Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Transportation

Transportation

  • Adams Administration Far Behind on Bus Infrastructure Benchmarks, with Promises to Improve This Year

    Bus riders (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    On thecampaign trail and inCity Hall, Mayor Eric Adams

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  • There are Just Two Big Issues in New York’s Elections; We Need Voters and Candidates to Prioritize Them

    Housing in focus (photo: Mayor's Office)


    On June 27, most people in this city will do nothing out of the ordinary. More than three-quarters of New Yorkers will go about their day like any other Tuesday.

    But the remaining 25% or so — if we’re lucky — will get to decide most of the 51 members of the New York City Council. The majority of those voters (including those who vote early or by mail) will also cast a ballot for a district attorney, judge, or other local office.

    In yet

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  • What New York City and State Should Be Doing About the BQE

    The BQE (photo: NYC Department of Transportation)


    The key question about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) right now isn’t two versus three lanes for the Brooklyn Heights cantilever. It is whether New York City should proceed with its piecemeal Brooklyn Heights project prior to development of a wider corridor plan.

    If Mayor Adams and the city’s Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) have their way, downtown Brooklyn and adjacent areas will be forever stuck with a moderately updated version of the BQE as we know

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  • Max Politics Podcast: Senator Leroy Comrie on the MTA in State Budget Negotiations

    Senator Leroy Comrie (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


    April 21, 2023 - Max Politics Podcast: Senator Leroy Comrie on the MTA in State Budget Negotiations

    State Senator Leroy Comrie, a Queens Democrat who chairs the Senate's committee with MTA oversight, joined the show to discuss how the MTA is factoring into state budget negotiations, plans for funding the transit authority, whether the state budget will advantage subway and bus riders, the future of Penn Station area redevelopment plans, housing and bail policy negotiations, and more.

    Listen to the

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  • Max Politics Podcast: Major Transit & Climate Issues in State Budget Negotiations, with Betsy Plum & Julie Tighe

    Electric buses are one place transit meets climate (photo: Darren McGee/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul)


    April 21, 2023 - Max Politics Podcast: Major Transit & Climate Issues in State Budget Negotiations, with Betsy Plum & Julie Tighe

    As New York state budget negotiations continue, there are major transit and climate issues being decided. Betsy Plum of Riders Alliance and Julie Tighe of League of Conservation Voters joined the show to break down the most pressing topics on transit and climate and what to watch for as a state budget deal is finalized by

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  • Examining Midtown Traffic, Former NYC Transportation Commissioner Calls for New For-Hire Vehicle Regulations

    Midtown streets (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


    As the MTA and partners prepare to implement congestion pricing in New York City to raise needed funds for transit infrastructure and reduce traffic, a former New York City transportation commissioner proposes that the state and city should primarily target for-hire vehicles that he assesses as the true culprits behind Midtown’s congestion woes.

    In a recent study, Lucius Riccio, adjunct professor of statistics, analytics, and operations at NYU's Stern School of

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  • Fast-Tracking New York’s Transit Future

    CM Brooks-Powers, left, with MTA CEO Lieber (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council)


    This week President Biden visited New York to celebrate a major milestone. 

    More than a decade after Superstorm Sandy badly damaged the century-old train tunnels between New Jersey and New York, we’refinally

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  • City’s Greenways Get Another Boost as Officials Plot Expansion

    NYC Greenway


    New York City’s greenways are getting another lift. Greenways, paths for pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles exclusively, are viewed by supporters as boons for safe, environmentally-friendly alternatives to traditional transportation and opportunities for quality-of-life-boosting recreation.

    Advocates stress that building these pathways, ideally in an expansive and connected network, has several benefits. Those include reducing car use and pressure on mass transit, offering venues for outdoor exercise, and creating green spaces that line the thoroughfares and prevent flooding and even

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  • Max Politics Podcast: Making New York a Bike-Friendly City

    Mayor Adams, DOT Commissioner Rodriguez & others biking (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    May 19, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: Making New York a Bike-Friendly City

    Jon Orcutt, Advocacy Director at Bike New York and a former NYC Department of Transportation official, joined the show to discuss the current state of biking in New York City and how to make it a truly bike-friendly city.

