Kate Hinds

The former head of the MTA told reporters on the first day of his new job that New York's transit system was cash-strapped and crumbling when he took it over three years ago.

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

How much of his prepared remarks did New York Governor Cuomo skip over in yesterday's State of the State?

A lot. But he got in plenty of time for a whimsical PowerPoint presentation.

TN's Andrea Bernstein talks about the governor's speech and his $15 billion infrastructure plan on today's Brian Lehrer Show. "He so rarely says the word 'transit," she said. "He talked about roads, he talked about bridges, he talked about the energy highway, he talked about The Tappan Zee Bridge. But again, it's very revealing about what he's thinking and what's going through his mind."

(But what exactly is an "energy highway?" It's unclear -- but in theory, it will bring power from Western New York to downstate residents. Although Cuomo likened the transformative power of this idea to the Eisenhower interstate system, Brian said it's "more like the Taconic than Interstate 90.")

Brian and Andrea also discuss the news that former MTA head Jay Walder told Hong Kong press that New York's transit system was cash-strapped and falling apart when he took over in 2009. Listen below!

Top stories on TN:
New York Governor Cuomo Proposes $15 Billion Infrastructure Plan (Link)
In Cuomo’s Speech, No Mention of the Word “Transit” (Link)
NY MTA Contract Talks With Transit Workers Union Delayed (Link)
New Jerseyans on Toll Hikes: We Don’t Care Why They’re Being Raised, We Just Care That We Have To Spend More Money (Link)
This Traffic Light Senses Bikes, Promotes Road Harmony (Link)
New South Florida Rail Connection to Miami International Airport Almost Done (Link)

NYC subway platform (photo by Kate Hinds)

U.S. automakers had double-digit growth in sales in 2011. (New York Times, NPR)

Jay Walder, the former head of New York's MTA, says at a press conference in Hong Kong that NYC's "assets were not renewed and the infrastructures were in terrible condition." (The Standard)

He also said he put the city's transit agency on "firm financial footing." (New York Times)

Gibson Crutcher Dunn -- the law firm that sued New York City over a Brooklyn bike lane -- is also defending Chevron in Ecuador, which was slapped with an $18 billion fine for environmental damage. (New Yorker; subscription; update)

JFK airport security workers make $8 an hour, and get neither get sick days nor health insurance. (Village Voice)

US DOT head Ray LaHood is touting the FAA's 2011 accomplishments. (Fast Lane)

Facing complaints about light-rail construction disrupting St. Paul businesses, the government will spend $1.2 million on a marketing campaign to entice shoppers to visit the beleaguered area (Minneapolis Star Tribune). (Note: for more on the Central Corridor construction, listen to the TN documentary "Back of the Bus.")

This week's sudden drop in temperature cracked rails on DC's Metro. (Washington Post)

West Windsor, NJ, is now a transit village. (The Times/NJ.com)

Maryland's department of planning created a smart growth web tool, GamePlanMaryland. "Choose...the direction for our transportation program — more roads, more transit, what combination? Then click the mouse ... and see if the future you’ve plotted will achieve the priorities you established."

The Brian Lehrer Show kicks off a month-long look at the airline industry today. (WNYC)

NYC's former taxi commissioner weighs in on a the recent taxi deal to improve service for the disabled -- and says it's "well-intentioned...[but will] in all likelihood rarely be used by the target ridership." (New York Times)

(Photo by William Hartz via Flickr)

How do New Jerseyans feel about the New Year's toll hike on the Turnpike and Garden State Parkway?

Notsogood.

"I don't think the commuters really care how you want to characterize it," said Star-Ledger reporter Mike Frassinelli on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show. "A lot more money is coming out of their pockets. You can call it a tax hike, you can call it a toll hike. They just know more money is coming out of their pockets and they're not really happy with it."

Wednesday's Brian Lehrer Show devoted the last segment of its show to talking about the impact upon drivers.  (You can listen to the segment below.)

Callers were generally unsupportive of the hike -- like Joe in Madison, who said he worked for the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey. He called the toll hike  a tax on small businesses. "It makes it harder for us to do business, and to provide the arts to the community."

One topic on the segment: what Brian called "the political blame game:" NJ Governor Chris Christie is blaming the toll hikes on his predecessor, Jon Corzine -- a statement that is factually correct.

The toll increases were initially planned as a way to help fund the now-canceled trans-Hudson ARC tunnel. Earlier this year, the NJ Turnpike Authority voted to redirect that toll revenue to the state's transportation trust fund.

