Transit

De Blasio dismisses the importance of getting out of his SUV. But if he's getting chauffeured everywhere he goes, there's no way the mayor can viscerally understand what the three-quarters of New Yorkers who don't commute by car experience on a daily basis. If he doesn't regularly experience what it's like to get around without driving, he won't feel on a gut level why improving transit, biking, and walking is so important.

The city seems to have learned from mistakes like its mixed-traffic streetcar and is looking to give future transit lines dedicated rights of way. Still, there are many more decisions ahead that will determine whether the city spends $2.5 billion in new transit revenue well or not.

A sad story has been unfolding over the past few weeks in the Twin Cities, where a transit fare enforcement stop led to a man being deported. The officer who initiated the stop, Andy Lamers, has since been fired, but it was too late for the passenger, Ariel Vences-Lopez, 23.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez is in charge of executing an ambitious transit expansion plan -- but lately, in a spectacular example of missing the point, he's been talking up autonomous cars as the ultimate transportation solution.

The Long Island Railroad is building some of the biggest infrastructure projects in the region -- even the world. The hugely expensive East Side Access tunnel and terminal at Grand Central and the construction of a third track for the LIRR Main Line will open up new possibilities for convenient, all-day transit that people can use for all types of trips. But not if Long Island continues to operate its rail and bus networks as a two-tiered transit system.

Nashville is known as the home of the country music industry -- and a fast-growing region of car-centric sprawl. But local leaders realize they can't accommodate more growth with an outdated, cars-first approach, so Mayor Megan Barry released an action plan yesterday that lays out an ambitious agenda to improve conditions for walking, bicycling, and transit.

Uber is rolling out a new feature that will encourage people who use its shared-ride service in New York to walk to the nearest intersection, instead of getting picked up at their door. The company hopes that by avoiding looping through congested Manhattan to pick up and drop off multiple people, it will make trips faster and easier -- but Uber is trying to solve a problem that buses solved generations ago.

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.

The Trump administration's fiscal year 2018 budget, released yesterday, includes severe cuts to federal transit funding. Amid this looming austerity, Trump wants to insert his infrastructure plan, which calls for $800 billion in private financing suited for building toll roads (if they're profitable) but not transit infrastructure. Next stop: Congress, which will consider the president's proposal before it passes a budget over the summer.