cuomo, christie and the port authority step up for their half of the gateway tunnel $$$:



TRANSIT
Gateway Tunnel Program funding deal between Cuomo, Christie puts pressure on Trump

By Vincent Barone vin.barone@amny.com December 14, 2017


Govs. Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie on Thursday committed to pay for about half of a vital new train tunnel under the Hudson River, putting pressure on the Trump administration to fund the rest.

The governors announced that they’re budgeting a combined $5.55 billion through various agencies in order to cover half the cost of the Gateway Tunnel Program, a project to replace the 107-year-old Amtrak tunnel under the Hudson River that was badly damaged during superstorm Sandy in 2012.

The commitment represents a fulfillment of an Obama-era agreement establishing that the two states would fund half of the project, with the federal government picking up the rest of the tab.


more:
https://www.amny.com/transit/gateway...ing-1.15455694

If you really want to get rid of the traffic, they need to build the Robert Moses skyway freeway plan and expand the freeways around the core of the city. New mass transit lines will not be the cure all and congestion pricing is unlikely to be implemented--imo, it shouldn't be anyways.

If Trump's infrastructure plan comes into play(which I have my doubts), the subway system needs to go into overdrive expansion mode and start on everything and then some yesterday. As for ending the 24hr service, that is depressing, hopefully it doesn't happen. People's lives don't end at night. Here I am in Los Angeles wanting to see lines quad tracked so they can run 24 hour service.

New York’s Next Subway Chief Will Mull Closing Lines for Repairs

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/15/n...ing-lines.html

there is no chance nyc is losing 24/7 subway service. everyone, including every politician, is against it.

i could see closing individual lines or partial lines for work though.

however, this trump tax breaks for the rich tax plan news isnt helping either situation:


GOP tax plan will jeopardize MTA funding, report says

By Vincent Barone vin.barone@amny.com December 18, 2017


“It’s kind of hard to escape that it’s just a middle finger to transit, generally,” Nicholas Sifuentes, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, said of the plan.


more:
https://www.amny.com/news/gop-tax-pl...ing-1.15498136

It was just certain segments of lines closing and only on weekends, replaced by shuttle bus service with at least 2 weeks notice.

Another feature was to employ station managers for all stations that would oversee 6-7 stations next to each other.

C trains get upgraded to fit more riders

https://thenypost.files.wordpress.co...4&h=441&crop=1

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NY Post

O dear lord. Absolutely not lol.

Did you ever see the full plans for the Robert Moses freeways? That would destroy whole neighborhoods.

What the city needs is increased frequency (trains), capacity (rail + trains), and rail track extension. The Robert Moses freeways would cut through the city and not in a good way...

We don't want NY to look like Houston lathered with highways in all directions.

of course we have citibikes, but i did not know we had zagster.

this is at w61st/west end ave aka waterline square.

http://i1340.photobucket.com/albums/...pscrxbali9.jpg

I'm not sure if I've seen the full plans but I have seen some of his proposed "skyway" routes and they would be beneficial. Mass transit won't solve everything. That is the problem. I do agree, as I said, the transit system needs a huge boost in funding to rapidly expand it.

Highways are not helpful in an urban setting. They simply fill with traffic that would have otherwise found an alternative route and cannot help ease congestion. They also destroy whole neighborhoods when built as mentioned before and the pollution from the exhaust causes increased rates of asthma and pollution related illness near them. Elevated highways are not a good or useful thing for a city.

For a real world example of what happens when you destabilize a neighborhood by building a highway through it just take a look at the South Bronx which after being built through the center of a working class neighborhood contributed to the destabilization and decline of the entire neighborhood.

Mass transit is the only way to efficiently move the numbers of people that are needed in a dense urban city and no they won't solve congestion because of induced demand. Building more highways doesn't help either though. The only way to prevent congestion in a major city is to use congestion pricing otherwise people will drive as long as congestion doesn't get worse than their personal threshold for being bad enough to push them to use transit.

I have seen his full plan and building it would be catastrophic for New York by destroying neighborhoods and increasing air pollution.

This just puts us to shame.

Earlier on you can see the doors or glass walls lining the elevated station. I think they could work here, especially among the elevated stations. To prevent folks from either jumping, being pushed, or falling onto the tracks.

On a side note... Tokyo is something else. Looks so damn clean, and look at those roads. Sparkly new. Like you could eat off them kind of clean. I can't go .4 miles without seeing some major repair wiping out a lane or two causing gridlock here. And the upgrades take forever.


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Its nice to not see graffiti either. I looked, and couldn't find any on this tour.

I watched one within Shinjuku Station and its much better than Penn Station. Cleaner, more modern.

Really what I'm alluding too is that America is not exceptional at everything. We can learn something from others.

I wish city politicians and MTA/PATH officials would take a trip abroad to see what the hell we are missing here.

Our system of roads and rail is rubbish here. Speaking general. Certain places are light years ahead in that regards.

Plus the imcompetance and delays. I'll give you an example. Here in NJ, on I-287, right when you get off of exit 9 onto River Road (heading towards Rutgers), they did a simple road modification adding an extra lane and a turning lane. That project took 3+ years and the span was only about 200 ft.

3+ years for that...

I'm pretty sure they know that there are a lot of places which are much better, but in the US we have to contend with insane regulations and overly powerful unions that a lot of the world doesn't have to.

Here we go again with the right wing talking points...

Considering how Japan has regulations and high wage skilled labor, you might want to reconsider that bogus explanation...

Well, since we're talking about Tokyo, look at the expressways there. The city has a complete web of expressways running in every major direction, and the city actually built their equivalent of the Lower Manhattan Expressway and Mid-Manhattan Expressway running through heavily built-up areas.

The difference is, those highways are tolled heavily. All of them. Currently a standard size vehicle toll is $11.50, which is double what the tunnels in NY cost. Gas is double the price, too, and parking is scarce. It's just not cost-effective for commuting unless you're very wealthy.

However, the highways are still very important for goods movement. The high prices in New York shops and bodegas reflect the high cost that suppliers charge, which in turn reflects the countless hours that delivery drivers waste sitting in traffic. I'm sure plenty of NY businesses would gladly pay an extra $5-6 in tolls on each trip if it saves them an hour of the driver's time.

Yeah, and Japan also has had basically non-existent GDP Growth for the last 25 years and is the most in debt of any country in the world. So maybe they're not exactly the example you want to use of how to do things better? Japan is like the poster child for everything wrong with the first world these days.

Japans GDP growth issues lie in its fadng demographics, not their highway network. What an absurd claim.

Or the fact that they have first world regulations (also known as "standards") and value the concept of paying the workers involved with building their stellar first world infrastructure a wage they can not only survive but prosper on. Those backwards pariahs.

I don't know what they make in Tokyo, but NYC construction workers make more than the average doctor and they don't have to go to med school until their late 20s and get into debt either.