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.