Special Reports

Transportation reauthorizations have typically not been a time for major discussions about national policy goals. They’ve been a time for getting while the getting’s good, a time for deal-making and pork and a lot of back-room transactions to make sure every member of Congress could go home and talk about how much federal money they were bringing home.

Many residents and elected leaders from the neighborhoods near the Barclays Center in Prospect Heights are letting out a sigh of relief after steeling for gridlock this weekend. Sellout crowds for the arena's first events -- three Jay-Z concerts -- did not completely overwhelm nearby neighborhoods with traffic, but the strain on local streets was still clear.

It's October 1, the start of the federal government's fiscal year 2013, and the MAP-21 transportation law officially takes effect today. The law was signed July 6 but got a three-month grace period to let U.S. DOT set guidance and give states a little time to get ready for the new requirements -- things like setting up grant programs to distribute bike/ped funding to local communities (though they can also just squander that money).

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.