Results tagged “masstransit”

While a Queens imam, a former Queen resident and his father have been been arrested because of fears over a terrorist plot in NYC, now it's suggested that many more people were involved. WCBS 2 reports that the FBI and NYPD "are still tracking a core group of nine to 12 people with knowledge of the alleged terror plot"—and who planned "to use homemade explosives to bomb one or more terror targets in New York City."

Authorities now say that seven people are confirmed dead in the collision of two Metro trains in Washington D.C. yesterday afternoon. At least 70 others were severely injured and crews are still removing debris and looking for possible victims. Two sets of six-car trains collided on the Red Line near the Fort Totten station; Metro's general manager explained yesterday, "At 5:02 p.m., one train was stopped waiting to get the order to pass, because the train stopped at a platform. The next train came up behind it, and for reasons we do not know, plodded into the back of that train - the operator of that train was the one who lost her life." The first car of the second train was going so fast that it was lodged on top of the first train.

       

Yesterday, NJ Governor Jon Corzine and other federal and NJ state officials broke ground on the $8.7 billion trans-Hudson Mass Transit Tunnel project. The work will double the capacity of NJ Transit. Corzine said, "We are making a contribution to the future that I think is untold. A hundred years from now, the nation and its Northeast corridor will be a better place because of the decisions and the actions we're taking today."

The Port Authority has suspended all PATH service, due to a fire at the PATH's Jersey City control center. And the Port Authority doesn't know when service will be restored. WCBS 2 reports, "All power is out to PATH trains while firefighters and emergency units tend to the scene." However, the most recent PATH Alert says, "3:06:04 PM Concerning the earlier signal problem, all PATH train service has resumed." We hope so!

Lee Sander, who resigned as MTA CEO last month, has an op-ed in the NY Times today and goes to town on the state lawmakers that dragged out the process for an MTA bailout, writing, "In the political process that led up to this rescue, damage was inflicted on the M.T.A.’s reputation." He elaborates:

Elected state and city officials leveled the old and discredited accusation that the agency keeps two sets of books, one real and one for public consumption, and suggested that agency officials were untrustworthy and corrupt, comparing them to Bernard Madoff, the self-confessed mastermind of an enormous Ponzi scheme. These false charges landed enough sensational headlines to help camouflage the politicians’ own inability to reach a timely agreement on how to finance public transportation.

Continue reading "Former MTA CEO Sander Defends Agency In Op-Ed"

The NY Times found some mass transit commuters who are against tolling bridges, even if it means they would pay higher fares. A woman waiting for a bus near Brooklyn College said, "I think it’s unfair to tax drivers to pay for those using public transportation. Why should the bridge commuters pay for the subway commuters in Brooklyn?" There are warring plans in Albany right now and the Times reports most mass transit commuters support bridge tolls, adding, "Few of those interviewed could identify their state senator or what his stance was on the tolls. Many directed their anger over rising fares at the authority or Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has no direct control over fares." The MTA is set to vote on its budget, Albany bailout or not, this week; will it come to having an MTA telethon to save the agency?

      

Last night, hundreds people crowded a ballroom at the Hilton for the MTA's first public hearing on the proposed fare hikes and service cuts. Leona Adams, an 86-year-old, spoke out against raising Access-a-Ride fares 250% (or higher): "The medical field has extended our lives to whatever age we are...yet if we are not able to continue our active lives that Access-A-Ride allows, then we will become burdens to our family, the city, the state and the nation."

Senator Charles Schumer and Representative Jerrold Nadler have been working with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team and say that NY State "is expected to get $4 billion" from an economic stimulus package. What's more, "most of it slated for mass-transit capital projects in the metro area."

While the MTA doesn't want to comment yet on how they might close the $1.2 billion budget gap, the speculation continues. The Daily News thinks the "base fare will likely rise into the $2.50-to-$3 range," adding, "Officials haven't set new target prices for the unlimited-ride MetroCards." Yesterday, the News details how service would be cut, like eliminating the Z, cutting G and M service in half, and running trains less frequently over night.

Even though Mayor Bloomberg doesn't belong to a political party, he has confirmed he will help NY State Republicans face re-election this year. Why? It boils down to his pet failed project, congestion pricing.

New data supports what everyone's been thinking: Ridership for the subway--and almost every other mass transit option--is up versus last year. So far, subway ridership is up almost 5% for the first three months of 2008 versus same period last year, and bus ridership is up 1.1%.

On the heels of Governor Paterson’s endorsement of Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan comes a new Quinnipiac poll showing that New York State voters oppose it 50 – 33 percent. Most of the opposition has to do with a pervasive doubt that the revenue from the plan would actually go to improve mass transit, as promised.

The MTA's various fare hikes for the NYC subways and buses, as well as its railroads, went into effect this weekend. Today, subway and bus base fares still cost $2, but higher-value pay-per-ride Metrocards have less of a bonus discount while weekly and monthly unlimited ride Metrocards are more expensive.

A New York State Assemblyman ticked off about congestion pricing for suburban drivers is retaliating by proposing a $4-per-ride surcharge for taxi riders, rather than the congestion fee of $8 for motorists entering Manhattan below 60th St. That taxis are another form of mass transit that allow New Yorkers to get around without owning a car escapes Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, whose district includes parts of Westchester County.