This week NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg -- an ARC supporter --blasted the governor for allowing the toll hike to go through. "It's shameful that New Jersey commuters are paying more without getting more in return," he said in a statement. "The governor was quick to cancel the badly needed tunnel, but flat-out refused to cancel the associated toll increase."

You can listen to the segment below.

Top stories on TN:
Romney: I’d Stop Funding Amtrak, and Have Big Bird With Ads (Link)
Chicago, New York to Make Snow Plow Locations Live During Storms (Link)
Coach Bus Files Chapter 11 (Link)
And: have you seen "New York’s Lost Subways" yet? What are you waiting for!

Billboard on the Bay Bridge (photo by Colin Mutchler/LoudSauce.com)

Expert panel: California's high-speed rail plan isn't financially feasible, and the state must delay borrowing billions for it. (Los Angeles Times)

Boston would raise subway fares by up to 70 cents and dramatically cull bus routes, eliminate ferries, and end weekend commuter rail trains under a plan unveiled Tuesday to help erase a projected $161 million deficit. (Boston Globe)

Work has begun on BART's Oakland Airport connector (Oakland Tribune). (And learn more about the battle over the airport connector in our documentary, Back of the Bus.)

Honolulu's $5.3 billion commuter rail line will break ground in March -- unless a judge halts it. (New York Times)

The Transport Politic has a map of transit projects underway in 2012.

Pay the toll, or spend the extra time? Two reporters test-drive whether it makes sense to pay the new tolls on the NJ Turnpike -- or spend more time on free side roads. (New York Times)

Two retirees are suing the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for canceling their lifetime free passes over its bi-state bridges and tunnels. (Star-Ledger)

In San Francisco nearly 2 in 3 trips in the city are made by car -- but transportation officials want to get the number to 1 in 2 trips before the decade is over. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Chicago's street parking rates are increasing. (WBEZ)

Gondolas: the transit wave of the future? (Toronto Star)

The 2012 presidential elections will decide the fate of transit projects nationwide. (City Limits)

Thanks for paying taxes, San Francisco! Learn the story behind the billboard on the Bay Bridge. (SFist)

(photo by Port of San Diego via Flickr)

Coach America, which calls itself the nation's largest tour and charter bus operator and the second largest motorcoach service provider, has filed for Chapter 11 protection.

The president of Coach, George Maney, said in an emailed statement: "I want to emphasize that it is business as usual for Coach America throughout the Chapter 11 process." He said the company expects to continue normal operations as it restructures.

Fenway Partners, a private equity firm that also owns 1-800-CONTACTS, company, bought Coach America from Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in early 2007 in a deal valued at more than $400 million. Earlier this year credit ratings agency Moody's downgraded Coach's ratings and warned that the company might need to face restructuring. Although the company has a good business model, Moody's wrote, "it is in a cyclical industry currently under duress and continues to carry the onerous debt burden taken on in 2007 when the company was bought by its current equity sponsor."

Coach employees 6,000 people.

Top stories on TN:
New York’s Lost Subways--Complete with Map and Dusty Pics (link)
NYC Tries Out First Ever Weeknight Work-Related Line Shutdown (link)
Union, Veolia Reach Deal On Long Island Bus (link)
Invasion of the Body Scanners: They’re Spreading, But Are They Safe and Effective? (link)

New York City's abandoned City Hall subway station (Courtesy of Shane Perez)

Republican candidates on the presidential trail in Iowa aren't talking transportation... (Politico)

...but they do tend to support high-speed rail. (New York Times)

Massachusetts transit officials begin a process today that could lead to the first fare hikes on the T in five years, and possible service cuts as well. (AP via Boston Globe)

Construction on Miami's Metrorail extension to Miami International Airport is almost complete, and the line will open this spring. (Miami Herald)

Direct flights from Long Island’s MacArthur Airport to Washington, D.C. will begin by the end of March for the first time in a decade. (AP via New York Daily News)

The price of oil has doubled in Nigeria, after the government ended its oil subsidy. (Marketplace)

North Dakota's oil boom is bringing lots of money into state coffers -- as well as necessitating a lot of state spending. (Minnesota Public Radio)

New York Times editorial on public transit's budget squeeze: "More people are finally realizing that public transit is a better deal than driving. The question is how we turn that into a broader cultural shift."

A high-speed rail protest song is topping the charts in Britain. Sample lyric: 30 billion is the cost, far way beyond belief/And look across my valley, it's like a pound for every leaf. (Atlantic Cities)

An exhibition about Manhattan's 200-year-old street grid is on display at the Museum of the City of New York. (New York Times)

A New Zealand company is developing technology that notifies enforcement personnel is a non-handicapped driver parks in a handicapped spot. (Gizmag)

(photo by tracktwentynine via Flickr)

Starting on Monday, January 9, New York's MTA will be suspending all 4/5/6 subway service between Grand Central/42nd Street and Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, in both directions, for four consecutive weeknights, from 10pm to 5am.

