MTA

Transportation infrastructure is big business. With tens of billions of dollars at stake, nobody tracks the financial health of the state's transit and road systems more closely than the construction industry. And right now, the future of transportation funding in New York is hazy indeed.

Governor Andrew Cuomo's 2012 budget, released this afternoon, offers what now passes for good news for transit: maintenance of the status quo.

A new crop of bus routes is moving into the pipeline for implementation as Select Bus Service. The MTA and NYC DOT are in the initial stages of bringing SBS to the Bronx's Webster Avenue, where the most unreliable bus in the borough runs, and to Brooklyn's Utica Avenue, the second-busiest bus route in the city.

As the details of Governor Andrew Cuomo's MTA tax deal take shape -- they've been in flux all day -- it appears that transit service could be imperiled, if not immediately then in the long-term.

Toward the end of a press conference at the corner of Fourth Avenue and 9th Street this morning, Council Member Brad Lander remarked that not a single B61 bus came by during the 15-minute event. This was only fitting, since Lander was unveiling a new report from his office that found most rush hour B61 buses don't arrive within the guidelines established by the MTA.

Why do we fail? Chris Ward, the former head of the Port Authority, offered this provocative question at the start of Transportation 2030, the sequel to Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s 2006 transportation conference.

Times have changed since Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer hosted a conference on transportation reform in 2006. Five years ago, New York City appeared to be on the verge of shaking off the traffic-first approach to street engineering that had dominated city transportation policy for decades. Whispers were in the air about a push to tame city traffic and fund the transit system by putting a price on congestion-plagued streets. Since then, plenty of innovation has come to NYC streets, while traffic congestion and transit funding remain core challenges.

Yesterday, we reported on the impressive gains in speed and ridership along the First and Second Avenue Select Bus Service route. Since then, NYC DOT and the MTA released their official progress report on the project. It's full of graphics that show the boost for bus riders even more clearly.

Last week’s news that NYC Transit is planning to boost L train service isn’t just good for residents of Williamsburg. It points to a new era of faster and more reliable service throughout the subway system as the new signal technology known as Communications Based Train Control (CBTC) begins to take hold.