Brad Lander says, "Where's the bus?" (Kit Dillon)

On every straphanger's gift list this winter. (Kit Dillon)

The bus stop is a lonely place, made lonelier without the reassurances of time. Like Estragon said, “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful.” Much better to wait underground for the subway where your time is allotted to you by little digital clocks hanging from the ceiling.  No more leaning out and staring into the endlessness of a dark tunnel looking for light. Your train is 4 minutes away, at least on those lines fortunate enough to have the timers.

New York City is not a place for waiting. We’re terrible at it, and the City Council knows it. Today, joined by transit advocates and riders, a group of council members introduced a resolution calling on city agencies to install “bus clocks” in all of the 3,300 shelters across the city. Clocks that would display real-time bus arrival information, not simply those flimsy timetables many bus poles now unreliably, even flagrantly, post. It’s a move that will finally see the city catching up with such other metropolitan innovators as Albany, Syracuse, and Champaign, Ill. They've even got an online version in Boston—Boston!

“Bus Time and subway countdown clocks have been tremendously helpful technologies for straphangers,” Bronx Councilman James Vacca, chair of the Transportation Committee, said. “Knowing when the next bus or train will arrive gives straphangers time to pick up coffee or the morning paper rather than standing around with no information.”

That’s the point, of course. A moment with no information, in a city like ours, in a time like this, is a matter of life and death! Or at least a blown meeting or missed first date. Of course, we know, waiting now, that a bus will come. It always does. But we don’t know when and that lets the mind wander into strange and uncharted territory. What if the bus never comes? What are we waiting here for? Is it all worth it? Why are we here? Tough questions for the 2.5 million average weekday bus riders. Tough questions for anybody.

The MTA has a new system, known as Bus Time, currently accessible from a smart phone app, that was first installed as pilot program on the B63 line in Brooklyn. It has since expanded to a few more lines in Staten Island and the Bronx, and by the end of 2013, it will be available for all bus routes in the city. But as the concerned City Council members point out, smart phones are not as ubiquitous among the city’s elderly and low income residents, which creates a very real accessibility issue.

“There are few things as frustrating as waiting for a bus without knowing when it will show up, especially if you’re already running late for work or the weather isn’t cooperating,” Councilman Steve Levin said. “Installing countdown clocks in bus shelters is an easy step that the MTA can and should take to ensure that all riders know when to expect the next bus.”

Currently the city bus shelters are built and maintained by CEMUSA, a world wide leader in, what it calls, "iconic street furniture," better known as bus-stop-meets-billboard.  According to the franchise agreement with the city, which includes a clause about installing and maintaining future systems as they are developed, CEMUSA is already in a position to install countdown clocks without serious contractual changes.  As for the costs of the initial installation, the council hopes that some of the financing can come from discretionary appropriations and toggling agreements with advertisers, in which time information is alternated regularly with advertisements.

"With Bus Time going citywide," declared Brad Lander, "it's time for the MTA, New York City, and CEMUSA to overcome bureaucratic and inter-agency hurdles and make bus clocks a reality in New York City."

Yeesh! Where's your helmet, pal? (Getty)

A group of men stood outside Lenny’s sandwich shop on Columbus Avenue Friday, tugging at their neon vests and ringing their bicycle bells that read “I heart my bike” for curious bystanders. Save for the intermittent prod from a higher up to keep their vests on, the delivery cyclists were well versed on the bicycle laws (and speedy delivery of New York grub) that they were summoned to demonstrate.

Bike laws may seem like common sense: ride the right way, stay off the sidewalks, signal turns, but it can be easy to ignore them, especially when a tip is on the line and you come from another country with no such regulations. On Friday, outside the Lenny's outpost, the city's Department of Transportation convened a press conference to remind delivery riders, perhaps the most loathed cyclists in the city even as they are an integral part of its culinary culture, that they must obey the laws. It was a show of force by the equally-under-attack department, seen sometimes as too bike friendly, that they care about such matters.

“The takeaway is simple, New Yorkers want everything in a New York minute,” announced Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan of the New York City Department of Transportation. “But businesses that depend on bike deliveries can’t cut corners on safety.”

The newly enforced bike rules were plastered on a large sign held by a woman to the right of Ms. Sadik-Khan. Though the rules seemed to be no more than common sense (like obey traffic signs and don’t attach your bike to another vehicle), Commissioner Sadik-Khan said the NYPD issued over 14,000 violations last year for such failures.

