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Stories You May Have Missed – Week of January 19th

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you pertinent information. This includes news articles to inform your work. Check out a list of stories you may have missed last week.

The U.S. Senate voted to end the current government shutdown today. (Politico) See T4America’s member summary for more details.
“Trump administration’s infrastructure plan taking shape.” (Reuters)
Brightline’s private All Aboard Florida service launched last week between West Palm Beach and Ft. Lauderdale. Service is expected to be extended to Miami later this year. (USA Today)
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed implementing congestion pricing in New York City. (Citylab)
Costs for the California High Speed Rail System have increased another $2.8 billion. (LA Times)
Waymo announced they will test their self-driving minivans in Atlanta. (The Verge)

Stories You May Have Missed – Week of January 5th

President Trump and his administration are still divided over the merits of private-public partnerships (P3’s) after their meeting on Friday with President Trump expressing skepticism about P3’s. (Washington Post/The Press Herald)
A key Democratic Senator says Democrats can work with President Trump on infrastructure. (The Hill)
“A group of more than 150 national trade organizations last week urged Congress to advance an infrastructure investment package.” (Progressive Railroading)
Congress is expected to consider a Trump infrastructure plan sometime this spring if a plan is actually released. (Fox News)
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York is expected to endorse congestion pricing in parts of Manhattan. (Curbed NY)
“In Phoenix, a Light Rail Station Designed For, and By, People With Disabilities.” (Streetsblog)

Stories You May Have Missed – Week of November 17th

Stories You May Have Missed

Everyone, including President Trump, wants to build infrastructure projects faster. The NY Times highlights some case studies to explain why some infrastructure projects can get slowed down. (NY Times)
“How the House tax plan could kill Trump’s infrastructure plans.” (The Hill)
The NY Times published their first article from an 8^th month investigation into the factors that have contributed to the problems the New York City Subway is experiencing today. (NY Times)
The Florida Times-Union and Pro Publica have released an investigative report highlighting the racial disparity in pedestrian violations in Jacksonville. (Florida Times Union)
NY Times Op-Ed: “America Is Now an Outlier on Driving Deaths.” (NY Times)
San Francisco has procured its first fire truck that is designed specifically for vision zero streets. (Wired)

Stories You May Have Missed – Week of September 22nd

Stories You May Have Missed

London revoked Uber’s ability to operate in their city, saying Uber is “not fit and proper.” (Tech Crunch)
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has found that “the operators of two commuter trains involved in separate New York City-area crashes in the past year were both suffering from undiagnosed sleep apnea.” (Progressive Railroading)
The Denver Post takes a look at the successes and failures of Denver’s transit system since Denver hosted Rail-Volution recently. (Denver Post)
The Washington Post reviews the four “dockless” bike share companies that recently launched their service in D.C. Dockless bike share has been popular in Europe and Asia, but is just starting to come to the United States. (Washington Post)
A district court in Massachusetts ruled against the city of Newton, Massachusetts’s restrictions on drone use, saying some of those restrictions were preempted by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations. The ruling raises questions about the impact that any federal automated vehicle legislation might have on states and local governments, including cities. (Rupprecht Law)

Stories You May Have Missed – Week of August 25th

Stories You May Have Missed

President Trump has dropped plans to form an infrastructure council that would have advised him on the infrastructure plan his administration is putting together. (Bloomberg)
“The Trump administration is seeking input from rural communities around the U.S. as it assembles a $1 trillion infrastructure package.” (The Hill)
The U.S. Senators from New Jersey and New York have called on U.S. DOT to revisit their plan to withdraw a proposed regulation to test rail and truck operators for sleep apnea. (Progressive Railroading)
Our partners, the National Complete Streets Coalition (NSCS), did a question and answer session with a board member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on their new report documenting that 31% of all deaths on our roadways are due to speeding. The report provides recommendations on how to reduce deaths. (NCSC, Streetsblog)
Asset Recycling an Alternative Approach to P3s. Learn more about the practice of selling or leasing existing, publicly-owned infrastructure and using the proceeds to pay for building or maintaining other infrastructure. Read T4A member summary here.

Sandy relief bill will provide billions for repairing and improving transportation systems

The Sandy relief bill on the cusp of final passage will provide billions for cleanup and more than $12 billion for transportation — including an unprecedented step toward making transportation networks around the northeast and NYC more resilient in the face of climate change, more frequent and unpredictable storms, and rising sea levels.

The MTA A Train bridge to the Rockaways was heavily damaged during Hurricane Sandy. This photo shows early repair work underway as of November 3, 2012. Photo: MTA New York City Transit / Leonard Wiggins

It’s not completely a done deal yet — the House and Senate passed slightly different bills — but the $50.66 billion Sandy relief bill was passed by the House this week more than two weeks after the promised vote by Speaker Boehner to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (and others) at the end of 2012.

