Transportation Alternatives

via tacandidatesurvey.org

Cy Vance.

We blogged the other day about the series of City Council candidate debates Transportation Alternatives is hosting in the coming weeks.

Now the alt-transit advocacy organization has launched a new Web site that provides information on where candidates in all city political races stand on transportation issues, including congestion pricing, Bus Rapid Transit, cycling, traffic crime and public space.

The site is called Transportation Alternatives Candidate Survey 2009, and the information it contains is based on surveys given to candidates with different questions targeting specific races and districts. Seventy-three candidates have responded so far, including those in the mayoral, public advocate, comptroller, borough president, Manhattan district attorney and City Council races.

Here's how it works: Users can plug in their addresses to bring up a list of candidates running in their district. Click on the results and you'll get detailed candidate biographies and the survey responses, which are pretty thorough as well.

For instance, curious about Manhattan D.A. candidate Cy Vance's legal philosophy in regard to the prosecution and prevention of vehicular crimes?

Transportation Alternatives is hosting a series of City Council candidate debates focusing on transit issues.

There's one tonight at 7 p.m. at P.S. 231 in Brooklyn for candidates in the 39th District Council race. Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Paul Steely White will moderate.

From Streetsblog:

One of the more intriguing races is shaping up in the 39th Council District, which includes parts of Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Kensington, and Borough Park. This is the seat being vacated by Bill de Blasio -- who opposed congestion pricing last year and came out in favor of bridge tolls late in the game during the MTA funding debate this spring. The district is heavily transit-dependent, mostly car-free [PDF], and situated in prime New York City "bike belt" territory. This election should put a strong, smart voice for progressive transportation policy in City Hall.

The next one after that, for candidates in District 25, is next Tuesday, August 25, at the Diversity Center of Queens. Then there's another on Tuesday, September 1, for the District 33 race (David Yassky's seat) at Automotive High School on Bedford Avenue.

The primaries are on Sept. 15.

It looks like the bike access bill--legislation that would require commercial landlords to allow bike storage in buildings--will finally be voted out of the Council's transportation committee.

We got a call this morning from a spokeswoman for John Liu, who chairs the committee, saying that he was prepared to move on the bill now that two key changes have been made. One is a rewording of language that Mr. Liu said created a loophole for building owners who might seek an exemption from the new rules, and the other is to put the bill under the purview of the Department of Buildings. It was originally going to be the responsibility of the Department of Transportation, which Mr. Liu has said is ill-equipped to enforce it.

The bill, which was first introduced 2003 and has resurfaced in various incarnations since then, will come up for a vote during the transportation committee's meeting tomorrow, July 28.

Getty Images

On Wednesday evening, July 15, a day after Gov. David Paterson nominated former London transit chief Jay Walder to head the Metropolitan Transit Authority, a panel was convened at the Museum of the City of New York to discuss the future of the beleaguered agency.

Of course, much of the conversation, which was moderated by Henry Stern—a former councilman and parks commissioner who leads the museum’s Civic Talk series—centered, given the M.T.A.'s problems, necessarily on the past. For example: the lack of city tax revenues devoted to transit, how years of underfunding and subsequent borrowing put the M.T.A. tens of billions of dollars in debt, and—as the most vocal of the panelists put it—the failure of past leaders to “stand up” to the people who gave them their jobs.

“One of the things we need to consider as the new C.E.O. of the M.T.A. takes his position is: What are the fiduciary obligations—that is the duty to the system—of the leadership of the M.T.A.? As opposed to their duty to the people who appoint them—the mayor and the governor,” said Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat who was perhaps the most fiery political opponent of the mayor’s congestion pricing plan in 2007.

“That independence will be at the heart of whether Mr. Walder is able to succeed in bringing reform to the M.T.A.,” Mr. Brodsky said. “The law gives Mr. Walder a clear defense for the next time the mayor says, ‘Go build me a subway line to nowhere.’ Whether he will use that defense will become the chief measurement of his success or his failure.”

Transportation Alternatives

Tensions surfaced this week between members of the city's cycling community and Councilman John Liu over a piece of legislation—the Bicycle Access to Buildings Bill—that has yet to make it out of the City Council Transportation Committee, which Mr. Liu chairs.

The bill, which was first introduced back in 2003 and has resurfaced in various incarnations since then, would require office buildings to let tenants store bikes in the buildings, hence encouraging more people to commute to work by bike, hence advancing the bike-friendly, semi-car-hostile transportation agenda being pushed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn.

The bill was expected to be voted out of the transportation committee on Tuesday afternoon and passed by the full City Council the following day. But that didn't happen. A spokesman for Councilman David Yassky, a co-sponser of the bill and one of Mr. Liu's opponents in the 2010 city comptroller race, told Streetsblog on Tuesday: "The bill has been laid on council members' desks for eight days, which is typically what is done before a bill comes before the full council. That was done with the anticipation that it would be voted out of the transportation committee today."

Now, supporters of the bike bill are coming down on Mr. Liu because the bill remains stalled.

Flickr via Ed Yourdon

Since last fall, the City Council has been developing legislation that would require office buildings to let tenants bring their bikes into work. This morning, June 15, the Council’s transportation and consumer affairs committees jointly held a hearing on what has come to be known as the Bicycle Access Bill, and on a corresponding piece of legislation that would create tens of thousands of parking spaces for bikes in some city lots and garages.

Since the idea behind the bill is to encourage more people to bike to work, it’s no surprise that Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn, a fervent—and, some might say, autocratic—bike advocate, worked with Council members on drafting the bill, and showed up to testify about it this morning.

“Given the costs associated with traffic congestion, both economic and environmental, and the fact that transit fares and costs are on the rise, cycling is needed now more than ever,” Ms. Sadik-Kahn said. Bike ridership in New York saw a 45 percent increase between 2006 and 2008, she said, citing a 2007 D.O.T. study that found more than half of the city’s non-cycling commuters don’t ride their bikes to work due to a lack of secure bike parking.

“The benefits are crucial to a more sustainable and vibrant city,” Ms. Sadik-Khan said.

Flickr via Ed Yourdon

Streetsblog points us to a new project called Biking Rules that was launched on Tuesday by the bike/pedestrian/public transit advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. The meat of the campaign is a new "Street Code for NYC Cyclists" that's outlined both on its Web site and in a 50-page handbook that also includes resources like cycling tips and bike shop locations.

But what caught our eye were Biking Rules' new media components. The site syncs up with two Twitter feeds, one that keep cyclists up to date on current road and bridge conditions and another that notifies them of community board meetings with bike-related issues on the agenda. There's a page where people can submit questions about cycling in New York City with responses published on an ongoing basis and, for those who create user accounts, a "safest route" mapping feature powered by Ride the City, the Google Maps-esque Web site launched last June that finds the shortest and most bike-friendly path between any two points in the five boroughs. There's also a calendar where users can post bike-related events and happenings throughout the city.