By Stephen Jacob Smith 3/07 3:11pm

Holy Moses!

Robert Moses may be dead, but the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority lives on.

Finish the Job: Joe Lhota Wants to End Moses’s Triborough Legacy

Joe Lhota, it seems, wants to finish the job that Governor Nelson Rockefeller started. Speaking to the Staten Island Advance last week, the frontrunner laid out the most ambitious transportation proposal yet of the 2013 mayoral race: give New York City back its bridges and tunnels.

“The former head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority,” the editorial board wrote, “said that if he were to be elected mayor, he would seek to get full mayoral control of the bridges and tunnels in the city.”

Aside from the untolled East River bridges that belong to the city—the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Queensboro bridges—major river crossings between the five boroughs belong to the state, under the guise of the MTA Bridges and Tunnels. Read More

By Matt Chaban 1/11 3:35pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Welcome to the Adirondacks Transit Authority.

L.A. Beat New York to Congestion Pricing and Andrew Cuomo Could Care Less

How did L.A. wind up taking our transportation lunch money? New Yorkers were so busy bullying each other, we didn’t even notice when they took it and beat us to the mass transit punch.

The Architect’s Newspaper had an interesting story earlier this week pointing out how back in November, Los Angeles launched its own congestion pricing system to speed traffic on some of its jammed, anything-but-free freeways, and it has been enjoying impressive results. This was, of course, “made possible by political gridlock in the New York State Assembly over congestion pricing,” as the paper points out. All the while, the MTA has been hemorrhaging cash, leading to reduced service (later restored through cuts elsewhere) and all those fare hikes.

After Albany failed to pass the congestion pricing measure, a portion of the hundreds of millions in federal funds that had been set aside to start our program were given over to L.A. Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/22/12 11:43am

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Beep beep creep. (Getty)

Decongestants! Cuomo Administration Mulling Sam Schwartz’s Plan for East River Bridge Tolls

Governor Andrew Cuomo has drawn a lot of attention for just how much it might cost to cross a new Tappan Zee Bridge, but it turns out the administration is also mulling tolls on a few other spans: those crossing the East River.

In the spring, Sam Schwartz, the former city DOT commissioner, unveiled a new plan for tolls throughout the five boroughs, though the main focus is the East River bridges. Mr. Schwartz calls it “The Fair Plan: a More Equitable Formula for the New York Metro Area.” He is insistent people not call it congestion pricing, a reasonable point since the last push for charges on drivers entering the central part of Manhattan died a very public death four years ago. Political motivations abounded, a risk he is trying to tamp down.

On Monday, Mr. Schwartz took his plan for tolls—a few more dollars here, a few less there, add a toll for bikes, discourage trucks on surface roads, so on and so forth—to the City Planning Commission. Read More

By Matt Chaban 5/09/12 9:15am

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Fixing gridlock one sign and tweet at a time. (Sam Schwartz Engineering)

May the Schwartz Be With You: Gridlock Sam Wants to Turn New York Traffic On Its Head—the Same Thing He’s Done for 40 Years

When Sam Schwartz went into transportation planning in the 1970s, he never thought he would leave behind the asphalt of Manhattan for the sandy beaches of Aruba.

At a conference a few years ago, Mr. Schwartz, who runs an eponymous engineering firm in Soho, had just finished up a panel when a woman approached him and asked for his help. The American tourists coming to her country were too lazy to walk to the historic city center, which had been languishing, and she hoped Mr. Schwartz would help. He joked that she should fly him down for an inspection. The next day, the trip was booked. “I’ve done that before and no one has ever taken me up on it.”

After dismissing horse drawn carriages, Mr. Schwartz hit on a novel solution: a team of former Spielberg and Disney imagineers had created a super-high-tech trolley system, totally battery powered with an 18-hour running time. No new infrastructure is required. “Can you believe it? Mass transit on this little Caribbean island,“ Mr. Schwartz marveled. A lei of pink flowers hangs in his lofty office overlooking Houston Street, one of hundreds of tokens of gratitude clogging up the walls and shelves like the cars and trucks, constantly honking, in the gridlock below.

Gridlock. A term Sam Schwartz coined, one of his countless tiny little innovations that have endeavored to make traffic move a little faster. After two decades working for the city’s Department of Transportation, Mr. Schwartz has taken his show on the road, and what he sees across the country both delights and troubles him. Read More

By Matt Chaban 4/24/12 7:11pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Try driving. (Dana Rubenstein/CNY)

Governor Cuomo Puts the Brakes on Congestion Pricing Even as His Latest MTA Appointee Supports It

We have long known that Governor Andrew Cuomo is a bit of a gearhead—so much so it appears he has no interest in putting his considerable political capital behind the latest efforts to revive congestion pricing, being led by former transportation commissioner Sam Schwartz. WNYC asked Governor Cuomo about the Schwartz plan, first championed by Times scribe Bill Keller. Governor Cuomo plead ignorance. Read More

By Matt Chaban 12/06/11 8:37pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Driving that train, running on fumes. (Office of the Governor)

Occupy the Toll Booth! Could OWS Revive Congestion Pricing?

Charles Komanoff, the hound of Manhattan traffic, penned an interesting column yesterday for Streetsblog arguing that the Occupy movement had the potential to bring congestion pricing back to life.

After all, the protesters, with their message of pervasive inequality, arguably helped put enough pressure on the Cuomo administration to embrace some form of higher taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers. Why couldn’t some form of populist support do the same for tolls on East River bridges and the subsequent boost to clean air and mass transit that would come with it? Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/19/11 9:32am

Planes Trains & Automobiles

Kill all cars. (No Impact Man)

Congestion Pricing Crawling Back to Life

It was three years ago that congestion pricing died its unceremonious death in Albany, leaving New Yorkers stuck in traffic. But last month, there was hope the program might find new support in Albany, especially after tolls went up on the Port Authority crossings. Governor Cuomo seemed willing to back congestion pricing for the first time. Specifics of the new plan continue to emerge, and the environmental and labor groups supporting congestion pricing continue to meet with pols to gin up support, according to the Daily News. Read More

By Matt Chaban 7/27/11 8:37am

Planes Trains & Automobiles

All aboard? (wikispaces.com)

Will Conductor Cuomo Put the M.T.A. On Track?

Transportation wonks have a habit of talking about Jay Walder, the outgoing head of the M.T.A., in messianic terms, as though he were the only man capable of fixing the agency’s myriad problems—an aging system, run by intransigent unions, with almost no political support. While many of them have greeted his resignation with shock and concern, there is a growing sense that this could actually be the best thing to happen to the M.T.A. since Mr. Walder’s arrival two years ago.

“I guess I’m partly responsible for inflating the importance of Jay,” said Gene Russianoff, head of the Straphangers Campaign and dean of transit advocate.

Indeed, there have been others—Richard Ravitch, the team of Kiley-Gunn, even Mr. Walder’s predecessor, Lee Sander—who have done a lot to resurrect mass transit from the death throes of the 1970s. Mr. Walder, though, was different. He had moved from McKinsey to run London’s transit system, introducing successful innovations, including the vaunted oyster card, which speeds up bus and Tube boardings, as well as implementing that dread scourge, congestion pricing. He was supposed to bring the same innovation and ingenuity to New York.

“You have to hope it’s a wake-up call to the people in Albany,” blogger and M.T.A. kremlinologist Benjamin Kabak said. Read More