This week, staff members for NY Assembly Members Rubin Diaz and Carmen Arroyo and City Council Member Pedro Espada said the NY State DOT should seriously consider the proposal by Bronx groups, the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance and the Tri-State Campaign to tear down the Sheridan Expressway and replace it with a park. The Bronx Times also reported that Congressman Serrano's office wants to "sit down with community groups and the DOT," to discuss the proposal (see the Campaign's web site for more on the Sheridan park proposal).

At a meeting this week, representatives for Bronx elected officials also expressed deep concern for keeping trucks off of local streets in Hunts Point. They also supported reining in traffic, pollution, congestion and accidents by ending highway capacity expansion and improving freight rail and commuter rail lines. These latter concerns will be at issue as NYS DOT proceeds with its long-range study of the Bronx' Major Deegan and Cross-Bronx Expressways.

See information related to this article:

• Click here to see the Campaign's concept paper for transforming the Sheridan Expressway into a park

On Wednesday, NYC DOT convened a gathering for vendors of "intelligent transportation system" (ITS) equipment at the Museum of Natural History. The meeting seemed an odd combination of industry fair and policy pulpit for new city transportation commissioner Wilbur Chapman.

The Daily News billed the event as the setting for a new declaration of war against traffic congestion by Chapman, but few specifics amounted to real news.

ITS application generally connect electronic detection and computer data processing to transportation facilities and management functions. The industry was originally called "Intelligent Vehicle-Highway Systems" because its focus was on increasing highways' traffic capacity. But potential applications in other areas abound.

New York City already uses red light cameras to boost traffic law enforcement, and has been been computerizing traffic signal control for years. The EZ-Pass system in use at Thruway Authority, MTA and Port Authority toll facilities is also an ITS example. The Transit Authority will shortly test a satellite-based bus locator system, which could tell waiting riders when their bus will arrive. Probably the largest ITS project pending in this region is replacement of the subway system's antiquated signal system. The MTA is likely to let a contract to test an advanced signal system on the Canarsie "L" subway line next year - though installation could take several years. Re-signaling the entire system may take decades.

NYC DOT's wish list on Wednesday included roadbed sensors that would adjust traffic signal timing to car volumes, photo-radar cameras that could automatically issue summonses to speeders, traffic signal pre-emption transponders for emergency vehicles, real-time traffic reporting on the internet and detectors that would summon police when cars block bus stops.

ITS applications can contribute to almost any transportation policy goal. For instance, the city could back up its talk about traffic safety with widespread deployment of photo-radar. Additionally, a tenfold increase in red light cameras could provide a fail-safe sanction against dangerous light-running (to date, the city has moved very slowly to expand the program).

Thus, the question of whether ITS will help NYC out of its traffic mess is really a question of what city policy goals are. Unfortunately, many discussions about ITS by promoters in industry and public agencies still retain a strong "boys with toys" flavor because technology is offered as a panacea in contexts where policy fundamentals are weak.

Because city government has no stomach for tackling the root problem of chronic gridlock - too many cars and trucks - all ITS can do for our traffic congestion problem is to create capacity for a few more cars to shoehorn in before streets come to a complete standstill.

ITS could come into its own in New York if, in addition to the transit and law enforcement applications mentioned above, it were applied to real traffic management policies like variable pricing on bridge and tunnel entrances to the city. One big tradeoff for motorists is that, today's EZ-Pass system notwithstanding, the technology exists today to implement non-stop toll collection systems at all of the region's toll facilities.