aren't happy, either. (Streetsblog)

Who is happy? House T&I committee chair John Mica. (WMFE)

The nation’s first federal safety standards for transit agencies -- the legacy of a 2009 Metro crash -- are included in the transportation bill. (AP via Washington Post)

Don’t think for a moment that congressional supporters of the Keystone XL pipeline are through pushing their cause on Capitol Hill. (Politico)

Non-transpo bill news:
Atlanta police set up a sting operation to increase awareness of pedestrian crosswalk laws. "I knew you were supposed to yield to pedestrians, but I didn't know you couldn't drive through the crosswalk when they were there," complained one ticketed driver. (Atlanta Journal Constitution)

How hot is it in DC? Hot enough that Metro is lifting its ban on drinking water on buses and trains. (DCist)

New York State will create exclusive bus lanes on the new Tappan Zee Bridge during rush hour. (Journal News)

Construction of the new Tappan Zee Bridge is "likely to adversely affect” two types of endangered Hudson River sturgeon -- but “not likely to jeopardize the continued existence,”says a new report. (Journal News)

Cities are growing at a faster rate than suburbs. (AP via Crain's NY)

Give birth on the J train, get presents from the NY MTA: a woman who gave birth on the subway received a bunch gifts from the city's transit agency, including a MetroCard mobile and a J train onesie. (New York Post)

Who's fare beating on NYC subways and buses? Probably children over 44" tall. "Yeah, you with the pig-tailed, 7-year-old daughter with the Hello Kitty backpack who just oh-so-cutely ducked under the subway turnstile. She's a fare-beater." (Wall Street Journal)

The union representing Detroit's bus drivers has asked the City Council to put pressure on the transit agency to help stop the spread of bedbugs on buses. (Detroit News)

The details of what's in the transportation bill compromise are now available.

The conference report was released Thursday morning. (Read a pdf of the entire report here; a more condensed statement on it can be found here.)

More details later.

Top stories on TN:
Sheridan Expressway: Did the Takedown Get Taken Down? (link)
Caltrain Engineer: Every Time I Go Past The Scene of a Fatality, It Plays Back Like a Video (link)
MTA: Rising Sea Levels Are Damaging The Subway (link)
Seen on the Brooklyn Bridge (link)
Congress Close to Deal on Transportation Bill (link)
Ask the US DOT Secretary Your Transpo Questions! (link)
PHOTO: Dashing Through The…Streets of San Francisco ...on a Reindeer Bike (link)

(photo by wallyg via flickr)

Tweet of the day, from @TRossC: Happy transportation bill/healthcare ruling/Holder contempt vote day!

Congressional Republicans and Democrats reached a tentative agreement on a two-year transportation bill that would provide $8.4 billion each year. (New York Times)

The language was still being worked on late Wednesday night. (AP)

And what's not in the bill: the possibility of a Vehicle Miles Traveled tax system. (The Hill)

In non-transpo bill news:
New York's MTA is exploring restoring some of the bus, subway and commuter train service it cut to close budget gaps two years ago. (New York Daily News)

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is slamming a $30-billion transit plan proposed by the chair of Toronto Transit Commission. (CBC)

Loudoun County's vote on whether to commit to the Dulles Airport Silver Line is just days away. (Washington Post)

The TSA fired eight airport screeners at Newark Liberty for security violations -- including sleeping on the job. (Star-Ledger)

New car prices have dropped $500 on average in the past year, mainly because Japanese automakers have restocked dealers after shortages in 2011. (Detroit Free Press)

Boston's transit agency is phasing out tokens -- meaning they now have 3.4 million of them laying around. An MBTA spokesperson said they'll probably be sold for scrap. (BostInno; h/t Transit Wire)

London's cable car across the Thames is now open to the public. "It can carry 2,500 people per hour in each direction, the equivalent of 30 buses." (The Independent)

Cap'n Transit: Can't tear down the Sheridan? Take down the Bronx River Parkway instead. (link)

New Jersey Transit's new policy about bikes on trains goes into effect Sunday. (Journal News)

How Sydney increased cycling by 82% -- in two years. (The Guardian)

A Texan woman who warned drivers of a speed trap via a homemade sign was arrested. (ABC/KTRK)

Write a song about the G train, win a trip to Sweden. (Brokelyn)

In the future, if everybody drives electric cars, what will traffic sound like? "Less like 'honk' and more like 'eee-beep-boop'" (Atlantic Cities; video below)

New York City was studying a plan to remove the Sheridan Expressway and replace it with affordable housing, commercial space and parks in the South Bronx. But then the city decided, i...

