By Matt Chaban 11/13/12 4:34pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

5 Photos

Traffic Returns to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel

The Hugh Carey Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel Just Reopened—And Already There’s Traffic

Governor Cuomo came to the mouth of the Hugh Carey Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel less than an hour ago with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and MTA chief Joe Lhota to announce that one tube of the formerly flooded tunnel would be opening to traffic at 4 o’clock today. Within minutes of his entourage departing,  the cars did indeed begin flowing in. Town cars, Range Rovers, some foreign and domestic sedans, at least two Cadillacs and, of course, numerous cabs.

It was a regular stream of New York City wheels. And as so often happens when such vehicles tend to cluster, there was a back-up. Yes, traffic. Perhaps life is getting back to normal.

“In many ways, for me, this site a metaphor for the entire storm,” Governor Cuomo said, from the awesome power of Mother Nature that first hit the city during Hurricane Sandy to the awesome rebuilding effort the MTA and others undertook. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/19/12 12:44pm

Street Fighters Too

8 Photos

Here's Looking Out for You, Kids

Look Out! DOT Creates Crosswalk Decals, Ad Campaign to Prevent Pedestrian Accidents

What are you looking at?

When it comes to crossing the street, the city’s Department of Transportation hopes the answer is oncoming traffic—and not your smartphone or your beautiful European model boyfriend.

As any good three-year-old could tell you, always look both ways before crossing the street. But harried, hurried and distracted New Yorkers (and perhaps not a few New Yorkers) are ignoring the rules they learned in preschool, so the department has launched a new campaign to nudge as all into paying more attention when crossing the street. Read More

By Erica Schwiegershausen 8/17/12 4:28pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

(photo: flickr user jphilipg)

Paving the Way: US DOT Will Return $473 Million in Unused Earmarks to States

Earmarks! Even when Congress won’t spend them, the government will.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced today that the Department of Transportation will return $473 million in unspent highway earmarks to the states for projects to improve infrastructure and create jobs.

“These idle earmarks have sat on the shelf as our infrastructure continued to age and our construction workers sat on the sidelines,” Mr. LaHood said. “That ends today.” Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/21/10 11:50pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

What the F-ARC! Is Everybody Gonna Pull a Christie and Kill Mass Transit?

It looks like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie isn’t the only one playing politics with mass transit funding. WNYC vet Andrea Bernstein had a fascinating yet terrifying–at least for transit geeks–report on Marketplace this morning about how a number of GOP gubernatorial candidates across the country have talked about killing off high-speed rail construction Read More

By Eliot Brown 5/13/09 4:07pm

Obama Administration Pushes New Hudson Rail Tunnel

The Obama administration likes rail tunnels. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Wednesday morning urged progress on the pair of new rail tunnels planned for under the Hudson, suggesting a large commitment of funds would come from the federal government at a later date for the $8.7 billion job.

Read More

By Steve Kornacki 8/27/07 8:58pm

Dick Versace for Congress?

There is a tradition in politics of sports figures parlaying their celebrity into campaigns for elected office. Jim Bunning, for instance, pitched a perfect game in 1964 and now represents Kentucky as a Republican Senator, while Tom Osborne, who won two national titles as Nebraska's football coach, just completed three terms as a G.O.P. Read More