CB 3 Committee Asks DOT for Protected Bikeway on Chrystie Street
The community board covering the Lower East Side and Chinatown is set to ask DOT to transform the Chrystie Street bike lane from barely visible stripes blocked by double-parked cars into a two-way protected bikeway along Sara D. Roosevelt Park, connecting the Manhattan Bridge with the Second Avenue protected bike lane.
February 13, 2015
Albany Has Already Saddled the MTA With More Debt Than 30 Nations
As Albany contemplates paying for the MTA capital program by borrowing as much as $15 billion, it's worth pausing to examine the debt load straphangers are already shouldering. To put it in perspective, the MTA carries more debt than Bolivia, Tanzania, and Luxembourg combined, according to numbers compiled by the Straphangers Campaign. The MTA owes more than at least 30 nations, including several with populations much larger than New York City.
February 12, 2015
RPA: Growing Outer Boroughs Need New Generation of Transit Investment
With the boroughs outside Manhattan adding people and jobs faster than the city core, New York needs to reorient its transit priorities, argues the Regional Plan Association in a new report. The authors warn that increasing travel in the other boroughs will strain the local bus system and lead more people to drive, causing more traffic congestion and imposing the burden of car ownership on more low- and middle-income New Yorkers.
February 11, 2015
Trottenberg: DOT Staffing Up to Add More Select Bus Service Routes
The City Council transportation committee held a hearing today on the de Blasio administration's Bus Rapid Transit plans, giving council members an opportunity to prod DOT about its BRT progress and show their support (or lack thereof) for bus lanes and more robust surface transit improvements than the Select Bus Service program has yielded so far.
February 10, 2015
Progressive Caucus to de Blasio: Let Us Help Build New York’s BRT Network
As a mayoral candidate, Bill de Blasio promised a citywide network of more than 20 “world-class” Bus Rapid Transit routes within four years. More than a year into his term, bus riders are still waiting. Now 17 City Council members are asking the administration to take bolder action on BRT and offering to help NYC DOT and the MTA bring the projects to fruition.
February 10, 2015
Harlem CB Chair Complains Bus Lanes Have Slowed Her Cab Rides to Subway
Manhattan Community Board 10 Chair Henrietta Lyle thinks bus lanes have made it harder to get around Harlem. In a conversation with Streetsblog, Lyle disputed our coverage of Select Bus Service on 125th Street and waved off data from the Census and NYC DOT. She also dismissed WE ACT for Environmental Justice, which had worked with bus riders to advocate for Select Bus Service, as "not talking to the community."
February 10, 2015