Chinatown Falls on Hard Times
by Wilma Consul
...

NEW YORK, NY January 23, 2006 —Much of the Jewish Lower East Side has been lost over time replaced by new immigrants from other parts of the world, particularly China. Those seeking their fortunes in Manhattan's Chinatown are in for a surprise -- Chinatown has fallen on hard times. Its economy has not bounced back since the street closures caused by the collapse of the World Trade Towers on 9-11, but other factors have contributed to the downturn, too. Reporter Wilma Consul takes a look, and asks what's ahead for the neighborhood that was once an important immigrant enclave in the City.

...

REPORTER: Kwong says this newest group of immigrants has created a vibrant business sector that serves the needs of Chinese businesses everywhere.

KWONG: People will call all over the country, and say: Hey, you know I need three restaurant help. Could you send them over? It's almost like day laborer situation. They go all the way as south as Georgia, north as Maine and west as Chicago. So this is the heart of cheap labor supply.

REPORTER: This demand prompted the creation of the now very popular low-priced Chinatown buses. They transport Chinese speaking workers to their destinations without getting lost.

Yelp review

Zhong Hua Flushing-Chinatown Shuttle Van Service
2 reviews

Category: Public Transportation
Neighborhood: Queens/Downtown Flushing
Main St & 41st Ave
Division St between Market St & Bowery, New York, NY
New York, NY 10002

The 18th National Conference on Rural Public and Intercity Bus Transportation will be held October 19-22, 2008 in Omaha, Nebraska.

Now you can travel comfortably between New York City and Toronto without spending your entire budget en route. Neon, a new low-fare bus service from Greyhound Canada and Adirondack Trailways, offers two daily departures from both cities for as little as $1 (there is at least one $1 seat on every bus) -- although a $25-to-$75 price range is more likely -- one way. Buses have video screens, Wi-Fi service and power outlets. Customers board in New York outside Penn Station and in Toronto at the Royal York Hotel. Walk-up tickets cost $85 (one way), and the better deals (the earlier the reservation, the lower the price) are available at www.greyhound.com.

* COMMUTER VAN DRIVERS SAY RENEGADES SWIPE BIZ

By AUSTIN FENNER

Friday, May 1th 1998, 2:04AM

Competition for van passengers between the Chinatowns in Sunset Park and Manhattan is so fierce that licensed operators say a swarm of speedier illegal minivans has stolen three-fourths of their business.

The licensed 14-passenger commuter van companies say they are being driven out of business by seven-passenger minivan drivers who also ply Eighth Ave.

in the 50s and 60s, the main commercial strip for the Asian community in Sunset Park. Commuter vans are licensed to provide service from Sunset Park to Canal St. in Manhattan.

The minivans usually are licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission, but only to answer telephone requests, and not to stop for street hails, the head of the commuter van trade association said.

More than half of commuter vans towed after inspections

by Michaelangelo Conte/The Jersey Journal Tuesday September 23, 2008, 3:02 PM

The Hudson County Prosecutor's Office towed 15 of 27 jitneys pulled over today in West New York, part of a continuing campaign to enforce safety laws that officials concede is having little impact.

"It still seems that there is a lack of compliance here and as far as our office is concerned, we are going to move forward and protect the citizens of Hudson County by conducting more of these stops to enforce the law," said Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Zevits.

Surprise inspections began at about 7 a.m. at 59th Street off Bergenline Avenue.

About 151 safety violation were cited during the inspections, by the state Motor Vehicle Commission Commercial Bus Unit, West New York police, the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office and the Hudson County Sheriff's Office, Zevits said. Police also issued 35 motor vehicle tickets, Zevits said.

Safety violations included bad brakes, cracked frames, fuel leaks and safety equipment violations including bad windows and missing fire extinguishers, Zevits said. Motor vehicle summonses were issued for uninsured vehicles, expired drivers licenses and failure to produce medical cards, Zevits said.

West New York resident Santos Mercedes said he doesn't understand why police pulled him over and inspect his van when he had a good inspection sticker and his paperwork is in order.

"I was just driving on Bergenline around 7:50 a.m. and I was stopped by a policeman and I gave him my license and registration and everything was up to date," Mercedes said. "I had in my bus like 25 passengers and he made me take out all my passengers in the middle of street. They have to go to work. Maybe some of them will lose their jobs."

Mercedes said that in the end, he was allowed to drive away with no citations, adding that last month his van was towed at a cost of $850.

The Prosecutor's Office's Insurance Fraud Unit has conducted more than a dozen surprise inspections of commuter vans in Hudson County over the past two years.

Judge Rejects Most of Law On Commuter Van Licenses - New York Times

By ANTHONY RAMIREZ

Published: March 24, 1999

Backers of the private commuter vans, often called ''dollar vans,'' that serve poor and working-class neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, won a legal victory last week. If it stands, the decision is certain to sharply increase the number of licensed vans in New York City.

In a decision reached Thursday and made public yesterday, Justice Louis B. York of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan intervened in a six-year-old clash between Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who backs licensing more vans, and the City Council, which does not.

Justice York struck down most of a 1993 law passed by the Council giving it the power to reject van licenses already approved by the Taxi and Limousine Commission, which is part of the Mayor's office.

There are 362 licensed vans in the city, carrying about 40,000 passengers daily. Among those vans are fewer than a dozen licensed vans approved by the City Council, which has rejected nearly all of the applications from the taxi commission. But estimates of the number of illegal vans vary from 1,000 to 5,000, with many operating part time and without regular safety inspections.

The dollar vans, which carry 20 or fewer passengers, first emerged in 1980 when a transit workers' strike disrupted bus service. Since then, the vans have continued in neighborhoods with little bus service. But van ridership has been hurt recently by the introduction of bus and subway discounts with the Metrocard. Proponents hail the vans as examples of free enterprise, but opponents -- notably the transit unions -- fear they may hurt mass transit.

Justice York ruled that the Council's law, known as Local Law 115, violated the constitutional separation of powers by allowing the Council to administer rather than write a law. ''This it cannot do,'' the judge wrote in a ruling on an October 1997 suit filed by the Mayor against the Council. The Mayor's suit followed a February 1997 suit filed by van operators against the City of New York. In that suit, Justice York ruled in favor of the van operators.

AT the Manhattan Plaza Health Club, on West 43rd Street near 10th Avenue, members often discuss the peculiar challenges of living in a neighborhood that also happens to be the crossroads of the world. But lately, the chats on the treadmills have focused on one particular issue: the swelling ranks of private buses and vans that pick up passengers in the area — not from the Port Authority Bus Terminal, on Eighth Avenue, but from the streets nearby.

“They’re everywhere,” said Piper Smith, an illustrators’ agent who is a regular at the club. “They seem to be reproducing as we speak.”

The largely white vehicles shuttle passenger to and from New Jersey at all hours. During peak travel times, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights, dozens of vehicles line up along both sides of 42nd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues while customers wait in dense clusters on the sidewalk.

It’s hard to say just how many buses congregate on these blocks, but few doubt that the number is increasing. Norberto Curitomai, the owner of Spanish Transportation Corporation of Paterson, N.J., one of four major busing companies in the area, says that his fleet of 180 vehicles has added 10 to 15 new vehicles each year since 2001.

Like most — though not all — of the companies, Mr. Curitomai’s firm is registered with the city’s Department of Transportation, which allows his vehicles to quickly load and unload passengers by a designated stretch of Eighth Avenue near 41st Street. What particularly vexes local residents, however, is what happens when the buses aren’t picking up passengers.

“These vehicles need to make three left turns to get to the tunnel,” Ms. Smith said of the Lincoln route. “When they’re not being used, they hide all over the neighborhood.”

Pollution is another concern. “When these buses are waiting for their time to pick up and stuff,” she said, “they don’t turn of the motor. It just idles.”

Anti-Immigration Movement

FAIR Front Group Slams Migrants on Traffic Intelligence Report

Fall 2008

Next time you find yourself stuck in traffic miles from work — or school or home or daycare — don't blame poor urban planning, low carpooling rates or inadequate public transportation.

Blame immigrants.

That's right, according to high-profile ads placed this summer in The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Nation and other publications by a new front group for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and two other anti-immigrant hate groups. The ads, which are based on dubious statistical analysis, claim that an immigration-fueled population boom will dramatically worsen traffic congestion and destroy pristine lands.

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/transportation/20080918/16/2648

The Downside of Low-Cost Buses
by Graham T. Beck
18 Sep 2008

On a recent Wednesday evening, Erin Brown waited for the Fung Wah bus to Boston with a dozen or so other people on a crowded Canal Street sidewalk. "It's such a crush - the people, the vendors, the cars, narrow sidewalks, narrow streets. I don't know why they leave from here, but the price is right," she said.

Brown is not alone in her sentiment. It often feels as though every inch of Chinatown is jam-packed. Cars clogs street from the Manhattan Bridge to the Holland Tunnel. Sidewalks overflow with tourists, workers and neighborhood residents. Stalls spill out from shops, and lately it seems that every few blocks there is a line of 20 or so people queuing up for an interstate bus.

The buses are nothing new. Since 1998, companies like Fung Wah, using spaces reserved for tour buses or agreed upon spots in the neighborhood, have run curbside operations, picking up and dropping off passengers. The recent surge in travel costs, though, has made more outfits see the benefits of such a low-overhead way of doing business. This means more buses jamming city streets and curbsides and more bus queues on already crowded sidewalks.

It has reached the point, according to City Councilmember Alan Gerson, where there now are more interstate bus pick-ups and drop-offs in Chinatown each day than there are at the Port Authority. Although the competition has driven down prices for travelers, it has created some difficult situations for neighborhood residents, passing pedestrians and local businesses.

September 14, 2008

An East Coast Latino Lifeline, on the Road for 30 Years

By KIRK SEMPLE

ABOARD OMNIBUS LA CUBANA — It was shortly after 1 p.m. when the bus, its garish designs glinting in the late summer sunlight, pulled away from the curb on Broadway in Upper Manhattan and headed toward Miami.

The mood inside was pensive as the passengers tugged sweaters, snacks and travel pillows from their bags and prepared for the long trip. They were all Latino and mostly immigrants, each with a different reason for being there. Taking vacations. Looking for work. Fleeing bad decisions. Chasing dreams.

A Cuban-American widow was returning to Miami after visiting her husband’s grave in Union City, N.J. A Chilean chef was leaving one job in Manhattan and hoping to find another in South Florida. A Dominican musician living in Washington Heights was bound for a three-day recording session that he hoped would provide his big break.

“We carry all sorts of people: good people, bad people, all types,” said Carlos Rodriguez, 40, a Cuban émigré and one of the bus’s two drivers. “It’s life.”

For decades, New York and Miami have been the capitals of Latino life on the East Coast, linked by culture, business, extended families and a superhighway, I-95. People have flowed easily between the two hubs, and for 30 years, this bus line, the Omnibus La Cubana, has been the transportation of choice for many.

Gendering Mobility: Women, Work and
Automobility in the United States
MARGARET WALSH

History
Volume 93 Issue 311, Pages 376 - 395
Published Online: 28 Jun 2008

ABSTRACT

This article examines women's relationship with car driving in the United States. The growth of American 'automobility' increased throughout the twentieth century, but most historians have ignored its relationship with women. They have assumed that the motor car was a masculine vehicle in terms of both its technology and use. Even those who recognized the motor car as a machine for changing lifestyles and interpersonal relationships considered that the male head of household had authority over choosing and driving the family vehicle. Some women, however, always drove. Though their numbers were relatively small in the years before the Second World War, they quickly seized the opportunity to get behind the wheel in succeeding years as more and more cars were produced in the United States and imported vehicles became popular. Women needed to drive to manage their unpaid work in the home efficiently and, when they entered the paid labour force in increasing numbers, they needed to run their households and to travel to their paid work. By the end of the twentieth century American women were as likely to drive as their male counterparts, though their patterns of driving were different. In the process, the automobile had become a sex neutral vehicle.

HASID LUST CAUSE CULTURE CLASH

OVER SEXY CYCLISTS

By RICH CALDER
Posted: 3:47 am
September 12, 2008

It's the Hasids vs. the hotties in a Brooklyn bike war.

Leaders of South Wil liamsburg's Hasidic community said yesterday that bike lanes that bring scantily clad cyclists - especially sexy women - peddling through their neighborhood are definitely not kosher.

The red-faced religious sect is calling on city officials to eliminate the car-free lanes on Wythe and Bedford avenues, and to delay construction of a new one planned for Kent Avenue.

...

The existing, one-way lanes are popular with North Williamsburg hipsters - many who ride in shorts or skirts.

The temporary lane planned for Kent Avenue would be a precursor to a 14-mile greenway stretching from Newtown Creek in Greenpoint to Sunset Park.

Hasids are forbidden from looking at members of the opposite sex who aren't fully dressed, said local activist Isaac Abraham.

Weisser and other Hasids said during a Sept. 8 community-board meeting that the lanes on Bedford and Wythe avenues should be eliminated if the neighborhood has to accept being part of the greenway.

The issue of dress - or lack of it - wasn't brought up at the meeting. Weisser and the other Hasids instead complained publicly about bike lanes allegedly causing parking problems and traffic congestion.

September 9, 2008,  4:19 pm
Fleet Owners Sue City on Hybrid Cab Rules
By William Neuman

A taxi industry group filed a lawsuit [pdf] in federal court on Monday seeking to block a city requirement that all new taxis meet stringent fuel efficiency standards that would make most cabs hybrid vehicles, a key part of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s push to cut pollution and make city policies more sensitive to environmental concerns.

The city’s new taxi rule, which is set to go into effect on October 1, requires that all new taxis have a fuel efficiency rating of at least 25 miles per gallon for city driving, a standard that is currently met mostly by hybrid vehicles.

In the lawsuit, lawyers for the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, which represents large fleet owners, charge that the rule violates federal laws that say only the federal government can set rules on fuel efficiency and vehicle emissions. (The lawsuit was also filed on behalf of a driver and companies that own and lease cabs.)

The lawsuit also claims that hybrid taxis are unsafe, in part because they are smaller and lighter than the Ford Crown Victoria, the standard taxi cab for many years, making passengers and drivers inside the hybrids more susceptible to injury in an accident.

A spokeswoman for the city legal department declined to comment on the suit, saying that city lawyers had not yet received the legal papers. The Taxi and Limousine Commission has previously said that it is confident that the hybrid cabs are safe.

September 7, 2008
Battlefield Latest Holdup for Rail Line
By COLEEN DEE BERRY

MANALAPAN

WHEN prosperous central New Jersey farmers built the Freehold-Jamesburg Agricultural Railroad in the early 1850s, little did they suspect they would be laying the ground for a controversy a century and a half later.

The rail line the farmers created to transport crops ran straight through the heart of one of the largest American Revolution battlefields. On June 28, 1778, George Washington's Continental Army fought the British to what many historians consider a draw in what later became known as the Battle of Monmouth.

When the farmers built their railroad about 75 years later smack through the site of the old battlefield, no one objected.

"In the 1850s the farmers were most concerned about getting their crops to New York City, not with preserving a battlefield," said James T. Raleigh, president of the Friends of Monmouth Battlefield.

Now, that same rail line seems to be an ideal location for a new commuter rail plan to serve parts of central New Jersey, an idea that officials from Monmouth and Ocean Counties have been promoting. The problem is, the old battlefield was granted National Landmark status in 1966, and New Jersey and National Park Service officials object to the line running through the historic site.

...

The battlefield objection is the latest in a long line of roadblocks to the Monmouth, Ocean and Middlesex rail line, often called the MOM line. Proponents contend that the passenger line is needed to ease congestion in the Route 9 corridor.

ANGER AT MIKE THE ROAD HOG PEDESTRIAN ISLANDS DRIVE MOTORISTS NUTS
By CHUCK BENNETT and MELISSA JANE KRONFELD
Posted: 3:28 am
September 2, 2008

With his congestion-pricing plan reduced to roadkill, Mayor Bloomberg is making city drivers miserable with a series of pedestrian-friendly projects.

One of the biggest headaches for them has been the Broadway pedestrian islands - plazas that stretch onto the road - a popular summer feature that Midtown denizens expect will be deserted come the cold weather, even as they still tie up traffic.

"In the winter, it won't even be used," griped office worker Jeffrey Gottlieb, 47. "Broadway already is down to 1½ lanes after you take the FedEx trucks making deliveries."

Other road rage-inducing projects include a bus corridor down 34th Street, a bike lane on Ninth Avenue from West 16th to West 23rd streets, and a bike lane on Greenwich and Washington streets.

The most dramatic changes have been on Broadway, which, with the islands, has gone from four lanes to two from Times Square to Herald Square.

"I think it is completely useless . . . It doesn't do anything for Midtown," said New Jersey commuter Jason Silitsky, 24. 

Candidate Issue Index: Transportation
Transportation, Infrastructure, Traffic, Cities, Regions and States
Robert Puentes, Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program
The Brookings Institution

Opportunity 08, a Brookings project in partnership with ABC News, aims to help presidential candidates and the public focus on critical issues facing the nation, providing ideas, policy forums, and information on a broad range of domestic and foreign policy questions. Brookings is an independent think tank (501c3) that does not support or oppose any candidate for public office. Voters should learn all they can about the candidates on a range of issues and should not rely on any single source of information before making their decision.

The New York City Police Department, with its 35,000 officers, has in recent years been on the front lines of the citywide decline in serious crime. It has protected visiting dignitaries like Pope Benedict XVI at events that drew thousands of people, and it has posted officers in foreign capitals to gather information on terrorism and trends that could threaten New York.

But the Police Department continues to be flummoxed by bicyclists riding together once a month.

Journal of Transport and Land Use The Journal of Transport and Land Use (JTLU) is a free, open-access, and peer-reviewed publication that welcomes articles on topics at the interdisciplinary intersection of transport and land use, including research from the domains of engineering, planning, modeling, behavior, economics, geography, regional science, sociology, architecture and design, network science, and complex systems.

Fung Wah Is Getting Stuck In Low-Cost Bus Traffic Jam

By DAVID PEPOSE, Special to the Sun | July 15, 2008

Ms. Wambaugh added that BoltBus competes with Fung Wah in price because its online ticket purchasing system and its curbside service lowers its maintenance and human resources costs. Furthermore, she said, Greyhound's contracts with fuel companies allow BoltBus to buy diesel fuel at reduced prices.

July 10, 2008
City to Test Peak Rates for Parking Meters
By WILLIAM NEUMAN

Call it congestion parking.

In what amounts to congestion pricing for parking spaces, parking meter rates would double during heavy traffic periods in portions of Manhattan and Brooklyn as part of an experimental city program beginning this fall, officials said Wednesday.

The program's goal is to increase turnover in curbside parking spaces in the test areas - a section of Greenwich Village in Manhattan and a stretch of Kings Highway and adjacent streets in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn - so that drivers will spend less time cruising in search of an open space, according to the transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan.

Cutting down on cruising will in turn decrease pollution and traffic congestion. It is also expected to decrease the number of drivers who double-park or park in bus stops.

"We've picked corridors that have a lot of congestion and a lot of cruising," Ms. Sadik-Khan said. "Dealing with the cruising and congestion problem we think will improve both mobility in the neighborhood and reduce pollution, and improve the quality of life also in those areas."

