Your weekly guide to heroic and villainous actions in tri-state transportation and development.
Winners
ConnDOT Director of Rail Gene Colonese—In discussions about the future of the Stamford Transportation Center, where ConnDOT is exploring transit-oriented development options, Director of Rail Gene Colonese has kept his priorities straight: “…there are a lot of interests besides parking involved, including making it a more effective hub for all commuters including bicyclists, walkers and people riding buses,” he said.
New Jersey Department of Transportation—NJDOT has announced plans to make a stretch of Route 45 in Woodbury safer by reducing the road from four lanes to three and adding a multi-use bike lane. As NJDOT implements its internal complete streets policy, advocates look forward to the department website that will track the state’s progress.
Brooklyn Community Board 7—CB7, after extensive work with area residents, advocates, NYCDOT, and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz’ Fourth Avenue Task Force, voted in favor of pedestrian safety modifications to a section of 4th Avenue, one of Brooklyn’s most dangerous roads for walking [PDF]. The infrastructure improvements include widened medians, shortened crossing distances, and a road diet.
Losers
Short-sighted federal lawmakers—In a piece of bad news for urban planners, transportation engineers, and a lot of other people that use data, the House has voted to cut funding for the American Community Survey, a vital annual data source that fills in the gaps between decennial censuses. Losing this data would be a serious blow to transportation planning in the United States.
New Jersey State Senator Michael Doherty—The New Jersey lawmaker has introduced legislation that would end the state’s pilot red light camera traffic enforcement program. If passed, towns without the life-saving devices would be barred from introducing them, and those that have already implemented the safety technology could not renew their contracts with the vendors that operate the devices.
It’s funny. Red light cam’s CAN save lives, and if carefully implemented there’s a lot to say for them. But in my area on Long Island they’ve become a revenue stream – a huge one at that. And frequently the lights are carefully timed to increase the number of people caught. When you give 20 cars 5 seconds to make a left turn, you can be sure that 1. most won’t make it, and 2. most that do will be caught going on red. I first supported these cams 20 years ago in Manhattan; I remember seeing photos showing numerous TA buses and taxi cabs blowing lights. The cameras and the fines did help cut that back. But what’s happening now with using them JUST for raising revenue is wrong.