To remedy the lack of education on road safety (that one would think of as common sense), Commissioner Sadik-Khan explained that a six-person team of newly deputized inspectors from the department will be maneuvering throughout the city Monday­—beginning on the Upper East and Upper West sides—to educate businesses on biking rules and to provide them with safety equipment such as vests and helmets.

“In my opinion, citywide I don’t think we have 10 percent of commercial bicyclists that are complying with the existing laws that are on the books,” City Council Transportation Chair Jimmy Vacca said to the lingering crowd. The legislation, he said, is nothing new. The laws will begin being enforced (with fines ranging from $100 to $300) in early 2013, after businesses have had a chance to educate their employees on the rules.

“When we find people who are not following the rules, we go as far as terminating them on the spot,” Katherine Chung, director of HR for Lenny’s, told The Observer regarding the sandwich shop’s policy. Lenny’s is one food business that tackled cycling safety issues before the city decided to slap concrete rules and fines on establishments with delivery cyclists. Ms. Chung said a common problem was Lenny's cyclists who were involved in accidents because they were riding against the traffic flow. That's one way to cheat New York City traffic.

Tomas Alnenares, a Lenny’s employee who has been delivering food on two wheels for about seven years, told The Observer he has never caused an accident but has heard of many accidents caused by other employees. Since Lenny’s began educating its staff on road rules about three years ago, the eatery has experienced far fewer accidents and has thus spared many a New Yorker the anguish of a late sandwich.

Going nowhere fast. (Getty)

It was a long year for bike riders in New York City. The bikelash got underway last fall, but it really picked up in 2011 as the Prospect Park West lane suit dragged out all summer t. The city won the suit, as well as a super majority of support for the new bike lanes, but that has not stopped cycling critics from continuing to harry two-wheeled New Yorkers. Now, it is looking like 2012 may be no better.

In an interview with the Post, Bronx Councilman Jimmy Vacca, who chairs the council's Transportation Committee, said he is looking at a number of new pieces of legislation that would further regulate bikes. Most are to do with commercial bikes, those used for deliveries—and a scourge not only of pedestrians but bikers, too—that would require them to wear vests with the company name and reflective materials. This would presumably make them more visible and responsible, since they could be reported and the company they work for would be held accountable.

One proposal is particularly irksome to regular riders, however, and that would be requiring master plans for new bike lanes. Not only do sidewalks and roads not require such oversight, but this would also slow down the creation of new lanes, which New Yorkers support, as polls have shown, and which also save lives.

Why so much animosity toward two-wheelers, then? We'll let Councilman Vacca explain: “My priority is protection of the pedestrians, and my mantra is that the pedestrian is always right, even when the pedestrian is wrong. Everything I do is governed by that basic foundation."

So even when a texting pedestrian is standing in a bike lane, say, he is doing right.

At least Journal sports columnist Jason Gay (still) gets it. He says that today should be Buy a Bike Light Day, and he makes the case yet again for bikes in the city:

This city is adapting to the bicycle. It's an overdue and necessary transformation. The evolution hasn't been without conflict—cyclists are learning to co-exist with vehicles and pedestrians, and there's too much recklessness on every street—but years from now we'll look back and wonder why anyone thought this wasn't progress.

And so the war of words and wheels continues.

mchaban@observer.com

A tall blonde woman, clutching her Blackberry, picture in hand, told The Observer, "She's the best."

Not everyone inside the hearing room would agree, as Sadik-Khan had just endured more than two hours of angry, playful, sanctimonious questions from council members who, along with their constituents, seem to either adoringly love or petulantly hate her. And still, here she was, answering the questions she wanted to, evading the ones she didn't. ("I don't have the numbers," "That's not my department," etc.) This after having undergone foot surgery the night before. The reason was never explained, but for Sadik-Khan's relying on an orthopedic wooden cane for support.

The big issue for the council is that Sadik-Khan painted a long green stripe right through their turf. One of the few things Council members feel like they have any real say over is land-use issues, of which the streets are a major part. But when the lanes began to proliferate, and Sadik-Khan and the rest of the DOT began painting with impunity, Council members realized they really didn't.

From the cyclists' perspective, this is great news. Increasingly, we can get anywhere in the city safely and efficiently. Yet not everyone bikes--according to Transportation Alternatives, the number now stands at more than 200,000 a day, about as many people who live in Rochester, but still well below the millions of daily commuters.

So what happens when the needs of one group of commuters come up against another's, especially when everyone knows they are in the right? What is it about the streets--not just here but anywhere--that everyone thinks they own them, when clearly no one does, even Commissioner Sadik-Khan.

