A weekly roundup of good deeds, missteps, heroic feats and epic failures in the tri-state region and beyond.
WINNERS
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio — The mayor’s newly-unveiled plan to revamp the city’s Housing Authority includes raising parking fees and developing on parking lots.
New Jersey pedestrians — The Assembly approved A960, a bill which would increase fines for traffic safety violations, and dedicates a portion of the fines to a Pedestrian Safety Enforcement and Education Fund and another portion to safety improvements along high priority corridors.
MTA — The agency is addressing capacity issues as best it can with the resources at hand while the debate over funding its Capital Program continues.
WEACT, NYC Transit and Harlem residents — The announcement of the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot’s LEED gold status is great news for an area suffering from terrible air quality. The depot’s design was largely influenced by community stakeholders such as WEACT.
Metro-North Railroad Lost & Found Office — The agency’s network spans approximately 2,701 miles and carries more than 82 million annual riders, which explains the nearly 20,000 lost items added to its massive (and rather oddball) lost and found inventory each year. Despite these daunting numbers, the agency’s acclaimed Lost & Found Office and its comfortingly high return rates came to the rescue of Tri-State’s own Executive Director Veronica Vanterpool today by safely returning her cell phone to her!
LOSERS
Port Authority of New York & New Jersey — The authority cut Hoboken – 33rd Street PATH service by 14 percent, despite the fact that ridership increased 11 percent in the last two years.
New York City Councilman Rory Lancman — According to Streetsblog, “Motorists have injured or killed over 8,000 pedestrians and cyclists since the Right of Way Law took effect last August. As of April, NYPD had applied the law 22 times.” Yet Lancman is still seeking to limit how the law is applied.
NYPD — A woman who was struck by a hit-and-run driver while walking on the sidewalk with her daughters near their school has been told by the NYPD that they may not be able to charge the driver with a crime because the woman lives in New Jersey.
New Jersey drivers — Drivers face lane closures for the next three months on Route 55 in Cumberland County as NJDOT races to complete emergency repairs after finding cracks at more than 200 locations on 10 bridges along the route.
Congress — Just hours after the devastating Amtrak derailment, the Republican majority on the House Appropriations Committee voted to cut Amtrak’s budget by about $260 million.
Newington Zoning Board — The town has two CTfastrak stations, yet the Board has opposed Governor Malloy’s Transit Corridor Authority proposal, which would guide development around transit stations.
Tri-State needs to check the facts and not use politician’s press releases. The Port Authority did not cut PATH service, it moved or reallocated 2 trains per hour from Hoboken -33rd to Journal Square to 33rd. The Hoboken to PATH segment operates well below capacity, while the Journal Square service is beyond capacity and having crowding at stations like Newport and Grove Street. The same number of trains are operating, just that Hoboken had 2 less trains per hour. MS Vanterpool check your facts. Are you saying Hoboken is more deserving of service then Jersey City? There is extra capacity at Hoboken. Not in Jersey City. As development increases in JErsey City, this is going to continue to happen. There needs to be a Transit Impact fee district in both of these areas to generate money to add PATH capacity. We can’t allow one town to hold limited Trans-Hudson capacity hostage. Most people barely noticed the difference until they were told that there was a 14% cut in PAT?H service.
[…] Mayor Rodney Mortensen — The mayor of a Connecticut town home to two CTfastrak bus rapid transit stations recently called transit-oriented development “a bunch of […]