After New York State DOT Commissioner Astrid Glynn announced her resignation in April, MTR outlined three broad priorities for the next commissioner: sustaining smart growth, bringing reform to the regional offices, and pushing the Tappan Zee Bridge project closer to completion. But reform shouldn’t stop just because NYSDOT doesn’t have a Senate-confirmed leader — and the agency may not get one for a long time, given the state’s political situation.

Since last month, NYSDOT’s acting commissioner has been Stan Gee, executive deputy commissioner under Glynn. Despite their title, acting commissioners can often put their own stamp on a department. Emil Frankel was ConnDOT’s interim head for only a few months in 2008, but helped prepare the department for reforms planned by Gov. Rell and current commissioner Joe Marie. Thomas Madison was NYSDOT acting commissioner for months before getting Senate confirmation and ultimately leading the department for years under Gov. Pataki.

Regardless of the role Gee finds himself playing, here are six areas where he can make an impact in the next few months.

Connecting Land Use and Transportation

To sustain the smart growth reforms initated by Glynn, Gee should breathe life into the GreenLITES sustainability benchmark program and the Smart Planning website. A good next step would be a corridor planning program that connects state transportation plans with local land use visions.

Route 347 would be an ideal first candidate for this program. Region 10 (NYSDOT’s Long Island regional office) issued a “Vision Plan for a Green Route 347” last year that includes a suburban greenway and a more multimodal approach, a huge improvement over previous plans to widen the roadway. But the plan still includes a additional general purpose lanes for cars. For later parts of this project, NYSDOT should commence a land use study with the town of Brookhaven that seeks to create more connections between existing roads and targets future development to key locations along the corridor.

Sheridan Expressway

This project, conceived as a way to improve freight access to the Hunts Point Market in the South Bronx, merits immediate attention. NYSDOT is weighing two alternatives, one of which is the community plan (1E) to tear down the lightly-traveled Sheridan Expressway. The other (2E) would keep the Sheridan. Both would significantly improve access to the market, but only the community plan would enhance access to the Bronx River and open up 28 acres for affordable housing, open space, and economic development. Gee could strike a huge blow for livability by endorsing 1E.

Tappan Zee Bridge

Under Glynn, the Tappan Zee Bridge study team selected a transit alternative for the I-287 corridor and committed to a new bridge.  But engineering is only one part of the megaproject. Land use and financing are the others, and only now are they making real progress. A preliminary financing study wrapped up earlier this year, and the study team recently announced the creation of a public financial advisory group. A transit-oriented development training program for communities in the corridor will also begin soon. Gee should keep the financing study on track and ensure that the land use training focuses on bus rapid transit, since cross-corridor BRT will begin service when the new bridge opens while Rockland-Manhattan commuter rail is being built on a more ambiguous timeline.

Staten Island Expressway Bus Lane

Earlier in the decade, NYSDOT added additional capacity to the Staten Island Expressway in the form of bus-only lanes, an expansion which did not need to go through environmental review. But in 2008, the NJ-bound lane was opened to cars with two or more occupants. In March, the Brooklyn-bound lane followed suit. Both are supposed to be pilot programs, but the NJ-bound lane has now been open for over a year. Gee should review what is effectively a backdoor skirting of environmental law.

Long Island Pedestrian Safety

Last year, Tri-State highlighted the dangers pedestrians face on Long Island, and NYSDOT created a SafeSeniors program to identify short-term fixes on Hempstead Turnpike and Route 25. This is a good step, but the program may be overly focused on education rather than infrastructure fixes, and there is no indication that it will expand to other roads. Gee must continue to shift Region 10 away from a cars-first culture. Though the regional office released a more pedestrian-friendly design for Route 347, more recently it killed the popular Local Safe Streets and Traffic Calming Grant program.

High-Speed Rail

Earlier this month, Tri-State applauded the Paterson administration for demonstrating a commitment to winning federal high-speed rail funds, after state stimulus czar Timothy Gilchrist attended a federal roundtable with Vice President Biden and Transportation Secretary LaHood. New York’s application for funds for Albany-Buffalo rail must be as convincing as possible.