If successful, the program could be expanded, she said. The pilot programs are expected to begin in October and will last six months.

In the Village, the higher parking rates would be charged in an area that stretches from Houston Street to Charles Street and includes portions of Seventh Avenue South and Avenue of the Americas. Currently, the area has parking meters that charge 25 cents for 15 minutes, or $1 an hour. Ms. Sadik-Khan said the meter rates would likely increase so that 25 cents would buy 6 to 7 1/2 minutes, which would be the equivalent of $2 to $2.50 an hour.

The city took a tentative step this week toward fulfilling the dream of a certain kind of urban idealist, saying that it will explore the possibility of creating a bike-sharing program that could make hundreds or even thousands of bicycles available for public use.

“This is a really big deal,” said Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group for cyclists, pedestrians and transit riders. “In the realm of things you can do to boost bicycling in a city, bike-share is at the top of the list.”

The city asked companies and organizations interested in running a bike-sharing program to provide assessments of how it could work.

A similar program was started last year in Paris, using thousands of bicycles. A program with 120 bicycles was started earlier this year in Washington.

Border patrol agents upstate are increasingly arresting New York City undocumented immigrants aboard Amtrak trains and Greyhound buses, raising questions that the government sometimes resorts to racial profiling, immigration advocates and attorneys said.

The arrests have been an authorized practice for decades but seem to have hit a fevered pitch recently, according to advocates.

The patrols have sparked protests in the city as well as upstate, most recently last weekend in Syracuse, where a group said that agents have even targeted U.S. citizens who look "foreign". Immigration attorneys say witnesses have said that agents sometimes question only people of color.

"We are a nation of law, but is their enforcement money better spent going after criminals and youth gangs?" asked the Rev. Brian Jordan, of the Franciscan Immigration Center in Manhattan, who has counseled one Irish and 12 Mexican and Central American undocumented immigrants who were taken off Greyhound buses and Amtrak trains in the past year.

Word of the patrols has broken out in some immigrant communities, and people who have overstayed visas or who never had one are staying off trains.

"Certainly it sent shockwaves through the Irish community," said a Manhattan Irish pub owner, whose bartender was recently deported after Border Patrol agents found him on a bus without identification. "You're not safe anywhere."

Drivers Feeling Shunned by D.C.
City Less Welcoming to Suburban Cars

By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 6, 2008; Page A01

The District is escalating what some suburban commuters are calling its war against workers who drive into the city.
View Only Top Items in This Story

The city has changed parts of Constitution Avenue NE from a reversible commuter artery back to a quiet side street and is considering removing the reversible lane on 16th Street NW, a key commuting route from Montgomery County.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's administration also is studying closing the section of the Interstate 395 tunnel that connects with New York Avenue NW, expanding the use of speed cameras and increasing parking fees and enforcement. Fees for encroaching on a crosswalk would increase from $50 to $500 under a pedestrian safety proposal.

The District is moving toward becoming "the most anti-car city in the country," said John Townsend, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic. "They see commuters as the enemy."

City officials say that the moves are part of a policy of putting the needs of its residents and businesses before those of suburban commuters and that they are trying to create a walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented metropolis.

Like New York, London, Stockholm and Portland, Ore., District officials said, the city is reclaiming its streets for the people who live there. With billions of dollars invested in the Metro system, there are plenty of ways for commuters to get into the city without bringing exhaust-spewing vehicles with them, officials said.

Latest Plan for Corzine to Consider: Private Lanes on the Turnpike

By NATE SCHWEBER
Published: July 9, 2008

First, Gov. Jon S. Corzine all but offered to lease the New Jersey Turnpike to the highest bidder. Then he floated the bizarre bureaucratic notion of creating a public benefit corporation so the taxpaying public could, essentially, become a private entity and operate the turnpike and other highways (which are now run by a different quasi-public agency).

He proposed an 800 percent toll increase to pay for the state's aging roads and draw down half of its more than $30 billion in debt.

Now, after all those ideas have been shot down, Mr. Corzine is considering a new prospect for financing critical infrastructure and reducing congestion on the road: Privatize individual lanes.

"It does make you wonder what's next," said Jon Shure, president of New Jersey Policy Perspective, a nonprofit research organization.

On Monday, the State Senate president, Richard J. Codey, a Democrat of Essex County, unveiled his proposal for a private company to build an extension on the turnpike from Exit 8A to Exit 6 and on the Garden State Parkway from Exit 82 down to an exit in the 30s for drivers willing to pay extra to avoid traffic.

At the same time, State Senator Raymond J. Lesniak, a Democrat from Union County who is chairman of the Economic Growth Committee, offered his own twist, suggesting that the new lanes be reserved for buses and trucks.

Malthus Lives in Anti-Immigrant Ads

By César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández . Posted July 4, 2008.

  MOTORCOACH SAFETY

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                                (110-19)

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                          HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT

                                 OF THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                   TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                       ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             MARCH 20, 2007
                               __________

                       Printed for the use of the
             Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

Move over Delta, United and American. Another savage fare war is under way, driving down the price of a bus ride between Manhattan and Washington to $5.

Five dollars.

That is the lowest price on the route since 1952, when Truman was President and Greyhound charged $5.05 -- a sale price then, too. And it is less than the trip cost in 1939, when LaGuardia was Mayor and the bus ride down to Washington cost $5.50.

In a money-losing battle, the country's two-largest bus companies, Greyhound and Peter Pan Trailways, have knocked the price down three times in the last three weeks from its $25 starting point. Doesn't Cover the Costs

[109th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:28267.wais]

 
      CURBSIDE OPERATORS: BUS SAFETY AND ADA REGULATORY COMPLIANCE

=======================================================================

                                (109-52)

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                    HIGHWAYS, TRANSIT AND PIPELINES

                                 OF THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                   TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                       ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                             MARCH 2, 2006

                               __________

                       Printed for the use of the
             Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure



                                   ____

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
30-298                      WASHINGTON : 2006

May 29, 2008

FMCSA Administrator Hill Reports on Curbside Bus Carriers

As I learned when purchasing my tickets, low costs are the big draw. Curbside carriers typically offer incentives to buy tickets early. For example, some curbside bus companies offer seats for $1 to the first purchasers. From there, the price increases as fewer seats become available. Buying a seat at the last minute, however, will still only cost about $35 for a one-way trip to NYC. In fact, I paid more for a taxi to take me 33 blocks in Manhattan than I did for the cost of the five-hour trip from Washington.

I tried two different companies – one for the ride up to New York and another for the return trip to Washington. Both were comfortable and affordable. Most importantly, however, they both operated in a safe manner, were familiar with our safety regime and both drivers appeared quite capable. And, for those of you who are wondering, I did not reveal my identity during either trip.

As the administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) – the federal agency that regulates the safety of interstate trucks and buses – I’ve always maintained that interstate passenger carriers have long been and continue to be among the safest mode of transportation in the United States, something that was demonstrated to me yet again last week.  Our agency is committed to rigorous oversight of the bus industry. 

Banishing buses to L'Enfant

DDOT is planning to force all low-cost bus carriers, like Bolt Bus, DC2NY, and the Chinatown buses to stop loading in Chinatown and at various other spots around the city (a few pick up in Dupont Circle), reports the Examiner (via DCist). Instead, all buses will have to load and unload at a special zone at 10th and D Southwest, right by the L'Enfant Metro.

This seems like a terrible idea. It sounds like it came from the LOS-watchers within DDOT: "Hmm, these buses are causing a lot of pedestrian congestion and taking up some room on our streets which should be used to move commuters in and out of the city as fast as possible. OK, let's put the buses in an empty part of the city, but one that's near Metro."

Intercity trains are much more energy-efficient than buses, but one advantage of buses is their flexibility. It's good that buses can choose to pick up in areas where there are many customers. Also, the service brings more pedestrian activity to those neighborhoods. At L'Enfant, there's nothing, and people will all just hop on the Metro.

If traffic is a problem, take away some curb parking or a traffic lane. Each of those buses carries as many people as a few blocks full of single passenger vehicles. There are some underutilized streets - how about a loading zone on the very wide F Street by Gallery Place?

Our street network is for the use of all, including buses. Buses aren't something we should move out of the way to speed transportation: they are the transportation. Let's move cars out of the way to make room for the buses.

Bus Rules: Let's Call a Time OutThe number of cheap buses from DC to New York (like the Chinatown buses, DC2NY, Bolt Bus, Megabus, and others) has exploded recently. That's great for riders who want to get to New York cheaply, and to bring New Yorkers here to see what a great city we have (and spend money here).

It also causes noise in some neighborhoods. That's a problem, and one we should deal with. But after years and years of these buses operating, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) has suddenly imposed "emergency" rules to banish all of these buses to the barren sidewalks of L'Enfant Plaza.

With only one month's notice, suddenly all of the bus companies will have to apply for permits, and can't pick up in more convenient areas. Some will go out of business. Visitors to our city will only see bland, depressing L'Enfant Plaza instead of vibrant, exciting Chinatown, Metro Center, Farragut Square, or Dupont Circle. There won't be anything to eat while waiting for a bus. People will feel less safe. Our businesses will lose revenue. And while private cars can still park for free or almost free on most blocks, we're hurting an environmentally friendly mode of transportation.

What's the rush? Can't we take a moment for a public discussion of better alternatives? What about auctioning off a few loading areas around the city? Or creating a bus zone in the huge parking lot that used to be the old convention center, or on one of the wide but mostly empty streets around Gallery Place or Judiciary Square?

Let's find a solution that keeps lively competition among our intercity buses while also fixing the problems. The buses have been operating for years. Let's take a time out on these rules until we can all work out a better solution.

DDOT is accepting comments for a few more days. Please send them a letter below asking them to call a time out on the new bus rules. Feel free to also weigh in with your opinion on what should be done.
Make Your Voice Heard

Issue in Spotlight:  Intercity Bus Loading & Unloading in Public Space

In response to various complaints with regard to intercity buses using public space for loading and unloading passengers, DDOT has instituted new regulations* that will now require intercity bus operators to obtain a permit as well as use newly identified, designated area(s) for pickups and drop offs. Existing intercity bus service operators, who utilize public space for loading and unloading passengers, should submit their application* for permits by July 3rd.

Limited space is available. Applications filed by July 3rd will be processed together. Any of these applications that include requests for use of the space at the same time will be resolved by the District Department of Transportation. All applications received after July 3rd will be given space as available on a first come first served basis.

Applications must be submitted in person at 941 North Capitol Street, NE, Suite 2300 along with a check made out to the DC Treasurer for the $100 application fee. The hours for submission are from 8:30 am and 4:15 pm, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. The new regulations are part of a one-year pilot program to provide safer pedestrian environments in public space for visitors and residents.

Low-cost, regional bus companies forced to load in designated zone

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Say goodbye to the Chinatown Bus and hello to L’Enfant Coach.

Responding to the exploding popularity of inexpensive bus rides between Washington, New York and other destinations, the District plans to funnel all buses that load and unload passengers on city streets into a single “intercity bus zone” in Southwest. The myriad bus services, a staple of the downtown for years, will face fines up to $1,500 for loading

outside of that zone, which can accommodate only two buses at a time.

The D.C. Department of Transportation claims that the various Chinatown buses, DC2NY and BoltBus, among others, are congesting streets, disrupting transit and causing a safety hazard for pedestrians. With fares as low as $15 each way and modern amenities such as wireless Internet, the buses have proliferated as gas prices have skyrocketed.

“In some instances, this activity poses safety concerns to the general public and to the bus customers themselves,” Karyn LeBlanc, DDOT spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

Under a soon-to-debut one-year pilot program, intercity buses will be routed to a curb lane on northbound 10th Street Southwest, just south of D Street beneath the L’Enfant Promenade. The regulations require that all buses obtain a DDOT permit to load there — the application for which must include a proposed schedule, plan for queuing passengers and a $100 fee.

Professor Jan Gehl

Tuesday 11 September 2007

Jan Gehl

For over 40 years internationally renowned Danish architect Jan Gehl's career has focused on improving the quality of urban life, especially for pedestrians.

Jan discusses how his research on public spaces and public life has been applied successfully in cities across Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Australia. He will also share his observations on the ways we can make Sydney a truly great pedestrian city.

Public Transport Needs of Minority, Ethnic and Faith Communities Guidance Pack

and

A review of existing research of relevance to Transport Direct

Truck Hits Bus; Bus Crashes Into Bank

NEW YORK (WCBS 880)  -- One person is dead and four people are injured after an out-of-control dump truck coming off the Manhattan Bridge slammed into a waiting bus that was loading people for a trip to Boston.

The dead was a 57-year-old pedestrian.

Photo Gallery - Chinatown Bus Crash

That Fung Wah bus that is now jammed into the side of the United Commercial Bank at Canal and The Bowery
 
An entire traffic light has been brought down by this accident. Police are still on the scene investigating.

The impact of the collision caused the bus to go into the plate glass window of the bank, so that's smashed, and so is the bus's front window.

September 10, 2003
COLUMN ONE
Busman Stops at Nothing
* After 9/11, Kazuhiro Nakagawa's business was reduced from $10,000 luxury tours to $40 trips up and down the coast, but he doesn't give up.

By Ronald D. White, Times Staff Writer

It was almost departure time, but Kazuhiro Nakagawa's 55-seat tour bus still had that "Not in Service" look as it sat outside the Wilshire Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

Slowly, a handful of passengers assembled: two teenagers from Altadena, a frugal twentysomething couple just back from Israel and a 19-year-old German woman touring the country.

A few years ago, Japanese tourists paid Nakagawa $10,000 each for whirlwind tours of the Western United States on his luxury bus. With that market ruined by the sour Japanese economy and the lingering effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Nakagawa sought a new niche running a nonstop luxury bus service from Los Angeles to San Francisco, $40 one way.
...

Megabus.com Introduces Double-Decker Buses for Northeast City-to-City Travel New York and Washington first cities to receive 79-passenger closed top-buses

Politics & Society

Bicycle Activists Take to the Freeways in L.A.

The Bryant Park Project, June 12, 2008 · People tend to think of Los Angeles as the natural habitat of the automobile, a land where giant on ramps and multilane freeways determine the course of life.

But for three cyclists in Santa Monica, Los Angeles is a bikers' world. Morgan Strauss grew up riding bikes around L.A. Alex Cantarero grew up riding local buses, even celebrating childhood birthdays aboard, before making the move to pedal power. Rich Totheie moved from New York City a few years back, having never much used a bike for transportation.

In November, the three bicycle activists began dreaming up ways to make their point — that two-wheelers deserve a place in the transportation network. They say they'd grown tired of playing cat-and-mouse with Santa Monica police at monthly Critical Mass rides. Instead, their group, the Crimanimalz, began protests like bottling intersections with endless, lawful rounds of Crosswalk Craps.

In Toronto, cyclists form a first-of-its-kind union

Believed to be the first of its kind, the Toronto Cyclists Union plans to offer insurance, roadside assistance, advocacy, and even an online dating service.
By Susan Bourette | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor / June 6, 2008 edition

April 15, 2007
Chinatown
Casino-Bound, Complaints in Their Wake

By CASSI FELDMAN

Around 8:30 p.m., a fat gray bus bound for Atlantic City pulls up on Division Street in Chinatown. Its doors wheeze open, and a line of riders shuffle into formation, clutching pink tickets and plastic shopping bags, and sucking a few final drags from their cigarettes before flicking them away.

The ritual takes no more than 15 minutes, but it happens dozens of times a day as buses headed to Trump Plaza, Foxwoods or other casinos load and unload passengers in the V formed by the Bowery and Division Street.

Now, citing pollution and noise, neighbors say they want the buses to find a new home.

"You can feel a toxic film in our yard," said Justin Yu, vice president of the co-op board at Confucius Plaza, a 44-story complex that overlooks the site. "It's very unhealthy."

While numerous bus companies operate out of Chinatown, Mr. Yu and his neighbors are particularly concerned about casino buses because their informal hub is a block shared by hundreds of senior citizens, an elementary school, a kindergarten and a day care center.

tour titled South Asian on City of Memory

Man With a Plan

Q: As a former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, who won wide praise for making the city a model of enlightened planning, you have lately been hired by officials intent on building world-class cities, especially in Asia and the developing world. What is the first thing you tell them? In developing-world cities, the majority of people don’t have cars, so I will say, when you construct a good sidewalk, you are constructing democracy. A sidewalk is a symbol of equality.

I wouldn’t think that sidewalks are a top priority in developing countries. The last priority. Because the priority is to make highways and roads. We are designing cities for cars, cars, cars, cars, cars. Not for people. Cars are a very recent invention. The 20th century was a horrible detour in the evolution of the human habitat. We were building much more for cars’ mobility than children’s happiness.

Even in countries where most people can’t afford to own cars? The upper-income people in developing countries never walk. They see the city as a threatening space, and they can go for months without walking one block.

Dreams and Desperation on Forsyth Street

June 1, 2008
In the Region | New Jersey
A Rail Line Generates New Life
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN

HERE is what light rail has delivered to five formerly down-at-heels neighborhoods along the 20.6-mile system in northern New Jersey: more than 10,000 units of new housing, with a total property value surpassing $5 billion.

The opening and continued expansion of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system from 2000 to 2006 have greatly affected all 23 stops on the north-south line running through seven municipalities.

According to a new study from the Voorhees Transportation Center of Rutgers University, some station sites have already been reshaped by development; others are poised for the same treatment.

The detailed study focused especially on five of the station areas - those that researchers considered to have the most potential for development. They are Port Imperial in Weehawken; Ninth Street in Hoboken; the area between the Essex Street and Jersey Avenue stations in Jersey City; the Bergenline Avenue neighborhood of Union City and West New York; and the 34th Street area in Bayonne.

June 5, 2008
Film Spotlights City Life Often Overlooked
By JENNIFER 8. LEE

The directors of "Take Out," a feature film about a Chinese deliveryman who must pay off his debt to immigrant-smugglers, do not claim that their movie is based on a true story. But it has more than a passing resemblance to a documentary, so much so that after a screening, one of the audience members asked where the man was now, and whether he was doing all right.

iSepta was created to make navigating the SEPTA schedules simple on your phone. It was designed by Jason Tremblay and developed by Chris Conley and Randy Schmidt of ümlatte.

For 10 years, South Bronx residents have been fighting to get the state to tear down an old expressway so that a greener and more sustainable mixed-use neighborhood can take its place. The community's vision fits nicely with the goals of the city's long-term sustainability plan, PlaNYC2030. But will the city embrace this precocious community-based effort?

By Robin Shulman

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, May 25, 2008;

Page A02

NEW YORK -- The view from the lens of photographer Mark Weiss's camera is of a treacherous world of cab drivers weaving into bike lanes, of double-parked delivery vehicles, of car doors opening suddenly, of pedestrians wandering blindly and of narrow passageways between trucks. It is the world of the Manhattan bicycle commuter, which Weiss captures on a camera affixed to a bar on his single-gear bike.

City officials, hoping to make commutes like his less treacherous, have created a seven-block experiment of a bike lane on Ninth Avenue. Here, concrete dividers and a row of parked cars shield a bike lane from the street and its traffic. Low mini-traffic lights show when cyclists have the right of way. Bike commuters, messengers and delivery people peel down perfectly smooth paths.

"It would be nice if that were everywhere," said Weiss, 45.

