Results tagged “transportationdepartment”

Come next year, when you're flying in and out of JFK, your flight may be slightly less delayed than it's been in the past. U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced a plan today to reduce the number of hourly flights at JFK International Airport to 82 or 83 flights, depending on the time of day. That would be down from 95 this past summer and what would have been 104 an hour next summer. Secretary Peters' agreement with the major airlines flying out of JFK will start on March 15th, 2008 and be in place for 2008 and 2009. By shifting flights from peak times of day to off-peak times, the number of daily flights at the airport would actually increase by 50. Currently, there are nearly 100 flights an hour, causing delays that affect the rest of the nation's air traffic.

Just the kind of thing needed for everyone to continue questioning in the current air traffic control situation at area airports. Two planes almost collided on Sunday at JFK Airport. Senator Charles Schumer said that an air traffic controller said, "That was the closest I have ever seen two airplanes get together." According to the NY Times (also, see image at right), a "37-seat commuter jet" almost collided with a "Boeing 747 cargo jet on...

When it is done, Ms. Weinshall said, the Willis Avenue Bridge will be the most expensive bridge ever built by her department.

Continue reading "Wanna Buy A Bridge? You Can't Afford It"

One much discussed issue in the comments following bicyclist Eric Ng's death last week is how to prevent motor vehicles from getting on the Hudson River Park bike path. The New York State Transportation Department is responsible for the path and the Times is reporting this morning that state transportation officials are considering installing bollards to keep cars away. The concrete and steel bollards are likely to replace the plastic pylons at major intersections and other locations where cars might enter the pathway.

There is a super story in the NY Times about the recently discovered 1950s-1960s era bomb shelter discovered on the Manhattan side mooring of the Brooklyn Bridge. Work crews from the Department of Transportation stumbled upon the "dank and lightless room where the walls are lined with dusty boxes" while doing some routine inspection of the bridge, which just makes you wonder how routine inspection is if they missed it for five decades. But, anyway, it sounds really amazing, possibly more so because the city won't divulge where it's located (did city officials blindfold reporters and spin 'em around before they entered?):

For decades it waited in secret inside the masonry foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge, in a damp, dirty and darkened vault near the East River shoreline of Lower Manhattan: a stockpile of provisions that would allow for basic survival if New York City were devastated by a nuclear attack....

Continue reading "Brooklyn Bridge Bomb Shelter Time Capsule"