Transportation Policy

The Partnership for New York City releases its long-awaited congestion charging study today. Stay tuned.

It is hard to tell exactly where the sidewalk meets the street above, where cars dominate the streetscape and wreck the pedestrian experience. Maybe that's what's to be expected in Los Angeles, where the photo was taken.

File this under the Duh category:

Private cars blocking service vehicles on W. 86th St. between Columbus and Amsterdam

The Dept. of Transportation's 2005 study showed there is no need to eliminate car-free hours during the holidays. So why did they do it this year?

Today's Times marked the onset of Gridlock Alert season with a paean to Fresh Direct -- the dot-com that brings New Yorkers expensive, home-delivered groceries along with idling engines, double-parking and gridlock galore.

See the world's first music video about shared-lane bike markings by Streetfilms Clarence Eckerson.

mitigate, verb[Latin stem of mitigare, from mitis, mild, gentle]1. Make milder in manner or attitude, make less hostile, mollify.2. Give relief from pain. Lessen the suffering caused by an evil or difficulty.3. Make less oppressive. Make more humane, more bearable.

One of those subtle aspects of life that serves to normalize auto transport as the only thing going is the way most maps are designed to barely include railroad tracks and stations, presumably so as to avoid interfering with roads and Interstates and their giant identification shields. But when we plug some fun data into Google mashup mapping, it is clear that the rail system serving the metropolitan area is extensive, probably more extensive than most people realize. This screenshot shows the location of stations served by New York City's four passenger railroads: Metro-North in blue, NJ Transit in green, the LIRR in red and Amtrak in purple.