The city is planning to create another protected lane on Eighth Avenue, part of an effort to encourage cycling in New York, where bike use has increased by 75 percent since 2000, to about 130,000 commuters a day. The city hopes to double current bicycle use by 2015 and to triple it by 2020.

"We've run out of room for driving in the city. We have to make it easier for people to get around by bikes," said Janette Sadik-Khan, the city's transportation commissioner, who herself bikes to work. She is installing covered bike racks that resemble bus shelters, distributing thousands of free helmets, and expanding a small network of bike lanes to 400 miles by next summer (out of 6,000 miles of city streets).

Bargain bus service Megabus, which touted fares as low as $1, said Friday that it would pull out of Los Angeles because of low ridership.

The decision to shut down the hub, which was expected, came less than a year after Megabus began service from Los Angeles to cities including San Francisco and Las Vegas.

"Our approach has been to go into different markets and give it a shot and see how they'll develop," said Megabus President Dale Moser. "If they develop quickly, we'll certainly sustain it. But in this case, the ridership trends aren't growing enough."

Megabus, a subsidiary of Coach USA, will end its service from Los Angeles to San Francisco and Oakland after June 22, and from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, San Jose and Millbrae, Calif., a few weeks earlier, Moser said.

Earlier this year, Megabus halted its service from Los Angeles to San Diego and Phoenix.

Despite spending "thousands of dollars" in advertising, Moser said, the 56-seat buses would sometimes pull out of Los Angeles with as few as 12 riders.

Meanwhile, the service is taking off in the Midwest, where Megabus serves 17 cities and has seen its business increase 137% during the last year, he said.

"We're disappointed too," Moser said. "It doesn't mean at a later date we won't revisit bringing the service back."

Fung Wah and easyBus

9 August 2004

Comparison of services

Metrolink Tries to Censor Bloggers

A paranoid transit agency spends public money threatening critical Web sites

By MAX TAVES

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 - 7:00 pm

New Project: MySociety Travel Time Maps

Interactive maps of travel time and housing prices in London MySociety, an NGO which builds websites that give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives, came to Stamen with a remit to explore two fascinating datasets: median prices of homes throughout London, and the time it takes to travel from one place to another throughout the city. Travel times from the Department of Transport Both of these datasets are fairly well understood, if not widely available for public consumption in graphic format. We thought that we could add the most value to people's experience of this material if we did two things: provided an exploratory (as opposed to search-based) way to navigate, and also combined the information into a set of interactive pieces that let you explore the various parameters on your own. For example, you may have decided you want to spend £200k on a house, and live within 1/2 hour of your work, and it's simple enough to search for that information. But what if the results that come back aren't quite to your liking, and you can't find a neighborhood that meets those parameters? Normally, you'd have to go back to the beginning, twiddle your search terms one way or the other, and start again. Travel times from the Olympic Stadium By introducing a set of sliders which control travel time as well as median house price displays, we can let you explore the data on your own terms. If you're willing to pay a bit more to live a little closer to work, for example, you can quickly adjust the sliders to reflect those choices, without having to go back to the beginning and start searching all over again. We think this way of interacting with information—exploring as opposed to searching—has alot to recommend it as more and more data moves onto our screens and into our lives.

U of M light rail tunnel could be back on the table by Laura Yuen,

Minnesota Public Radio May 13, 200

St. Paul, Minn. — Oberstar, who chairs the influential House Transportation Committee, supports the Central Corridor project linking St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The DFLer said a recently passed bill changes how the Federal Transit Administration evaluates transportation projects that are seeking federal money.

Under the old system, Oberstar said the FTA focused on what's known as the cost-effectiveness index. The CEI is a complicated formula that looks at travel times, ridership and construction costs.

But Oberstar said the index means the agency essentially ignores other factors, such as environmental benefits and the potential for economic development. He pushed for the recent changes, which will require the FTA to also give comparable weight to five other criteria.

Nation
Slugging to Work: Anonymous Ride-Sharing
Morning Edition, May 22, 2008
· If you've ever sat in rush-hour traffic, gazing longingly at the cars rushing by in the high-occupancy vehicle lanes, try doing something your parents warned you never to do: Hop in a car with a complete stranger behind the wheel.

In a few cities, like Washington, D.C., formerly lone motorists can zip over into those HOV lanes thanks to a rare breed of commuter called a "slug." And with gas prices through the roof there's now an extra incentive to do it.

By 7 a.m., at a non-descript parking lot in suburban Virginia, the line of blue and grey business suits stretches down the sidewalk. Men and women stand quietly, patiently waiting their turn.

Mon, May. 19, 2008

Spanish firm offers $12.8 billion to lease Pa. Turnpike

By Paul Nussbaum INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

A Spanish toll-road operator won the bidding war to operate the Pennsylvania Turnpike, offering $12.8 billion for a 75-year lease, Gov. Rendell said today. The proposal by Abertis Infraestructuras, of Barcelona, must be approved by the Pennsylvania legislature, and legislative leaders in Harrisburg have said the plan faces tough sledding with lawmakers.

STATEMENT OF JACQUELINE S. GILLAN
VICE PRESIDENT ADVOCATES FOR HIGHWAY AND AUTO SAFETY

CURBSIDE OPERATORS' BUS SAFETY

BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHWAYS, TRANSIT & PIPELINES

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WASHINGTON, DC
MARCH 2, 2006

Oklahoma City swaps highway for park

Tear it down. Build a park.

The aging Crosstown Expressway — an elevated 4.5-mile stretch of Interstate 40 — will be demolished in 2012. An old-fashioned boulevard and a mile-long park will be constructed in its place.

Oklahoma City is doing what many cities dream about: saying goodbye to a highway.

More than a dozen cities have proposals to remove highways from downtowns. Cleveland wants to remove a freeway that blocks its waterfront. Syracuse, N.Y., wants to rid itself of an interstate that cuts the city in half.

May 15, 2008
It's No Hallucination: Polka-Dot Buses Aim to Cut Travel Time
By JENNIFER MASCIA
No, there are no illegal drugs being handed out as passengers begin their morning commutes: For the past few weeks, those seats on the M23 crosstown bus really have been decorated with light and dark blue bubbles.

The new upholstery is probably the most conspicuous feature of Select Bus Service, an experimental project by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, with the support of the city and state Departments of Transportation, to improve service on congested routes.

The project, the result of several years of study, draws on several elements of Bus Rapid Transit, a system of bus operating practices used in cities around the world. The system's main elements will eventually include bus shelters where passengers pay the fare before boarding; fewer stops and greater distances between stops; dedicated bus lanes with a distinctive color and lettering; direct routes with frequent service that supplements, but does not replace, regular local bus service; and electronic signals that give the buses priority (a few extra seconds) if a traffic signal is about to switch, say, to yellow from green.

If the project is successful and put into place citywide, it could prove to be a great relief for customers who have long complained about the snail-like pace of city buses, especially the crosstown buses in Manhattan. It could also mark one of the starkest changes for bus riders, who for more than a century have been accustomed to dropping their change - or now, dipping a MetroCard - into the fare box upon boarding.

Under the new system, customers will pay before boarding, collecting a proof of purchase from a fare dispenser, similar to a MetroCard vending machine or Muni-Meter parking ticket machine, in the bus shelter.

BRONX (WABC) -- Six people were hurt when a bus scraped an overpass on a Bronx highway Friday night.

None of the injuries are considered life-threatening, but the roof of the Greyhound bus was ripped off in the crash.

The incident happened on the Henry Hudson Parkway near 252nd Street. The bus was coming from Massachusetts.

City Limits WEEKLY #591
June 11, 2007

Best known for their bargain prices, interstate buses run by Chinese companies have attracted travelers in droves, and helped many Chinese immigrants who can't communicate in English to travel to far-flung parts of the country. But a recent fatal accident involving a New York-bound bus has prompted new calls for the bus industry to step up safety measures.

New York City is the largest hub for these Chinese-run charter buses. The immigrant transportation industry started as an alternative and more affordable means to shuttle Chinese workers to Chinese restaurants in different locations. As the Chinese bus routes expanded rapidly along the East coast and Midwest over the years, commuters including students, artists, budget travelers and immigrants nationwide also caught the cheap fare trend. Currently the Chinese buses travel from New York City to Albany, Boston, Chicago, Providence, Michigan, Washington, D.C. and even as far as Florida for as little as $12 to $20 one way.

...

Low costs don’t necessarily mean low conscience, some say. City Councilmember John Liu, chairperson of Council’s transportation committee, said there is no pattern showing charter buses run by the Chinese companies are more accident-prone than those run by big national bus companies. He warned that the public should not stereotype these vehicles. “If an accident happened to a Greyhound or Trailway bus, you won’t say the 'Port Authority Bus' crashed. Likewise, Chinatown is not a company and it’s absurd to say the 'Chinatown buses' are not safe,” Liu said.

Schumer Reveals: Safety Gap On Inter-City ‘Chinatown’ Buses; Rated Dangerously Low On Safety By Feds

Two Buses Recently Caught on Fire Mid-Ride; Passengers Were Lucky to Escape Lawmaker Urges Feds to Hold More Surprise Inspections, Devote More Staff to Low Fare Carriers, and Disclose Safety Ratings for Shadow Bus Companies

U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today revealed that cheap “Chinatown” bus services and a number of other bus tour providers are sorely lacking in passenger safety. According to Federal criteria, Chinatown buses do much worse than other companies in several Safety Evaluation Areas (SEA), which rate a bus services’ drivers, vehicles, and overall safety management. Recent accidents on a few of these ‘Chinatown’ buses have raised serious questions about the safety of passengers riding to and from New York City to a variety of other cities on the East Coast. An examination of publicly available ratings and statistics show that low-cost, ‘Chinatown’ buses score dramatically lower than other bus services.

Schumer is urging the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the federal government agency which is charged with the responsibility for buses nationwide, to fully investigate past incidents, increase the number of surprise inspections, make sure that safety ratings are clearly disclosed on buses for riders to see, and ensure that no bus that does not meet a minimum passing rating can drive out of the station loaded with passengers.

NEW YORK, NY September 15, 2005 -New Yorkers who like to travel on the cheap know about all about the "Chinatown bus." Fifteen dollars to Boston. Twenty to Washington. Twelve to Philadelphia.

The companies that run these somewhat chaotic cash businesses started out several years ago, ferrying Chinese restaurant workers up and down the East Coast. But thrifty travelers caught on, and now a series of companies carry college students, professionals, and anyone else looking for a low-priced convenient trip. It's estimated that about 350 buses leave New York's Chinatown a week.

But a pair of fires in recent months has prompted some federal and state officials to take a closer look at the safety of the buses, and the companies that run them. Reporter Lizzie O'Leary has more.

10. Xincheng Bus Company

Bus ticket New York <=> Pittsburgh: original prize: $60, Card Holder: $45
New York Hot Line: 212-393-1238  Pittsburgh
Hot Line: 917-709-4220

Chinanews

10/23/2007 

archives 2005 » jan. 5th
IMMIGRATION
Borderline Realities

When Mexican men and women living in South Philadelphia become crime victims, they're often too afraid to tell the police.

by Kate Kilpatrick

One day in his first year in the U.S., Rubén, now 26, left his apartment at 15th and Bainbridge, where he lived with seven other men, to go to work. With the other men at work too, the house was empty all day.

When Rubén returned that evening everything was missing--the TV, VCR, PlayStation, telephone, stereo, CDs (most of them Mexican), air conditioner, bed covers and clothes. Their collective hidden savings--totaling $11,000--were gone. None of the men spoke much English, or knew where to turn for help. One of the men told his boss, a restaurant owner, who said that because they were illegal, there was nothing he could do. No one contacted the police.

This story's far from unusual. Those in South Philadelphia's Mexican community say they're the victims of countless crimes--muggings, bike thefts, robberies, armed assaults, rapes--that never get reported.

Rubén's friend Jaime, 26, sums up a common experience: "You can drive, but you can't [legally]," he says. "So most Mexicanos go for a bike. In the restaurant business you get off at 12 or 1. If you're a dishwasher, you probably get off at 2. If you live at Seventh and Tasker, or Fifth or Fourth and Morris or Dickinson, mostly that part is bad. We can't afford to pay expensive rent to live on Fitzwater or Bainbridge. So most of the Mexicanos in South Philly live in dangerous places. I know a lot of my friends were assaulted by guys trying to get their bikes. We can't get a bank account, so we keep the money in our pocket. I don't know how they know that. We keep all our money until we send it home. So a lot of people get robbed."

city beat
Live Stop, Dead Cars

City lots are filling up with seized vehicles.

by Daryl Gale

If you're one of the nearly 31,000 Philadelphians whose car was confiscated under the city's Live Stop program, you're probably already familiar with the contents of this story and have started cursing under your breath while reading it on public transportation. For many others, some questions remain: Whose car gets taken? How do you get it back? And what ever happened to the promise that auto-insurance premiums would drop, since not even a penny has been deducted so far?

Here are the hard numbers. Between last July, when the administration started enforcing Live Stop, and the end of May, 30, 909 cars had been confiscated from drivers without a valid license and/or an up-to-date registration. The program is administered by the Philadelphia Parking Authority, which hauls away the cars and stores them in five lots across the city.

There they wait for owners to reclaim them after paying the necessary fees and acquiring the proper paperwork. That means you have to pay up any tickets and fines, the state's $36 vehicle registration fee, and of course, get some insurance. If no one stakes their claim, the car is auctioned off to the highest bidder. Parking Authority spokesperson Richard Dickson says confiscated cars go to the highest bidder in about a month, which officials consider enough time for owners to get their paperwork in order.

IN 2002, when the car-sharing company known as Zipcar brought its first 10 small Volkswagens to the city, an article in the Automobiles section of The New York Times offered the speculation that the venture's cars might one day "become as familiar to New Yorkers as the pushcart hot dog vendor."

More than five years on, that prediction is closer to being true. The company has 1,100 vehicles in the city, which can be picked up at more than 100 different sites.

But as the company grows, it has bumped into a problem facing so many New Yorkers: scarce and expensive parking. Zipcar says it raised rental rates last month in part because of this cost, and as the company expands further outside Manhattan, it finds itself struggling to stay a step ahead of the developers who are buying up the city's empty lots.

EVEN on a quiet evening last week, without a construction worker in sight, there were signs of the neighborhood strife that has taken over a stretch of 70th Street in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. A blue tarpaulin was draped over an unfinished porch renovation, and in front of that house, behind barriers and yellow tape, was a smooth, pale new stretch of sidewalk, sloping gently down toward the street.

This, in regulatory parlance, was a curb cut, and it was the focus of a dispute that has pitted neighbor against neighbor on a quiet stretch of narrow attached brick houses for the past year.

Gus Englezos, the owner of the house and the author of the curb cut, says he spent $60,000 fighting for permission to build a driveway and free himself from searching for parking spaces on the street.

But in the opinion of the block association president, Josephine Beckmann, who is also the district manager of the local community board, the streetscape has been marred, not to mention the fact that there is now one fewer public parking spot. And the Dyker Heights Civic Association says the city's decision in Mr. Englezos' favor, which it is appealing, could set a pernicious precedent and lead to similar turmoil on dozens of other blocks.

Drexel Bike Share Policy

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

A Land Use Transport Model for London

Mike Batty at CASA has been working on a Land use transport model for London. The model simulates the location of the residential population as a function of this employment, floorspace and generalised travel cost. The model is currently, a partially constrained spatial interaction/residential location model disaggregated by four modes of transport – road, heavy rail, light rail (tube and DLR) and bus, with walk-cycle-other the fifth residual mode.

Welcome to MVP Bus Line

Express Bus Service*
$20 Oneway/$35 Roundtrip

New Baltimore Address:
1910 N Charles Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218

Starting 04/15/2008, we will run Summer schedule. Please click here=> to find out more.
Holiday Schedules(2/18/2008) Click here

New York(Mid Town,Penn Station) ==> Washington DC/Baltimore
Washington DC/Baltimore ==> New York(Mid Town,Penn Station)

*Note:We do not stop in New York Chinatown
*NYC<=>DC takes about 4.5 hours subject to traffic
*NYC<=>Baltimore takes about 3 hours subject to traffic

Featuring:

By Lorne Bell - Friday November 30 2007
Vamoose may never service the Boston area.
Hasidic-owned company told to desist picking up passengers from Boston area

Vamoose, the latest express bus line to offer service between the Boston area and New York City, suffered a significant setback this week when Cambridge officials denied the company permission to pick up passengers on city streets. Although Vamoose had successfully launched an express route from Bennett Street in Cambridge on Nov. 8, the company was ordered to cease all operations on Monday.
"I suspect that we may not ever be able to go into Boston, or at least for the time being," said company spokeswoman Florence Bluzenstein. "We're basically stuck between a rock and a hard place."
Vamoose was founded by Bluzenstein's husband, Sam Bluzenstein, a Hasidic Jew from New York City. The former transportation head of a large yeshiva, Mr. Bluzenstein started Vamoose four years ago to provide travelers between New York City and Washington, D.C., with a more customer service-oriented alternative to traditional bus lines.

Editorial

Chinatown bus chaos

Chinatown's private bus business is booming. That this industry has grown to its current level in a little under 10 years is amazing. The rates are cheap and if one is not too fussy these rides are just the ticket.

Yet, while the busy bus business is good news for Chinatown's economy over all, it also has brought a host of problems that are affecting Chinatown as well as the Lower East Side.

The buses increase traffic, pollution, noise, garbage and even violence, due to the fights that sometimes flare between rival operators in their competition for passengers. Police say it's hard to oversee these problems because the buses are so spread out. And the buses' picking up at the curb at scattered locations means traffic is being impacted in a haphazard, irrational way. Residents, in particular, are feeling the bus invasion's effects.

As The Villager reported last week, the city recently proposed a 30-day pilot program under which all the Chinatown interstate buses would be shunted toward the end of Pike St., with no more than seven dropping off or picking up at any one time. However, neighbors at Knickerbocker Village and the Rutgers Houses opposed the idea and so did Community Board 3.

By Loretta Chao
...
As convenient as the service is for riders however, drivers say the work is extremely difficult and unrewarding. Each driver has to buy, insure, and sign their buses up with a company, which then gets a cut of their daily earnings. Zhou, for example, makes seven round trips everyday during the winter and gets to save less than $100.

"I have worked 365 days for four years now," said Zhou, who lives in Flushing with his wife and 3-year-old daughter. "Just think - I've never taken a vacation, not even for one day. I haven't even had time to get sick.

"It's just unbearably hard. I don't know English. When I go out I feel like I'm mute. Everything I learned in school is useless," he said.

And while customers are plentiful, the increasing number of vans has led to bitter and sometimes violent rivalry over the past six years. Police arrested the drivers involved in a string of murders as part of what they called a "bus war" in January 2003, but investigators said minor offenses like tire slashing and window breaking often went unreported. With some drivers working until 11 o'clock at night, they face other dangers as well.

GERARDOS TRANSPORTATION "LA PIONERA"!!!

VENTURES; Chinatown to Boston On a $15 Van Ride

It started with van service between Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Chinatown. Now it has branched out to Boston: a van ride from Chinatown can cost as little as $15.

The entrepreneur behind it is Pei Lin Liang, an immigrant from China, who worked as a delivery man for a noodle shop before he opened Fung Wah Transport Vans in 1996.

