Car congestion is a problem for drivers of private cars, and when transit planners worry about it, it’s a sign that they’re thinking more about those drivers than about their own passengers.
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24 February 2012
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15:20
The main problem with that argument is that all of the “congestion mitigation” techniques are complete failures.
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18 February 2012
Political realities
Political reality is a handy thing. Everyone seems to have a healthy grasp of it, at least judging by the number of people who have lectured me recently on the political reality of the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement, the fate of the Rockaway Branch of the Long Island Rail Road, and the parking garages proposed for the Northern Branch of the Erie Railroad.
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16 February 2012
The governor could issue an executive order tomorrow and have the system in place within a week. So why doesn’t Tri-State demand BRT on the bridge now? Why are they telling us that we can’t have BRT without a new bridge?
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9 February 2012
For much less than the five billion dollars that Cuomo and friends want to spend doubling the width of the Tappan Zee Bridge, we could restore passenger [rail] service to Nyack, West Nyack, New City, Stony Point and Haverstraw.
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3 February 2012
A Cancer in Our Midst
I’ve been writing about the problems created by the Tappan Zee Bridge for months now: problems that have existed for 56 years, problems that would only continue and get worse if the bridge is replaced as the Governor plans. The bridge is a cancer in our midst, spewing sprawl across the Hudson Valley. There is no way to redeem it with “Bus Rapid Transit.” The only way the valley can heal itself is if the bridge is gone.
Cosign!
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18:40
Don't pee on my back again!
An “adverse traffic demand response” just means lower traffic volumes. Well, ahem, one man’s “potentially adverse traffic demand response” is another man’s problem solved! It’s only a problem if you’ve already built a bigger bridge and you need the tolls to pay for it. If you reduce traffic volumes instead of building a bigger bridge, well, you just saved us five billion dollars.
Beautiful.
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17:00
Don't pee on my back again! — capntransit.blogspot.com
This increase in traffic volumes is presented as a fact of nature, one that nobody can control, least of all the little ol’ Federal Highway Administration and New York State Department of Transportation. But the State has the authority to set tolls, and in today’s New York Times, economist Nancy Folbre, recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant,” summarizes the well-supported case that toll prices can affect traffic volumes.
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1 February 2012
Who will stop the Tappan Zee boondoggle?
The troubling part is that McDonald seems to have no clue that roads and transit compete with one another - or possibly to be deliberately ignoring this fact. If we add a lane to the Tappan Zee Bridge (and everyone knows it’s going to be at least three lanes), that makes it easier to drive, and lowers the demand for transit. In other words, as long as the government keeps widening the roads and bridges the farebox recovery ratio will never warrant the investment in transit.
Someone’s got to say it. Our predecessors have played the Grinch with transit and city streets for the past 50 years; if we don’t learn to play the Grinch with roads and multi-billion dollar bridges there’s not going to be anything left to play with at all.
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29 January 2012
If there is a major economic incentive encouraging people to do negative things (drive, accept plastic bags, buy food sweetened with high fructose corn syrup), is it easier to fight that behavior directly, or to change the incentive?