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded

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  • During Earth Week, Advocates Press New York State and City Leaders to Go Bolder on Climate Policy

    Climate action (photo: Paige Polk/Mayoral Photography Office)


    With the global climate crisis heading to the point of no return, dozens of climate activist groups are rallying ahead of Earth Day, April 22, calling on Governor Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature to pass a a raft of bills they say are crucial to the local and global effort to fight climate change, global warming, and their ill effects.

    The bills include efforts to cut carbon emissions, build green infrastructure, reduce the state’s reliance on fossil fuels, prevent harmful cryptocurrency mining, and create tens of thousands of

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  • Adams Administration Officials Outline Preparations for Massive Influx of Federal Infrastructure Funding

    Infrastructure underway (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    The $1.2 trillion infrastructure law enacted in November by Congress and President Joe Biden is expected to funnel about $27 billion to New York State, with a hefty portion of that funding flowing to New York City. The City Council wants to ensure that those resources will be used well and distributed equitably across the city, and at a hearing on Tuesday, Council members sought plans from Mayor Eric Adams’ nascent administration to accomplish that goal. 

    Tuesday’s joint hearing was held by the Council’s Committee on

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  • Ensuring Transportation Equity in New York City

    Council Member Brooks-Powers, the author (left), with MTA CEO Lieber (photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council)


    For too long, New York City’s transportation conversations have focused largely on communities – both geographic and otherwise – that are best able to navigate our city’s streets, sidewalks, waterways, and subways. New York City is now at a pivotal moment where we are seeing historic funding from Washington, D.C. and the first female majority City Council. It is time to reshape the transportation and infrastructure conversation that for too long has left out the outer-boroughs and transportation

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  • 22 Ways To See The City

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    NYC's 'Open Culture' (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    Words have the power to change how we see things and how we think. In life we are often fish who don’t know what water is, going through the motions in our default state, unaware of the environment around us. But every now and then we stumble upon a realization that changes our entire view – seeing water for the first time.

    Over these past couple turbulent and transformative years, I’ve been among many who have been seeing the world anew, and I’ve been collecting these ideas, these

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  • Max Politics Podcast: A Bus Agenda for Mayor Adams

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    Eric Adams at an event urging better bus service (photo: BK BP office of Eric Adams)


    December 8, 2021 - Max Politics Podcast: A Bus Agenda for Mayor Adams

    Two leading transit advocates joined the show to discuss a bus agenda for Mayor Eric Adams so that the new mayor who has promised to deliver for working-class bus riders can fulfill those promises and ensure city buses start moving faster. Danny Pearlstein of Riders Alliance and Ben Fried of Transit Center joined host Ben Max to discuss the current state of buses in

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  • The Micromobility Revolution Can Work For Everyone; Here’s How

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    E-Scooters (photo: NYC DOT)


    There’s a revolution going on in the streets of American cities. And it’s driving lots of people crazy.

    From coast to coast, in cities large and small, we’re seeing an explosion of new types of electric-powered vehicles. There are e-bikes, of course, including cargo bikes. But there are also electric scooters, electric mopeds, electric skateboards, even electric unicycles. All of these micromobility devices — so called because they are smaller than the humans riding them — represent

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  • De Blasio Administration Looks Toward Final Climate Actions

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    The new Brooklyn Bright bike lane (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    The administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio is putting the final touches on its efforts to combat climate change and create a more sustainable city, with significant short- and long-term challenges at play, major decisions to be made in the mayor’s final months in office, and questions about its policy choices.

    Ben Furnas, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Sustainability, points to key accomplishments of the last several

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  • Comprehensive Planning is Not Just About Housing and Zoning

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    Rendering (photo: mayor's office)


    The City Council held a hearing this week on a bill to implement comprehensive long-term planning in New York City. With the right amendments, we think this legislation has the potential to foster a more equitable and rational planning process to guide land-use changes in New York City — one that will balance local and citywide needs.

