Transit

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer made the state of New York City's transit system one of his top policy issues in the run-up to next year's local elections, saying in a speech this morning that finding new revenues for transit would be his top priority in Albany if elected mayor.

Lloyd Dobbler, John Cusack’s generation-defining character in Say Anything, notably said, “I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career.”

Fordham-area residents know Select Bus Service better than anyone. The city's first rapid bus line opened along Fordham Road in 2008, and by all accounts it's been a success. Bus speeds are up 20 percent, and that's lured 30 percent more riders. In fact, Bronx residents like Select Bus Service so much, they're asking for more of it.

It was never about cost overruns. It was never about New Jersey's share of the price tag. Chris Christie's decision to kill the ARC tunnel under the Hudson River was always about two, and only two, things: the governor's unwillingness to raise the state's rock-bottom gas tax and his desire to make a name for himself among national Republicans.

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.

For many who have heard of Medellín, Colombia, the name brings to mind the drug-related violence of the 1980s and 1990s, when it was often described as the most dangerous city in the world.

As a New Yorker in DC for the National Bike Summit this week (stay tuned for the upcoming Streetfilm), my eyes popped at the sight of the ample-yet-filled-to-capacity bike racks at many Metro stations. Bike-to-Metro trips increased at a rapid clip in the aughts, and in 2010 WMATA, the agency that runs Metro, laid out a plan to triple the number of riders who arrive by bicycle by 2020 and quintuple the volume by 2030. Most stations outside the downtown core already have dozens of racks and secure bike lockers.

This is the second in a series of reports about sustainable transportation policies in Mexico City. Last week, Streetsblog participated in a tour of the city led by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. A previous installment covered pedestrian improvements in the city and a third will discuss its bicycle planning.

The calls for rapid transit on the Tappan Zee Bridge are coming from more places across the Hudson Valley. This week Orange County Executive Edward Diana joined his colleagues in Westchester and Rockland Counties to demand that bus rapid transit be built on the new Tappan Zee span. Local governments on both sides of the river, too, continue to sign on in support of new cross-county transit, which the Cuomo administration removed from the project, disregarding a decade of public planning.