To get to work in Chinatown from his home in Brooklyn, he used to be a passenger on an unlicensed transportation service. The experience helped Mr. Liang realize that there was a market for van service from Sunset Park to Chinatown.

Mr. Liang set up Fung Wah, at first with a trial period, for the many people who made that daily trip. He thought he could do a better job handling the business. Mr. Liang, who was a professional musician before he immigrated in 1988, also needed a way to support his family.

Mr. Liang says the people who use the van service -- between 139 Canal Street, near the Bowery, and 4207 Eighth Avenue, near 42nd Street in Brooklyn -- are almost all Chinese. They use the service, which costs $1.75 and runs consistently throughout the day, starting as early as 7 a.m. and running as late as 11:30 p.m.

In 1998, Mr. Liang expanded the van service to include trips from 139 Canal to 68 Beach Street in Boston's Chinatown, right in front of the Crown Royal Bakery, which Mr. Liang's brother-in-law owns.

Originally, Mr. Liang created the second route because many Chinese families had children studying in Boston. That service now has six departures from New York and six from Boston, every day. One-way trips are $25 and round trips $45. (The 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. trips from New York, and the 8 a.m. trip from Boston, though, are $15.) For comparison, a search on the Greyhound Web site found that a one-way adult fare from New York to Boston was $40, not including sales tax.

Mr. Liang estimates that the clientele on the New York-Boston route is 80 percent Chinese-Americans and includes many foreigners and students. They usually find out about Fung Wah through friends, but Fung Wah also advertises in two Chinese-language newspapers.

Mike Clarfeld, 23, a New York resident who recently rode a Fung Wah van round trip between New York and Boston with his friend Ed Domingo, recommends the Chinatown-Chinatown service and said he would use it again.

''You want to know my favorite part?'' Mr. Clarfeld asked. At 4 p.m., he said, the departure time the two men had opted for on a recent Friday, Mr. Domingo called Mr. Clarfeld's cell phone to say that he was stuck in traffic five blocks north of the Fung Wah Chinatown location.

''So,'' Mr. Clarfeld said, ''the woman who ran Fung Wah said: 'Where's your friend? We'll pick him up along the way.' ''

By Rosemary McClure, Times Staff Writer
May 17, 2007

They were an underground hit almost from the start.

The cut-rate transportation services called "Chinatown buses" originated about a decade ago in the Northeast. At first, they were an inexpensive way for Chinese restaurant workers to commute to jobs in nearby cities. Fares as low as $10 between New York and Boston were common.

Soon Chinese students began to hop aboard, and other students followed suit. Then savvy budget travelers noticed, and suddenly Greyhound was facing a new form of competition: low-overhead bus companies that thrived on a no-frills, shoestring approach to service.

Instead of picking up passengers at terminals, Chinatown buses picked them up - and deposited them - along curbsides; instead of maintaining ticket offices, they sold space online; instead of offering numerous routes, they offered only the most popular.

The bus lines, most of which are owned by Chinese immigrants, are common in the Northeast, but similar low-cost services also can be found in the West.

The online booking service GotoBus.com launched five years ago by Cambridge, Mass., businessman Jimmy Chen, handles reservations and helped put the low-cost bus trend on the road.

GotoBus.com now accounts for 1,000 scheduled departures a day throughout the country. Besides the low-cost players it now takes reservations for major sightseeing companies, such as Gray Line.

...

Riders can choose transportation alone, paying fares as low as $25 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas or $45 between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Or they can choose vacations that include accommodations, such as a two-day trip from Los Angeles to Ensenada, Mexico, for $95; or a three-day trip from L.A. to San Francisco and Yosemite for $120.

Prices and tour components fluctuate - the $99 Las Vegas-Grand Canyon itinerary described in the accompanying story, for instance, is now available from various companies for prices ranging from $114 to $127, but a different Vegas tour is available for $99 that includes two nights in Sin City.

D.C. to New York for $10. Seriously. - Thrifty Travelers Discover a Gem in Chinatown Bus Lines
Washington Post - December 1, 2002
Author: Michael Barbaro, Washington Post Staff Writer

At 2:23 a.m., American University freshman Gene Fielden settles into a chair in the dank basement bus depot at 513 H St NW. He thinks he has found a way to kill time when the pow-pow-pow of a television movie erupts from a small set in the corner. Then the dialogue starts -- in Chinese.

"Easy listening, huh?" he yells, pointing to the speaker above his head.

Greyhound this is not.

But for Fielden, and for many others who have found their way to Washington-New York Express Tours' bus stop in Chinatown, or to its competitor Dragon Expressway & Travel Inc. a block away, this late-night trip isn't about tidy terminals, frequent departures or reclining seats. It's about price. To be exact, $10 for a one-way ticket from Washington to New York. Round trip? $15.

Largely under the radar, a new transportation link has taken hold between cities up and down the East Coast: Chinatown-to-Chinatown buses, which originally targeted immigrant Chinese restaurant workers. Dragon and Washington-New York Express Tours, joined by a handful of other tiny lines, are now waging an elbows-out battle for dominance in the niche market. At least four motor-coach companies run routes to New York's Chinatown -- from the District as well as from Boston, Philadelphia, Richmond and Baltimore -- in a competition that, in Manhattan at least, has even broken into violence over parking spaces and potential passengers.

By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: May 11, 2003

The operator of a Chinatown bus company competing with others in a bitter battle for riders was shot and killed on Friday night on a street near his home, and detectives yesterday were investigating whether the slaying was related to the unusual feud, police officials said.

The gunman, whom the police described as an Asian man in his 20's wearing a waist-length black jacket and a white baseball cap, was apparently waiting for the victim, De Jian Chen, 27, outside Mr. Chen's home on Henry Street, the police said. About 9:15 p.m., as Mr. Chen climbed out of a friend's white Lexus at Forsythe and Henry Streets, the gunman opened fire with a .45-caliber pistol, the police said.

But he missed his mark, and Mr. Chen ran down Henry Street and around the corner onto Market Street, the police said. The gunman followed, catching up with Mr. Chen in front of 32 Market Street and firing again, this time hitting him three times in the back and once in the arm. Mr. Chen collapsed and was pronounced dead about 30 minutes later at New York University Downtown Hospital, the police said.

The police and a business associate of the victim, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, provided different accounts of his relationship to the bus company. The police said Mr. Chen worked for the company, Dragon Coach U.S.A., at 87 East Broadway, and had an ownership interest in another bus company. The associate said Mr. Chen was an owner of Dragon Coach U.S.A. and ran buses from New York City to Philadelphia, Washington and Richmond, Va., and played a lesser role in a company that ran buses to Atlanta.

Over the last year, several Chinatown bus lines that offer low fares to Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and other destinations have competed so fiercely for riders that fistfights have broken out between rival employees, and neighbors have complained of ganglike violence.

Last year, the police and prosecutors investigated certain companies and people associated with them, according to a law enforcement official, but no charges were filed. Last May, Mr. Chen was arrested and charged with first-degree assault; he was accused by the police of deliberately driving his bus into a man affiliated with a rival company. That case is pending.

The number of competitors to Greyhound Lines with inexpensive fares has soared in recent years, expanding well beyond the no-frills buses based in Chinatown in Manhattan and setting off fierce battles for riders. In fact, in the booming world of discount travel, there is apparently no room for two Hasidic-owned companies on the same route.

A dispute between the two bus companies that are vying for riders from New York to Washington, Vamoose and Washington Deluxe, has landed in court. As a result, some customers have been confused in recent days by Vamoose's Web site, which first said the company was temporarily out of business, then said it was running again, but with fewer stops.

The Vamoose-Washington Deluxe dispute, in which Washington Deluxe says that Vamoose trespassed on its route, is a small scuffle in a more tumultuous struggle that has transformed travel in the Northeast. Involved are more than 30 discount lines that pick up people curbside.

The lines, whose fares are much lower than the cost of air or train tickets and have led to discounts by Greyhound, the nation's largest carrier, have won over thousands of devoted customers. But the industry's short history also includes accidents, regular breakdowns, lawsuits and even violence.

The discount bus lines began springing up in Chinatown in the late 1990's with a handful of operators picking up passengers on haphazard schedules. The new lines had an advantage over more established bus companies because they did not pay for space or employees at the Port Authority Bus Terminal or other bus stations.

BEIT SIRA, West Bank — Ali Abu Safia, mayor of this Palestinian village, steers his car up one potholed road, then another, finding each exit blocked by huge concrete chunks placed there by the Israeli Army. On a sleek highway 100 yards away, Israeli cars whiz by.

“They took our land to build this road, and now we can’t even use it,” Mr. Abu Safia says bitterly, pointing to the highway with one hand as he drives with the other. “Israel says it is because of security. But it’s politics.”

The object of Mr. Abu Safia’s contempt — Highway 443, a major access road to Jerusalem — has taken on special significance in the grinding Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For the first time, the Supreme Court, albeit in an interim decision, has accepted the idea of separate roads for Palestinians in the occupied areas.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel told the Supreme Court that what was happening on the highway could be the onset of legal apartheid in the West Bank — a charge that makes many Israelis recoil.

Built largely on private Palestinian land, the road was first challenged in the Supreme Court in the early 1980s when the justices, in a landmark ruling, permitted it to be built because the army said its primary function was to serve the local Palestinians, not Israeli commuters. In recent years, in the wake of stone-throwing and several drive-by shootings, Israel has blocked Palestinians’ access to the road.

This month, as some 40,000 Israeli cars — and almost no Palestinians — use it daily, the court handed down its decision, one that has engendered much legal and political hand-wringing.

VAMOOSE EXPRESS BUS SERVICE
From New York NYC to Bethesda MD/Arlington VA (Rosslyn)
& from Arlington VA/Bethesda MD to New York NY
FARE: $25 each way
Cash or personal checks accepted on the bus 

Transportation provided by:
            DC Trails Inc., Lorton VA. MC #402959. Rated: Satisfactory
            World Wide Travel, Brooklyn NY. MC# 349766. Rated: Satisfactory

Contact Us:

TEL: 1-212-244-6132
EMAIL: support@easternshuttle.com

Why Choose Washington Deluxe Bus Commuter
Washington Deluxe knows you have a choice when it comes to selecting a transportation service provider for in Washington and NY. Our dedication to customer satisfaction and safety is what sets our company apart. With experience comes a greater ability to provide our clients with the flawless service they have come to rely on Washington Deluxe for their travel needs

Best Buses. Best Rates.
Offering an award winning combination of commuter buses at rates that can fit most budgets is how Washington Deluxe has become one of the most recognized names in the bus business in Washington and NY. Call us today

Clean Busses
We take Extra Effort to Provide you a Comfortable and Pleasent Experience, when you Travel with us

Welcome to Dragon Deluxe

Dragon Coach provides affordable and reliable transportation between New York, Baltimore, Washington DC, Albany, Woodbury Common Premium Outlets, Pittsburgh, PA and State College, PA. 

Dragon Expressway & Travel Inc.
Tel: 212-966-5310 or 1-800-475-1160
Fax: (212) 619-0752
217 Park Row
New York, NY 10038 

The planned improvements come as SEPTA is enjoying its first dedicated funding stream in a decade and ridership is increasing across the transit system, the country's sixth-largest.

SEPTA officials announced the plans for increasing service at a press conference yesterday, where they unveiled the agency's proposed operational budget for fiscal year 2009. The budget still needs to go through public hearings over the next couple weeks.

"All of these service initiatives are part of SEPTA's commitment to improve service and convenience for our customers around the five counties of Southeastern Pennsylvania," SEPTA's chief service planner Charles Webb said.

The proposed budget of $1.08 billion represents a spending increase of about 5.6 percent over the previous year. But SEPTA remains cautious about increasing spending, and is spending significantly less than it could. Even though a landmark transportation funding law enacted last summer is proving the transit agency significantly more in state subsidy than it has budgeted for, SEPTA is not using that money to improve service.

Welcome to Tony Coach Travel Bus Tony Coach provides affordable and reliable transportation between New York and Washington DC. eTickets are emailed to you in real-time when your payment is collected. Please present a valid ID of the customer name and a printout of order confirmation (eTickets) at boarding.

• New York - 87 Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002
                   1250 Broadway At W 32nd St, New York, NY 10001
• Washington DC - 2300 I Street NW, Washington, DC 20037
                           624 Street NW, Washington, DC 20001
• Baltimore - 5501 O'Donnell St Cutoff, Baltimore, MD 21224-4630

Low-cost service between Philadelphia, New York

Tom Belden

Inquirer Staff Writer

Megabus.com, a two-year-old division of Coach USA, of Chicago, intends to unveil plans today for a new service like ones it already operates in Chicago, Los Angeles and abroad. It could compete with existing low-cost bus lines in Philadelphia's Chinatown, and it capitalizes on Web-based booking systems and fuel-efficient vehicles to push down costs even in the face of ever-rising diesel prices.

Megabus says it will offer eight round-trips a day, with Philadelphia stops on John F. Kennedy Boulevard near 30th Street Station and at Fifth and Market Streets, near the Independence Visitor Center. The only New York stop is at Penn Station, at Eighth Avenue between 32d and 33d Streets.

All seats on Megabuses will be free the first week. Thereafter, they will cost from $1 to $14 each way, said Dale Moser, president of Coach USA L.L.C., a national operator of charter and scheduled bus services, based in Paramus, N.J.

...

Megabus.com will begin similar express service May 30 between New York and six other cities: Atlantic City, Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Toronto and Washington. The company will operate like a hub-and-spoke airline, with all routes nonstop to and from New York. There are no plans to add other routes from Philadelphia, Moser said.

Nicki Bennett is an American aid worker who bounces around from one hot spot to the next, working for Oxfam. She has been deployed to Sudan, eastern Congo, Chad, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia and Guatemala. She is currently in Bangladesh working on post-hurricane reconstruction.

This week I’m back in Dhaka, the world’s undisputed rickshaw capital. With more than 300,000 of these brightly colored bicycle contraptions plying the city’s streets for trade, I rarely walk for more than a block before a rickshaw driver (known as “rickshaw-wallah”) pulls up next to me and urges me to hop on board.

I’ve learned it’s almost impossible to refuse a ride. This is partly because the rickshaw-wallahs are very persistent, partly because I feel I should be supporting people struggling to make a living (one in five of the city’s inhabitants depends on the rickshaw business for their income) and partly because Dhaka is now starting to get unbearably hot and humid (and I’m starting to get horrendously lazy).

Coming back from a meeting near my office this afternoon, I start chatting (well, mainly hand-gesturing) with my rickshaw-wallah and ask him where he’s from. I’ve heard lots of stories about families in the cyclone-affected coastal areas sending sons or brothers to urban centers like Dhaka to make a little bit of cash driving rickshaws (many people have not been able to return to their regular jobs as the cyclone destroyed their fishing boats and nets or washed away their crops). I’m wondering if my rickshaw-wallah is one of them.

Instead, he names a district that I’ve never heard of. We manage to establish that it’s somewhere north of Dhaka, near a river. “Floods,” he tells me. “In my village. Village underwater.” Finally the penny drops – he’s not just an economic migrant, he’s also a “climate migrant.”

PEMD-90-1 Traffic Congestion: Trends, Measures, and Effects, November 30, 1989

Traffic Congestion: Trends, Measures, and Effects  PEMD-90-1  November 30, 1989  (81 pages)
PDF   

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed traffic congestion in large and small metropolitan areas, focusing on: (1) the forces that affect traffic congestion, and how they shape its nature and severity; (2) how the Federal Highway Administration (FHwA) measured traffic congestion; (3) the credibility of FHwA urban freeway delay estimates; and (4) whether FHwA measured the effects of traffic congestion.

GAO found that: (1) the forces that shaped traffic congestion included trends in suburban development, the economy, the labor force, automobile use, truck traffic, and the highway infrastructure; (2) traffic congestion problems have increasingly occurred in suburban and outlying rural areas; (3) random interruptions in traffic flow may have a greater effect on traffic delays than recurring congestion during peak traffic periods; (4) federal, state, and local transportation agencies measured traffic flow conditions through traffic density, average travel speeds, maximum service flow rates, traffic flow to facility capacity ratios, average daily traffic volume, and daily vehicle travel miles; (5) FHwA used an urban freeway delay model to estimate present and future congestion levels nationally and to rank the most severely congested metropolitan areas; (6) the model's omission of capacity improvements and its sensitivity to changes in freeway capacity raised questions about its accuracy; (7) information on potential environmental, economic, and human stress effects was limited; (8) FHwA assigned dollar values to time and fuel wasted in traffic delays to quantify economic effects; and (9) laboratory tests on the health and environmental effects of motor vehicle emissions have shown that motor vehicles emit high levels of some pollutants under conditions associated with traffic congestion, while some studies have linked traffic congestion with physiological and behavioral changes.

ON a weekend stroll down Prince Street in SoHo, past the vendors with foldout tables heaped with jewelry and movie scripts, the crowds flocking in and out of the Apple store, and the milling clusters of overtired out-of-towners, it might seem hard to imagine that the neighborhood could suffer from more foot-traffic congestion than it already does.

But that peril, along with the daunting prospect of still more tourists, is the main reason many local residents oppose a plan suggested this month by the city's Department of Transportation to declare summer Sundays on Prince Street car-free from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The plan drew heated opposition from about 200 people at a meeting on March 11 of the Traffic and Transportation Committee of Community Board 2.

On Thursday night, the full board voted to reject the idea, asking the department to explore car-free zones in a different form or perhaps on a different street.

 Established in 2003, Lucky River Transportation Inc offers competitive fare to customers traveling between Boston and New York City. Since then, Lucky Star evolved from a family style operation business into a corporation which maintains its fleet of more than 20 luxury motor coaches from the state of the art maintenance facility. "We are serious about our service because we strive to provide a professional, dependable and safe environment to our passengers."

By Donovan Slack and Mac Daniel, Globe Staff | September 4, 2005

A major discount bus carrier that shuttles passengers between Boston and New York rates significantly worse than the national average on two of three federal safety rankings, but state regulators say the bus line is safe.

Fung Wah Bus Transportation Inc., which had one of its buses burst into flames two weeks ago on a Connecticut highway just moments after passengers escaped, said it has run into some safety issues because it has been growing so fast, but it is now fixing any problems.

The company has risk ratings on driver safety and safety management that are close to the point that could trigger a federal investigation.

Fung Wah has a driver risk rating of 73. On the scale, 100 is the worst; 75 or above is considered at risk of being unsafe and can lead to an investigation.

Lucky River Transportation Corp., another low-cost carrier that runs the same Boston-New York route, has a driver risk rating of 74, according to ratings issued in July by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Boston-based Kristine Travel & Tours Inc., another lower-cost carrier that used to run between Boston and New York under the name Travel Pack, had a driver risk rating of 97, one of the worst in the country.

It is not under investigation, federal officials say.

On the driver risk rating, the national average is 24. Among the higher-priced competitors, Greyhound scored 22, and Peter Pan Bus Lines rated 58.

The ratings, which are updated monthly and cover the previous 30 months, are based on drivers' records, including the number of traffic tickets and the number of times their logs show they spent too much time behind the wheel.

A score of 80 means that about 80 percent of carriers had better driver-safety records.

A direct action network for global and local social-ecological revolution(s) to transcend hierarchical and authoritarian society, (capitalism included), and still be home in time for tea... Welcome to the cyber-streets of RTSLondon.

