Senators, Mayor Back Freight Tunnel Funding

U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, along with Mayor Bloomberg, vowed last week to work to secure federal funding for a cross-harbor rail freight tunnel. Joining long time tunnel proponent Jerrold Nadler at a City Hall press conference, the three elected leaders declared their readiness to bring the project to fruition.

Bloomberg Budget Will Pressure the $2 Fare

Although Mayor Bloomberg now says East River tolls will take too long to set up to help with the New York City’s immediate fiscal crisis, he plans to move quickly on other elements of his transportation budget agenda ? cuts to city support for daily mass transit operations.

London Pricing Wiz Headlines RPA Assembly

Derek Turner, chief architect of London’s congestion pricing scheme, will be the opening speaker at the Regional Plan Association’s annual Regional Assembly, to be held Friday, April 25 in Midtown Manhattan.

I-95 Shoulder Widening Widely Opposed

Last week, all of the dozens of emergency responders, transit advocates and local elected officials at a public hearing on Governor Rowland’s “I-95 Commuter Shoulders Project” denounced the plan.

NJ State Workers Still Await TransitChek 

Although the New Jersey legislature and Acting Governor Donald DiFrancesco approved legislation during 2001 to offer federal transit commuting tax benefits to state employees, the measure has gone unimplemented during Governor James McGreevey’s first 15 months in office.

Who Should Pay for a Meadowlands Metro?

This week, NJ Transit officials began addressing traffic concerns surrounding the 206-acre Meadowlands “Xanadu” business/entertainment development plan by outlining a rail link to the site.

LIRR Project Prospects

At a recent forum organized by the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, acting LIRR president Jim Dermody said that in addition to building a third track along the railroad’s main line, it was also aiming to electrify the Port Jefferson branch east of Huntington. 

Suffolk Road Expansion: A Subsidy for Dumb Growth

A Tri-State Transportation op-ed in Suffolk Life last week argued that Suffolk County Executive Robert Gaffney would be truer to his own policies by calling off the widening of Portion Road (County Route 16) through the communities of Lake Ronkonkoma and Farmingville.

MTR search facility and back issues:

Search our database of all past issues of Mobilizing the Region since Fall, 1994.

Go to index of all Mobilizing the Region back issues

MTR 411 - April 14, 2003

MTR 410 - April 7, 2003

MTR 409 - March 31, 2003

MTR 408 - March 24, 2003