Today’s Headlines

Another Day, Another Signal Problem Blowing Up Service on 8 Subway Lines (DNA, AMNY, Gothamist)
The LIRR Was a Mess During the PM Rush for Good Measure (DNA)
MTA Claims It’s Making Progress on Reducing Sky-High Capital Costs (News, AMNY, NY1)
Christie Offering $7 Billion in Tax Breaks to Lure Amazon — Too Bad He Let NJ Transit Fall Apart (NYT)
Box Truck Driver Backing Out of Loading Bay Kills Woman, 64, at Canarsie Warehouse (DNA)
Police Van Driver Runs Over Kid With Machete, Fracturing His Pelvis (News)
A Start-Up Is Measuring the Stress of Biking NYC Streets Using Biosensors (NYT)
MTA Cutting Back on Overnight Station Cleaning Despite Risk of Track Fires (Post)
We’re About to Find Out If a Privately-Financed Staten Island-Bayonne Gondola Is Feasible (Advance)
What, No Bus Lanes or Bike Lanes in Kalman Yeger’s Neighborhood Traffic Plan? (Yeshiva World)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

Larry Littlefield

New Jersey Transit and Amazon are not the exception. Just as young workers flocked to transit, and were followed by companies heading for urban, transit-served locations all over the country, transit started falling apart due past debts, pension increases, pension underfunding, and inadequate maintenance and reinvestment.

GE moved to Boston. The MBTA has been in a state of near collapse for years. BART has to be rebuilt. The DC metro is falling apart. And would anyone recommend Amazon.com moving to NYC based on the state of our subway system?

And transit, a low priority for Generation Greed, is just the canary in the coal mine of the future consequences of Generation Greed’s past party. Soaring debt without investment isn’t just a public sector thing. Business debt has also soared as a percent of GDP, but investment has plunged. What aspects of life have gotten better over the past 20 years? The ones that actually got the investment.

https://larrylittlefield.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/debtbysector.jpg
Vooch

‘my bike left on time today’

Is 3/4 of the solution at 1/1000th the cost
Flakker

I’ll delete my account if this gondola idiocy is A: completed B: not $500 million when all is said and done, C: not publicly subsidized in some way.
JarekFA

Chris Christie is so fucking stupid. He had soooo much potential. I mean that. He had opportunities to make his state great. Instead he fucked them over so bad.

Yah, killing the ARC tunnel was dumb. But what was dumbest of all, was not using his immense leverage to get ARC right. Just imagine if he pushed for Alt-G (which would’ve connected Penn Station to GCT). With East Side Access coming along (eventually), people could have a one seat ride from Long Island to Newark Penn Station or Westchester to Newark Penn Station. That would’ve greatly enhanced mobility, provided a ton of capacity and provided a shit load of “shovel ready” jobs during a period of a mass recession when the Obama admin would’ve gladly footed much of the bill. And it would’ve made Newark extremely attractive as another commercial jobs center given the enhanced access and cheaper rents.

But instead, he took that money, put it into roads, tax subsidizes for a mall that will never be completed and, as noted in today’s NYT article, he’s pushing more tax breaks that will benefit only Amazon, instead of public money to enhance transit that all of NJ could benefit from. All because he thought it necessary to burnish his “fiscal” bonafides to win the GOP Presidential primaries when instead, being a not typical politician, appears to have been key to winning the GOP presidential nom.
stairbob

A) There’s already a bus over the Bayonne Bridge and B) It’s 34 minutes from the southernmost HBLR station to WTC, so a 30 minute commute from anywhere on Staten Island is a lie.
Fool

“With East Side Access coming along (eventually), people could have a one
seat ride from Long Island to Newark Penn Station or Westchester to
Newark Penn Station.”

Not really. The political stupidity of MTA ranging from labor contracts -> middle management -> board of directors, would probably have created a second deep bore station.

God forbid you take out the dining level.
Larry Littlefield

I mean talk about politics trailing the market. The pols of various political parties are out to stop or degrade:

1) Bikes
2) Transit
3) Charter schools
4) Electric cars
5) Solar energy
6) Multifamily housing, accessory apartments, less parking
7) Health care financing like the rest of the developed world

Anything that might allow a cheaper or better alternative for less well off younger generations to live decent lives despite the circumstance imposed on them. So existing interests could continue to get theirs.
Flakker

I’m from Port Richmond originally, so I’m aware. It’s complete lunacy with everyone nodding along as the body-snatchers of the gondola lobby work their way through the political (driving) class. Like, even if it’s successful it’s totally idiotic. I think they could have done better by extending HBLR over the bridge and keep extending it along Richmond Avenue, and reconnected to terminate at Perth Amboy. Admittedly I don’t know how the Arthur Kill crossing could have worked but the point is that SI keeps making demands of others without offering anything in return or giving up any roadway space. That’s impossible so they fall prey to idiotic idea (fast ferry) after idiotic idea (other fast ferry) after idiotic idea (BRT!).
Vooch

Larry,

you are going to laugh ( or perhaps cry ) at this latest:

The Police Depart of Munich (bike & walk mode share of ~45%) just ripped the city council a new one.

The cops said a PBL on a major arterial ( think fifth av ) is a disaster. They are ’reccomending’ that the city council double the width of said bike lane. They said that the PBL should be expanded and the motor lanes shrunk !

It’s this PBL on the video:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lCKm8TZfSsA

cops are demanding it be doubled in width and bitching at city council for being so car centric

LOL