Transportation Policy

A reliable Streetsblog tipster sends along this photo of a police cruiser parked in the Department of Transportation's new Ninth Avenue bike facility. The police officer seen getting into the car was returning from a nearby deli with what appeared to be lunch for him and his partner.

Apparently unaware of New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's assertion that "human-powered vehicles are never going to be the answer," USA Today reports that several large U.S. cities are accelerating their efforts to encourage commuting on two wheels. The article cites New York for the new separated bike lane, and for putting bike racks where cars once parked.

Airline safety has improved dramatically in the last 10 years, after two 1996 crashes killed 375 people.

Clever hedge fund managers have figured out ways to make money off of weather futures, the electricity grid and quite a few other unlikely sources. What I want to know is if anyone can help me find a way to invest my retirement savings in bicycling in Portland, Oregon. According to the latest numbers, it's a serious growth industry.

This spiffy new illuminated bus stop shelter replaces another destroyed by a  motorist at Broadway and Dongan Place, near the border of Inwood and Washington Heights.

Attorneys representing the pedicab industry have succeeded in getting a temporary reprieve from restrictions adopted by the City Council earlier this year, including a cap on the allowed number of operators and a ban on electrically-assisted rigs, until their lawsuit against the city can be heard in court.

Howard/Stein-Hudson consultant Chris Ryan directs UWS traffic

Monday, September 246:00 to 9:30 pmJohn Jay College899 Tenth Ave. (at 58th St.)RSVP to westsidestudy @ hshassoc . com or (917) 339-0488

A dozen or so years ago, back when congestion pricing was a distant dream and New York City's number one transportation priority was to squeeze more transit funding from government, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign commissioned me to determine which was greater: the dollars that New York State governments took in from drivers, or the dollars spent on drivers' behalf. I spent months immersed in bookkeeping arcana, parsing revenue pots like the statewide Petroleum Business Tax and expenses like fire department equipment for prying crash victims from mangled vehicles, before I emerged with an answer.