The city rules out a plan to tear down the Sheridan Expressway, saying it would cause too much traffic and cost too many jobs. (Pratt Center rendering)

For such a short highway, the fifty-year old Sheridan Expressway generates a lot of unhappiness.

"I don’t even know if you could call it an expressway," said Elena Conte, an organizer at the Pratt Center for Community Development. "It’s a fragment. It’s a mile and a quarter long."

It was planned by Robert Moses, whose original idea was to continue it through the Bronx Zoo. But local residents – not to mention the zoo and the New York Botanical Garden – opposed an extension and, in the 1970s, those plans were dropped.

But some Bronx residents have never made peace with even an abbreviated expressway. Activists, working together as the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance, have for years been working to tear the highway down. In 2006, WNYC’s Andrea Bernstein went up to Bronx with the Pratt Center’s Joan Byron.

"There are three schools right on the expressway," said Byron. "So by redeveloping this as residential and parkland, those schools would have a green connection right across to the river." (A video of the plan is below.)

One of the supporters of this tear-down is Bronx congressman José Serrano. Two years ago he secured a $1.5 million federal grant to study three different options for the Sheridan: keep it, modify it, or take it down altogether. "The initial agreement we had, the understanding we had, was that they were going to look at everything," he said.

New York City won’t complete the study until next year. But officials recently said the removal scenario had “a fatal flaw” and it would no longer be considered.

"What I’m concerned about, what the community is upset about, what we’re all upset about, is that they immediately took off the table the possibility of full removal of the Sheridan," said Serrano. "We just think that’s totally unfair and improper."

But as much as some wanted the highway gone, others say it's a vital piece of the road transportation network.

"Well, we were completely dead set against that and have been since the dawn of time," said Matthew D’Arrigo. He's co-president of the Hunts Point Market, the massive food distribution center located off the expressway.

"Without the Sheridan," he said, "a thousand trucks a night would have just one way to get to this market."

He says the market hasn’t been shy about making it known that taking down the Sheridan could jeopardize its ability to do business – and the thousands of jobs it brings to the Bronx.

"Everybody. Everybody. Everybody knows our position on that," he said.

Right now, the market is in the middle of negotiations with the city for a long-term lease. After this weekend, if it doesn’t reach a deal with New York, Hunts Point Market can start talking to other places. Like New Jersey.

Privately, officials told WNYC that fear of losing the market prompted the city to drop the removal option.

But recent a press conference in the Bronx, Mayor Bloomberg said the decision was driven by data, not politics. "All of the traffic studies show that it would not be feasible to do that," he said.

Predictions that losing a highway would cause traffic hell have been wrong before. Sam Schwartz – also known as Gridlock Sam – worked for the city DOT in 1973, when part of the then-elevated lower portion of the West Side Highway collapsed. In a 2010 interview with WNYC, he described what happened.

"People panicked," he said. "They thought that was Armageddon. They thought that was the end."

It wasn’t the case. Traffic on some roadways did go up. “We had trouble tracing one-third of the people and it wasn’t that they weren’t coming in," Schwartz said. "When we looked at transit, transit went up. We had the same number of people coming in, but they weren’t coming by car.”

Schwartz wouldn’t comment specifically on the Sheridan, but cities like Milwaukee, San Francisco and Portland all say they’ve seen big economic and environmental benefits when urban highways have been torn down.

New York City DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan called that comparison flawed.

"I think you know the Bloomberg administration has been very innovative when it comes to traffic engineering," she said. "But in this instance this particular option didn’t work -- but that doesn’t mean other options can’t work here and we’re going to continue to explore them."

 

(photo by Andrea Bernstein/WNYC)

The Brooklyn Bridge promenade is getting a fresh coat of paint.

