John Kaehny
Recent Posts
The Congestion Pricing Timeline
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Yesterday, New York State’s Four Men in a Room agreed to a process that may or may not result in congestion pricing for New York City. Even by Albany standards, Bloomberg, Spitzer, Silver and Bruno’s deal is incredibly complex. The deal, which is supposed to be formalized by a vote in the state legislature shortly, […]
Critical Transportation Reforms Sink With Pricing
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An enforcement camera in London captures a motorist in the bus lane. Mayor Bloomberg’s strategy was to bundle all of the PlanNYC transportation reforms requiring legislative approval into one bill. The sinking of the congestion pricing ship took other victims with it. Lost with congestion pricing was legislation approving bus lane enforcement cameras, residential parking […]
First Impressions of Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC Testimony…
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Did you watch Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing testimony before the New York State legislature? If so, what did you think? Here is the initial impression of John Kaehny, former executive director of Transportation Alternatives: Mayor Bloomberg’s advocacy for congestion pricing and public transit to a State assembly panel was the most amazing thing I have […]
The Quick and Easy First Step to a “Greater, Greener New York”
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On Earth Day Mayor Mike Bloomberg placed transportation and environmental issues at the top of New York City’s political agenda. He took a major step towards changing the conventional wisdom that traffic congestion is a sign of the city’s vibrancy and economic health. And he joined the list of forward-thinking global mayors like London’s […]
PlaNYC Quietly Introduces “Safe Routes to Transit”
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As New Yorkers well know, sidewalks around subway stops and major transit hubs are often intensely crowded. Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC team is aware of this and buried on page 48 of the Technical Report supplementing PlaNYC’s transportation recommendations is a new program called "Safe Routes to Transit" (SR2T). While the attention to pedestrian issues […]
Gene Russianoff on the MTA’s Day of Reckoning
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Gene Russianoff, Senior Attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, has been New York City’s leading transit advocate for decades. Streetsblog recently spoke with Gene about the MTA’s impending fiscal crises and other transit issues. SB: How real is this predicted fiscal crises? How does it compare to past crises? GR: Start with the numbers. They have […]
Five Small Steps to a More Effective, Progressive DOT
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With a new commissioner coming in to run New York City’s Department of Transportation, now is a good time to begin a conversation about what the agency could be doing differently to make itself more effective. DOT has a tough job. It has conflicting, and sometimes contradictory, mandates from the mayor, city council and communities […]
City and State Pedestrian Safety Numbers Don’t Add Up
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New York City Pedestrian Injuries, 2000 – 2005 When Streetsblog set-out to compare pedestrian safety in New York City and London we had an easy time finding detailed statistics from London’s transportation agency. Back home was a bit more challenging. For some reason the number of pedestrian crashes reported by the State Department of Motor […]
The Parking Dysfunction Meter: Fines Are Five Times Revenue
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More enduring than Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster and the resurrection of Elvis is the deeply held belief that there is such a thing as "free" parking for the average motorist in New York City. "Free" means you do not have to pay. But someone is paying the $579,455,152 in parking fines the city […]
Pedestrian Safety: London Shows How NYC Can Do Better
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Saturday afternoon traffic congestion on a London street near Covent Garden with dimensions and land use almost identical to Prince Street in Manhattan. In the days before Wednesday’s hearing on pedestrian safety, the City Council should consider how badly New York City pedestrians fare compare to those in London. While pedestrian safety has been improving […]
The Iris Weinshall Legacy: Queens Boulevard
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"What became clear to me in this discussion was that the engineers were thinking from the motorists’ viewpoint." — Iris Weinshall, New York Newsday, April 29, 2001 A long walk across Queens Blvd. at Grand Ave., Elmhurst, circa March 2001. Photo: Jeff Saltzman Departing Department of Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall often cites the pedestrian […]