Evelyn Blumenberg

Transport Policy
Volume 15, Issue 1, January 2008, Pages 33-42

David Banister

Transport Policy
Volume 15, Issue 2, March 2008, Pages 73-80
New Developments in Urban Transportation Planning

Abstract

Informal transport: A global perspective Robert Cervero and Aaron Golub

Transport Policy
Volume 14, Issue 6, November 2007, Pages 445-457

248 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

Location: Fine Arts Library
Call Number: HE355.3.C64 C47 1986
Status: Available, check location

Posted on: Wednesday, 23 May 2007, 15:00 CDT

By DAVID A. MICHAELS, STAFF WRITER

A minibus company that began as an informal service catering to immigrants in Passaic County now carries more commuters between Paterson and New York than NJ Transit.

While critics have scoffed at the worn-out appearance of some minibuses, riders praise the Spanish Transportation company for its inexpensive and frequent service.

Even state transportation officials acknowledged that Spanish Transportation has evolved into an essential commuter service for a growing region that demands more mass transit than the state can supply.

"Our elected officials have realized the services we provide to the cities are a necessity," said Norberto Curitomai, the founder and president of Spanish Transportation. "We provide a quality public transportation, at lower rates that is maybe not provided by New Jersey Transit."

...

Curitomai's drivers make express trips in about 45 minutes compared with an hour or more on NJ Transit's long, winding circuits. His buses carry an estimated 30,000 daily passenger trips, Curitomai said.

Yet his success hasn't hurt NJ Transit's Paterson business. The state agency's revenue grew 18 percent between 2002 and 2006.

Source: The Bergen Record 

One of the justifications offered for U.S. taxpayers to subsidize Amtrak is the idea that lower-income people (students, immigrants, the retired, etc.) need an affordable alternative to using the airlines for inter-city travel. That's always rung hollow with me, since we've had nationwide Greyhound bus service since long before Amtrak. But Greyhound has been losing money for a number of years, and its annual passenger count has been declining since 2000—in part due to the growth of low-cost airlines.

But this decade has also witnessed a proliferation of new inter-city bus companies. So far, none is of national scope, but their niche markets are growing. And they seem to be following in the footsteps of low-cost air carriers, by thinking outside the box to cut costs dramatically.

 ...

In the northeast, several companies offer bus service between Chinatowns in various cities. The largest of these seems to be Chinatown Bus (Chinatown-bus.com), connecting Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. Fares vary, with "typical" one-way fares ranging from $12 New York-Philadelphia to $20 New York-DC. Another bus company, Vamoose, offers express service between Manhattan and two DC suburbs—Bethesda, MD and Arlington, VA for $25.

Private companies are even moving into urban markets. Spanish Transportation Corporation of Paterson, NJ now runs 130 commuter buses into Manhattan each day, on three different routes. The company has grown from a van service with 14 vans in 1993 to a sizeable enterprise today. The buses are branded Express Service. And Las Vegas now boasts a new door-to-door service among hotels and casinos on the Strip—at just $2.50 per ride. Called Arrow, it is offered by Vegas.com, a travel and booking company. Also offered is a $10 daily pass offering unlimited use of Arrow and the private Las Vegas monorail. Arrow competes with the regional transportation authority's double-decker Deuce buses.

The economics are hard to fathom, Pei Lin Liang, the owner of Fung Wah Bus Transportation, admits. At a time when a cab ride from Midtown to Chinatown might cost close to $10, how can a four-hour, 215-mile journey to Boston aboard Fung Wah or any of its competitors cost the same?

Mr. Liang, 41, a gaunt chain-smoker who regularly staggers through 15-hour work days, offers his explanation through a translator. It is ''business by suicide,'' he says.

Budget travelers up and down the Northeast know Fung Wah as the original ''Chinatown bus.'' The company was the first to start running vans and buses between Boston and New York at bargain rates, becoming something of a cult phenomenon. Today, it is just one of many players in the hypercompetitive Chinatown bus industry. With companies locked in a price war, rates have plummeted on Fung Wah's route, reaching a new low last spring at $10 for a one-way trip to Boston. Yes, $10.

Red lights mean green for GOP

By BOB WARNER
Philadelphia Daily News

warnerb@phillynews.com 215-854-5885

Backers of the red-light program say the main beneficiary has been public safety.

"Incidents of death, injury and property damage are dramatically down at the intersections where cameras are installed," the Parking Authority's board chairman, Joseph T. Ashdale, said in a news release last month.

Other beneficiaries include Republican Party officials and their kin.

Like the explosive growth in the Parking Authority's staff and salaries, reported last year by the Daily News, the red-light-camera program has created more jobs for Republican ward leaders, committeemen and their families.

It has also led to thousands of dollars in campaign contributions for GOP organizations and candidates.

More than anyone else, the contributions have flowed to state Rep. John Perzel, the Northeast Philadelphia Republican who engineered a GOP takeover of the Parking Authority in mid-2001.

Somos Líderes en el transporte terrestre brindandole 2 opciones, La Centroamericana Transportation y Gerardo's Transportation
Servicios

Philadelphia

New York

Florida

Massachusetts

Springfield

Providence

Reading, AllentoWn, Lancaster

When Jan Bielen and a group of his friends overslept and were late for a bus tour to the Niagara Falls more than 20 years ago, they did not complain and panic. They rented a van and went on their own.
The idea of taking people on trips was born and Bielen started his business in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and called it Polonez Tour Service.

Two years had passed and Bielen's business was booming. His small company offered short trips in the tri-state area and regular trips to and from the local airports. Bielen served mainly Polish people, tourists or immigrants, who did not speak English and needed help to travel.

But in 1982 everything took a different turn.  Poland was under martial law and LOT (Polish Airlines) suspended their flights from Warsaw to New York.  “We had to take people from New York to Montreal, Canada, so they could fly to Poland,” Bielen says.

In Manhattan's Chinatown, the tiny but growing Fung Wah Transport Van office nestles under the shadow of a Buddhist Temple. The office workers mostly speak Cantonese, with a sprinkling of English. Still, the service is gaining popularity not only with Chinese immigrants, but also among Japanese, Korean, and English-speaking travelers looking for a bargain.

Ten times a day, Fung Wah's white vans ferry about 10 to 15 passengers between the Lower East Side and a bakery in downtown Boston's tiny Chinatown. Round-trip travel can be as cheap as $25 for passengers who can make it to Boston and back on the same day.

Ling, a worker at the van's headquarters who uses only one name, said the service started when second-generation Chinese-Americans began attending college in other cities. The China Bus, as Fung Wah's vans are affectionately known, made it easy for parents who didn't speak much English to take Chinese grocery care packages to their children studying at Harvard or Boston University.

...

But although the services may seem informal or haphazard, they are actually subject to strict regulations.

In 1999, Congress passed a law forcing the vans, called camionetas or guaguas in Spanish speaking areas, to undergo more stringent safety tests. Now the vans' brakes and steering are tested twice a year, instead of once a year like regular cars.

By Franziska Bruner and Iwona K. Hoffman

You're an immigrant in New York, you can't speak English, and you need to see your sister in Boston. How do you get there?
Subway signs are in English, you don't have a credit card to order your Greyhound ticket by phone, and you're nervous about traveling alone. Then someone in the neighborhood tells you about the local van service where they speak your language, and will even pick you up at home. Problem solved.

All over New York, enterprising immigrants are hatching van services that take new Americans from one ethnic enclave to another, often with lower prices than the big commercial bus lines, and less hassle.

Fung Wah Transport Van shuttles Chinese from New York's Chinatown to Boston's Chinatown, 10 times a day. Gonzalez Bus Line runs between Washington Heights' Dominican barrio and Providence, Rhode Island's south side, home to a growing Dominican community. And La Cubana buses take Cubans from all over the city to Little Havana in Miami.

The services are so popular mainly because they feel safe and familiar to immigrants, said Alberto Pulido, a Latino Studies professor in the American Civilization department at Brown University.

By David Abel and Kristen Green, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent | September 6, 2006

AUBURN -- Thirty-four people were injured yesterday after a speeding Boston-bound Fung Wah bus rolled over on an Interstate 290 offramp, State Police said.

SafeStat, short for Motor Carrier Safety Status Measurement System, is an automated data-driven system that calculates the safety fitness on motor carriers.

What is SafeStat?

• SafeStat was developed at the Volpe Center for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

• Data used are maintained and managed at the Federal level by the FMCSA.

New York(156 E Broadway) <--> Philladelphia
One way $12.00, Round Trip $24.00
Duration:about 2 hours
New York:156 East Broadway
Philadephia:Frankford Transportation Ctr. or 2801 Cottman Ave.

List of low-cost bus lines, and other transportation options to-and-from NYC.

NOTE: Standard disclaimers apply; this website/webpage is provided to you "as is" with no warranties of any kind either express, or implied. While all effort was made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this webpage, the author does not accept any responsibility, or liability for any omissions, or errors. Please verify all information before you make any decisions.

Welcome to Dragon Deluxe

Dragon Coach provides affordable and reliable transportation between New York, Baltimore, Washington DC, Albany, Woodbury Common Premium Outlets, Pittsburgh, PA and State College, PA. 

Why Choose Washington Deluxe Bus Commuter
Washington Deluxe knows you have a choice when it comes to selecting a transportation service provider for in Washington and NY. Our dedication to customer satisfaction and safety is what sets our company apart. With experience comes a greater ability to provide our clients with the flawless service they have come to rely on Washington Deluxe for their travel needs

Best Buses. Best Rates.
Offering an award winning combination of commuter buses at rates that can fit most budgets is how Washington Deluxe has become one of the most recognized names in the bus business in Washington and NY. Call us today

Clean Busses
We take Extra Effort to Provide you a Comfortable and Pleasent Experience, when you Travel with us

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QT Transportation

It's official: There really is nowhere to park in Lower Manhattan.

A long-awaited city study has found that the area is so choked with vehicles using government-issued parking placards that there is little if any room for those without placards - in other words, most drivers - to park.

In the financial district alone, the study found that on a typical workday, there were three times as many cars without placards trying to park as there were on-street spaces for them.

Over all in Lower Manhattan, the number of private vehicles exceeded the legal spaces by almost 30 percent, and many drivers, bypassing costly garages, were taking their chances by parking illegally. The study was released Friday by the city's Transportation Department.

...

"It's one of the worst neighborhoods you could park in," said Mike Singh, 52, a contractor from Queens who parked his sport utility vehicle on Friday by a fire hydrant near Hudson and Harrison Streets in TriBeCa. "It's beyond everything. You're going all over, looking, and you see nothing."

Mr. Singh said he often parks illegally and pays someone to sit in his truck all day and to move it if a parking agent appears.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

8:25 AM EDT, March 11, 2008

Travelers between Boston and New York will soon have another low-cost option.

Greyhound Lines is partnering with Springfield-based Peter Pan Bus Lines to launch the "Boltbus." The coaches will offer wireless internet, plenty of leg room and one-way fares as low as $1.

The Boltbus will compete with other low-cost carriers such as Fung Wah. Bus companies say dissatisfaction with air travel delays and traffic congestion have an increasing number of travelers turning to old-fashioned bus service as an alternative.

Greyhound plans to keep Boltbus fares low by selling most of its tickets online. Company spokesman Dustin Clark says fares will be set at market value but he expects there to be at least some $1 fares for each trip.

The Boston-New York service is scheduled to begin in April.

MassBikers,

The City of Boston is trying to gather information on where people bike. This is a chance for us give the city real input that will go towards real change. Below are a message from the City and instructions for tracking your bike routes to, from, and within Boston. They're particularly interested in finding families and recreational cyclists.

NOTE: Any information you submit for this survey is NOT secure. You may use a pseudonym and/or omit your email address if you wish, but make sure you use the same pseudonym for every route you enter.

"Dear Boston Area Cycling Friends,

"We are looking at the array of programs and services available for cyclists in Boston and we want your input. We are hoping to gather information on cycling patterns to use as a guide when updating and evaluating cycling routes, lanes, rack disbursements, etc. We hope you will help us gather information on cycling behavior in Boston by tracking your rides through Boston.

"We invite everyone who rides a bicycle within or to/from Boston to participate including commuters, racers, recreational riders, families, and even people who exercise once a year… All ages are welcome.

"Participation takes just a few minutes. We will ask you to go on-line and track an actual day of riding for us using a website we have created. We want you to record exactly where you biked on this given ride.

"If you have passed through Boston anytime on a ride today, please start today. Otherwise, please record the very next day that you pass through Boston on a ride. We want to see both weekend and weekday activity. And, feel free to record multiple days of riding. You do not have to contact us to participate. Just follow the directions below.

BOLT Bus

A new bus service is launching between D.C. and New York City.

Secaucus, N.J.-based Boltbus, a division of Greyhound Lines Inc., said tickets went on sale Monday for the service that will start March 27.

Boltbus will run between Metro Center at 11th and G streets NW and two stops in New York City -- near Penn Station at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue and in south Manhattan at 6th Avenue and Canal Street.

Boltbus will compete with the Washington Deluxe, Apex Bus, Vamoose Express and DC2NY, a service that started in July 2007 between Dupont Circle and Penn Station in New York with a stop at the McPherson Square Metro station.

DC2NY launched in July and marketed the service by offering free water and high-speed wireless Internet service onboard.

Boltbus is not only also offering wireless, but it is also using a first-come first-serve incentive to sign up riders.

The company said one-way tickets start at $1 plus a 50 cent booking fee and become more expensive as the bus gets full. Also, Boltbus is offering a free one-way ticket for every eight round trips purchased.

Tickets for each bus company vary, but are typically between $30 and $40 round trip, which is significantly cheaper than Amtrak's cost of about $140 and up for a round-trip ticket.

The buses tend to attract travelers and students who are looking for an affordable way to get between the cities.

Boltbus said it will offer eight trips daily, starting at 7:30 a.m. from D.C. to New York.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters,  protest over proposal to allow mexican truck drivers to opperate in the US

By DANIELA GERSON
Staff Reporter of the Sun
February 14, 2006

For travelers in search of a cheap bus ticket, once almost impossible to find outside of Chinatown, there is now a growing market servicing Midtown. And often the new bus lines are run not by Chinese immigrants but by chasidic Jews.

Betty Ungar, the mother of 10 children, said she got the idea of starting a low-fare bus company while on vacation.

"It was so expensive," Mrs. Ungar, 50, said of traveling on a conventional bus line. "I decided I could do something better and at a much better rate, and I did it." Her service got started, she said, nearly four years ago.

The voice on the other end of the line sounded wary. "We're too busy to talk right now," said the man at Fung Wah Bus Service in New York City, before hanging up.

Such reticence is perhaps understandable: The granddaddy of ultra-cheap Chinatown bus services, Fung Wah has had its share of bad publicity in recent years. Last year, two of its buses caught fire on the road, and its federal safety ratings were low enough to prompt U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to call for an investigation.

Mr. Schumer may have had a personal interest in checking up on Fung Wah: His daughter, he said, has friends who use the carrier to commute back and forth from college in Boston to New York. Fung Wah, which means "magnificent wind" in Chinese, was the first of the so-called Chinatown bus services to appear in 1998 to serve the children of Asian immigrants commuting to college in Boston.

Since then, dozens of other carriers have popped up, with names like Lucky River, Double Happiness, Eastern Travel and Dragon Coach, mostly picking up and dropping off passengers in a particular city's Chinatown. But their clientele has expanded beyond the Chinese community, mostly to young, white, cash-strapped college students willing to put up with long lines and -- in some cases -- broken air conditioning or toilets.

Pursuit of the Dream: Cars & Jobs in America

Low-income workers who are trying to reach self-sufficiency, stabilize their finances and move up the economic ladder must be able to connect to good jobs and meet family obligations. A car is often a necessity. However, common obstacles such as overpriced and unreliable cars, sub prime (high interest rate) loans, high down payments, hidden purchase costs, and the limitations caused by poor credit histories can prevent them from improving their lives through car ownership.

Pursuit of the Dream: Cars & Jobs in America, produced by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, explains the importance of affordable, reliable transportation for building the economic success of low-income families and their communities. The documentary features the stories of three real-life families who struggled with the pitfalls that low-wage workers often face when purchasing a car, and shows how they overcame them. Recommendations on how to avoid these pitfalls and tips for knowledgeable car purchase and ownership are provided in the documentary and in the printed discussion guide, included in each DVD case. The discussion guide also suggests ways to use the documentary with different audiences and includes resources for more information. The 22-minute documentary is provided in both English and Spanish versions.

Paul Timms1 Contact Information
Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds,

Published online: 22 February 2008
Abstract The aim of this paper is to encourage debate about the nature of transport modelling. It does so firstly by considering the underlying philosophies of science (apparently) adopted by transport modellers, over a period of more than 50 years, from the 1950s until the present day. The conclusion is that a new philosophy of science needs to be developed, which is more in tune with how transport modelling is actually carried out (as opposed to how early transport modellers thought it ought to be carried out). It is recommended that such a new philosophy perceives transport modelling as a linguistic activity within the overall context of transport planning, which is in turn considered as a communication process. The paper outlines three main approaches that could be taken in this respect, analysing transport models from metaphorical, narrative and aesthetic perspectives. Conclusions are drawn upon the possible future research directions that might follow from the analysis provided in the paper, emphasising the importance of bringing formal philosophical thinking into transport modelling research and practice.

Keywords Aesthetics - Metaphor - Narrative - Philosophy of science - Transport models

Driving Mr. Baby

DENVER - A state senator who was hassled for his congestion pricing idea has a suggestion for Coloradans: build a better bill yourself.

Sen. Chris Romer (D-Denver) says he received more than 800 constituent e-mails in response to his proposal for tolls along Interstate 70 during peak travel periods. Romer admits the feedback was overwhelmingly negative.

"Almost all of them ended up with the final line, 'I hate your idea but I love the fact that you started the dialogue,'" said Romer.

Now he's asking the public to help him come up with another idea. On Friday, Romer unveiled what he calls a "Wiki-Bill," a spin-off of the popular online user-edited encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Anyone can log onto a Web site created by Romer's staff and outline their solution to the congestion on ski weekends.

Is congestion the same everywhere?

Highway congestion, very simply, is caused when traffic demand approaches or exceeds the available capacity of the highway system. Though this concept is easy to understand, congestion can vary significantly from day to day because traffic demand and available highway capacity are constantly changing. Traffic demands vary significantly by time of day, day of the week, and season of the year, and are also subject to significant fluctuations due to recreational travel, special events, and emergencies (e.g. evacuations). Available highway capacity, which is often viewed as being fixed, also varies constantly, being frequently reduced by incidents (e.g. crashes and disabled vehicles), work zones, adverse weather, and other causes.

To add even more complexity, the definition of highway congestion also varies significantly from time to time and place to place based on user expectations. An intersection that may seem very congested in a rural community may not even register as an annoyance in a large metropolitan area. A level of congestion that users expect during peak commute periods may be unacceptable if experienced on Sunday morning. Because of this, congestion is difficult to define precisely in a mathematical sense – it actually represents the difference between the highway system performance that users expect and how the system actually performs.

