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 — Councilman Rodriguez led a rally at New York City Hall calling for the expansion of Citi Bike to all five boroughs.
New York City DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg — Yesterday the commissioner was in Albany calling for expanded speed camera enforcement, and today she questioned the MTA’s decision to pamper LIRR commuters while subway riders suffer.
Stamford Mayor David Martin — Mayor Martin is cutting the city’s fleet of employee take-home vehicles from 80 private cars to 25 shared cars.
Jeffrey Leary and the City of Providence, RI — After local activist Jeffrey Leary placed plungers along the edge of a painted bike lane, the city has gone ahead and installed more permanent flexible delineator posts.
Losers
The MTA — A driverless bus barreling backwards down the street is perhaps the perfect metaphor for the transportation authority, which oversees a deteriorating transit system and has been without a permanent CEO for six months.
New York City subway riders — It seems lately we’re hearing conductors say trains are “delayed due to signal problems” as often as we hear them say “stand clear of the closing doors.”
NYPD — Video evidence contradicts the NYPD’s premature statement that Citi Bike rider Dan Hanegby “swerved” and attempted “to navigate a very tight space” before being run over and killed.
President Trump — The president’s transportation proposal continues to meet resistance from Democrats as well as Republicans.
Another loser you neglected to list is our dear governor.
The self-proclaimed king of the deal, could not get his acolytes in the IDC to flex their muscle over mayoral school control at the end of the legislative session. This was a clear example of Andrew Cuomo’s lack of interest in a difficult subject, if the conclusion of that debate would not confirm his self-constructed portrait as the most soothing political ‘fixer’ of all times. Absolutely necessary for a run for the presidency, you know.
Similar to his sorry stewardship of the MTA. He has all the power to reconfigure this sprawling system, and to bring some relief to shell-shocked riders, but all we get are “genius grants” and appointments of ‘retreads.’
A “Summer from Hell” indeed.
I’m pretty sure that LIRR riders aren’t being pampered. When I last did a 5 day a week commute, substantial breakdowns and delays were relatively minor, though when breakdowns did happen, the entire railroad would grind to a halt. Sure, I only got in on time (real time, not LIRR time) once in 19 years, but most days I got to work and back with only fairly short delays. In the last couple years, serious breakdowns and problems causing large delays and outages are nearly every day – and the same problems keep happening over and over again. And LIRR expansion and upgrade projects take years if not decades and billions over budget, with no end in sight. I’d hoped that if I ever resumed commuting that East Side Access would have been finished – and it should have been years ago. Now I’m about to resume commuting – to the area near Grand Central, across the street from an exit, but it looks like ESA won’t be done – if ever, until I’m approaching retirement. The mismanagement, corruption, and incompetence has gotten even worse over the last several years – something I’d not imagined to be possible. I recently had 3 trips into Penn; 2 of them had horrible return rides. My ‘favorite’ – train drops us off in Hicksville, and as we approach that station the conductor announces that there is no service east to Huntington and Port Jeff, that we have busses waiting. We cram our way down the few open stairs, only to find one, and eventually a second school bus to carry hundreds of passengers to all stops, and one confused LIRR employee trying to maintain order on her own with no instructions. Then a PA announcement that the train to Huntington would depart in 10 minutes. So we shoved our way back up to the platform. Every 30 seconds an announcement that the train would leave from the wrong track – then one more saying the train was being held (somewhere, no known reason), and several more hold announcements, then one saying it was 10 (really 15) minutes late. This is what the poor guy inherits – if he can make enough time from his paid job at NYU Langone.