Current edition: Mobilizing the Region #479
November 1, 2004
Budget Crisis Overshadows Transit Centennial
Mayor Bloomberg was peppered with questions about impending transit fare increases at the official press event for the NYC subway’s 100th birthday last week. What should have been a signal celebration of mass transit’s role in forging New York City into a global metropolis became a week filled with press conferences, protests, reports and columns focused on the sorry state of Metropolitan Transportation Authority finances and the missing-in-action status of Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
NJ Bill Outlines Policies to Guide Transportation Fund
A bill introduced in Trenton by Assembly members John Wisniewski and Peter Biondi is the first initiative to grapple with the state’s dwindling transportation dollars. Wisniewski is Assembly transportation committee chair.
"Stop the Train" Protests Agains Erie and Staten Island Rail Lines
Last week, 150 members of the "Coalition to Stop the Train," a Union County group, rallied in Springfield to express anger at county Freeholders for agreeing to allow rail freight lines to be reactivated along the Rahway Valley and Staten Island Lines, according to the Star-Ledger.
New York’s mass transit system obviously needs more money. While Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki are still in public denial of that fact, not everyone is.
Transportation Alternatives’ Car-Free Central Park campaign saw an overflowing house last Tuesday at its rally at a Unitarian-Universalist church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Perhaps car-free parks would be a partial reward for the green living New Yorkers already practice. A recent New Yorker article entitled "Green Manhattan" spurred cheers from transit advocates and urban environmentalists. It details how city dwelling is more environment-friendly than suburban or rural living, since urbanites take up less space, use public transit, consume less energy, and buy fewer consumer goods.
Tax Cuts: Transportation Policy on the Sly?
The $136 billion corporate tax-cut President Bush signed into law October 22nd contains a tax repeal long-sought by freight railroads.
| Each week, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign publishes Mobilizing the Region, or MTR. MTR is a bulletin on New Jersey, New York and Connecticut transportation news and opinion from the perspective of advocacy for sustainable transportation. |
| MTR #479 printable format (PDF) file (requires Adobe Acrobat).
|
GO TO INDEX of past issues of MTR, since Fall 1994.ll M
Recent editions:
MTR 478-October 25, 2004
MTR 477-October 18, 2004
MTR 476-October 11, 2004
MTR 475-October 4, 2004
