Rumor Mill

Please note: This was an April Fool's Day post...

Streetsblog has learned that Gene Russianoff, executive director of the Straphangers Campaign, will be named as a member of Governor-Elect Eliot Spitzer's transition team transportation committee. The announcement is likely to be made tomorrow. Russianoff says, "No comment." Unlike yesterday's inaccurate tip about the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability this item seems to be solid.

Word has it that the Bloomberg Administration's new Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability will unveil its first work product this coming Wednesday, November 15. It looks like this initial public announcement will be oriented more around the problems that the new office is thinking about and working on rather than the solutions. The solutions, I am told, may start to emerge as a part of the Mayor's State of the City speech in January.

Last night the Tri-State Transportation Campaign honored Elliot "Lee" Sander, at its annual gala. Sander was Commissioner of New York City's Department of Transportation for two years during the Giuliani administration, he is a vice president at DMJM Harris, co-chairman of the Empire State Transportation Alliance, and Director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management at NYU's Wagner School. A lot of the more progressive players and policy wonks I chatted with last night believe -- and hope -- that Sander will be the Metropolitan Transit Authority's next chairman.

A couple of different sources tell me that Bob Kiley is moving back to New York City to take a position with Parsons Brinckerhoff, the global engineering firm with a lead role in Partnership for New York City's secretive, long-delayed congestion pricing study.