New York has one of the few transit systems in the world that runs twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. That’s why what will happen next week on the Lexington Avenue subway line represents a sea change for the city.

This is the first time the city is closing down sections of an entire subway line for track and signal work. And it's not the last. The MTA is piloting something it's calling Fastrack, which it calls "a new way of working on the rails."

In 2012, sections of four subway lines — the 4/5/6, the B/D/E, and 1/2/3 and the A/C/E — will be entirely shut down. Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said it's worth looking at.

"There's some good arguments," he said, "particularly about worker safety, not having trains do movements around repair sites, but it's a big change for the riding public and for some riders it could mean serious inconvenience."

Deirdre Parker, a spokesperson with the MTA, said the agency knows it will affect a lot of people. "The late-night weeknight ridership is approximately 250,000," she said, "so this will affect 10 - 15 percent of riders." But she said the shutdown makes conditions safer for employees — and it will save the MTA between $10 and $15 million a year.

The MTA added it's only doing this work on lines where there are a lot of alternatives, but that the shutdown will add about twenty minutes to riders' usual travel times. While it's not adding shuttle buses, Parker said for the upcoming Lexington Line shutdown, the MTA will operate the Times Square Shuttle all night, and it will have additional N/Q/R trains standing by.

To learn more about the upcoming Lexington Avenue line closure, see the MTA's brochure here (pdf).

New York has one of the few transit systems in the world that runs twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Which is why what will happen next week on the Lexington Avenue subway line represents a sea change for the city.

A bus drivers union has reached a tentative contract agreement with the new private operator of Long Island Bus, averting an interruption in Nassau County bus service.

On Jan 1, Long Island Bus will change its name to NICE, and get a new look.

A bus drivers union has reached a tentative contract agreement with the new private operator of Long Island Bus, averting an interruption in Nassau County bus service.

Veolia Transportation will take over the bus lines from New York's MTA on January 1st in a move meant to save the county money.

Patricia Bowden, president of Transport Workers Union Local 252, said she was thrilled that there would be no workforce reductions.

"I believe that it is a fair contract, it's not the same as the MTA, because that's a public [agency]," she said, "but for a private company I think it's very fair."

Veolia confirmed that there would be no layoffs. "Every TWU member who worked on Long Island Bus and applied and was qualified to join Veolia to work on NICE has been made a job offer," an email from the company said.

The contract must be ratified by the union membership before it takes effect. The union said a date for a ratification vote will be scheduled for January.

On January first, the service’s name will be changed to NICE, an acronym for Nassau Inter-County Express. Veolia said all current routes will continue to run, and will cover all of the same stops they normally do. Although the MTA will no longer be involved with operations, riders can still use their MetroCards.

Top stories on TN:
New York City traffic deaths hit historic low. (Link)
Feds shut down Chinatown bus company Double Happyness for safety violations. (Link)
Vermont's Route 107 finally reopened in Vermont, four months after being washed out by Tropical Storm Irene. (Link)
Year in Review, San Francisco: apps launch, rail remains, protests simmer. (Link)

San Francisco MUNI bus (photo by torbakhopper via Flickr)

For the first time since Harry Truman was president, the United States is exporting more gasoline and diesel (but not crude oil) than it imports. (NPR)

Senate Democrats expect to pass a long-delayed surface transportation bill soon after they return to Washington next month. (The Hill)

San Francisco's MUNI wants to eliminate some bus stops in order to speed up travel times. (Bay Citizen)

How much do you really know about the Keystone XL pipeline? Reality check time! (Marketplace)

Albuquerque quietly turned off its red light traffic cameras weeks ago. (KRQE)

Los Angeles' Red Line subway is inching towards later hours. (Los Angeles Times)

Biking and gender: where the women commute. (Atlantic Cities)

Top stories on TN:
Medellin gets a mega escalator (link)
To deal with slow walkers, whip out your bike bell (link)
2011 Year in Review, Houston (link)

New Yorkers on a crowded bus (photo courtesy of Brad Lander)

Ray LaHood on new FAA, trucking rules: "Ultimately, we've given pilots and truck drivers the time to rest. Now, they must exercise the personal responsibility to use that time wisely." (USA Today)

The reduction in the federal commuter tax benefit will look like a fare hike to transit users nationwide. (Star-Ledger, San Francisco Examiner)

Baltimore Sun editorial: "If anything, transit ridership ought to be given an advantage over driving — at least the kind that doesn't involve a car pool."

