Sandy

With 6,000 bicycles, New York's bike-share program is already the largest in the country. In fact, immediately after launching, Citi Bike proceeded to eclipse the national daily ridership record (previously held by Capital Bikeshare), with 12,000 trips in 24 hours. Ridership should grow steadily as more people start using the bikes and the network expands, but how quickly will Citi Bike grow beyond the initial service area? Appearing on the Brian Lehrer Show this morning, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan discussed how the city intends to land the funds to implement the original plan for a 10,000-bike system.

Governor Cuomo's post-Sandy infrastructure commission unveiled its recommendations [PDF] last week, and while it focused heavily on hardening the city's transportation network against future storms, it also offered glimpses of how infrastructure could be more resilient in the wake of disaster, with Bus Rapid Transit playing a prominent role.

In his State of the State address tomorrow afternoon, Governor Andrew Cuomo has the opportunity to set the tone for transportation policy in the year ahead. And with the NYC region's transit system having absorbed billions of dollars worth of damage from Hurricane Sandy, it's going to be a very important year indeed. Cuomo has to chart a path to recover from the storm and prepare the region's transit infrastructure for the future, all while maintaining the existing system, which is staggering under the load of excessive debt.

The city and state need to shift gears to create a more resilient transportation network in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, a group of New York University transportation researchers argue in a report released this morning. Chief among their recommendations: New York must get serious about Bus Rapid Transit and create permanent, physically-separated transit lanes to keep bus riders from getting stuck in traffic.

The MTA -- the agency elected officials usually try to distance themselves from as much as possible -- has lately been serving as the model for effective post-Sandy recovery. And in a welcome turn, Governor Andrew Cuomo himself has taken center stage when all eyes are on the MTA's performance. There are even real-time MTA service status updates on his website.

In August, three county executives supported Governor Cuomo's Tappan Zee Bridge plan in exchange for a "transit task force" that would study how to strengthen transit between Rockland and Westchester counties. At the time, advocates greeted the announcement with cautious optimism, awaiting details on the task force from the governor.

Some notes from Bloomberg's latest Sandy briefing, which wrapped up minutes ago:

If yellow cabs and livery cabs can't get gas, that's a problem, especially when train service is limited and buses are packed. But many of the cars in this line, which clogged one lane of Broadway from 168th to 174th Street in Washington Heights this afternoon, were private vehicles.

If there's any good news to come out of the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, it's that political leaders and the press are actually talking about climate change. At the end of a long campaign season with barely a mention of the issue, it's a relief to hear some sane discussion of the issue based on the premise that global warming is real.