A weekly roundup of good deeds, missteps, heroic feats and epic failures in tri-state transportation news.
Winners
Bx41 Riders and State Senator Gustavo Rivera — The Bronx’s second Select Bus Service line was launched Sunday along Webster Avenue thanks in part to the strong advocacy of State Senator Rivera.
Hoboken, NJ — Although another bike share program in the region has stolen most of the headlines, Hoboken’s new bike share program is reporting strong ridership in its first month and plans to expand significantly in the fall.
Rebecca Hoeffler and the Cranford (NJ) Township Committee — The Committee is launching a Complete Streets and Safe Routes to School Committee thanks to Cranford resident Rebecca Hoeffler, who petitioned the Township to improve conditions for walking and biking.
Losers
NJ State Legislators — The budget of Transcend, a free bus service for the elderly and disabled, was slashed by a quarter in the State’s 2013-2014 budget, which means less frequent service or higher passenger costs.
Brookhaven Town Supervisor Edward Romaine, New York State Sen. Lee Zeldin and NY State Assemblymember Al Graf — The trio of attention-seeking Long Island legislators gathered in Ronkonkoma Tuesday to bash the commuter tax — which hasn’t existed since 1999 and is very unlikely to be re-enacted anytime soon — but did not propose any other funding solutions.
NYSDOT — The New York State Department of Transportation’s solution for a deadly intersection on Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn’s most dangerous road for pedestrians: remove the crosswalk.
Re: TRANSCEND’s funding:
It appears that the state funding for TRANSCEND (and the similar programs in other NJ counties referenced in the underlining news article) is coming from the Senior Citizens and Disabled Residents Transportation Assistance Program (SCADRTAP). This program is funded by a dedicated tax collected from Atlantic City casinos based on their profits. As their profits have gone down due to out-of-state competition, the revenues for this fund have also decreased.
This clearly shows the danger of using dedicated taxes for any purpose, whether the tax is a gasoline tax, sales tax, or any other tax. Dedicated taxes seem great as long as tax revenue is increasing. However, the Legislature finds it difficult to make painful decisions when tax revenue decreases. And, if almost all tax revenue is dedicated, good programs receiving the decreasing dedicated taxes are in a bind.
You’ll notice that no one seems to consider raising revenue by establishing a reasonable fare for the service. Access Link, a similar statewide service run by NJ Transit is not free.