Media Links
January 26, 2012
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Source: MetroJohn Samuelsen, head of Transport Workers Union Local 100, had some choice words for Mrs. Paul McCartney "Local 100 is happy that the long and winding road is taking Nancy Shevell away from New York City Transit," Samuelsen told Metro.
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Source: Transportation NationU.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood doesn’t think there’s much chance Congress will pass a surface transportation spending bill this year.
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Source: NY1The Metropolitan Transportation Authority wants to build new entrances so the disabled can access the subway at 68th Street, but some Upper East Side residents say the plan will diminish the quality of their block. NY1’s Tina Redwine filed the following report.
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Source: BloombergNew York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority may refinance as much as $6.7 billion of debt this year, the most in a decade, to take advantage of borrowing costs near the lowest in at least 20 years.
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Source: TimesLedgerThe governor may have included ending the Cross Bay Bridge toll for Rockaway residents in his budget proposal, but elected officials who represent the area said they will not proclaim victory until the plan is adopted.
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Source: The Brooklyn PaperOn the heels of a searing report indicating that the packed bus comes erratically when it comes at all, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed on Monday to add one extra bus per hour during the evening rush beginning in April.
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Source: The Atlantic CitiesA group of researchers at Purdue suspected agencies could learn a lot about rider satisfaction by doing this (oh yeah, and all this data is free!). Craig Collins, Samiul Hasan, and Satish Ukkusuri tested the idea on the prolific tweeters who ride the Chicago 'L.' They crawled publicly available time-stamped Twitter data, including geographic location tagging, for tweets they believed came from 'L' riders, talking about the 'L.' They then weeded out all of the extraneous data. A few people, for example, turned out to be talking about "The Thin Red Line," the 15-year-old movie, not the thin Red Line, the 'L' route. The system also automatically corrected for spelling errors and style quirks (say, "I wish this train would moooooove!").
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Source: VariousPete Donohue of the NYDN writes: "Transit police patrolling the subway will soon be able to communicate with precinct cops above ground through an upgraded radio network installed by the MTA."
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Source: VariousThe move comes as a $1 per card surcharge is set to go into effect.
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Source: VariousResidents on Upper East Side believe 2nd Ave. subway construction is leading to asthma-like symptoms, just as legislation for independent air-quality monitoring is introduced in the NY State Assembly.
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Source: VariousLabor leaders and elected officials have come out against Gov. Andrew Cuomo's plan for a new pension tier with reduced benefits.
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Source: Streetsblog New York CityTappanZeeSmartGrowthCriteria
The Cuomo administration’s plan for an extra-wide, transit-free Tappan Zee Bridge is exactly the kind of project that New York state’s smart growth law is supposed to prevent. Passed in 2010 under David Paterson’s administration, the Smart Growth Public Infrastructure Policy Act requires any state infrastructure project to meet 10 smart growth criteria. Under the law, the state should only build projects that support sustainability and downtown revitalization, not sprawl.
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Source: VariousFrom Ted Mann at Wall Street Journal: "The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has reshuffled its attack plan for the East Side Access tunnel—including stripping the largest contractor of some work—in an effort to speed up the much-delayed megaproject."
January 25, 2012
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Source: Staten Island AdvanceThe pathway to school, and for many Staten Island children it sometimes really is a path, can be patently dangerous. Yet the city Department of Education persists in refusing yellow bus transportation to seventh- and eighth-graders. The DOE (let us not kid ourselves, it is the mayor's office) insists stiffing the kids on bus service is absolutely necessary to balance the municipal books. Never mind that the amount saved is less than a rounding error on the DOE budget.
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Source: NY Daily NewsMore people now commute from the Big Apple to the Nutmeg State than the reverse, and even more workers from the Bronx will head to jobs in Connecticut if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority brings Metro-North service to the east Bronx, a Fairfield County booster said this week.
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Source: CNN
Paco Fabian, spokesman for Change to Win, a coalition of labor unions, disagrees. "The comparison is laughable. You have, on the one hand, a handful of billionaires and corporations fund Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. They are the voice of the 1 percent. On the other hand, you have millions of workers coming together and supporting a handful of unions, the voice of the 99 percent. Union members have ensured that all American workers labor under safe conditions, with fair pay and benefits for a hard day's work. That's why we have weekends."
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Source: NY Daily News'We are not a bank! We are a public transportation agency!' says MTA board member Allan Cappelli.
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Source: Transportation NationThe B61 — Red Hook’s only bus line — will get some additional bus service this spring. New York’s MTA said at a committee meeting Monday that it will tweak the schedule and add service on the beleaguered line.
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Source: am New YorkWhile officials ducked questions about the program from board members during Monday’s transit committee meetings, Carmen Bianco, the MTA’s senior vice president for subways, previously told amNewYork that initial findings found it to be successful.
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Source: Chicago TribuneAn unlocked panel door leading to a battery shut-off switch made it easy for a group of teenage criminals to disable a CTA bus, then climb aboard the darkened vehicle and attack its passengers, transit officials said Monday.
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