    But comprehensive planning is about much more than land use. Done right, comprehensive planning touches on decisions in nearly all aspects of city life: education,

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  • Kathryn Garcia Continues Fleshing Out Mayoral Campaign Platform with Housing, Transit and Food Plans

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    Kathryn Garcia (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    In recent weeks and months, former New York City Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia has further filled out her campaign platform as she runs for mayor, releasing plans for administering the COVID-19 vaccine and working with the federal government, building and maintaining housing, and improving the city’s transit and public spaces. Garcia, who has never run for elected office before but is a veteran of city government in several roles with major responsibilities, is running on her experience as a manager

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  • Claiming 'The Campaign of Ideas' in Mayoral Race, Shaun Donovan Releases Climate and Transit Plans

  • For Climate and Community Protection, It’s Time to Electrify Transportation in New York

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    An electric bus (photo: Marc A. Hermann/MTA New York City Transit)


    This has been a year of unexpected and devastating loss with the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the United States already surpassing 300,000. In New York City, bus drivers, train operators, and other transit workers have shown up everyday to keep the city moving forward through the spring peak and now into a second wave of infections. 

    But there is a cost to providing transit services during a pandemic. And the cost is more than ...

  • Bike Culture is Vital and Here to Stay; Now Let’s Make New York a Bike City for All

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    Mayor de Blasio on a CitiBike (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    New York City is a Bike City in disguise. Bicycles are part of city culture, whether we recognize it or not. Let’s give bike culture its rightful place by building safe, protected streets. Now.

    Becoming a Bike City is not taboo. It is not radical. It is about necessity and safety -- for essential delivery workers, for commuters, and, increasingly, for students traveling to and from school, sometimes on their own bikes and sometimes on their parents’. Bike culture supports our economy

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  • Long-Time Transit Advocate Eyes New York City E-Scooter Pilot

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    Link e-scooters on the move (photo: @LINK_Scooters)


    New York City is about to solicit bids for a new electric scooter sharing program that could eventually transform the city’s micro-mobility landscape. One firm that plans to seek a city contract believes it has the track record to prove itself and create a network of e-scooters that will be sustainable and accessible to communities of color that have been underserved by the city’s mass transit system.

    For years, transit advocates clamored for the legalization of e-bikes and e-scooters, which was finally approved by

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  • To Tackle Covid and Climate Change, Invest in a Five-Borough MTA

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    Governor Cuomo talks subways (photo: governor's office)


    A city on the precipice of financial collapse. A federal government unwilling to provide help. Thousands of jobs and vital programs on the line. This was the situation in New York City in 1975, but this description is not far off from the picture in 2020.

    Though the causes of these two crises were different, the effect will most likely be the same: massive budget cuts, especially to new projects. During the 1970s, the MTA was implementing plans to expand the subway system, including building the

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  • Without Federal Aid, MTA Bloodbath Will Be Even Worse Than Its ‘Doomsday’ Plan

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    Subway ridership (photo: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit)


    We agree with the MTA that its fate hinges on the federal government, which must provide the MTA at least $10 billion in federal emergency funds through the end of 2021 to prevent the end of the New York City region’s mass transit system as we know it. 

    The MTA’s options without federal aid from its August “doomsday” plan are all terrible. Worse, they are far from exaggerations and are a glimpse into a

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  • Uncurb Our Enthusiasm: How the City Can Better Help Restaurants and Keep New Yorkers Moving

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    Outdoor dining is proving successful (photo: @NYC_DOT)


    With the City’s popular Open Streets and Open Restaurants programs, the de Blasio administration has taken important steps forward to support New Yorkers during the pandemic, helping to ensure that people, not just cars, have much needed access to our streets. 

    Meanwhile, the success of these programs have been amplified by the continued growth of biking as a safe, socially distanced form of transportation, and by bikeshare’s ongoing expansion into the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. In New York City and elsewhere,

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