Congestion can also be measured in a number of ways – level of service, speed, travel time, and delay are commonly used measures. However, travelers have indicated that more important than the severity, magnitude, or quantity of congestion is the reliability of the highway system. People in a large metropolitan area may accept that a 20 mile freeway trip takes 40 minutes during the peak period, so long as this predicted travel time is reliable and is not 25 minutes one day and 2 hours the next. This focus on reliability is particularly prevalent in the freight community, where the value of time under certain just-in-time delivery circumstances may exceed $5 per minute.

With humor, education, and tough laws, this Colombian city has dramatically reduced traffic injuries and deaths
Long branded as one of the world's most dangerous cities, Bogotá, Colombia, has won plaudits for cutting its murder rate by more than 70% during the past decade. But this city of 7 million people has received far less attention for a dramatic decline in a more common danger that plagues urban areas everywhere: traffic-related injuries and deaths.

With a combination of innovative education campaigns, an overhaul of its public transportation system, strict law enforcement, and redesign of streets and highways, Bogotá has made moving from place to place safer and more efficient. "In 1997, everything was a mess and we were losing the battle," says Dario Hildalgo, a transportation engineer from Bogotá who is now with the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C. "To solve the problems, we needed a miracle. The miracle happened."

Mark Rosenberg, the former head of injury prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, says Bogotá is a model for the world. "Bogotá is not unique in having this problem, but it is unique in solving it," says Rosenberg, who now heads the nonprofit Task Force for Child Survival and Development in Decatur, Georgia.

In the first counterterrorism strategy of its kind in the nation, roving teams of New York City police officers armed with automatic rifles and accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs will patrol the city's subway system daily, beginning next month, officials said on Friday.

Under a tactical plan called Operation Torch, the officers will board trains and patrol platforms, focusing on sites like Pennsylvania Station, Herald Square, Columbus Circle, Rockefeller Center and Times Square in Manhattan, and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

Officials said the operation would begin in March.

Financing for the program will be funneled to the Police Department and will come from a pool of up to $30 million taken from $153.2 million in new federal transit grants to the state.

Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, and Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced the grants at a news conference on Friday at Grand Central Terminal, where Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly outlined his plans to add a layer of security to the city's 24-hour transit system.

Man Jailed For Creating Crosswalk, Vows More
Graduate Student Says Intersection Unsafe

POSTED: 11:06 pm EST January 30, 2008

MUNCIE, Ind. -- Whitney Stump didn't like watching drivers ignore the stop signs at the intersection outside his home, so he asked the city to paint crosswalks there.

When the city said no, he made one himself. And the city wasn't appreciative.

Stump, a 27-year-old Ball State University graduate student and father, says he was arrested in July on a charge of criminal mischief for creating the crosswalk at the intersection of Dicks and North streets. A police officer then warned him after he went back to touch up the paint in August, and the county prosecutor decided to charge him again.

 

Report, view, or discuss local problems
(like graffiti, fly tipping, broken paving slabs, or street lighting)

The 2006 Transportation Tomorrow Survey (TTS) is a telephone interview of a random sampling of 5% of the households in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and surrounding area of Central Ontario (approximately 150,000 households). It involves asking the survey participants about trip information for each household member. The results are used to form a comprehensive picture of travel in the survey area.

The survey will be conducted in the areas outside the GTA, starting in September and end in late November of 2005. The GTA will be surveyed during the same period in 2006. All survey work will be completed by late 2006.

Expansion of survey records and data validation will be carried out using 2006 Census household numbers starting in 2007. Final data results from the TTS should be available by December 2007.

The TTS survey has been carried out on a 5-year cycle since 1986. It has been conducted as an ongoing partnership arrangement between the Province and 18 municipalities and agencies, and the University of Toronto. Since its inception, the Data Management Group (DMG) of the University of Toronto has undertaken management responsibility for all TTS surveying and data management. DMG then maintains the data on an ongoing basis for access by all partners.

Household Travel Surveys on the WWW

The purpose of this page is to provide links to State Department of Transportation and Metropolitan Planning Organization web sites related to household travel surveys. The intent is to provide easy access to travel survey reports and data. This page is a project of the Transportation Research Board's (TRB) Committee on Urban Transportation Data and Information Systems (ABJ30). This web page is a "work in progress" so please help the committee by providing updated and new links!

  Metropolitan and State Travel Surveys on the WWW, 1994-2003

Work has continued on the project over the past three years and as a result of cooperation from several agencies, we now have been able to post databases along with relevant documentation for many regions, see ARCHIVE. The databases and the documentation can be obtained from this website. In addition to making these databases publicly available, we are also in the process of converting all the databases to a common format to enhance the readability and usability of each survey, so many surveys can be used online, see ANALYZE.

Unfortunately, to the best of our knowledge, data for some of the surveys seems to have been lost. Further, there exist surveys for which we still have not been able to obtain data. We have listed these surveys as SOUGHT. We would be extremely grateful if you could help us locate data for the lost and sought surveys or for others that have not been listed on the website.

The results from the first year of the project, along with issues related to archiving travel survey data are provided in our REPORT 1. The results from the second year of the project, along with issues related to archiving travel survey data are provided in our REPORT 2.Archives of key papers by travel survey researcher Yacov ZAHAVI are also provided here.

Title: Spatial Mismatch or Automobile Mismatch? An Examination of Race, Residence and Commuting in US Metropolitan Areas

Transportation system congestion is one of the single largest threats to our nation's economic prosperity and way of life. Whether it takes the form of trucks stalled in traffic, cargo stuck at overwhelmed seaports, or airplanes circling over crowded airports, congestion costs America an estimated $200 billion a year. In 2003, Americans lost 3.7 billion hours and 2.3 billion gallons of fuel sitting in traffic jams and wasted $9.4 billion as a result of airline delays. Congestion is also affecting the quality of life in America by robbing us of time that could be spent with families and friends and in participation in civic activities.

We don't believe that this is an inevitable fate. In May 2006 the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a major initiative to reduce transportation system congestion. This plan, the National Strategy to Reduce Congestion on America's Transportation Network (often referred to as the "Congestion Initiative"), provides a blueprint for Federal, State, and local officials to consider as we work together to reverse the alarming trends of congestion. It includes six major components: (1) Urban Partnership Agreements; (2) Public Private Partnerships; (3) Corridors of the Future; (4) Reducing Southern California Freight Congestion; (5) Reducing Border Congestion; and (6) Increasing Aviation Capacity. This webpage provides an overview of each of the components, as well as selected documents and links regarding either specific components or the Congestion Initiative as a whole. For additional information on a specific component (e.g., Urban Partnership Agreements), click on the link located either under the component's thumbnail image or at the top of this page.

Comparative Indicators for Policy Reform
University of Michigan and University of Maryland

A project of the Collaborative Science and Technology Network for Sustainability of the Environmental Protection Agency
and the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute

Title:

Is Los Angeles-style sprawl desirable? By: Ewing, Reid, Journal of the American Planning Association, 01944363, Winter97, Vol. 63, Issue 1

Database:

Academic Search Premier

Abstract:

Focuses on the characteristics, causes and costs of compact development. Distinction from high density or monocentric development; Indications of poor accessibility and lack of functional open space; Market-related causes; Result of market failure; Consumer preference on compact centers; Energy consumption and air pollution; Infrastructure and public service costs; Impact on cities and downtowns.

The only policy intervention endorsed by G & R is the imposition of congestion charges and emissions fees as shadow prices for external costs of auto use, specifically for delay and air pollution imposed on others. This is a safe endorsement for sprawl lovers. While congestion pricing and emissions fees have been touted by economists for decades, those in political power have not exactly rushed to meter their constituents' travel (Orski 1992; Arrillaga 1993).

The first federal demonstration program on congestion pricing, 1973-1978, produced no demonstrations. The current Congestion Pricing Pilot Program, started five years ago, has produced one limited pilot project (and many planning studies) (FHA 1996). Millions of dollars of spending authority were recently rescinded. Most candidates for future congestion pricing are individual bridges or expressways that already charge tolls, but would charge a premium at peak hours. Areawide congestion pricing is a good idea whose time has apparently not come.

The long-dreamed-of Second Avenue subway will take another important step toward becoming a real thing of concrete and steel today, as the federal government plans to announce that it has formally approved $1.3 billion in financing for the project's first phase.

Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters said in an interview that the money would be paid out over the next seven years as construction progresses on the subway's first leg, which will have stops on Second Avenue at 92nd, 86th and 72nd Streets and at 63rd Street and Lexington Avenue.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority began preliminary work on the line after Gov. Eliot Spitzer held a ceremonial groundbreaking in April.

Ms. Peters said the federal money would pay for about one-third of the work on the first phase, which is expected to cost more than $4 billion. The first leg is scheduled to open in 2014, and it will run as an extension of the Q line.

Cities thrive on crowds, diversity, and high-rise, writes Elizabeth Farrelly.

Downtown Sydney may look like your regulation forest of towers with an unusually spectacular frontispiece. But the glittering spires are not the only distinguishing marks. This particular six square kilometres, Central-to-the-Quay, is unusual in its peninsular nature, its fabulous climate and its narrow, crooked streets. These change everything.

From the moment Sydney went high-rise, 50 years ago, it was never going to be Barcelona or Vienna, their compact low-rise cores riddled with cultural enterprise, ancient and modern. Sydney was never going to be Manhattan either, its streets three times as wide and blocks four times as long, its city fathers even then imposing a step-back rule to bring daylight into the streets (and incidentally producing some of the world's prettiest skyscrapers, the Chrysler Building, for one).

Sydney city was never going to be London, crammed with world-centre institutions and global financial reach; nor Hydra, its twisting, cobbled streets serviceable by mule. Sydney's downtown was never going to be sun-drenched or verdant in any way that might let it compete, as a sunny day people-magnet, with beach or harbour. But, despite all that, Sydney's is no dead-heart downtown. It is itself, a flawed but intricate and interdependent ecology that deserves our understanding before we meddle.

Take congestion, probably the commonest city complaint. Traffic congestion, pedestrian congestion; buses and taxis congestion. It sounds bad, very bad. The very word implies a medical model, like hearts or lungs or liver, where any sclerotic impediment is a bad thing. But cities are not organs and city-type congestion is just an extreme case of a condition that is the very essence of urban life: crowding.

Cities, unlike hearts, are not improved by zero congestion. Pretty much the whole of Australia has zero congestion (unless you count the flies). Cities are designed to concentrate - or congest - human energy. They are less about moving through than being there; they thrive on bustle, busy-ness and friction, creative and otherwise.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in San Francisco, voided the new regulations for 2008-2011 model year vehicles and told the Transportation Department to produce new rules taking into account the value of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The court, siding with 4 environmental groups and 13 states and cities, also asked the government to explain why it still treated light trucks — which include pickups, sport utility vehicles and minivans — more mildly than passenger cars.

Under the rejected rule, the average fuel economy of light trucks was to rise to 23.5 miles a gallon in 2010, up from the current standard of 22.5 m.p.g., but still well below the current standard for passenger cars of 27.5 m.p.g.

The ruling, which is likely to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court, represents a major setback for both the auto industry and the White House at a time of growing public concern over the rising price of gasoline and the issue of climate change.

Lawyers specializing in environmental issues said on Thursday that the decision had significant implications beyond the automobile industry’s struggles over fuel-economy standards.

The Economics of Welfare by Arthur C. Pigou
Macmillan and Co. London, Fourth edition, 1932. First published: 1920. 

Grrridlock

TRAFFIC, apparently, hits a nerve.

In the wake of Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal to calm Manhattan traffic through a plan called congestion pricing, the City section asked its readers to offer their own solutions for easing the borough’s traffic woes.

More than a hundred responded, proposing ideas ranging from the wonky to the off-the-wall. Ban cabs. Ban private cars. Close streets. Add lanes.

Here are 20 of their suggestions, with assessments by two local experts on traffic: Jeffrey Zupan, a senior fellow for transportation at the Regional Plan Association in New York, and John Falcocchio, a professor of transportation planning at Polytechnic University in Downtown Brooklyn.

Although Mr. Zupan’s group supports the mayor’s plan, and Dr. Falcocchio argues that congestion pricing should be used only as a last resort, both experts said they were impressed over all by the suggestions. “The readers did very well,” Mr. Zupan said. “They also generated some thinking on my part.”

I-80 toll plans moving forward

By Paul Nussbaum

Inquirer Staff Writer

The lease with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation was signed just before a midnight deadline set by the legislature. Tolls could be in place by 2010 if permission is obtained from the Federal Highway Administration.

The state's two highway agencies made formal application for that approval on Saturday. In the application, the turnpike agency said it planned to double the money available for I-80 repairs and upgrades over the next decade to $2 billion.

The state's plan envisions as many as 10 toll booths between New Jersey and Ohio, with an initial cost of about $25 for motorists to drive the entire 311-mile highway.

The I-80 tolls would be set at the turnpike's rate, which is anticipated to be about 8 cents per mile in three years, for cars. That would represent a 33 percent increase from the current turnpike toll rate, which now averages about 6 cents per mile. (Tolls would be 23 cents per mile for trucks weighing 30,001 to 45,000 pounds.)

Tolls on I-80 are part of a plan created last July by the legislature to raise about $965 million more per year over the next 10 years for highways, bridges and mass transit. The new law, Act 44, has been under fire from northern Pennsylvanians along the I-80 corridor who fear it will hurt the economy of the region.

Journal The Annals of Regional Science

Issue Volume 41, Number 2 / June, 2007

Mark W. Horner

Abstract Issues of growth, especially the spatial nature of recent urban development and its implications for travel patterns, have received a great deal of attention. In particular, questions persist as to how the spatial distribution of workers and jobs influences commute patterns. This paper investigates changes in commuting and land use patterns using measures of jobs-housing balance, commuting efficiency and other statistics. A smaller urban area is chosen for study (Tallahassee, FL, USA)and data on its workers, jobs, and commute patterns are obtained from the Census Transportation Planning Package for 1990 and 2000. The key research questions investigated probe whether there were substantial changes in urban form and commuting over the period. A two-tiered approach is taken where change is explored at the regional and local scales using GIS, optimization procedures, and inferential statistical techniques. The results reveal the extent of the spatial changes in the study area between 1990 and 2000. Major findings included stability in urban structure over the time period, as well as a persistent strong relationship between land use and commute patterns. These results are discussed in light of their implications for other cities and for future work.

States Restrict Truck Traffic
By Larry Copeland, USA TODAY
A move is on across the USA to unsnarl interstate highways where escalating truck traffic is adding to congestion and rattling drivers of passenger cars.

Truck-only lanes and a plan to divert some truck cargo to ships along the Atlantic Coast are among the initiatives getting scrutiny from state and federal agencies. About 75,000 more big rigs cruise onto already crowded highways every year.
...

The issue is largely one of congestion rather than safety. The percentage of U.S. highway deaths occurring in crashes involving large trucks is down slightly since 1998.
The American Trucking Associations, which represents about 40,000 trucking companies, generally does not oppose free truck-only lanes, senior vice president Tim Lynch says.

Authors Cervero, R; Hall, P
Journal Title BUILT ENVIRONMENT information Vol. 15 No. 3/4

Description p. 176-184; References(14); Tables(1)

Abstract In the US there is a mismatch between demand for road space and supply. Each alternative solution results in bargaining with gainers and losers, and 'auto equalizers' have to be matched by transit incentives. But gridlock also occurs within institutions and political systems as well as on the road. Some of the ways of overcoming the institutional and political gridlock are: private investing in road building and maintaining; regional, rather than local planning; federal and state subsidies; and voter pressure to provide the political will to act.

A new breed of commuter is rising long before dawn to beat the rush, a lifestyle that can take a toll on family time and on infrastructure.

By David Peterson, Star Tribune
Last update: October 06, 2007 - 5:01 PM
MORA, MINN. - Two alarm clocks jolt Dawn Davis out of slumber in the countryside south of Mora at 4:15 a.m. One she winds by hand, just in case an overnight storm snuffs out her power.
For an hour, padding about in a fraying robe, sipping coffee from a bucket-sized mug, she forces herself awake. Then, in thick country darkness, she climbs into her miniature red Ford and heads south, racing 70 miles to her job in downtown Minneapolis.
By the time she returns home in the evening, she has about an hour of leisure before she hits the sack. An hour?
"That," winces the 58-year-old, "is what my friends say."
Davis is part of a rising tide of Minnesota commuters leaving home long before sunrise -- a group whose ranks are swelling by 10,000 people each year, new census figures show. More than 300,000 are out the door by 6 a.m., nearly twice as many as in 1990. It's a national trend, but one that's hitting Minnesota harder than most.

The monthly invoice could look something like an electricity bill or a cellphone statement. But instead of kilowatt hours or roaming minutes, it would itemize how many miles you drive - with surcharges for traveling during peak hours, premiums for using so-called Lexus lanes that bypass rush-hour snarls, and discounts for sitting through traffic jams.
The free and open road, regarded by many Americans as a birthright, could become a relic under a plan being discussed in Massachusetts and in several other states, transforming highway use from a service available to all into a utility paid for on a per-mile basis.
This philosophical shift is the cornerstone of a landmark report, released last month by the Commonwealth's Transportation Finance Commission, which was tasked with finding the estimated $15 billion to $19 billion needed to fix the state's crumbling roads and bridges over the next two decades.
Under the commission's plan, a 5-cents-per-mile fee on major roads would replace, or minimize, gas taxes and fundamentally change a central aspect of everyday life.

WHEN Maurice Fox, a vice president for a development firm, heard that an acre of land four blocks from the Valley Stream Long Island Rail Road station was for sale, he told his boss at the Dennis Organization, and "we jumped on it."

Next week, the developer will start laying the foundation for a $26 million 90-unit condominium complex with 37 one-bedroom units starting at $325,000, and 53 two-bedroom units starting at $395,000. Sales haven't begun yet, but Mr. Fox said there were 293 names of potential buyers on a waiting list.

The main selling feature of the complex, called Hawthorne Court, is its proximity to the station, which offers a 32-minute commute to Manhattan by express train, he said. With so many young commuters and empty nesters living in the area, he added, "I realized that Valley Stream is in dire need of it."

All Things Considered, October 8, 2007 · Cities around the world have been trying to lure commuters out of their cars and onto mass transit with the aim of making urban life cleaner and greener. While a state-of-the art system installed in Chile has reduced pollution in the city of Santiago, a bungled adjustment has also left millions of passengers reeling - and hundreds of others suing the government.
The new system may be generating less pollution, but it is also generating mountains of complaints. What was once a 40-minute trip can now take 2 hours. As a result, commuters report losing their jobs for being late, or being forced to change jobs because routes have changed.
So troubled is Santiago's new mass transit system, known as Transantiago, that President Michele Bachelet made an unusual admission just days after its disastrous roll-out.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan to ease traffic congestion by charging motorists who drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan would cost hundreds of millions of dollars for new bus and subway services and mass transit improvements to accommodate tens of thousands of new riders, transportation officials say.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in a report to a commission created to evaluate the mayor's plan, estimated that expanded transit service and capital improvements for city and suburban riders who would give up their cars to get into Manhattan over the next five years would cost $767 million.

The total, the authority said, comprised $284 million in 2008 and 2009 for 367 new city and suburban buses, 46 new subway cars and many station renovations and service enhancements; $163 million for other subway and bus improvements from 2010 to 2012, and $320 million for two new bus terminals in Queens and Staten Island.

