David Gantt

On Thursday, Sheldon Silver re-appointed Rochester's David Gantt to chair the Assembly Transportation Committee (Excel spreadsheet via Daily Politics). Gantt is the chairman who engineered the defeat of bus lane enforcement cameras last June, when six co-sponsors of the bill wound up voting against it in his committee. With the city's bus rapid transit plans relying on bus-mounted cameras to help keep BRT lanes free of auto traffic, the committee vote dealt a big setback to New York City bus riders.

Biggest Setback: After being approved by an unprecedented civic coalition, the mayor and New York City Council, congestion pricing -- the one policy measure that simultaneously reduces traffic congestion while raising money for mass transit and livable streets -- died in an Albany backroom without even a vote.

Dig deep enough into Governor Paterson's austerity budget and you'll actually find a few pieces of good news. Case in point: One provision would allow New York to expand its red light camera program, currently limited to 100 cameras, and a second would authorize other cities to launch their own automated red light enforcement programs (see page 65 of this PDF, or follow the jump).

New research from Purdue University highlights the futility of controlling drivers' speed with signs. The Times' health blog has the story:

As the Ravitch Commission's first public hearing on how to fix the MTA's budget woes gets underway, this paragraph from today's Times story on the Rochester Regional Transit Service (annual budget: $62 million) bears mentioning:

With New York City's mostly uncontested primary elections less than a week away, attention turns to the 64th State Assembly district in Lower Manhattan, where New York Times-endorsed insurgent Paul Newell is running a long-shot campaign against Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Facing his first Democratic challenge since the coining of the word "cyberspace," the decidedly analog Speaker has joined us here in the Information Age with a fancy new campaign web site, ShellySilver.org. It features an eye-catching Google map illustrating "What Shelly's Doing Near You" with some of the $3 to $7 million in member items he distributes annually.

Streetsblog's Brad Aaron -- on vacation in exotic, uh, Midtown -- sends this pic of a newly-striped 34th Street bus lane, looking east from Eighth Avenue. Red lanes on each side of 34th are part of the first phase of improvements to what is intended to become the city's first "transitway." Another witness says the bus lane on the north side of the street hasn't been striped yet.

The Times published a great reminder today about last month's bus camera vote in the Assembly Transportation Committee, which weakened the city's plans for Bus Rapid Transit. The editorial page wonders why David Gantt, who for years has obstructed life-saving, transit-enhancing traffic enforcement measures, is still in charge of the committee:

After state lawmakers dealt a setback to the city's Bus Rapid Transit plans, Streetsblog looked into how Assembly transportation committee chairman David Gantt was able to bring down a bill that reportedly enjoyed majority support among his members and won approval in the New York City Council by a 40 to 7 vote.