Infrastructure

The Regional Plan Association estimates that a failure of the tunnel would cost billions to the New York region and send home values plummeting.

The money would fund improvements to disabled transit riders while also making roadways safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

Most American roads -- even the most highly trafficked -- are financial losers. That's a major finding from a new study by the Center for American Progress [PDF].

On Friday, Times columnist David Brooks joined the chorus calling for more transportation investment, which came as something of a surprise given his conservative pedigree. But Brooks has always had a soft spot for the exurbs, and his proposed "National Mobility Project" was predictably premised on the idea that transportation projects should accommodate sprawl:

U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said yesterday that due to declining gas tax revenues, the Highway Trust Fund would need to borrow money from its mass transit account to pay for road projects. Today's big news story was buried at the bottom of page A17 in the New York Times:

Queens Congressman and 2009 mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner released a manifesto of sorts yesterday. "Keys to the City" lays out his plan, in broad strokes, to "keep New York the capital of the middle class." Toward the end, Weiner touches on transportation policy. While he remains opposed to congestion pricing, he comes out in favor of making "alternative modes" more viable:

This morning I took a tour of the MTA's newly completed East Side Access tunnel 140 feet below Midtown Manhattan. My laptop is about to run out of batteries and, of course, I left my power cord at home. (It's a good thing I'm only in charge of running a blog and not, say, a 22-foot diameter, 850-ton tunnel boring machine.) So I'm just going to publish these photos with minimal text. I'll fill in the details later. Warning: If you're not a serious infrastructure geek, you might just want to skip this post altogether.

Cycling intimately acquaints you with every bump, slice, crease, divot, ledge, ripple and of course pothole in a street, because not noticing means you might get thrown off your steed into bone-breaking and life ending car traffic.

The entrance to the East Side Access work site in Sunnyside, Queens