On Monday, CSX Transportation unveiled four new ultra-low emission locomotives for exclusive operation at its Oak Point Yard in the heart of the South Bronx, a neighborhood long plagued by high asthma hospitalization rates, poor air quality, and disproportionate amounts of truck traffic.
The new engines, known as GenSet, were retrofitted to existing rail cars and will [...]
At a meeting of the Tappan Zee project’s Stakeholder Committee on Wednesday, the study team showed it was making a good-faith effort to engage communities on land use and provided more clarity on the project timeline. (TSTC is a member of the Stakeholder Committee and several of the “stakeholder advisory working groups” which meet monthly [...]
The Federal Highway Administration wants its money back, and NYSDOT is obliging at the expense of two environmentally friendly federal grant programs: Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) and Transportation Enhancements (TE).
In the diagram above, each glass represents the amount the state can potentially spend (the apportionment) on a specific federal program. The pitcher of [...]
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 [...]
Long Island has the two most dangerous roads in the region for pedestrians, the Hempstead Turnpike and Sunrise Highway. Respectively, 15 and 12 pedestrians perished on the roadways between 2005 and 2007, continuing a long-term trend of Nassau and Suffolk Counties having some of the most dangerous roads in New York.
But the numbers didn’t stop [...]
Those of you who missed this week’s showing of PBS’s “Blueprint America: Road to the Future” can now view it at PBS’s website. The episode compares different modes of urban planning in Portland and Denver before devoting about 10 minutes to NYCDOT’s push for more pedestrian spaces and better cycling infrastructure. (Skip down to Part [...]
To the dismay of transit advocates, Elliot “Lee” Sander announced his resignation as CEO/executive director of the MTA yesterday. The news came a few hours after Governor Paterson signed a bill to reduce fare increases and stop service cuts and publicly called for reform and a shakeup of MTA management.
Sander’s tenure at the agency was [...]
In what should be no surprise to readers of MTR, a ProPublica report on the federal stimulus has found that New York has submitted and gotten federal approval for only 26% of its Surface Transportation Program (STP) stimulus money, compared to 51.9% in Connecticut and 46.8% in New Jersey.
This is not the first time MTR [...]
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 transportation projects [...]
NYSDOT Commissioner Astrid Glynn announced on Monday that she will resign effective May 8, ending a tenure which began in February 2007 and was marked by progress on smart growth issues and the release of the state’s first comprehensive rail plan in over two decades. Deputy Commissioner Stanley Gee will serve as the department’s acting [...]