Disability activists hope the transformation of the city's taxi and livery system will also lead to similar change in transportation services already provided to disabled New Yorkers. (Crain's New York)

The school bus is going electric. (Wall Street Journal; subscription req.)

2011 has been very very good to Chrysler. (NPR)

Forget face detection, this Japanese car seat can tell who's sitting in it through butt recognition. (GizMag)

(photo courtesy of the Office of the Mayor, Medellin)

The 12,000 residents of one hilly Medellin neighborhood used to climb the equivalent of 28 stories to get from the city center to their homes. But an arduous 30-minute walk has been transformed into a five-minute ride, with the installation of an urban escalator system.*

"This escalator represents a celebration for all of us as a city," said Mayor Salazar Jaramillo on Monday, when he officially opened the escalators to the public in the Comuna 13 neighborhood. "This should be a symbol of city transformation and peace for Comuna 13."

The escalator is divided into six stages and cost about US$6.7 million to construct.

The mayor said innovations like the escalator are turning the Colombian city into a showcase for leading urban planning ideas, and added that officials from Rio de Janeiro had already contacted him about doing something similar in the hillside favelas there.

Press reports call Comuna 13 one of  Medellin's poorest and most violent neighborhoods. Which makes it ripe for transformation, according to city officials.

"In these slums, we have to make an important change," said Rafael Nanclares, Medellin's secretary of transportation and transit, speaking on the phone to Transportation Nation. "We have to make opportunities for them." Earlier this week, Nanclares tweeted a photo of a banner hung on the side of a building that read: "What pride! We live in the only neighborhood in the world with public escalators."

Nanclares said the escalators would make it easier for residents to get to school and work. A major goal of the escalator is to connect Comuna 13 with the economic center of the city--both literally and figuratively. "It's a way to give presence to people who don't have a presence," he said. The ambitious project is as much statement of support to an overlooked community as it is transportation improvement as he sees it.

Carlos Pardo, a consultant for the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), pointed out that the city has been working to improve mobility for its poorest residents. "This escalator is part of a broader range of initiatives in Medellin," he said. The city has recently inaugurated a bike share program and a bus rapid transit system. Parts of the city also have a cable car-- but the necessary distance between stations made an escalator a better choice for Comuna 13.

More photos are below.

*An earlier edition of this post quoted the Medellin government as claiming this is the first urban escalator system as transit. As many readers point out, Hong Kong's has an urban escalator system, which opened in 1993.

(with reporting by Alex Goldmark)

(image courtesy of the Office of the Mayor, Medellin)

 (photo courtesy of the Office of the Mayor, Medellin)

(photo courtesy of the Office of the Mayor, Medellin)

Living in New York, where the sidewalks often seem divided between native peppy steppers and slow-moving tourists, we couldn't resist passing along this approach on how to keep sidewalk traffic moving. Whereas previous solutions have been more passive -- like painting lanes -- this one takes it up a notch.

Hat tip to Felix Salmon.

Top stories from TN:
Stranded A Train Passengers Sue New York MTA (Link)
YEAR IN REVIEW FLORIDA: 2011 Rides Rails Out of the Sunshine State (Link)

Image from New Jersey red light traffic camera

Unfinished subdivisions in Arizona have led urban planners to suggest "smart decline" strategies that sometimes even dismantle existing infrastructure. (NPR)

Hydrfracking moves to the suburbs. (Marketplace)

Friends don't let friends walk drunk, because "every mile walked drunk, turns out to be eight times more dangerous than the mile driven drunk."(Freakonomics)

California's plans to use Amtrak as a fallback for high-speed rail are coming under fire -- from Amtrak. (Los Angeles Times)

Megabus wants the feds to restrict--or break up--rival BoltBus. (Bloomberg via Crain's New York)

A red-light traffic camera manufacturer made a video of New Jersey intersection crashes and near-misses. (Star-Ledger; video)

Tweet of the day, from the Detroit News's David Shepardson: Ad in @BostonGlobe: Boston-area Saab dealer offering new Saab with $17,000 discount off MSRP

Twenty-two stranded straphangers are named as plaintiffs in the suit, which was to be filed on Tuesday in Queens County Supreme Court. They were left without heat, food or water when the train got stuck in several feet of snow in Queens, near JFK Airport, the day after Christmas in 2010.

