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Governor Cuomo and NYMTC still have the opportunity to make transit part of the Tappan Zee project. Photo: Patja On Friday, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (NYMTC) announced a request for $18.6 million in federal transportation funds to begin preliminary engineering work on the Tappan Zee Bridge project. The amendment to the [...] The New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, the NYC-area metropolitan planning organization, is looking for feedback on its 2010-2035 regional transportation plan. It is titled “A Shared Vision for a Shared Future” and includes demographic forecasts and funding strategies for the next 25 years. Overall, however, the plan reads less like a long-term planning document [...] While states like New Jersey have already allocated their transportation stimulus funds, New York is piecemealing out its funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in small increments that make it harder to understand how the state is spending the stimulus overall. This month, Gov. Paterson announced the release of $77 million for [...] Captain Asphalt at a recent meeting. Yesterday at the NYMTC Annual Meeting, Timothy Gilchrist was once again dubbed “Captain Asphalt.” It’s the second time MTR has heard the title be used to describe New York State’s Senior Advisor for Infrastructure charged with distributing $2.3 billion in transportation stimulus funds; the first was in [...] The metropolitan planning organizations of New York State have released their lists of transportation projects that are eligible for stimulus funds designated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The act, signed into law by President Obama in February, dedicates roughly $2.3 billion for New York to invest in public transit, roads, bridges, and bike and pedestrian improvements. Of this, $336 million is “suballocated” to metropolitan planning organizations and transportation management associations. The below offers a snapshot into individual regions’ needs and priorities. Many listed projects in the Northern and Western parts of NY favor bridge and road maintenance. Not surprisingly, the NYC list is transit-heavy. Most lists have some sort of transit or pedestrian improvement request, showing that those needs stretch throughout the state.  NYMTC's stimulus lists are available as Google Maps. Above: stimulus funding could go towards Brooklyn subway stations. Almost all of the lists are accessible via websites, but members of the general public may find it hard to navigate the jargon. Non-professionals may not guess that a file titled “Transportation Improvement Program 2007-2012″ is where to find a stimulus project list, though that is the only place where some MPOs put it. Other MPOs at least mention ARRA by name, but only a few use plain-English language like “Draft 2009 stimulus projects.” New York Metropolitan Transportation Council has lists located on its main page, and even has them in Google Map format (scroll down to “Candidate Projects for ARRA”). NYMTC’s project lists cover NYC, Long Island, and Putnam, Rockland, and Westchester Counties. Nearly all of the funds for NYC are directed towards NYC Transit for subway upgrades, including station rehabilitation in Brooklyn and the Second Avenue Subway. Projects in NYMTC’s Lower Hudson Valley Region include modernization of Bee-Line facilities, bus purchases, and bridge and traffic signal replacements. The LI list includes traffic calming in Hempstead, buses for Suffolk County Bus, and a LIRR Atlantic Avenue Viaduct improvement. After the jump, synopses of MPO stimulus lists from around the state. Suffolk County’s vision for the future: Making sure roads like this become congested [Image from NYMTC 2008 Annual Report]. At the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council’s annual meeting last week, principal members laid out their visions for growth over the next few decades. Principals, or their representatives, from Nassau, Westchester, Rockland, and New [...]
First introduced was the Mayor’s original plan with revised projections due to a recent update of the NYMTC (New York Metropolitan Transportation Council) model. The revised model raises the reduction of Vehicle Miles Traveled under the Mayor’s plan from 6.3% to 6.7% and increases annual net revenue to $420M from initial projections of $380M. (The graphic is an excerpt from a comparison of pricing scenarios distributed at Monday’s meeting; the excerpt compares the Mayor’s original plan with the four cordon pricing scenarios which raise the most annual net revenue for transit. For the entire table, click here.) Two particularly intriguing scenarios included variable tolling. The first would charge a one-time fee for cars entering the pricing zone only (60th Street is defined as the northern boundary in this scenario). Cars leaving the zone would not be charged. The fee would be in effect for 12 hours (6 am to 6 pm) but the amount of the fee would vary depending on the time of day: $10 between 6-10 am; $8 from 10 am – 2 pm; and $6 from 2 pm – 6pm. According to the NYMTC model, this scenario would reduce VMT by 6.8% (0.1% above the city’s plan) and generate $464M in net revenue (an increase of $44M from the original plan). The costs of both implementing and operating this option are significantly less, $73M and $62M respectively, than the original proposal which put costs at $224M and $229M. The New York Metropolitan Transportation Council quietly held a special meeting on Oct. 29 and passed the 2008-2012 Transportation Improvement Plan, one month after its planned ratification. The TIP identifies $35 billion worth of priority projects in New York City, Long Island, and Rockland, Westchester, and Putnam counties as eligible for federal funding. [...] |
 
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Copyright © 2012 Tri-State Transportation Campaign |
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At Monday’s Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission meeting, an agency research team led by NYCDOT presented ten scenarios (out of several hundred possible scenarios) to the commissioners showing modifications or alternatives to Mayor Bloomberg’s original congestion pricing plan.