ANYONE who spends much time in the vicinity of East 86th Street, on the Upper East Side, is well acquainted with congestion. The street is one of the main two-way routes between the East River and Central Park, and on any given day it is home to a glut of vendors' tables and vans, to city buses, to delivery trucks, to commuters rushing to and from the subway past gaudy store displays - and to residents.

For all these people, it might seem that a sweeping plan to tame the traffic, like the mayor's congestion pricing plan currently being discussed by the state's New York City Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, would be a hit. But on this particular street, the plan has been a tough sell. The street represents the northern boundary of the zone that drivers would have to pay to enter during business hours on weekdays, and some people in the area fear that the fees will make life in the border zone even more chaotic.

Elaine Walsh, president of the East 86th Street Merchants and Residents Association, has a list of questions: Will residents who park in the area and drive to work outside the zone have to pay to leave? What about people who pass in and out of the zone while looking for parking spots? Will businesses just inside the line suffer?

To entice buyers to spend $1 million for one-bedroom apartments on the less glossy eastern edge of the Upper East Side, the builders of a shimmering glass tower going up at 91st Street and First Avenue advertise customized stone countertops, a private fitness center, "expansive sunrise and sunset views" - and the Second Avenue subway.

Now that construction crews have started work on the Second Avenue line after decades of delays, bullish real estate brokers and nervous neighborhood tenants alike expect New York's first new subway in 50 years to join the market forces that are driving Park Avenue-style prices farther east and replacing quirky Hungarian shops with high-end chain stores.

Ending commuters' long walk west to the Lexington Avenue subway will bring new cachet to addresses on Second Avenue and eastward - or at least that's what developers and real estate brokers are betting. Among them are the builders at 91st and First, who point to the subway's expected opening in 2014 and boldly declare that their tower, christened the Azure, stands at "the heart of the Upper East Side."

Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0013-0427%28197708%292%3A44%3A175%3C297%3ATDEOCT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T

Journal Title - Networks and Spatial Economics
Article Title - Congestion Pricing with Heterogeneous Travelers: A General-Equilibrium Welfare Analysis
Volume - Volume 4
Issue - 2
First Page - 135
Last Page - 160
Issue Cover Date - 2004-06-01
Author - André de Palma
Author - Robin LindseyDOI - 10.1023/B:NETS.0000027770.27906.82

Link - http://www.springerlink.com/content/t317779845j42x04

Abstract  
Traffic congestion pricing is studied using a general-equilibrium framework that incorporates public goods expenditures, an income tax, a government budget constraint, and preferences for equity. Individuals differ with respect to wages, values of travel time, and the congestion characteristics of their vehicles. Formulae for optimal tolls are derived and decomposed to reveal the separate influences of individual and vehicle heterogeneity, road network effects, fiscal effects and equity concerns. Using an example various tolling regimes are considered, defined by how much of the network is tolled, by whether and how tolls are differentiated by route, and by vehicle and individual characteristics.

PARIS, Sept. 29 - Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, on his first trip here since he took office, acknowledged the challenges of bringing home a popular Parisian bike rental program the administration is exploring, saying he was unsure it would translate to New York.

Noting challenges like roads damaged by seasonal changes, the lack of bike lanes, liability problems and the possibility that commuters would not want to carry helmets to work, Mr. Bloomberg said: "You try to see whether it fits, and some parts of it will, but it may very well give you an idea to do something totally different."

Under the program, which started in July, thousands of bicycles are docked along Paris streets, and customers can rent them after buying a membership ranging in time from a day (about $1.30) to a year (about $38). Members pay by the half-hour, with the first 30 minutes free. To discourage long rides, the fee rises from $1.30 for the second half-hour to $5.20 for the fourth.

Judging from the lines of empty consoles in the city center and the ubiquity of riders, even in the rain, the program has been a hit here, despite occasional technical glitches and a lack in some places of empty spots to return a bicycle. One official told Mr. Bloomberg that 100,000 people had signed up for yearly membership and that customers had taken more than 5 million rides.

Whether such a system could survive in New York, where bike theft is common, remains to be seen. Lionel Bordeaux, a press officer for City Hall here, said the fact that all fees were paid by credit card, and a roughly $200 charge for unreturned bikes, discouraged stealing.

Adam Martin, The Examiner
2006-06-26 09:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked
SAN FRANCISCO -

The creation of new bike lanes and other improvements under San Francisco's citywide bicycle plan was halted abruptly last week when a judge handed down an injunction against the plan's implementation.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren issued the injunction Wednesday after a coalition of pro-forma groups sued the city, claiming that the lack of environmental impact review on the plan was illegal under the California Environmental Quality Act.

The stated goal of the 250-page bicycle plan, first implemented in 1997 and most recently updated in May 2005, is to improve bicycle safety and to "refine and expand the existing bicycle route network."

Critical Mass celebrating 15 years of free-form bicycle advocacy
Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, September 28, 2007

(09-27) 20:59 PDT San Francisco -- Tonight's Critical Mass in San Francisco marks the 15th anniversary of the rebellious rolling ride that locally has propelled the bicycle movement into the political mainstream and globally has been copied by hundreds of cities.

What began with four dozen bicyclists riding together up Market Street on Sept. 25, 1992, has turned into a monthly happening that regularly draws thousands of participants pedaling along the streets of San Francisco, at times drawing both praise and scorn.

The monthly Critical Mass rides are part political statement and part roving street festival and now are firmly part of San Francisco's cultural fabric.

Critical Mass has no organized leadership. The rides are promoted by word of mouth and over the Internet. The only constant is that they are held the last Friday of the month and start around 6 p.m. at Justin Herman Plaza at the foot of Market Street. The routes are fluid, often determined on the spot.

It is not uncommon for the mass rides to tie up automobile traffic for an hour or more just as people commuting by car or bus are trying to get home at the end of their workweek.

FROM one straphanger to another, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s executive director, Elliot G. Sander, consciously straddling the fence between polished bureaucrat (his upwardly mobile career) and put-upon proletarian (his roots in Jamaica, Queens), confides that the pending — read inevitable — bus and subway fare increase to $2.25 from $2 a trip is not his preference. But.

“I would prefer not to have a fare increase, and I want to keep the cost of transportation as far down as I can, but I am calling on our customers to basically keep up with the cost of living,” he said. “My objective is for the M.T.A. not to go into a death spiral, go where it was in the ’70s and ’80s when you had derailments, breakdowns, graffiti, track fires, you name it. This authority has been a high-wire act for the last 20 years.” Without a safety net.

By Paul Nussbaum

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The fare hikes, which SEPTA says it needs because a court case stopped it from eliminating 60-cent paper transfers, saddle riders with higher fares less than three months after other fare hikes.

As part of its fare hike resolution approved this afternoon, the SEPTA board agreed to review today's fare hikes if it wins a court appeal and is allowed to scrap the paper transfers.

The new fares, effective Monday, increase the price of a token to $1.45 from the current $1.30 and the price of a transfer to 75 cents from the current 60 cents. The cash fare would remain $2 - one of the nation's highest.

Riders, still smarting from SEPTA's July fare hikes, are outraged.

In the Bush White House, the political appointees who set the nation's mass transit policies view Portland's streetcar system as an extravagance: A sweet way for a relatively few privileged urbanites to move about a city that prides itself on dense downtown development. Rapid bus lines, in the administration's view, would move more people from place to place at less expense.

That thinking could cost Portland, which is hoping to expand its streetcar line and become the first in the nation to be built with substantial federal money. The city has spent years building political and neighborhood consensus about the new route, which would cross the Broadway Bridge and go south to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, nearly completing a streetcar loop of the city's core.

But the project now navigates a political battlefield. Think tanks, Democrats in Congress and the White House are fighting over whether the federal government should help cities use streetcars to promote urban revitalization, or simply fund buses that move the most people over the greatest distances for the least amount of upfront money.

The commission created to come up with a plan to ease traffic in New York City met for the first time yesterday and began its debate on whether Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to charge motorists who drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan is the best way to proceed.

The 17 members of the group, which met at Baruch College in Lower Manhattan, include transportation officials, politicians and civic leaders. Most of them are thought to be in favor of the mayor's idea, but whatever plan they agree upon must be approved by the State Legislature and the City Council.

This information is being maintained for archive/historical purposes only. It will not be updated.
Please see http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk for details.

Climb on board the Microsoft bus

By Amy Roe

Seattle Times Eastside bureau

The bus stops here, and after 13 years of driving to work at Microsoft, Jeff Sylvester was finally on it.

"I've been a driver forever and I decided to finally give up the car," said Sylvester, who took Microsoft's new Connector service to work from his home on Seattle's Capitol Hill.

The free service debuted Monday with about 1,000 people on board. They filled nearly every seat on each of the five routes, serving Seattle, Bothell, Mill Creek, Issaquah and Sammamish.

Sep 20th 2007
From The Economist
JCDecaux and Clear Channel Outdoor battle over urban bike-schemes

Florida State University

During the 1920s, millions of Americans embraced the automobile as their primary means of transportation, and traffic quickly congested city streets. Local officials turned to the experts for aid. These men approached the problem as one whose solution might be identified through the application of scientific techniques. Through their efforts, they transformed transportation planning from a broad, multidisciplinary exercise into a narrow, technical one, and introduced principles and procedures that continue to guide practitioners. Their development of a science based on traffic data and premised on the desirability of facilitating high-speed automobile movement also served to blind later professionals to the often-negative consequences of their own planning prescriptions.

Key Words: urban history • transportation planning • scientific methods

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan may be facing harsh criticism from opponents these days, but the findings of a new national study offer a sobering wake-up call: drivers who commute between New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are wasting more time and money sitting in traffic than ever before.

According to the new study, the average motorist in the Tri-State area spent about 46 hours bogged down in rush-hour traffic in 2005, up from an average of only 15 hours two decades ago in 1985. Those 46 hours are the equivalent of six full work days, seven night’s of sleep, or five days of school — all of them wasted on roads and highways because of accidents, delays and the sheer volume of cars on the road.

But the report had other grim news as well. Besides spending more time in traffic, the average motorist is also spending more money, a total in 2005 of an extra $888 in lost time and added fuel consumption. That’s up from $784 in 2004, and $660 in 2003 — a relatively rapid increase. Nationwide, New York ranked No. 33 in this category in 1985; now it is No. 18.

The findings are likely to become grist for Mayor Bloomberg and those looking for a lift to his congestion pricing plan, which would charge a fee to drivers entering the busiest parts of Manhattan. In August, the federal government awarded the city $354 million to implement the plan, but that amount fell short of the roughly $550 million that Mayor Bloomberg had requested. The plan has also faced opposition from the City Council and the State Legislature, two groups that must approve the plan in order for the city to receive the federal money.

Let's begin with the pocketbook-chafing fact that New York's bus and subway riders pay far more at the farebox than riders in any other major transit network. Their burdenwould go up again early next year under a proposal by the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The current base fare of $2 would rise 25 cents to achieve the authority's goal of boosting revenue by 6.5 percent. Another fare increase, as yet undetermined, would follow in two years.

The planned increases reflect the M.T.A.'s attempt to address projected financial woes, including huge out-year budget gaps, while also improving service and expanding the system. Its proposed solution depends on raising fares and tolls possibly as early as January. Foregoing a fare hike entirely, as the city and state comptrollers have both urged, may not be possible; there hasn't been an increase in more than three years. But every effort should be made to minimize the riders' pain.

There are ways this could be done. The M.T.A. is proposing to raise $262 million through higher fares and tolls. Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign, a nonprofit riders' advocate, suggests a more equitable sharing of costs. His group is calling for the city and counties to contribute $65 million, and the state to pitch in an equal amount. If they did that, riders would face only a 10-cent fare hike. It is a reasonable approach, and lawmakers should give it serious attention.

Keeping fares affordable is critical in a city where so many riders have low incomes. It also encourages people to use mass transit instead of their cars.

As commutes begin earlier, new daily routines emerge
By Larry Copeland, Haya El Nasser and Paul Overberg, USA TODAY

SMYRNA, Ga. - Harold Shaw leaves his home in suburban Atlanta at 5:30 a.m. to drive the 34 miles to his job at a fiber-optics cable plant. He gets there early enough to eat breakfast and read the newspaper.

"The traffic is not as busy this time of day," Shaw, 60, says after whipping into a QuikTrip store Monday to use the ATM and get a drink. "It's not as stressful if you don't have to deal with a lot of congestion."

But Shaw's reliable pre-dawn commute forces sacrifices in his personal life. He used to turn in after catching the first few minutes of the 11 o'clock news. He'd walk or jog in the mornings. Now, he goes to bed at 9 p.m. and rolls out at 4:30 a.m. "If I leave home after 6 and there's an accident," he says, "I'm late for work."

Americans are leaving home earlier and earlier to beat the rush and get to work on time. Census data released today document the ever-lengthening commutes: In 2000, 1 worker in 9 was out the door by 6 a.m., the new data says; by 2006, it was 1 in 8. That might not seem like a big change, but it has put more than 2.7 million additional drivers - for a total of 15 million - on pre-dawn patrol.

...

Part of "commuting creep," of course, stems from the USA's booming population. The nation reached 300 million last fall and is on pace to hit 400 million by 2040.

As housing prices soared in many areas in recent years, people sought cheaper homes and found them where land is cheaper: farther out. Sprawl and more cars on the road worsened congestion and lengthened commutes even for those who hadn't moved to far-flung locales.

In addition, more companies are allowing — even encouraging — employees to work flexible hours, from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., for example. That expands heavy traffic to once-light periods of the day.

The road warriors of the wee hours aren't all commuters. Pisarski says some travel surveys have found that up to 40% of early-morning drivers aren't commuters. They're students, people doing things associated with work such as picking up laundry, retirees running errands and others.

September 14, 2007

LAS VEGAS - -- Can the Las Vegas Monorail double down to avoid going bust?

Three years after beginning operations, the four-mile, $650-million private rail line that stretches from behind the MGM Grand to the Sahara hotel-casino is attracting about 22,285 riders a day -- far below the 54,000 predicted when the project was launched. This summer, Fitch Ratings downgraded the monorail's bond rating, already in junk status, and said financial default appeared probable.

"Things are continuing to deteriorate," said Chad Lewis, an associate director at Fitch Ratings. "Right now, they're running about 50% of the [ridership] forecast, so clearly a significant increase in revenues is needed."

But Monorail officials say what they need to boost ridership and generate profit is a $500-million extension to McCarran International Airport.

Foes raise stakes on I-80 tolls
By Paul Nussbaum

CLARION, Pa. - Brent Olson, the balding and soft-spoken general manager of a modular-home factory, is an unlikely Paul Revere.

But here he is, part of a growing revolt across northern Pennsylvania, sounding the alarm: The tolls are coming, the tolls are coming.

"We're really upset. This is going to have a drastic impact on our economy," said Olson, general manager for Commodore Homes, walking across a vast production floor where a small army of carpenters, welders, plumbers, roofers and electricians completes a home every 40 minutes. "I have a sickening feeling about it. We all do."

By ARIEL HART , MARY LOU PICKEL
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/12/07

It's classic Atlanta: The longest of the long commutes got more popular.

New census estimates released Wednesday tell the sorry transportation tale. The year 2006 added 6,864 metro Atlantans who spend 90 minutes or more on their average commute, one way. That's a total of 88,023 "extreme commuters."

The number of those who spend between an hour and an hour-and-a-half one-way rose to 225,964.

The 2006 figures also show that the individual car loosened its grip on metro Atlanta commutes - slightly - in a nationwide trend that could follow gas price hikes.

Metro Atlanta's overall average commute time stayed stable, at about a half-hour. But according to an AJC analysis of the census estimates, one of the clearer trends over the years from 2004 to 2006 is increasing numbers of people who seem bound and determined to maintain that long-distance relationship with work.

We, together, can make SEPTA work better for all of us.

SEPTA is having a difficult time. As citizens and riders, there isn't much we can do directly that will affect the big, expensive challenges of city and regional mass transit. These must be handled by politicians and managers and employees. But, we can help make SEPTA work better for us.

In fact, YOU can help make SEPTA work better for us.

On this website, you will find signs that you can print out and post—providing better information for riders at stations, shelters and stops.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

VICTORIA - The B.C. Liberals have issued a comprehensive defence of their plan to widen Highway 1 and twin the Port Mann Bridge, saying it will bring almost $4 billion in benefits and have a "negligible" impact on regional air quality.

The government's case is set out in four volumes of material, released last week as part of an application to the environmental assessment office for approval of the project.

The Liberals propose to build the estimated $2-billion project via a public-private partnership, with five years of construction and a 35-year operating agreement all financed by tolls on the bridge crossing. The government submission argues the project will benefit the economy through improved movement of goods, commuters through reduced congestion, and the region through improved transportation.

It calculates a net benefit of $3.8 billion over the 35-year operating agreement, even after discounting the cost of construction.

While that cost-benefit analysis relies on a number of debatable assumptions, the most controversial part of the submission is likely to be the report on regional air quality and greenhouse gas emissions.

Program Schedule:
Final design is currently underway. Construction is planned to commence during 2009 with project completion in early 2013.

Residential Relocation and Changes in Urban Travel.

Krizek, Kevin J.

Journal of the American Planning Association; Summer2003, Vol. 69 Issue 3, p265, 17p, 4 charts, 1 graph, 3 maps, 1bw

Abstract:

This article presents an empirical Study of the relationship between neighborhood-scale urban form and travel behavior. It focuses on households who relocate within the Central Puget Sound region to determine if they change their travel behavior when they move from one neighborhood type to another. Regression models are used to predict change in travel behavior as a function of change in neighborhood accessibility, controlling for changes in life cycle, regional accessibility, and workplace accessibility. The study is unique in that it analyzes the travel behavior of the same households in a longitudinal manner in concert with detailed urban form measures. The findings suggest that households change travel behavior when exposed to differing urban forms. In particular, locating to areas with higher neighborhood accessibility decreases vehicle miles traveled

Leaders of Philadelphia's striking taxi drivers ended their 48-hour strike a day early yesterday but promised to continue fighting problematic new high-tech dispatch and credit card systems mandated by the Philadelphia Parking Authority.

Leaders of the drivers and Parking Authority officials disagreed about how many cabbies stayed off the streets and about the strike's effectiveness. But officials of the authority, which since 2005 has regulated city cabs, said there was no shortage of taxis yesterday at Philadelphia International Airport and only brief rush-hour delays at Amtrak's 30th Street Station.

All 1,200 members of the Taxi Workers Alliance will be back at 6 a.m. today, alliance president Ronald Blount announced yesterday during an afternoon rally in front of Parking Authority headquarters at 3101 Market St.

"We've made our point. We've proved that we can launch a two-day strike," Blount told reporters in front of about 25 supporters. "This system is not working. It's been almost a year now. How long are we supposed to be patient?"

BERKELEY - Philip Rowntree says every time AC Transit's new express bus speeds by his T-shirt stand on Telegraph Avenue, he gets covered with dust and filth kicked up by the vehicle's exhaust.
And, Rowntree also notes, he and other street vendors fear the new speeding buses are going to slam into someone on the crowded four-block stretch from Dwight Way to Bancroft Way.
AC Transit added an express 1R bus line that runs from San Leandro to University of California, Berkeley, and back. It has fewer stops and generally goes faster than the one line that runs the same route.
"It's disgusting," Rowntree said Wednesday. "Something happened about three or four months ago, and it's not the pollution they are kicking out but the air from the exhaust blows all this filth off the street onto me."
Russell Chatman, who sells jewelry next to Rowntree, said the buses dirty him too and go way too fast.
"I realize it's a rapid transit because the drivers have their deadlines to beat, but for them to come as fast as they do, it's only a matter of time before someone gets hurt," Chatman said.

