What happens when you throw two strangers into a Subaru and ship them out to Queens to check out the new convention center site?
The Times grabbed Barbara Buzzell, 75-year-old interior designer from Long Island and Gerald Yuska, 30-year-old owner of Breakwater Surf Company from Rhode Island, and put them up for the task. Read More
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
This week, The Observer looked at the loss of visionary planning and infrastructure investment in the country. We held up the Tappan Zee Bridge as a prime example of the conflicts of building in this day and age. On the one hand, Governor Andrew Cuomo deserves a lot of credit for finally kick-starting a project that has been debated for almost a decade as its structural integrity continued to deteriorate.
Yet to keep the project within the budget parameters he set out, the governor cut mass transit out of the project, a setback for locals already frustrated by congestion on the thoroughfare. The Cuomo administration has stressed that the bridge will still be able to add mass transit in the future. As Streetsblog thoughtfully explained yesterday, the odds that will ever be realized is now all but impossible. Read More
If the Cuomo administration has been adhering to austerity in its first year, that is because there is a smaller pie to carve up, as the governor keeps reminding New Yorkers. But he was also taking his time because the money is meant to go where it can actually do real work, according Read More
As has been rumored since talk began that Chris Ward would be departing the Port Authority some time this year, the Cuomo administration is poised to announce Patrick Foye will be taking over the bi-state agency as executive director, The Journal reports. Read More
