Media Links
June 23, 2011
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Source: NY TimesThe state’s largest union of public employees agreed to major wage and benefit concessions.
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Source: NY Daily NewsCity budget negotiations came to a screeching halt today as negotiators secretly met with several top union leaders in the latest attempt to hash out a labor-funded bailout plan.
June 22, 2011
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Source:As Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus driver Neil Winberry headed back to the College Point bus depot in Queens on May 23, one of his nearly 400-pound tires completely came off of his vehicle, shooting out onto the sidewalk of Northern Boulevard in Jackson Heights.
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Source: Chicago TribuneRepublican Mark Kirk today unveiled a plan designed to make it easier for governments to lease public transportation assets or enter into partnerships with private companies to build them.
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Source: NY TimesThe industry, though powerful in New York City politics, is more limited in Albany, which is considering changes in some traditional roles of yellow taxis and livery cabs.
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Source: NY Daily NewsA 17-year-old girl pummeled a female city bus driver on a Bronx street Tuesday because she wasn't allowed to board with her dog, authorities said.
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Source: DNAinfo.comStraphangers on the M5, M31, M42, M72, M98 and M104 will see an increased wait time of at least one to two minutes between buses, according to a timetable mailed to community board members by the MTA.
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Source: City Room\NY TimesCity Council members, union officials and liberal organizers, vowed on Tuesday to conduct mass demonstrations and work stoppages if Mayor Bloomberg's budget cuts go through.
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Source: NBC New YorkDaily News reporter Juan Gonzalez deserves credit for pursuing the CityTime scandal. It’s the worst one in the Bloomberg administration’s history. The irony is that, if the charges are proved, City Hall’s desire to prevent wrongdoing, to make the processes of government open and honest, has backfired. The mayor is discovering that, when hundreds of millions of dollars are involved, some people can’t be trusted.
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Source: NY TimesWPIX's subway ads read like posters for a noir drama set in a war bunker, puzzling riders. Seeking enlightenment, we turned to John Zeigler, the campaign's creative director.
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Source: Second Ave. SagasIn the grand scheme of New York City’s subway system, the Smith/9th Sts. station along the IND Culver line isn’t a very popular one. Averaging just under 4000 passengers a day in 2010, it was only the 287th most popular stop around. Despite its low ridership, it is both one of the most picaresque and precarious in the city. The highest station in the system with views of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan skyline, the viaduct on which it sits has been draped in a protective sheathing for years, and the station has been badly in need of a rehab.
Since late 2007, the MTA had been planning a full station overhaul for the Smith/9th Sts. stop, and for the past few years, they have warned community boards and neighborhood groups of a looming 2011 full station closure. When the service cuts came last year, the authority warned that it would not be able to provide additional shuttle bus service, but when zero hour arrived yesterday and the MTA shuttered the station until next March, people were still upset.
Both Carroll Gardens’ Patch site and NY1 covered frustrated commuters, and the two resulting stories are among my favorites in local outrage. Red Hook residents, who clearly drew the short straw here, will have to take a bus ride either into Park Slope or Downtown Brooklyn to reach their trains, and while these folks complained the most about the state of the station and the safety concerns of the Culver Viaduct, they now are going to complain about the MTA’s fixing up the station as well.
My favorite quotes came from Henry Ramos who spoke to a Patch author. “I am pissed,” he said. “I’m like ‘What am I gonna do now?’” Ramos comes from Williamsburg regularly, and despite a partial platform closure for three months, numerous signs and years of outrage, he wanted even more signs that he probably wouldn’t have read anyway at the station.
Furthermore, he’s bemoaning the fact that the bus isn’t a free shuttle. “If you don’t got a MetroCard for the bus, you gotta walk,” he said. Does that mean he was hopping the turnstile to board the subway? If he has a MetroCard for the bus, he has a free transfer for the ride to Red Hook. But then again, it’s far easier to complain about something long expected than it is to plan ahead.
Once the work on the viaduct that doesn’t require trains to be re-routed is finished, the station will reopen. For those in Red Hook and the southern ends of Carroll Gardens, it’s going to be a long nine months.
©2011 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.
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Source: Washington Post / Amalgamated Transit UnionHow many more lives have to be sacrificed before we get serious about reforming this country's discount bus industry?
June 21, 2011
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Source:The New York Taxi Workers Alliance signed on to the controversial plan after convincing Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Taxi and Limousine Commission to agree to provisions in the legislation — which is currently in the state Assembly. Concessions to yellow cab drivers include an "anti-illegal street hails" enforcement unit with no less than 60 police officers, a reduction to the current credit card fee in cabs from 5 percent to 4 percent and a reduction in the number of proposed street hail permits sold in the first year from 30,000 to 22,000, according to the Taxi Workers Alliance.
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Source:It's going to be a complicated morning for many commuters trying to make their way from New Jersey to the Big Apple.
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Source: Transportation NationU.S. Senator Charles Schumer says New Jersey’s transportation loss should be Long Island’s gain.
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Source: Mobilizing the Region / Tri-State Transportation CampaignMuch of the recent commentary on Northeast Corridor high-speed rail has revolved around House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica’s proposal to privatize the system. But Dan Schned of America 2050 sends word of a near-term threat to rail in the corridor: An amendment that would take back $1 billion in high-speed rail funds that were awarded last month — putting projects in our region at risk.
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Source: Second Ave. SagasFor an airport so close to Midtown Manhattan, LaGuardia often seems very far away. The N and Q trains terminate tantalizingly close to the airport, and the 7 train seems to skirt right on by. But with no direct subway access, one of the nation’s busiest airports remains trapped on the wrong side of a bunch of roads, accessible only by cars, taxis or buses that slowly wind their way through local Queens streets.
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Source: NY Times
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Source: NY TimesIn a move that will undoubtedly please labor unions, the National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday morning proposed new rules to speed up unionization elections, largely by streamlining various procedures.
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Source: NY1Riders of the F and G subway lines in Brooklyn are going to have to change their routines, as the Smith and 9th Street station is now closed for rehabilitation through March 2012 and no shuttle service will be provided.
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