Earlier this month, Thomas Prendergast, the president of New York City Transit, discussed the agency's preparations for the upcoming winter at a New York City Council hearing. "We forgot about that train," he said. "That’s inexcusable.”

The MTA wouldn't comment directly on the lawsuit. It issued a statement that read: "In the aftermath of last year’s blizzard, we have implemented a series of changes to improve our performance in future storms, including the creation of protocols to suspend service in harsh conditions and assigning a rider advocate to ensure the safety and comfort of our customers."

But attorney Ayman Aboushi, whose firm has taken on the case pro bono, said that falls short of what needs to happen.

"People are going to get stuck on a train at some point, and it's going to be longer than a few hours," he said. "It happens every year at least a few times. What are you going to do when that happens? Okay, you can shut it down, but what happens when you get blindsided?"

He added: "Agreeing to shut down the system when inclement weather is on the horizon is not a policy."

In August, the MTA took the unprecedented step of shutting down the city's transit system in preparation for Tropical Storm Irene.

Aboushi said the lawsuit aims to force the MTA to put better policies in place. A dollar amount for compensation, if any, would be up to the court.

You can see the lawsuit here (pdf).

A year after being trapped on an A train for over eight hours in a blizzard, a group of passengers is suing the New York MTA.

Top stories on TN:
New York’s Taxi Bill’s Long and Bumpy Ride (Link)
Maryland Moves Closer to Joining D.C. and Virginia in Capital Bikeshare Program (Link)
Hispanics Overrepresented in D.C. Area Pedestrian Deaths (Link)
DC Dangles Cash to Fight Congestion (Link)

Expo Station in Los Angeles (photo courtesy of BuildExpo.com)

The opening date for Los Angeles's long-awaited Expo Line has been postponed several times, and technical problems continue to delay the light rail system's operation. (Los Angeles Times)

The New York Times test-drives possible reasons for the FAA's ban on electronic devices during takeoff and landing. Verdict: "The only reason these rules exist from the F.A.A. is because of agency inertia and paranoia.” (Link)

What started out as commuter rail will end up as bus service on highway shoulders in the Kansas City area. (Kansas City Star)

Oil towns in North Dakota have spawned a robust job market, but there aren't enough homes for all the workers. (Marketplace)

More on the intercity bus boom. (Slate)

In Madrid -- and maybe one day in the Bronx -- parks bloom where freeways once ruled. (New York Times)

Boca Raton (FL) started a bicycle paramedic program. (AP via New York Daily News)

London's subway drivers walked out over a pay dispute Monday, causing trouble for thousands of shoppers heading out for the start of Christmas sales. (BBC)

Fare hikes and service cuts are looming in 2012 as Massachusetts' transit system tries to erase a deficit. (AP via WBUR)

A Boston T employee is in hot water after programming the LED display signs in one station with the lyrics to "Deck the Halls." (Boston Globe)

The head of the New York City Council's Transportation Committee is considering a range of legislation aimed at regulating bicyclists. (New York Posts)

TN's Todd Zwillich is hosting The Takeaway this morning.

Top stories on TN:
FAA Clears Santa’s Flight Path (Link)
DC Dangles Cash to Fight Congestion (Link)
Just How Good Are the TSA’s Body Scanners? (Link)
Tips for Infrequent Flyers: Leave the Olives at Home, and Junior’s Shoes On (Link)
Despite a Year of High-Profile Crashes, Inter City Bus Use Soars (Link)

(photo by Kate Hinds)

Commute by public transit? Your tax benefit is being reduced. Drive? You're getting a parking benefit increase. (Chicago Tribune)

Volkswagen's will limit employees' access to work email in an attempt to give them a break during non-work hours. (Marketplace)

An oil spill near the coast of Nigeria is likely the worst to hit those waters in a decade. (AP via NPR)

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's requirement that NYC's entire taxi and livery fleet eventually become wheelchair-accessible is a stinging rejection of the mayor's non-accessible Taxi of Tomorrow. (Crain's New York Business)

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said he won't back a proposal to prohibit drivers from talking on cellphones -- giving a boost to car makers and mobile-phone companies that stand to lose if regulators impose a ban. (Wall Street Journal; subscription)

President Barack Obama’s administration maintained an 11-hour limit on truck drivers’ hours today, scaling back a proposal to give them more rest... (Bloomberg)

...But some rules for drivers have changed. Learn more about the new regulations in Politico MT.

Can Amtrak afford to leave Penn Station for its new home in Moynihan Station? (Atlantic Cities)

Take a peek inside lower Manhattan's Fulton Transit Center, which is scheduled to open in 2014. (DNAInfo)