Re-Connecting Development and
Traffic
On Thursday, May 8th, the NJ State Senate Community and
Urban Affairs Committee, will consider draft legislation
(S.2093) sponsored by Senator Shirley Turner (D-Mercer)
and co-sponsor Senator Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon). The
bill, if enacted, would re-grant local planning boards
in New Jersey the power to consider off-site traffic
impacts of development, a right they lost with passage
of the Municipal Land Use Laws in 1975.
MTA Accountability: Progress?
While it’s impossible to predict whether the Straphangers
Campaign lawsuit to delay or temporarily roll back Metropolitan
Transportation Authority transit fares will prevail,
the broader effort to compel MTA financial transparency
and accountability appears to be making headway.
Call for Better Parking Starts NYC Bike Week
To mark the start of NYC’s annual Bike Week, sponsored
by the NYC Dept. of Transportation and Transportation
Alternatives (T.A.), City Councilmember David Yassky
introduced a bill last Thursday (Intro 458) that would
require building owners to make provisions for employees
and tenants to bring bicycles into buildings.
Lower Manhattan Hub: Time to be Heard
The MTA has opened the public “scoping” record
for the proposed lower Manhattan transit hub. The proposed
project, costing approximately $750 million, would extend
a renovated Fulton Street complex west, providing connection
corridors to the N/R, E, and WTC PATH stations.
White House Makes Opening Bid for “TEA-3”
Policy observers in Washington report that the Bush Administration’s
proposed bill for the reauthorization of the 1998 Transportation
Equity Act (TEA-21) may be delivered to Congress as early
as today. TEA-21 is the primary authorization for federal
funding for highway and mass transit projects around
the United States. It expires this September. Its successor
is also expected to cover a 5-6 year period.
X-Games, 2012
At the end of April, NYC Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff addressed
a session of the Women’s Transportation Seminar
about transportation and plans for the 2012 Olympics.
Doctoroff essentially gave fairly well-known 2012 presentation,
adding little detail to the plan’s vaguer elements,
like the east-west axis of the “Olympic X.”
