A weekly roundup of good deeds, missteps, heroic feats and epic failures in the tri-state region and beyond.
WINNERS
NYC Council Transportation Committee Chair Ydanis Rodriguez — Councilmember Rodriguez, whose district was targeted with a union-backed bus service slowdown this week, said “we should leave the Right of Way Law as it is” and not exempt bus drivers from the law.
Mayor Bill de Blasio — Mayor de Blasio signed a bill this week which will require city-owned trucks and privately-owned garbage trucks that operate in the city to have life-saving side guards installed by 2024.
New York Assemblymember Jim Brennan and Senator John DeFrancisco — In the final days of the legislative session, Brennan and DeFrancisco worked to get transit riders across the state better treatment than dogs by introducing bills to fully fund the 2015-2019 MTA capital program.
LOSERS
Governor Chris Christie — Because the governor has failed to act on the state’s transportation funding crisis, New Jersey Transit (which has the nation’s highest fares) is moving forward with the fare hikes proposed earlier this year (and no, they won’t be reduced as some commuters had been hoping). Meanwhile the state’s second-lowest-in-the-nation gas tax remains (as it has since 1988) at just 14.5 cents per gallon.
Transport Workers Union Local 100 — A tweet which showed a bus waiting for an “oblivious pedestrian” to cross backfired when readers noted the pedestrian in the photo had the right of way.
Waterbury, Connecticut residents — Unlike drivers in Cheshire and West Hartford, Waterbury residents have to deal with the unfortunate side effects of the Interstate 84 widening project.