AFTER WORLD WAR II, the city of Los Angeles figured it would be a swell idea to provide incentives to the local tire industry by dismantling what was then among the most comprehensive and enthusiastically used light-rail systems in the nation. What's good for business is good for the city, the tire companies said on their way to the bank, before the city paved over or shut down every passenger-train track from Mount Lowe above Pasadena, to Long Beach, to Santa Monica - wiping out the popular Red Car rail line.

While keeping the city's poky bus system, Los Angeles leaders of yore took away what planners would call "transportation alternatives."

Or so the urban legend goes, a much-told but probably untrue tale about the Orwellian strategy of using free-market lingo - "good for business" - to restrict consumer choice and shutter the Red Cars. Sy Adler, professor of urban studies at Portland State University, has since shown that the deal wasn't so Orwellian: The Red Cars were abandoned after Angelenos took to their autos with such vigor that the rails lost riders.

But now, the sort of social engineers Orwell envisioned actually are in residence at City Hall as commuters piddle to work in cars. The worst traffic is probably on the Westside, where things move at about 3 mph during rush hour, in a sector of L.A. that lacks a subway and suffers from infamously slow bus service.

Perhaps taking inspiration from the old Red Car legend, the city's Planning Department is using free-market lingo to restrict consumer choices. The bureaucrats' aim: to get Angelenos out of their cars and onto a troubled, skeletal mass-transit system that's a pale reminder of past Red Car glory.

Under this scheme, veteran city planner Thomas Rothmann is pushing to restrict parking, even at condos and apartments. He hopes to render your car so burdensome, and your life around it so miserable, that for relief you'll use the frequent and efficient buses or subways - neither of which will actually exist in most corners of L.A. for 20 to 30 years even under best-case scenarios.

The city's euphemism for all this is "pedestrian friendly."

On many mornings, as commuters pack themselves into subway trains and drivers squeeze onto the streets, Janette Sadik-Khan, the commissioner of the Department of Transportation, rides her bicycle to work.

That the head of an agency long associated with car travel is an avid bicyclist symbolizes what might be a new way of thinking about how New York's asphalt should be used. In recent months, the city has pledged to add bicycle racks and hundreds of miles of bike lanes on city streets and has been exploring a program similar to one in Paris in which people can use bikes at minimal cost.

The Bloomberg administration says it wants to develop cycling as a viable transportation alternative to ease traffic congestion, reduce carbon emissions and encourage physical activity. But the new attention to cycling has also encountered resistance in some neighborhoods, especially when it threatens to remove traffic lanes for cars and trucks.

Ms. Sadik-Khan said her time on two wheels has become an important part of her work.

"It's invaluable to get on a bike and see firsthand the conditions that our projects are trying to address," said Ms. Sadik-Khan, who became the city's transportation commissioner in the spring. "We are really emphasizing connectivity in the bicycle lane network, because all cyclists, myself included, know that it's maddening to be coming along a lane and have it simply end and leave you off on your own on a big avenue."

To that end, the Bloomberg administration has said it will add 200 miles of bike lanes by 2010 - the equivalent of the number added during the last 20 years.

baltimoresun.com

Scrapping of traffic-congestion plan urged - Proposal tilts too heavily toward highways, mass-transit advocates say

By Michael Dresser

Sun Reporter

August 29, 2007

A coalition of mass-transit advocates urged the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board yesterday to scrap its $8.7 billion draft plan for traffic congestion relief over the next 28 years, contending that the proposal is heavily skewed in favor of highway projects.

The advocates are attacking a potential blueprint for what the region's transportation system would look like in 2035. They say the draft Transportation Outlook 2035, prepared by local governments and the transportation board's staff, directs too much money to road projects, including many that would encourage sprawl and violate the state's Smart Growth policies.

At a public hearing last night, speakers almost unanimously turned thumbs down on a plan that critics described as lacking in regional vision.

Advocates demanded a roughly even split of the funds to finance a full regional rapid transit network and MARC system improvements.

The Greater Baltimore Committee expressed disappointment that the draft didn't include a Metro system extension to Morgan State University and Good Samaritan Hospital.

Gregory Schaffer, president of Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, asked why the East Baltimore campus, with more than 6,300 employees, had been left out of plans for a new transit line and a MARC system upgrade.

The Villager
Volume 77, Number 12 | August 22 - 28, 2007 

Critical look at Critical Mass by cop who covers it

By Jefferson Siegel

For the 10 years of Critical Mass in New York City, the police paid scant attention to the monthly bike ride. That changed with the Republican National Convention in August 2004, when hundreds of cyclists were among the 1,800 arrested that week.

In the years since the R.N.C., the ride's Union Square starting point has often resembled a military zone, with the cyclists surrounded by police. When the riders would depart from the square they were chased by helicopters and hundreds have since been arrested and ticketed.

Earlier this month, as the third anniversary of the convention approached, a police officer who has been present at many recent Critical Mass rides agreed to give an interview about his thoughts on policing Critical Mass and the event, in general.

Volume 56 Issue 4 Page 574-586, November 2004

To cite this article: Michael T. Most, Raja Sengupta, Michael A. Burgener (2004)
Spatial Scale and Population Assignment Choices in Environmental Justice Analyses1
The Professional Geographer 56 (4), 574-586.
doi:10.1111/j.0033-0124.2004.00449.x

Abstract

Volume 59 Issue 3 Page 365-377, August 2007

To cite this article: Edmund J. Zolnik (2007)
Cost Attribution in Unlimited Access Transit Programs: Case Study on the UConn Prepaid Fare Program Failure
The Professional Geographer 59 (3), 365-377.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-9272.2007.00619.x

Abstract

Using a case study approach, this article explores the potential to increase public transit ridership via the expansion of Unlimited Access (UA) from a university- or employer-based program to a community-based program. UA partners universities or employers with regional transit organizations to provide free or discounted public transit service to students as well as employees and, potentially, to local community residents. A case study on the only known UA program failure highlights the importance of equitable cost attribution as well as stakeholder coordination and dedicated operations funds to the long-term success of community-based UA programs.

The Professional Geographer

Volume 59 Issue 2 Page 193-208, May 2007

To cite this article: Selima Sultana, Joe Weber (2007)
Journey-to-Work Patterns in the Age of Sprawl: Evidence from Two Midsize Southern Metropolitan Areas*
The Professional Geographer 59 (2), 193-208.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-9272.2007.00607.x

Among others, one commonly identified negative consequence of urban sprawl is an increase in the length
of the journey to work. However, there has been more discussion of this than serious scrutiny, hence
the relationship between urban sprawl and commuting patterns, especially at the intraurban level, remains
unclear. Using the 2000 Census Transportation Planning Package (CTPP) data for two Southeastern metropolitan
areas, this research investigates the extent to which workers living in sprawl areas commute farther to
work than those living in higher density areas. The analysis of variance confirms that workers commuting from
sprawl areas to urban areas experience a longer commute in terms of time as well as mileage, though this varies
when workplace and home locations are taken into account. However, multivariate statistical results suggest that
there are limits to the utility of sprawl as a predictor of travel behavior compared to workers’ socioeconomic
characteristics, as other factors appear to be equally or more important. 

By Mary E. Peters
Saturday, August 25, 2007; Page A15

America was stunned on Aug. 1 when the Interstate 35 West bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed in a tangle of vehicles, concrete and steel. My department is working closely with the National Transportation Safety Board to determine why the bridge failed, and in the aftermath of this tragedy, a necessary national conversation has begun concerning the state of the nation's bridges and highways and the financial model used to build, maintain and operate them.

Many, including The Post [" Paying the Price," editorial, Aug. 21], are taking this opportunity to call for gasoline tax increases and a larger federal presence in transportation investment decisions. For a variety of reasons, a response of this sort would exacerbate our transportation system failures, not alleviate them.

A far better question than whether gas taxes are high enough is what taxpayers get if we expand our dependence on the gasoline tax. The answer is almost certainly higher gas prices, more congestion and stagnating quality of life, which is why The Post's call for a substantial increase in the nation's gas tax is ill-advised.

Our system is failing because federal gasoline taxes are deposited into a centralized trust fund and allocated based on political will. Major spending decisions often have nothing to do with underlying economics, engineering realities or consumer needs. New programs and pet project earmarks have proliferated in recent years. The 2005 transportation funding bill, for example, included more than 6,000 politically driven earmarks reported to cost some $24 billion. That's a staggering figure. The true price however is unfortunately much higher because earmarks typically represent only a fraction of project costs.

Public Authorities continue to be one of the best means for taking control out of the hands of voters and putting it in the hands of bureaucrats two or three or four steps removed from anyone elected. I've written about the Taxi Drivers in this space several times now, but now Philly Independent Media Center has a great new video coming out a week or so in advance of a two day taxi strike.

Check the video out here.

I'm really glad IMC is paying attention to this issue. It's a fascinating case. It's one that I'd think the Nutter Butters would be going NUTS over. Closed door decisionmaking. Gouging a group of workers and the public. Capricious rulemaking. Lack of access to decisionmakers and no voter oversite. Everything that should be making them crazy mad. I hope they do pick up on it and take action. It really sucks that nobody is in control of the Parking Authority any more and that it has control of Taxis (isn't that ironic? Taxis hardly ever park, you know?).

As an Organizer, I find it exciting because this is a very diverse group of people who are hardscrabble and refuse to be victimized. If they have even close to the participation in their strike that they anticipate in the video, it's a real coup. A beautiful show of worker solidarity. It's so great to see these guys excited to take action, and any time I've sat down with them they really have been.

Now if the taxi cab drivers could just drive a little nicer...

BROOKVILLE, Pa., Aug. 23 - Anthony Foote spends a lot of time driving his Kenworth T-600 truck on Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania. He prefers it to the state's other east-west highway, the Interstate 76 turnpike, which can cost him $140 in tolls.

So the news that the state plans to impose tolls on I-80 was as upsetting to Mr. Foote as finding an ugly scratch in the purple paint on his rig.

"I hate paying tolls," he said. "It eats up my profit. If this goes through, you'll have a lot of truckers avoiding Pennsylvania - including me."

Pennsylvania officials plan to build up to 10 toll areas along the 311-mile stretch of Interstate 80 in the next three years to help pay for road, bridge and mass transit projects and subsidies.

The move has sparked a political war between the bipartisan coalition of state legislators who approved the plan and two Republican congressmen who say it is a "shell game," taking revenue from rural Pennsylvania to bail out the state's urban areas.

"It's absolutely horrendous for my district," said one of them, Representative John E. Peterson, whose Fifth Congressional District covers about half of I-80 in north central Pennsylvania. "Every major bill like this should be measured by whether this will make people less likely to come here. And if this stays active, we'll never get another distribution center or similar business again in my district."

Paying for new roads with tolls, or adding tolls to sections of older urban roads, is common across the country. But experts say that imposing tolls on an entire interstate highway that had been free may be unprecedented, in part because the federal government typically bans tolls on highways paid for with federal money, as I-80 was.

The World Bank,Washington, DC, USA

Rail transit investments have been widely supported by the local planning agencies and government financing resources for their perceived environmental and social benefits, as well as the compact development patterns rail corridors support. Despite the widespread expectations, the sustainability of rail transit projects is often found questionable, as are the actual benefits rail investments can bring about in practice. One of the reasons for rail investments' tendency to perform less well than expected has been identified as a prevailing bias of local officials toward high-capital rail transit investments that are underwritten by the transit financing mechanism (Johnston et al., 1988; Kain, 1990; Pickrell, 1992; Richmond, 1999; Flyvbjerg et al., 2003, 2004, 2005). This article examines the funding mechanism problem underlying the rail transit project selection bias and hypothesizes this problem to be a principal-agent problem. Incentive theory is introduced as an analytical tool to model the problem, to better understand the nature and causes of the problem, and to suggest solutions to it. By applying incentive theory to analyze the project development process of the US New Starts program, it is suggested that the funding mechanism problem associated with the bias toward capital-intensive rail investments can be viewed as a principal-agent problem between the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) (the principal) and local project sponsors (the agent). The incentive approach proposed in this article provides insights for analyzing the relation between central government and local agencies in the planning and decision-making process of rail transit investment, and for addressing political problems, primarily rent-seeking behaviors, associated with central government earmark funding.

Key Words: incentive theory • light rail transit • principal-agent problem • project selection bias

In a matter of weeks, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to issue his report on what New York needs to do to sustain itself as a desirable destination for residents, businesses and visitors. The report, called PlaNYC 2030, is intended to be an important guidepost for the city's future. Done right, it could become a global model and an important piece of Mr. Bloomberg's legacy.

To get there, though, the mayor will have to deal aggressively with a vexing problem, traffic congestion. If that piece of the plan falls short, the rest of Mr. Bloomberg's vision won't much matter. In just a couple of decades, New York is expected to add nearly a million more people. To have any hope of keeping people moving, the city will need to take real and substantial action to unclog its roads - including some form of congestion fee and other disincentives to driving on the busiest streets.

By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
Philadelphia is trying to get more clout with SEPTA by threatening to take its subways and go home.

The city owns the Broad Street subway and half of the Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated line, both of which it leased to SEPTA in 1968 when the transportation agency was created.

The lease was written to expire on Dec. 31, 2005, or when SEPTA made the last of its required rent payments, whichever came later. In 2005, unable to agree on whether the lease was about to expire, the city and SEPTA extended the lease until the end of 2007.

One gauge of a city's health is its mobility.

A city that thrives is one where congestion doesn't become gridlock, where commuters, shoppers and beer trucks can coexist. Bustle is good, immobility is bad.

For Philadelphia's next mayor, the big transportation challenges will be to improve mass transit and deal with chronic traffic and parking problems. And the mayor will have to persuade skeptical suburbanites to help because the city's transportation network is the hub of a vast regional web.

"Where does transportation land on your priority list? It has to rate very highly," said Steven Wray, executive director of the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, citing transportation's importance to the region's economy.

Center City "can't continue to boom without a transportation policy," said Vukan Vuchic, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania.

NYTimes
April 4, 2007
Editorial
Stay on Track

Americans made 10.1 billion trips on public transportation last year, the highest that ridership has risen in nearly half a century. That's good for congestion on the roads as well as the pollution that goes with it. But any mass-transit renaissance will come to a grinding halt unless a commensurate investment is made in upkeep and expansion.

As Libby Sander reported recently in The Times, Chicago's elevated train system, known as the El, appears to be near a breaking point. The second-largest public transit system in America after New York's is suffering from rising commute times as the century-old system deteriorates.

Public transit systems are financed through a combination of federal and local money, so parochial priorities play a big role in underinvestment. For instance, the Chicago Transit Authority's financing formula hasn't changed since 1983. But at the same time, the federal gas tax - which contributes money for public transportation systems as well as highways - hasn't changed since 1993. That means it hasn't even kept up with inflation in maintenance and construction costs, much less rising demand.

HARRISBURG - Gov. Rendell enlisted the Bush administration yesterday in his push to get wary legislators to agree to privatize the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Rendell, a Democrat, appeared with U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters to extol the benefits of a proposal to lease the turnpike, an arrangement Rendell hopes will provide nearly $1 billion a year for the state's highway network.

"This partnership," Peters said at a news conference in the state Capitol's rotunda, "could generate billions of dollars that could be used to repair deteriorating roads and bridges, and free up money for construction and keep the state moving both now and into the future."

In competing Manhattan press conferences yesterday afternoon, rival advocacy groups said that (1) there could be a citywide taxi strike in September, and (2) there would not be a strike.

“We are ready to have a 48-hour strike on Sept. 5 and Sept. 6,” said Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, as she stood near a line of taxis outside Pennsylvania Station. “We are ready, willing and able to walk out.”

The Taxi Workers Alliance said in a press release that it wants to work out a resolution with the Taxi and Limousine Commission to avert a strike.

Two hours later, Fernando Mateo, a spokesman for the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, said no walkout was ahead.

Standing in front of the Taxi and Limousine Commission office on Rector Street in Lower Manhattan, he said: “Read my lips: There will be no strike.”

The two groups, which have been vying for the right to speak for city cabdrivers, were at odds over a decision by the Taxi and Limousine Commission that requires all of the city’s 13,087 medallion taxis to be equipped by the end of January with new technology including a global positioning system, a credit card system and a monitor that provides passengers with an electronic map. About 1,300 taxis have already had the devices installed.

The G.P.S. that will go in cabs will not be used to navigate routes, but will be connected to meters and track the vehicle’s movements. Commission officials have called it an “electronic trip sheet” and said it could be used to help recover lost property.

By doubling mileage requirements for city taxicabs, Mayor Michael Bloomberg seems to have locked in one piece of a potentially historic environmental legacy - not the most ambitious piece, but a significant one nonetheless. His action will transform New York's taxi fleet from the most polluting in the nation to one of the cleanest, and do so in five years, making the city a leader as municipalities compete to cut carbon emissions.

The backup at the tunnel - a phrase as familiar to New York and New Jersey drivers as rubbernecking delays - will never go away. But it may be used less frequently if the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has its way.

The head of the agency, which operates six tunnels and bridges that empty more than 125 million cars, trucks and buses into New York City each year, said yesterday that in a few weeks it would consider financing a study to look at removing tollbooths and at the impact that would have on traffic and pricing.

By going cashless and asking all drivers to use an electronic E-ZPass, said Anthony E. Shorris, the executive director of the Port Authority, the agency hopes to introduce what it calls "dynamic pricing," charging higher tolls during peak periods and lower tolls when traffic is lighter.

Mr. Shorris also said that going entirely electronic would improve air quality because cars and trucks would spend less time idling at toll barriers.

Those are the billion-dollar questions for private companies interested in leasing the toll roads.

In figuring out the price tag for a turnpike, nothing is as important to a private bidder as future tolls. If drivers will pay more - and not divert in droves to other roads - companies will offer more for the toll road.

Morgan Stanley & Co., hired by Gov. Rendell to advise his administration on leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike, is expected to publicly release its recommendations later this month.

"It all depends on the tolls," said one banker who asked not to be identified because his company is involved in the bidding for the Pennsylvania Turnpike. "You want an equitable toll rate, one that isn't so high that people don't want to take the road or so low that you get a lot of congestion."

The North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority yesterday approved a proposal by Gov. Jon S. Corzine to spend $1 billion in federal highway funds over 10 years on a new commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River. The tunnel is expected to cost $7.5 billion to build, and officials have raised $3 billion of that, including the funds approved yesterday. Supporters say the tunnel will double rail capacity between New York City and New Jersey and will reduce highway congestion. New Jersey will also apply for funds from the Federal Transit Administration for the project. Construction of the two-track tunnel is expected to begin in 2009 and end in 2016. To make up for the diverted federal highway funds, New Jersey will use $1 billion from its Transportation Trust Fund on state road work.

Hybrid car economics will face a new road test this month with the arrival of fresh models sporting revised mileage ratings from the Environmental Protection Agency.