Transit

Remember those wizards of counter-intuition, the Freakonomics guys? You know, the ones who told their audience that it's safer to drive drunk than to walk drunk? Well, in his latest piece for NPR's Marketplace, which ran with the headline "Save the Earth, Drive Your Car," Stephen Dubner talks to Clemson University's Eric Morris and arrives at the ridiculous conclusion that driving is greener than transit.

While some coastal areas in Staten Island cope with the devastation of Sandy, the city is moving ahead with a public meeting tonight about a parking-saturated mega-development for the north end of the island. According to one developer, the project will include "every possible bit of parking" that can be built there. At the same time, the developers will contribute nothing to improve surface transit to the site, even though it is located in the most transit-accessible part of Staten Island and the MTA is planning a new busway that will directly serve the area.

In addition to some of the high-profile measures that we covered already, Election Day brought many successes on some smaller ballot initiatives. According to the Center For Transportation Excellence, pro-transit campaigns had an 80 percent success rate this year at the ballot box, with more ballot measures coming up for a vote than any previous year.

Last night delivered some good results -- and some disappointment -- for transit-related ballot initiatives around the country.

It's Election Day -- finally! The top of the ticket has sucked most of the oxygen out of the room, but don't forget that there are 19 transportation-related measures on ballots across the country. So far this year, pro-transit measures have an 86 percent success rate at the ballot, and there are more transportation amendments being voted on this year than any other in recent memory. Here's Streetsblog's overview of the big ones.

While New York City's first day after Hurricane Sandy was marred by paralyzing car traffic, buses immobilized in gridlock, and the delayed release of a transportation plan from Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg, this morning's commute was a different story as the plan went into effect, with partial subway service restored, HOV-3 restrictions in place and a temporary "bus bridge" between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

As the East Coast surveys the damage from Hurricane Sandy, cities are still struggling to get their transit systems back up and running.

As the flood waters recede from New York City, it looks like the effects of Hurricane Sandy are going to linger in the city's subway tunnels. MTA Chair Joe Lhota has called the storm the most devastating disaster to strike the subway system in its 108-year history.

President Obama released a blueprint for his second term yesterday, a 20-page booklet focused on job creation [PDF]. Let's be clear: This came from his campaign machine, not the White House.