Transit

The MTA is working on a plan for a short busway in Ridgewood that would run for six-tenths of a mile beneath the elevated M tracks, between Fresh Pond Road and Palmetto Street. While the project wouldn't transform a car-choked traffic sewer into a pedestrian-friendly transit boulevard (the right-of-way is currently a series of weed-strewn parking lots), it could be NYC's first new separated busway since the Fulton Mall opened in the 1970s.

Nearly a year after the Bronx became the second borough to get real-time bus tracking on all its buses, the MTA's Bus Time program is set to expand to Manhattan this month, according to signs spotted in Manhattan subway stations by Twitter user David Rose and Second Avenue Sagas.

Brooklyn's B44 bus carried more than 12.5 million passengers last year between the base of the Williamsburg Bridge and Sheepshead Bay, making it the city's fifth-busiest bus route. But the B44, which runs primarily along Nostrand Avenue, is notoriously unreliable and spends less than half of each run in motion. Half the time, it's stuck in traffic or at bus stops and red lights.

In a new report making the rounds this week, “More Development For Your Transit Dollar: An Analysis of 21 North American Transit Corridors,” the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy does two things.

The state of Wisconsin imprisons a higher proportion of black men than any other state. Almost 13 percent of the state's African American men are behind bars -- nearly twice the national average. In Milwaukee County, according to a recent report from the University of Wisconsin-Madison [PDF], more than half of black men in their thirties have served time in state prison.

While the rest of the Capitol prepared for President Obama's visit to lobby members of Congress on Syria military strikes, three lawmakers gathered under the hot sun with transit advocates to push for a more bread-and-butter issue: tax benefits for transit riders.

After several blocks in the heart of Times Square were pedestrianized and protected bike lanes were added to five avenues in the middle of Manhattan, motor vehicle traffic is actually moving more smoothly than before, according to the latest release of NYC DOT's annual Sustainable Streets Index [PDF].

Developers and employers think transit access is great. But if the hurdles are too high, they’ll forgo it -- choosing locations that shackle people to car dependence. That’s the finding of a recent report by University of Minnesota researchers Yingling Fan and Andrew Guthrie.

A patent troll who persistently sued transit agencies for using technology that gives passengers real-time arrival information won't harass any more transit providers under the terms of a settlement reached in federal court yesterday.