The following post is from our advertiser, Campaign for New York's Future.

Mayor Bloomberg has announced a plan that will require better fuel efficiency for city's TLC-run black cars; the change is part of the broader PlaNYC initiative and follows in the tread marks of the new hybrid yellow cabs.

The MTA unveiled its 2008-2013 Capital Plan, which explained almost $30 billion will be needed to improve mass transit and complete projects like the Second Avenue Subway, the East Side Access plan and more by 2030 (many of those projects will also be delayed). Though the current MTA capital plan doesn't expire until next year, the MTA presented this plan because the state congestion pricing legislation required them to present a plan by the end of the first quarter of 2008.

For two weeks in the winter of 2005, Central Park was filled with 7,500 saffron-paneled gates. The project was a gift from the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who had been trying for four decades to launch the project. Their struggle - and success - comes to the the small screen with tonight's premiere of The Gates on HBO.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an injured police officer at Floyd Bennet Field in Brooklyn, a gas leak on South 8th St. and Wythe Ave. in Brooklyn, and a bank robbery at the North Fork branch on 87th St. and Broadway in Manhattan.
  
• The FDNY will be stationing a battalion chief at the Deutsche Bank building until it is fully dismantled.
  
• Someone in the Clinton campaign said that there's a 5% chance that in the event of a deadlock between Obama and Clinton at the Democrats' national convention, Al Gore may arise as a compromise candidate.
  
• Plans for a Veselka on the Bowery may be on the rocks, as a liquor license for the Avalon building location looks unlikely.
  
• The 69-year-old man, who was killed after being sideswiped by a cab and then run over by a bus on West 57th St. yesterday, was on his way to deliver candy to Oprah's best pal Gayle King.
  
• A 500 lb. man is suing the FDNY for $5 million after ten firefighters, who were trying to take him to the hospital using a pulley-and-platform rig to get the man out the building, dropped him down a flight of stairs.
  
• Patty Hearst's French bulldog won Best of Opposite Sex in the breed's category (a male won Best of Breed) at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
  
• City Council Speaker Christine Quinn proposed a citywide network of water-borne mass transit, where boats could ferry New Yorkers from stop to stop all over the city's five boroughs.
  

Continuing their misguided and terribly executed orange bike campaign, DKNY has infiltrated YouTube with a 1 minute 53 second clip of a model speaking out in support of the company's great..."humanitarian cause"? The video starts off showing two models mowing each other down with fake miniature cars as an orange bike lies on the ground...probably not the best way to negate the whole ghost bike thing.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced New York City will receive $153 million - up from last year's $61 million - in transit security grants. Wow - all we can do is remember Chertoff's 2005 remark, when trying discussing how security funding would be allocated, "The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people. A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you're going to think about making sure you don't have a catastrophic thing first."

Weighing in on the modified congestion pricing plan the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission recommended, Mayor Bloomberg said:

"The Commission has done a thorough and thoughtful job. They've taken testimony from hundreds of residents, community leaders and civic organizations. They've held dozens of public meetings and have analyzed mountains of data. Although the final recommendation varies from our original proposal, I accept it.

Continue reading "Bloomberg Accepts Commission's Modified Congestion Pricing Plan "

Yesterday was No Pants Day 2008, the 7th Annual Improv Everywhere event that includes hundreds of people riding the subway with no pants on. According to IE's initial report, yesterday's event drew 900 participants, requiring that the group split up onto three different lines--the 6, the R, and the 2 trains, which they rode from downtown Manhattan to Union Square.

The other day we visited the past's future by looking at the aero-tropolis, now let's see what how the future of mass transit was envisioned back in the day. The future, straphangers, is all about endless belt trains! Modern Mechanix takes a look at the November 1932 debut of the vision:

Transporation of city inhabitants through subway or overhead tubes on endlessly moving belts, providing more speed and comfort than our present systems of passenger service, loom as a possibility, according to Norman W. Storer, engineer of the Westinghouse Electrical Co., who has developed the idea.

Continue reading "Train of the Future, As Seen in 1932"

A new Quinnipiac poll reveals that people may support congestion pricing - if they get something in return. And that something is better mass transit.

Mayor Bloomberg's announcement that he would reduce the number of parking permits for civil servants by 20% has annoyed yet another group. Joining police officers, fire fighters, and other emergency workers are teachers.

At 93, Ted Kheel could be resting on his laurels as a well-known labor lawyer and negotiator (the NY Times called him the "the most influential peacemaker in New York City in the last half-century"). Instead, he has been crusading, as his Nurture Nature Foundation explains, to address the "fundamental conflict between development and the environment." He has suggested that the subways should become free and will be releasing results from a study to prove why it can happen. (Photo by Roger Moenks)

Mike Bloomberg may end his tenure as the Mayor of Pothole Repair. Under Bloomberg's watch, the city has filled 1.25 potholes since 2002. While anybody that hits potholes with their bike or their car surely thinks the city missed a few, Mayor Bloomberg assures us that they are doing what it can to fix them. In his first public appearance since returning from Asia, Bloomberg said, "Now, potholes are as much a part of city life as hot dog carts and yellow cabs, although that hasn't stopped us from doing everything we can to fix them once they appear."