The Staten Island Sunday Advance hit the streets Jan. 16 with the front-page headline: "Xway Study Looks Like a Big Waste." The story detailed complaints by transportation reformers and elected officials that NY State DOT's long-range study of the S.I. Expressway would inevitably recommend building new highway lanes, and that NYS DOT is not closely coordinating work with NYC Transit. The piece spotlighted alternative proposals for a bus-way for the SIE and Gowanus, which could function as Staten Island's "subway" to Manhattan.

A following Advance editorial trashed DOT's preference for building a new HOV and truck lane, with a tight argument that new lane capacity would inevitably flood the highway with more traffic that would bottleneck elsewhere on I-278. The piece, entitled "Planning in Pieces" asked for a look at I-278 bus-way options, and slammed the Port Authority, the MTA, and NYS DOT for not working together to make this happen.

The paper's position on the SIE dovetails with its October "Traffic Fantasies" editorial, which rejected a Goethals "twin" bridge and said the Port Authority should look to a congestion-relief toll policy.