Your weekly guide to heroic and villainous actions in tri-state transportation and development.
Winners
The City of Hartford—The city has installed 12 new bike racks, and there are more to come: 287 will grace the streets of Connecticut’s capital by July.
New Jersey Department of Transportation Commissioner Jim Simpson—Last year, Simpson promised Tri-State that he’d restore funding for New Jersey’s Transit Village program, and he’s kept his word: the NJDOT draft capital program allocates $1 million to the initiative. As for the plan on the whole, the jury’s still out.
Mayor Bloomberg—Amid talk of New York’s so-called 6 ½ Avenue, a series of privately-owned public spaces that the New York City Department of Transportation wants to connect into a midtown pedestrian passageway, Mike Grynbaum reported that Mayor Bloomberg spoke wisely: “It’s a very clever idea…’Streets are for cars?’ Streets are for people.”
New Jersey commuters—Between 2000 and 2010, the number of New Jersey commuters taking the bus to work rose by 21.8%, and the number of rail commuters rose by 17.9%. Yet another reason to rectify New Jersey’s shrinking commitment to transit.
Losers
The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT)—During early February, Tri-State submitted a Freedom of Information Law request to NYSDOT in search of records related to the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) (we asked for a variety of documents related to the questionable cost estimates and claims about transit in the DEIS). Yesterday, almost a week after the close of the public comment period, NYSDOT told us that they wouldn’t be fulfilling our request for another month.
22 New Haven aldermen—Twenty-two of the city’s aldermen rejected $780,000 in federal grant money that would have allowed the city to study a streetcar system. The decision, based on concerns about the study’s scope and cost to the city (which would have had to supply local matching funds of about $37,000), represents a lost opportunity for New Haven to explore a project that could spark economic development and job creation.
