Priorities for New York’s New Year (Editorial)
Traffic Congestion. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has offered a dazzling and hopeful plan to prepare the city for what is expected to be a substantial rise in population during the next quarter century, but unless the number of motorists is reduced, New Yorkers will choke on their own gridlock. Mr. Bloomberg needs to produce a major traffic study, move quickly to create new express bus routes and give serious thought to congestion pricing.

Sleek New Bus Shelters Are Here but Where are the Benches?
Mayor Bloomberg unveiled the first in a new style on Queens Boulevard
in late December, and there are to be 3,300 by the time the project is
complete in five years, along with 330 redesigned newsstands and 20
public toilets. So far, 50 of the new shelters are in place, 10 in
each borough. The good news, said the city transportation commissioner,
Iris
Weinshall, is that the shelters are indeed unfinished. The material for
the benches has not fully come in, she said last week; all but 45 of
the 3,300 finished shelters will eventually have seats, along with
electronic displays showing the next arrival.

Downtown Brooklyn to Get $1.5 Million Pedestrian Way-Finding Signs
Though the Brooklyn Bridge is clearly visible from many of the
neighborhood’s streets, its pedestrian entrances are almost unmarked,
and nearly impossible to find without directions. The Metrotech Business Improvement
District is producing and putting up 120 orange-and-blue signs
throughout Downtown Brooklyn. Sixty of
the signs will feature large-scale maps on one side showing major
neighborhood features, like the Brooklyn Bridge and the Navy Yard, and
five or six more will point directly toward the bridge.

Photo: JSchumacher, Flickr