The Senate passed their version of the bill back in 2012. The bills are almost identical in their funding amounts, though there are some small programmatic differences in funding. Also, earlier this month, Congress approved and President Obama signed a measure providing $9.7 billion in additional funding for the federal flood insurance program, bringing the total expected Sandy spending up around $60 billion.

Part of the reason the House did not vote on this comprehensive package was due to pushback from House Republicans against approving such a large emergency spending package, and particularly because the package included funds for “future disaster mitigation,” i.e., acknowledging that climate change exists and is something worth preparing for. As a result, northeastern legislators from both parties were livid at the delay in approving disaster funding for their hard-hit region — actually a longer wait than for Katrina funding in 2005.

So what’s in the two bills for transportation?

The Senate package included over $12 billion for transportation. The bulk of that ($11 billion) is for the damaged transit systems that millions of daily commuters and riders depend on, to be distributed through the new Federal Transit Emergency Relief program (created by MAP-21). Close to $5.4 billion of this funding is directed to mitigation efforts to reduce the risk of damage from future disasters. As noted above, this unprecedented inclusion of mitigation funding represents a major shift in the federal dialogue about the real need to address and prepare for the impacts of climate change.

The Senate bill also included $336 million in mitigation relief to Amtrak and the Northeast Corridor for damages caused by the storm as well as advancing projects critical to improving resiliency in the case of future disasters. (According to our partners at the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, that money also helps NJ Transit, which operates commuter service on the same tracks.) There was also about $920 million to repair Sandy-related damage on our nation’s highways and bridges.

The House-passed package included relief for all of the above, but there are some important differences in the transportation funding distribution. Amtrak’s relief was cut by about 64% down to $118 million. Transit system relief is still close to $11 billion with close to $5.4 available for projects to alleviate future damage (there were some slight language changes and a small boost in funding). Highway disaster relief increased to a little over $2 billion.

Though there was opposition to the package from many House Republicans, the measure was pushed through with the support of the House Republicans from the region as well as House Democrats. Now, the Senate will likely take up and pass the House bill, or potentially attempt to amend it before final passage.

MTA New York City Transit preparations for Hurricane Sandy. Photo: MTA New York City Transit / Leonard Wiggins

New York Complete Streets clears legislature, awaits Governor Cuomo’s signature

Complete streets legislation passed both the New York State Senate and Assembly unanimously this week and awaits Governor Andrew Cuomo’s signature.

Once the legislation becomes law as expected, New York State will follow in the footsteps of hundreds of other states and municipalities that have already started prioritizing the needs of all users on their roads, whether on foot, bicycle, in a wheelchair, or using a personal vehicle or public transit.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a T4 partner in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, played a pivotal role in pushing the bill, which was sponsored in its latest iteration by Republican Senator Charles J. Fuschillo, the chairman of the chamber’s transportation committee. The New York AARP was also closely involved in securing passage.

“Everyone knew that something had to be done, so the political will was there,” the state AARP’s legislative director Bill Ferris told Streetsb log New York City.

A national complete streets policy was a key recommendation of our recent Dangerous by Design 2011 report, which documented the more than 47,700 preventable pedestrian deaths in the Untied States between 2000 and 2009. These tragic deaths are too often treated as a fact of life, when we’ve built roadways more suited to speeding traffic than people. Complete streets policies, like the one passed in New York State, make streets safer for all users, no matter their mode of transport.

As Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s executive director Kate Slevin said earlier this year, “We’ve repeatedly found that what makes a road dangerous is poor design — exactly what a state complete streets law will fix.”

The unanimity in this week’s roll call votes was impressive and significant, but did not come without some legislative maneuvering. As Jim O’Grady of WNYC described it:

Some highway superintendents complained about the cost of adding bike lanes and similar features to road projects. So the bill was changed in a late negotiation to require them in the design phase, while making their implementation optional if they’d put a project over budget. A town or county cannot be sued if it chooses not to install complete street features for budgetary reasons.

This bipartisan victory in one of the nation’s largest states should catch the attention of Congress — which has its own complete streets bills in the hopper — as members draft priorities for the next transportation bill. Tell your representative to support Complete Streets and stop preventable pedestrian deaths today.

Nassau County Executive to privatize Long Island Bus system

In April, the Long Island Bus system in Nassau County, New York was on the verge of cutting bus service in half until a funding deal between state and local officials halted the reductions with an $8.6 million cash infusion. Now, with the temporary lifeline slated to end in December, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano has announced his intention to privatize the system by 2012.

Under the deal, privately-owned Veolia Transportation would begin operating the 48 Long Island bus lines, which serve an average of 100,000 riders daily. Long Island Bus is one of the largest suburban bus systems in the country, according to Transportation Nation.

This week’s announcement was not a surprise, as Mangano has made his intention to privatize the system known for some months. Mangano ran for office and won on an aggressive anti-tax platform, steadfastly opposing new revenues and refusing to meet the requested financial commitments to the Long Island Bus system requested by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. In a press release announcing the deal today, he described the New York MTA as a “bloated bureaucracy.”

