Today’s Headlines

  • Legislature Approves Cuomo Tax Reform Package (DNA, Bloomberg, NYT)
  • Cuomo’s Payroll Tax Deal “Virtually Guaranteed” Suburban State Sens Will Win Reelection (City+State)
  • Gov Holds Up Livery Cab Bill, Probably Until Next Year (NYT, News)
  • Nicole Gelinas: Tax Deal Glosses Over MTA Labor Cost Crisis (Post)
  • Gotham Gazette: TWU Contract Negotiations Present Lhota’s First Test
  • MTA More Likely to Shut Service for Storms, Will “Advocate” for Stranded Straphangers (Post, News)
  • Cell Phone Bus Tracking System to Debut on Staten Island (NY1)
  • Some of Those Perpetually Frozen Subway Escalators Are Privately Owned (News)
  • Garbage Truck Driver Kills Williamsburg Pedestrian; “No Crime Suspected” (News, NYT, Patch)
  • Watch Speeding Drivers Blow Stop Signs and Salmon Through Residential Blocks in Flushing (NY1)
  • Bloomberg Unveils New “Urban Umbrella” Scaffold Design (DNA)

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

  • Glenn

    I use 53rd and Third nearly everyday and the platform has deathtrap written all over it. Even with both escalators at Third Ave working, it can never keep up with the steady influx of passengers arriving on the E and the M since it it the best option for moving across midtown from both Penn and Port Authority in addition to all those getting off at the first stop in Manhattan from Queens. The broken escalator in the middle only exacerbates the issue and makes many people cram into the extremely narrow space between the wall around the stairs/escalator and the edge of the platform. I’m surprised that people don’t fall into the tracks on a regular basis from the crush of all the people. This out of order escalator is a threat to public safety, not just an amenity.

  • Larry Littlefield

    “The time to get these savings is now: Talks are underway with the Transport Workers Union, whose three-year contract expires next month. The outcome will determine whether it has those capital funds, or not.”

    Hey Nicole, how come you never mention commuter rail labor costs?  Basically, you are writing for a newspaper for which spending can never be too high on police in the city and on everything in the suburbs, and can never be too low in the city.  How about demanding that the commuter railroads cut labor costs to current NYCT levels, or else be shut down for a few years and then contracted out?

    Haberman:  tax deals big loser may be transit riders.

    http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/a-deal-within-the-tax-deal-transit-riders-beware/

    I have confidence that Governor Cuomo and Joe Lhota will work to make sure that another group is instead made worse off, one neither they, nor Haberman, nor the Staphangers, nor the TWU care about.  Future transit riders.

  • NYPD watch

    The only way to get charged if you kill someone in NYC is if you’re drunk.

    Queens DWI kills one, injures three.

    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/deadly_qns_dwi_crash_h0TasHtJDKU4k85HtSZnFP

  • Anonymous

    N.B. Clyde Haberman’s trenchant City Room piece this morning warning that the pledge to restore lost payroll tax revenue is shaky at best: http://nyti.ms/sUDbVy.

  • Larry Littlefield

    I think what Haberman and others are missing is this:  as a result of past debts and unfunded pension obligations, even with all money pledged as a part of this deal and all the dedicated revenues, the MTA does not have enough money to fund its capital plan on an ongoing basis to prevent accelerating deterioration.

    At some point they are going to give something to the MTA, and everyone is going to celebrate and be grateful.  And then we are going back to the 1970s anyway.

    I believe the reason Cuomo refuses to talk about the MTA is that he doesn’t believe he can prevent disaster, so his personal interest is to disassociate himself from it.  Bloomberg as well.

    Now at some point real estate transfer tax revenues and other revenues will recover to “normal,” but not the abnormal in the bubble.  Meanwhile, in general the state’s tax base is dependent on the overpaid on Wall Street to fund the overpensioned, and I wouldn’t count the overpaid staying overpaid forever.

  • fj

    In America over 100 people per day are killed by manmade machines in manmade environments that can easily be fixed.

    Advocacy for holding a televised ‘science debate’ between the two presidential candidates in the 2012 election.

    “Fool Me Twice:  Fighting the Assault on Science in America”
    http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/08/384938/fool-me-twice-fighting-the-assault-on-science-in-america/ @climateprogress

    Since climate change will be the major driver of transportation advances

  • fj

    The fossil fuel industry takes a great deal of pride shaping civilization to its benefit, including transportation.

    Koch-Fueled American for Prosperity Takes Credit for Bullying GOP Lawmakers into Climate Denial

    http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/12/08/383676/koch-americans-for-prosperity-bullying-gop-climate-denial/ @climateprogress

  • fj

    US Climate Denial Machine “Being Directed Straight into Australia” via Murdoch News   http://t.co/xnjAF8E4  @climateprogress

  • fj

    One-half trillion dollars in fossil fuel industry subsidies are the tip of the iceberg.

    As much as 12 trillion dollars in transportation infrastructure and much else exist to the benefit of the fossil fuel industry with about $1.5 trillion required for yearly upkeep, etc.

    http://www.grist.org/energy-policy/2011-10-26-direct-subsidies-to-fossil-fuels-are-tip-of-melting-iceburg @grist

  • Nicole

    Hey, Larry — I wrote about the commuter rails (or at least the LIRR) in the Post, last month:

    http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=7580
    And over the summer, a little, too:

    http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/miarticle.htm?id=7282