Consider this exchange between Councilman Lew Fidler, who represents the the lobe of land surrounding Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, and Sadik-Khan:

Fidler: I don't see why you have to connect Eastern Parkway and Shore Parkway, when no one wants that. They want biking in the parks.

Sadik-Khan: It's for the sake of connectivity.

I don't undsertand the connectivity point. We should build bike lanes where people want to bike.

If we don't have an integrated system, it just dumps you into a dangerous situation.

But these streets, people don't want to bike on them, they want to drive on them.

I will take a look at it and get back to you.

This was coming from a guy who opened his remarks by saying that he subscribes to the Field of Dreams approach, "build it, and they will use it," though he also pointed out that absolutely no one could commute to Manhattan by bike from his district. "Biking in my district is a recreational activity."

Yet later on, Councilwoman Tish James told Sadik-Khan: "My constituents would love access to the parkways and the shoreways of the great borough of Brooklyn, to access all that we have. There is no better way to address the sedentary culture of our city and our country."

Councilman Brad Lander, a supporter of the lanes, admitted that there was something inexplicably visceral about the entire biking debate.

These are the sort of inescapbale, unanswerable questions at the heart of being a New York: What do you put on your hot dog? Condo versus coop? Brooklyn or Manhattan?

Is it wrong to build a bike lane if no one will use it, but maybe they just might?

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

That's the message from a group of transit advocates, who sent an open letter to Albany yesterday pleading with the governor and Legislature not to raid the MTA's dedicated funding. Again.

Last year, needing to trim the budget by billions, Albany decided to take $143 million from an MTA "lockbox," the largest single cut made. The move was part of the reason the agency's own budget hole swelled to $800 million this year, part of the reason for severe service cuts and $104 MetroCards. Now, advocates are afraid that politicians may look to these supposedly off-limits coffers once again to cover a $345 million shortfall that was recently revealed and must be closed by the end of the year.

Hoping to prevent another looting--the Legislature grabbed $16 million more a few months ago--City Council Transportation Committee Chair James Vacca, the Straphangers Campaign, Transportation Alternatives, and the Tri-State Transporation Campaign are asking, nay begging, pols to look elsewhere.

At a time when the State should be focused on shoring up the future of mass transit funding--and restoring the $143 million that was diverted last year--conducting another ‘sweep' would send a terrible message.

The MTA's buses, subways and trains are the engines that drive New York's economy. New York City cannot survive without a vibrant mass transit system, and out mass transit system cannot survive without a stable source of funding.

Of course, the MTA is an easy target. Despite the expert work of new chair Jay Walder, the agency cannot function if it continues to have its budget stripped by outside agents. Otherwise we wind up in a death spiral with no system at all: The people blame the MTA, the pols cut away, service gets worse, people blame the MTA, and so on until there is nothing left. The madness must stop.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

City Councilman David Weprin, on the left, is wearing red suspenders, just because.

Happy Friday.

“This is basically, as Chris said, preserving services,” Bloomberg said, referring to Council Speaker Christine Quinn, during an event with the Council in the City Hall rotunda this evening. “I don’t think there is any major cut that is going to really hurt anybody.”

But advocates gathered around City Hall quietly muttered to themselves and reporters the fear that whatever was placed into the budget could be stripped after the November elections, when Bloomberg and a majority of the Council are expected to be reelected.

“This may not be the last word on this year’s budget,” said Bloomberg, referring to projections that the national and local economies were projected to grow slightly in the months ahead.

One reporter asked if the budget deal was hammered out with the expectation that state lawmakers would grant the city’s request to create a new, cheaper Tier 5 pension benefit plan for future civil servants. Bloomberg said, “We are expecting and hoping that Albany helps us.”

The city is also banking on Albany to grant the city authority to levy new taxes—about $887 million’s worth. That’s coming in the form of an increased sales tax, plus “applying the city sales tax to currently untaxed energy purchases,” according to a press release from the mayor’s office.

Passage of those new tax hikes is not usually an easy task in Albany, but it is even trickier this year, given the chaos that has gripped the State Senate. Plus, state lawmakers already passed a tax hike on everyone making over $250,000 a year.

As Councilman Vincent Gentile was walking out of City Hall, he spotted Councilman Jimmy Vacca of the Bronx, who had been wearing red shirts and ties to raise awareness about the proposed fire house closings. Vacca, so far, has prevented those cuts, and told me he was glad to finally get out of wearing red for a while.

Gentile greeted him with a smile and told me, “He’s going to sleep well tonight.” Vacca smiled, nodded and said he hoped so.