David Meyer

Staten Island's express buses are getting a complete overhaul, MTA officials and Borough President James Oddo announced yesterday. These changes will save people time by better aligning bus service with travel patterns -- and they could be a template for bus network improvements citywide.

One year after Mayor de Blasio's affordable housing reforms reduced some parking requirements, momentum is building to finish the job.

NYPD has increased tickets for speeding and texting while driving 50 percent so far in 2017 compared to the same period last year, Commissioner James O’Neill testified at a City Council budget hearing last week. Speeding and distracted driving are two of the most common factors in fatal and injurious crashes in NYC, so it stands to reason that this shift in enforcement is reducing the incidence of dangerous driving. But there's no way to actually tell if those summonses are changing driver behavior.

Will DOT make Broadway a safe street for people walking to Van Cortlandt Park and a viable bike route for the northwest Bronx?

Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg was in the Bronx yesterday to tout safety improvements on the Grand Concourse, historically one of the borough's most dangerous streets for walking and biking. But a lot more needs to change on the Grand Concourse, which still lacks safe, continuous bikeways and treatments to speed up trips for bus riders.

At a DOT forum to plan for better bicycling conditions in downtown Flushing, Council Member Peter Koo told the packed room he doesn't believe bike lanes belong in the area. Koo did not stick around for the rest of the meeting, but if he had, he would have heard a different story from his constituents, many of whom see biking as the only viable way to get to Flushing's dense downtown core.

Mayor de Blasio announced plans today to "crack down" on rampant parking placard abuse, one week after his administration granted tens of thousands of new placards to school employees.

Starting in January 2019, service on the L train west of Bedford Avenue will be suspended for 15 months to allow for Sandy-related repairs. The only way to keep hundreds of thousands of people moving is to dedicate significant street space to buses on both sides of the East River. But at a presentation to elected officials on Friday, the MTA and DOT did not indicate that bus lanes are part of their plan, except on the Williamsburg Bridge itself.

Midtown sidewalks are notoriously too skinny to handle the huge numbers of people on foot near Penn Station. The pedestrian crush around the nation's busiest transit hub routinely flows beyond the boundaries of the curb, and people are forced to walk in car lanes. It's uncomfortable, stressful, and dangerous. But people on foot will soon have some breathing room.

The intersection of Flatbush, Atlantic, and Fourth avenues is in some ways the center of Brooklyn, sitting atop the borough's largest transit hub. It's also overrun by cars, funneling traffic to the BQE and the free East River bridges.