Special Reports

Council Member Letitia James and Assembly Member Joseph Lentol joined local residents on Park Avenue in Brooklyn yesterday to push DOT and other city agencies to implement recommendations from the Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Partnership's pedestrian safety plan. The plan calls for a set of pedestrian safety improvements and traffic enforcement measures to make Park Avenue less of a BQE service road and more of a neighborhood street.

How long now before the Yankee Stadium parking fiasco becomes an unpleasant memory?

One of the most popular elements of the new transportation authorization is its consolidation or elimination of 60 federal programs. But this cleanup is not without its casualties. One of those casualties is the off-system bridge program. And another one, indirectly, is funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects.

Bike and pedestrian funding got slashed. Federal assistance for transit operations was rejected. Even the performance measures – arguably the high point of the recently passed federal transportation bill – are too weak to be very meaningful. For Americans who want federal policy to support safe streets, sustainable transportation, and livable neighborhoods, there were few bright spots in the transportation bill Congress passed last month.

For a while it didn't seem certain, but after a critical vote earlier this month, it looks like California's on track to build high-speed rail. And, I'll be the first to admit, California -- with two large, global metros just a few hundred miles apart -- is a great place for it.

The Department of Transportation has rejected neighborhood demands to implement residential parking permits around the Barclays Center and Yankee Stadium, according to a DOT report released last Friday. DOT cited the availability of on-street parking spaces during Yankee games, the large number of non-residents parking on the street for purposes other than visiting the stadium, and the heavy costs of administering and enforcing an RPP program.

The last thing the president will do during this hot, lazy recess week is to sign the transportation bill. He'll be surrounded by construction workers, as this bill was always as much about jobs as it was about setting policy, and by college students, since the bill was combined with a provision keeping student loan rates low. You can watch it live on C-SPAN.

David Burwell is the director of the Energy and Climate Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was also co-founder and CEO of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, and a founding co-chair and president of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, a national transportation policy reform coalition. 

The House of Representatives approved the transportation bill conference report this afternoon by a vote of 373 to 52. This is a bill that’s been called “a death blow to mass transit” by the Amalgamated Transit Union, “a step backwards for America's transportation system” by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, “a retreat from the goals of sustainability and economic resiliency” by Reconnecting America, “a substantial capitulation” by Transportation for America, and “bad news for biking and walking” by America Bikes.