A weekly roundup of good deeds, missteps, heroic feats and epic failures in the tri-state region and beyond.
Winners
Amtrak — The repairs at Penn Station were completed on time, which means the Summer of Hell won’t be extended into the fall.
Astoria, Harlem, Crown Heights and Prospect Heights residents — Citi Bike is expanding into some new territory this month.
Philadelphia — The City of Brotherly Love recently unveiled its first parking-protected bike lane.
Bx6 riders — The cross-Bronx bus route, which connects riders to Metro-North trains and several subway lines, became New York City’s 15th Select Bus Service (SBS) route on Sunday.
Houston METRO — Flooding destroyed an estimated 500,000 to 1 million cars in Greater Houston, a region in which less than 6 percent of households are car-free. Fortunately METRO parked its buses on high ground and “has emerged among the heroes of Hurricane Harvey.”
Losers
The New York Metropolitan region — Nearly 4,900 more cars were registered in 2016 than in 2015 in Westchester County, and the number registered in Rockland County rose by over 1,600 according to AAA. The increase isn’t unique to the Lower Hudson Valley; there were similar increases in New York City and on Long Island.
New Jersey Transit — “Bombshell testimony” from NJ Transit’s recently-fired chief compliance officer compares the troubled transit agency to a “runaway train.”
Connecticut — Decades ago, Connecticut bet big on suburbs at the expense of its cities. That strategy isn’t paying off for the Nutmeg State, thanks to “millennials and corporations [who] have developed a hankering for urban life.”