(photo by Andrea Bernstein/WNYC)

Workers were spotted Wednesday morning refreshing the bike and pedestrian markings.

(photo by Andrea Bernstein/WNYC)

The NYC Department of Transportation says work will be finished by the end of the week.

US Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is inviting questions from TN readers. Want to know how the nation's transportation priorities are shifting? Wondering about the future of high-speed rail? Or how he decides where to spend the DOT's $70 billion budget? Or do you just want to know if he really does honk at drivers he sees texting behind the wheel?

For the next episode of his Q&A video series called “On the Go," Secretary LaHood is inviting questions from Transportation Nation readers. To ask him a question, you can:

Post questions on the Secretary’s Facebook page

Tweet using the #q4ray hashtag

Leave a comment on the Secretary’s blog, or

Leave a comment on this page

He will choose three or four to respond to. Let him know we sent you – write ‘TN’ at the end of your question.  We’ll post his video when it’s available.

Want to see what "On the Go" is like? Watch Secretary LaHood field questions from TN readers in 2011!

(photo by Caitlyn Kim/WNYC)

The winter holidays are less than six months away, but one San Francisco bicyclist is apparently ready.

Thanks to WNYC's Caitlyn Kim for the picture!

Top stories on TN:
Orlando International Airport Could Link with Private Intercity Rail (link)
Court Upholds EPA’s Emissions Rules (link)
Heads Up, New Yorkers: If You Text and Walk, A New York Knick Will Hurl a Basketball At Your Midsection (link)
Free Wi-Fi Goes Underground as NYC Subway Stations Get Connected (link)

MTA Countdown Clock Photo (Kate Hinds)

Senate majority leader Harry Reid is pegging the chances of the transportation bill at better than 50-50. (The Hill)

NY Governor Cuomo on building a new Tappan Zee Bridge: "I will prevail in the end, but I’m sure it’s going to be a long and difficult journey." (New York Times)

Countdown clocks are coming to some of New York City's lettered-line subways (namely: the N and R trains) in a pilot program. (Capital New York)

California Democrats have a "plan B" for high-speed rail, but it's not clear if it has a real chance of being substituted for the governor's proposal. (Fresno Bee)

Boston's transit agency presented a plan to to begin selling naming rights for 11 subway stations, including Downtown Crossing, Park Street, and Back Bay. "No contracts have been signed yet, but JetBlue and Emerson have expressed interest." (Boston Globe)

Meanwhile, the renaming of a Brooklyn subway stop to include the new Barclays Center arena has inspired a protest shirt. (DNA Info)

Philadelphia's transit agency is retiring its two oldest rail cars this week. One of them, a Silverliner II, was built in 1963. (Mass Transit)

Nearly four in five drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike pay their tolls with E-ZPass. (Star Ledger)

Meanwhile, some Garden State Parkway drivers will see new language as part of a pilot program to speed up the exact change lanes.  In other words: "pay toll go." (Asbury Park Press)

DC is considering privatizing its yet-to-be-opened streetcar system. (Washington Post)

A private company wants to build a 15-mile, $315.2 million magnetic-levitation commuter rail system in Central Florida. (Orlando Business Journal)

A British team is developing a car capable of reaching 1,000 mph. (BBC)

(photo by Josh Koonce via flickr)

A federal appeals court Tuesday said the Environmental Protection Agency was "unambiguously correct" in using existing federal law to limit greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Several industry groups -- as well as the state of Texas -- had argued that the science behind climate change was uncertain, and that the EPA lacked the legal authority to use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from factories, power plants, and automobile tailpipes.

But the court unanimously rejected that view. "This is how science works," the judges wrote in the 82-page decision (pdf). "EPA is not required to re-prove the existence of the atom every time it approaches a scientific question."

The opinion cites not only a previous Supreme Court ruling but also Schoolhouse Rock.  (“As a generation of schoolchildren knows, 'by that time, it’s very unlikely that [a bill will] become a law. It’s not easy to become a law.'")

Read the decision here.

To ensure compliance with the rules of the road, the New York City Department of Transportation is mounting a public safety campaign to make sure New Yorkers are displaying situationa...