Today’s Headlines

Tropical NYC: Storm Knocks Down Trees, Knocks Out Transit (Gothamist)
Transit System Crippled by Flooding (CityRoom)
US DOT Delays Decision on Congestion Pricing Grants — Not Today (CityRoom)
Comptroller’s Report: Avoid MTA Fare Hike With More Subsidies (CityRoom)
MTA Could Avoid Fare Hike if State Stopped Short-Changing It (News)
44 Years After Original Sin, NY’ers Rally Once Again for Penn Station (MAS)
Four Traffic Agents Busted for Writing Phony Parking Tickets (News, Sun)
Feeding the Cars: Ethanol Pumps Up the Price of Farmland (NYT)
Encouraging Better Environmental Choices: What Works? (Grist)

Steve

Great camraderie out there among the many who bicycled due to the subway transit disruption. Suddenly being sweaty was forgivable. Why not bicycle everyday?
Angus Grieve-Smith

The more I think about it, the more I like the Cablevision proposal. Let them have the Post Office and pay to build a grand new Penn Station on the east side of Eighth Avenue. We built the World Financial Center; why can’t we build a beautiful new train station?

The Moynihan plan could only have been thought up by someone who never took the IRT to Penn Station.
d

Today sure is a day when I bet a lot of people wish mandatory carpooling, HOV rules, and improved bus service was in effect.

If only there was some way to get a regular source of income to pay for such improvements…
John Hunka

As usual, I biked to work this morning. Until this moment, I wasn’t even aware about the problems with the subway. Bikes rule!
SA

Did the elevated highways get shut down in this mess? I didn’t think so.

Yet more evidence of why we need to seriously discourage use and cut back our ineffective, dilapidated, flood-prone mass transit system in NYC and build more flood-proof elevated highways throughout the five boroughs.
jojo

Is this the day it finally occurs to the politicians that we need to have a vital infrastructure rebuild on par with New Deal spending. . . . .

. . . . or just another woeful day at the MTA??
Drew

SA,

Just curious: Where would all the cars go when they’re done using the elevated highways? City streets?

Come on out to my neighborhood just outside of Downtown Brooklyn where the streets are curb-to-curb gridlock this morning thanks to the lack of subway service.

Easier biking, way better buses and maybe some sort of new pumping system and ugrades for the subway are the obvious solutions here.

Thank god no one in any position of power or responsibility (except maybe the Reason Foundation guy with his op/eds in the Times) is talking about solving these kinds of problems with more road building.
Eric

Bill Thompson is shocked! shocked! that the MTA wants to hike fares? Where was the Comptroller when the MTA voted to sell the Vanderbilt Yards to low-bidder Bruce Ratner, for $50 million less than the rival bid and $114.5 million less than the MTA’s own appraisal? Thompson, who supports Ratner’s “Atlantic Yards” project, has never provided a full accounting of the City’s $200 million+ investment in the scheme.
Al Smith

At the risk of feeding a troll, I will point out that however dilapidated and flood-prone the subway system might be, it is anything but ineffective. It is the reason New York City is the greatest city in the country today, and it functions 95% of the time, bringing more people to work in the central business district than roads ever could, even with huge new investments.