Talk Bronx New York

Project Description

The MTA New York City Transit (NYCT), the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT), and New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) are planning to introduce Select Bus Service (SBS) to New York. SBS will utilize innovative bus rapid transit elements that will improve the speed and reliability of bus service on the implemented routes.

Goals and Objectives

SBS Benefits Include:

• A new high performance transit option for NYC.
• Improve the speed, reliability and appeal of the bus system, city-wide.
• Provide measurable benefits to current customers as well as attracting new riders and supporting growth and redevelopment.

The goals of the study are:

• Identify the opportunities for SBS in NYC with the greatest potential benefits and the highest probability of successful implementation.
• Move a comprehensive, cost-effective city-wide SBS demonstration program into implementation.
• Improve those corridors not selected for the SBS demonstration by using techniques identified by the study.

Project Phases and Schedule

The first SBS corridor, Fordham Rd-Pelham Parkway  is expected to be implemented in the summer of 2008.

Major Planning Activities Include:

1. Identify strategic issues relating to SBS implementation in NYC;
2. Based on U.S. and world-wide experience, identify the range of SBS improvements that might work well in NYC;
3. Identify and evaluate all candidate corridors with SBS potential in New York City;
4. Select the 15 corridors with the highest probability of success and potential benefit; Project Update
5. Develop a preliminary concept plan for each corridor tailored to the market and physical environment in that corridor;
6. Select the best corridors and develop more detailed plans while identifying improvements that can be implemented elsewhere.
7. Comprehensive Project Reassessment.
8. Preparation of detailed plans for Fordham Road-Pelham Parkway Corridor.
9. Implementation of Fordham Road-Pelham Parkway Corridor.

• NYCSBS Main Page
• What is BRT?
• Public Involvement Process
• Project Team
• Keeping in Touch
• Project Update
• FAQs

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Hearings Planned To Tackle Yankees Financing Plea

An assemblyman, a frequent critic of New York’s public authorities, said yesterday that he plans hearings on the Yankees’ request for additional public financing to complete the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

Assemb. Richard Brodsky (D-Hartsdale) said that hearings could be held within “a couple of weeks.”

Brodsky is chairman of the Standing Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, which oversees the state’s public authorities. Last year, he co-sponsored legislation that would require the state’s authorities to submit contracts for review to the comptroller, limit borrowing and seek legislative approval before creating subsidiaries.

“What’s at stake here is a much bigger issue than whether you like or dislike the Yankee Stadium deal,” Brodsky said. “Stadiums [are] soaking a lot of the tax-exempt financing, and we can’t fund the capital plan of the MTA and we’re short capital money on schools and hospitals.”

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Fare Hike Likely To Pull MTA From Shambles

Mayor Bloomberg warned Friday that straphangers could face another fare hike next year - and said the city is broke and can’t help.

The mayor also said the MTA’s construction plan is in “shambles,” and he slammed state lawmakers for sinking his congestion pricing plan - which would have raised transit money.

“I think there is a very good likelihood that we are going to have to face the issue of a fare increase or something else,” Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show. “The city doesn’t have any money to give. We are out of money.”

The Daily News reported Friday that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s projected 2009 operating budget deficit has ballooned.

Part of the problem is the tanking economy resulting in dramatically declining revenues the authority gets from fees on certain real estate transactions.

The state Legislature and Gov. Paterson also slashed funds the MTA was anticipating from one account.

Although fares went up in March, the mayor said there are bargains for riders. Senior citizens pay half fare and unlimited-ride passes reduce the per-trip cost. One acquaintance, the mayor said, pays about 46 cents a trip.

Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign, who has criticized the state and city for what he sees as inadequate financial support, said the mayor “should be proposing ways to prevent a fare hike for the second year in a row, rather than falsely lecturing riders that they are already getting a bargain.”

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, who helped defeat the pricing plan and voted against fully funding the MTA’s 2008 operating budget, said the Assembly took a “courageous” stand.

It passed a slight tax increase on millionaires to raise transit funds. Gov. Paterson and Senate Republicans opposed the plan and it died.

Brodsky said he will preside over an emergency Assembly committee hearing next week on the MTA’s fiscal crises.

SOURCE: NYDailyNews.com

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Paterson Taps Bronx Judge To Be New IG

Gov. David Paterson is poised to announce he has selected Bronx state Supreme Court Justice Joseph Fisch to serve as the next state Inspector General, an aide to the governor confirmed.

Fisch and Paterson go back more than two decades. They first met in the Queens DA’s office, where Fisch worked on two separate occasions (1977-1984 and again from 1987 to 1990) and Paterson was a criminal law associate (a post over which there has been some confusion ever since).

According to The Jewish Press, Fisch attended Paterson’s wedding to Michelle Paige, and Paterson “danced the hora” at the wedding of Fisch’s daughter.

“He’s just the definition of a mentch,” Fisch told the paper, which noted that in 2007, the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education – of which Fisch is honorary president – granted Paterson its Man of the Year award.

Fisch has also served as a deputy inspector general and general counsel at the Office of the IG of the MTA and executive director of the Office of Professional Discipline with the state Education Department.

A Harvard Law School grad, Fisch was appointed to the state Supreme Court in 2003 (by then Gov. George Pataki) after serving since 1990 on the Court of Claims (appointed by then-Gov. Mario Cuomo). He also serves on the Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics.

Fisch’s appointment does not require Senate confirmation. He will earn $155,200 in his new post. He replaces Kristine Hamann, who was appointed by ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer, got emroiled in the Troopergate scandal and resigned earlier this month.

SOURCE: NYDailyNews.com Read more..

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Buses Bloom In The Bronx

Bx12 Select buses greeted attendees of the “Buses in the Boroughs” symposium Tuesday morning.

With spring colors and fragrance in full bloom at the New York Botanical Garden Tuesday morning, TSTC along with Transportation Alternatives, the Straphangers Campaign, and the Pratt Center for Community Development hosted a symposium on bus rapid transit to showcase how this transit option has transformed major cities around the world and to preview New York’s plans for BRT throughout the five boroughs.

Walter Hook and Oscar Edmundo Diaz, both of the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy, discussed BRT systems in nearly two dozen cities around the world (both presentations are available on TSTC’s website). Hook’s presentation spanned multiple systems and highlighted some technical “dos and don’ts” for BRT providers (such as the advantages of median bus lanes, the need for multiple-door buses, how to fit BRT into narrow streets, etc.). His presentation drew on the broad and detailed knowledge of ITDP, which consults governments around the world in planning BRT systems and produces an 850-page BRT Planning Guide.

Diaz, a native of Colombia and a specialist in urban transport systems, focused on what many consider the world’s most successful BRT system, the TransMilenio of Bogota, Colombia. TransMilenio can carry up to 42,000 passengers per hour per direction and travels an average 18.1 mph, more than twice as fast as the average bus in NYC. It is top-of-the-line BRT, with pre-boarding fare collection, level boarding at platforms, and enclosed stations — a worthy transit system for a city of 7 million. Of course, the quickest way to get a sense of TransMilenio is through pictures:

Clockwise from top left: TransMilenio in dense urban areas, level boarding between bus and station platform, fare collection at turnstiles (not on the bus), interior of a TransMilenio bus.

Diaz emphasized how a well-built system can dramatically improve the lives of commuters and residents who lack transit access, and as a result, economic and social opportunity. While 21% of TransMilenio riders own cars, the system is also accessible to low-income commuters, mothers with children in tow, the handicapped, and the elderly. In surveys, the #1 reason TransMilenio riders said they liked the system was because it allowed them to spend more time with their families. Read more..

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