Veolia officials say they can run the system at three quarters of Long Island Bus’ current operating budget of $141 million, and Mangano has estimated savings of between $2 and $4 million a year. But the math, according to the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, just doesn’t add up. Privatization in other parts of the country has often resulted in higher costs to the county and reduced services, wrote TSTC’s Stephen Higashide:

For example, last year Veolia received a local subsidy of $77 million to operate Phoenix’s bus system, and provided 1.9 million hours of service. By contrast, Nassau County contributed only $9.1 million to LI Bus (with the MTA paying another $25 million) and received 1.2 million hours of service.

The contract requires approval from the County Legislature and the state-run Nassau Interim Finance Authority.

Long Island Bus spared from drastic cuts — for the time being

A month ago, we noted that the Long Island Bus system in New York’s Nassau County was slated to cut service in half without a funding deal between state and local officials. Fortunately for the 33 million annual riders on the LI Bus, the New York State Senate on Friday announced an $8.6 million cash infusion to prevent these cuts.

The consequences of inaction would have been unacceptably draconian. It would have meant the elimination of 25 out of 48 routes, two hundred lay-offs and 16,000 riders left stranded, with 200 disabled riders losing paratransit services. Friday’s announcement, the result of months of negotiations between Nassau County and New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, puts the brakes on the cuts until the end of the year.

The discrepancy in funding arose largely because Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano refused to meet the obligation MTA officials deemed necessary to align with the contributions of neighboring counties. Although Nassau County is very wealthy, Mangano ran and won on an anti-tax platform and has remained steadfast against new revenues.

In an editorial today, the New York Times endorsed the $8.6 billion infusion, while noting that it is limited to the calendar year. The Times also encouraged Nassau to pay its fair share and chastised Mangano’s approach. “Buses limit traffic congestion and keep the economy moving. They are a means of survival for thousands of riders,” the Times wrote, continuing:

Instead of protecting that vital service, Mr. Mangano says a privatized system would run better for significantly less money. That’s ludicrous, as anyone will tell you who remembers the 1970s, when the failures of Nassau’s jumble of badly run private bus lines prompted the state to rescue the system.

The Tr-State Transportation Campaign has more information on the deal, including a statement here.

New York’s Nassau County could cut bus service in half

Shrinking revenues resulting from the economic downturn has precipitated a crisis in transit funding all over the map. We’ve highlighted some of the painful service reductions at the local level, but also kept an eye on bright spots like St. Louis’ approval of a half-cent sales tax to restore and expand bus and light-rail.

This week’s news out of Nassau County in New York is particularly bleak. Because County Executive Edward Mangano and Metropolitan Transit Authority chairman Jay Walder were unable to reach a deal on funding, the Long Island bus will essentially be cut in half. According to the MTA’s proposed cuts:

Twenty-five of 48 routes would be eliminated entirely and weekend service cut from two routes.
Nearly 16,000 riders would be left without a transit option and 18% of Able-Ride users stripped of access to transportation.
Two hundred LI Bus employees would be laid off — and an untold number of riders could lose their jobs due to lack of access to transportation, which in turn would negatively impact Long Island businesses.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a T4 partner, has called on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and State Senators Dean Skelos and Charles Fuschillo to mediate a deal or develop an aid package. As Ryan Lynch described on Mobilizing the Region, County Executive Mangano has been a significant obstacle:

Mangano has refused to increase Nassau County’s contribution to LI Bus even though it is the only suburban county to receive MTA funding for its bus system, and its contribution to the system is at historic lows. Walder has declined to phase out LI Bus funding gradually, insisting on an overnight cut.

Tr-State Transportation Campaign is encouraging people to get involved in the fight to maintain this crucial service and join the “Save Long Island Bus” Facebook page. They also urge folks to call County Executive Mangano, State Senators Skelos and Fuschillo, and Governor Cuomo.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer stumping for $2 billion transit aid bill

Sen. Chuck Schumer was joined by TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen on the left and Councilman James Vacca on the right.

Last week, New York Senator Chuck Schumer, a top Democrat in Washington and influential policy player, spoke out forcefully in favor of the Public Transportation Preservation Act, a $2 billion lifeline for the nation’s transit agencies.

The Act would provide emergency operating aid for buses, subways and other systems throughout the country and would give a significant boost to the tri-state region – hundreds of millions of dollars would reach the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York, New Jersey Transit and neighboring systems. Schumer is joined by his fellow Senators from the tri-state area – Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Chris Dodd of Connecticut – in supporting this crucial legislation.

Schumer joined union members and transit advocates at New York City’s Penn Station last Friday, June 11, declaring that “mass-transit is the life-blood of our city.” The Act is gaining co-sponsors by the day, including Alaska Senator Mark Begich and Oregon Senator Ron Wyden.

See Steven Higashide’s write-up at the Tri-State Transportation Campaign for more information and a run-down of the unions and advocacy groups participating.

And if you haven’t already, tell your Senator to support the Act today and join as a co-sponsor.