Media Links

November 8, 2011

  • As States Shift to Contract Workers, Savings Are Not Clear-Cut
    Source: NY Times
    What governments save in salaries and benefits often “ends up on the government books through all sorts of programs,” said Paul C. Light, a professor at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, referring to unemployment insurance, Medicaid and other public assistance for workers earning low incomes.
  • Hughes, President of AFL-CIO, Retiring Next Month
    Source: Journal-News
    Hughes, 61, of Tappan, Rockland County, has served as head of the union, the largest in the country with 2.5 million members, since 1999. His third term ends in August 2012.
  • Uptown Occupy Wall Street Marchers Make 11 Mile Trek
    Source: Politicker
    New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez and State Senator Adriano Espaillat led a march nearly the entire length of Manhattan in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street today. On their eleven mile journey, they were accompanied by hundreds of marchers, multiple possible 2013 Mayoral candidates and a police escort.
  • Senate Releases Text of Transportation Authorization Bill
    Source: Transportation Nation
    Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Ranking Member of the Committee, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee, and Senator David Vitter (R-LA), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, today released the bill text for Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21), bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the nation’s transportation programs for two years. Senators Boxer, Inhofe, Baucus and Vitter are all co-sponsors of MAP-21.
  • Alcohol, accidents often linked in subway system
    Source: Metro
    Booze may be to blame in nearly half of all accidental subway deaths, according to an analysis by the New York City medical examiner’s office.
  • AFL-CIO president leads union push on Ohio vote
    Source: AP
    AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka led organized labor’s final push Monday in a fierce election battle over Ohio’s collective bargaining law. Gov. John Kasich headlined election-eve rallies backing the law.
  • Tony Schwartz On The Subway
    Source: WNYC

    After capturing sounds familiar an unfamiliar to 21st century riders (token turnstiles; the roaring of the cars pulling into the station; the drone of the train, in which “you can hear a beauty” when it is heard in isolation), Schwartz focuses on the riders themselves. The 1964 straphangers speak about their joys and frustrations, most of which will sound familiar to today’s riders.

November 7, 2011

  • Man Killed by 6 Train At Bleecker Street
    Source: DNAInfo.com
    The man was hit by a Bronx-bound 6 train at the Bleecker Street station just before 8:50 a.m., the FDNY said.
  • Cellphone Robbers Target Women at 7th Avenue Station
    Source: DNAInfo.com
    In three of the cases, the suspects, one of whom is believed to be a teen, allegedly reached into through the doors of an arriving train at the 7th Avenue/53rd Street station and grabbed the victims' phones. The duo struck first on Oct. 24, stealing a 22-year-old woman's cellphone as she stood on the uptown B train platform, the station's lowest level, just before 7:20 p.m., police said. Two days later, they allegedly targeted a 27-year-old woman in an arriving World Trade Center-bound E train. Cops said they pulled the same stunt on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, going after victims on the same platform, which is on the station's upper level.
  • In Ohio, a Hint About 2012
    Source: NY Times
    A recent Quinnipiac poll suggests that it might be, showing that 57 percent of Ohio’s registered voters support repealing the Republican bill. The petition drive to get the referendum on the ballot drew 1.3 million signatures, the largest number in state history. (A state constitutional amendment that would block national health care reform from taking effect in Ohio is also on the ballot and may increase Republican turnout, but that issue hinges solely on a Supreme Court decision and is not a state matter.)
  • MTA bus and subway workers get assaulted and thugs get off with light sente
    Source: NY Daily News
    Since 2007, law enforcement authorities have charged 102 suspects with second-degree assault for injuring a bus or subway worker, according to data from the state Department of Criminal Justice Services. A 2002 law made the maximum penalty for the D felony seven years in prison. Only two dozen defendants have been convicted of the top charge — and only seven were sentenced to at least one year behind bars, the minimum length of a state prison term.
  • Pols Call for Hearings Into LIRR Troubles
    Source: Long Island Press
    Democrats in the state Senate minority called on the Republican transportation committee chairman to hold a hearing on all three LIRR issues when the state legislature comes back in session in January. Republican state senators meanwhile called for Congressional hearings only into allegations that LIRR retirees and others bilked the federal Railroad Retirement Board by faking injuries over the past decade.
  • B'klyn boy hit by bus
    Source: NY Post
    The boy was struck on Crescent Street near Flatlands Avenue in East New York.
  • Crime Scene: Lush Workers Cut Wallets From the Pockets of Drunk Train Rider
    Source: NY Times
    Lush workers date back at least to the beginning of the last century, their ilk cited in newspaper crime stories like one in The New York Times in 1922, describing “one who picks the pockets of the intoxicated. He is the old ‘drunk roller’ under a new name.” While the term technically applies to anyone who steals from a drunken person, most police officers reserve it for a special kind of thief who uses straight-edge razors found in any hardware store. The Police Department does not have a rough estimate of how many lush workers are out working lushes. It offers an exact number: 109.
  • Thief rips-off straphangers
    Source: NY Daily News
    A career petty crook, caught scamming straphangers and ripping-off the MTA, was slapped with a 60 day jail sentence after cops caught him in the act.
  • MTA hopes S79 bus service changes will ease Staten Island commuters' pain
    Source: Staten Island Advance
    Staten Island commuters dependent on city buses often sit helpless as their ride is slowed by road conditions, and by other drivers vying for space on clogged thoroughfares.
  • MTA gives out 20,000 toll freebies
    Source: NY Post
    The MTA doles out 20,000 E-ZPasses to city and state agencies for unlimited use on the job, it says. Under a deal reached last year to curb the freebies, the city now pays MTA Bridges and Tunnels a yearly lump sum -- currently $9.1 million -- for 14,074 E-ZPass tags for various city agencies. That’s based on about 1.6 million trips, said spokeswoman Judie Glave.
  • Detroit Bus Strike Slows City, Wins Safety Promises from Mayor
    Source: Transportation Nation
    Riders were stranded across the city until after lunch–more than 100,000 people use the transit system daily. Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, who has been criticized for not paying enough attention to transit, reacted quickly by promising new measures to improve safety for drivers and riders alike. Buses were rolling again by 1:30pm, according to Mayor Bing.

November 4, 2011

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