Subways

Reader Sarah Ferguson reports that Assembly Member Deborah Glick (right), who represents Lower Manhattan, has come up with a novel twist on Richard Brodsky's call for further environmental review of congestion pricing. Read on for the full story, and keep making those phone calls. We want to know what else legislators are telling their constituents today.

Ben Fried reports live from the City Council congestion pricing hearing, underway at City Hall:

 With the March 31 deadline to qualify for $354M in federal transit funds approaching, the Campaign for New York's Future and the Empire State Transportation Alliance have rolled out an ad campaign to get the public behind congestion pricing.

Yesterday around 10 a.m. I got on the number 3 subway line at Bergen Street in Brooklyn, where I easily found a seat. As usual, I noticed that there was space on the baby-blue benches all the way up to 96th Street, where I switched trains to go to Columbia University at 116th Street. Only the last few stops on the 1 train were crowded.

Television news legend Gabe Pressman hosted a debate on congestion pricing between Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky and Partnership for New York City President Kathy Wylde on Friday. The transcript is online at WNBC and it's worth a read if you want to see Wylde catch Brodsky in a couple of small but significant mistruths and get a sense of the arguments that free motoring advocates are using to try to kill the Traffic Commission's anti-gridlock plan.

The Times has been running a series this month, called Next Stop, about the experience of commuting in the New York metro region. Reporter Billie Cohen took a different route to or from Manhattan every weekday, riding all manner of buses, trains, and subways. No bike commutes so far (and with just a few days left in the series it's probably safe to assume there won't be any).

April Greene reports on Monday's congestion pricing panel discussion at the New School:

The SUBWAYblogger found a potentially useful new tool for users of Facebook, a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. The Subway Status application, which was not developed by the MTA, is a user generated subway alert system. Now you can forget about those wet mornings when you don't know if your train will get you to work. Theoretically all of the other users on Facebook who ride your Subway line will have already tipped you off to any service disruptions before you leave your house. Pretty cool, although it is only useful if a large number of people use it, so sign up!

Graffiti at the Metropolitan Ave. subway station on the G line.