“Ecological Barriers: Holding Sea Levels at Bay” Lecture | ArchDaily

Sounds like a good presentation:

Claire Weisz, AIA, founding principal of WXY and a frequently cited expert source on waterfront design, will be speaking on the topic "Ecological Barriers: Holding Sea Levels at Bay" with a panel at 6:00pm on April 25 in New York City. A leading advocate for post-Hurricane Sandy infrastructure design, Weisz's firm is known for such waterfront projects as the East River Blueway, a planned reconstruction of miles of Manhattan water's edge, as well as Transmitter Park, Rockaway Park, Sherman Creek Waterfront, and Battery Park.

Queens Crap: The pagan and the Meaghan

How many lashes will he get for this?

Dan Halloran, 41 — who is charged in a bribe scheme to get state state Sen. Smith into the mayoral race — repeatedly hooked up with Meaghan Mapes, then 21, in her Queens home between 2010 and 2011, sources said.
She served as his deputy chief of staff during that same period, earning $30,000.
The relationship was the final straw for Halloran's wife, Cynthia, and the two were locked in divorce proceedings by early 2011.

Generally I don't care about the sex-related indiscretions of politicians.  Except the family values scolds and the anti-gay closet cases.

Just can't help myself here though - just piling on at this point as the guy's career is over.  And the Halloran stuff is fascinating because of the unusual ren-fair LARP religion thing. 

$300K Ferrari On Official Police Business Parks In No Standing Zone: Gothamist

End placard abuse.  Actually, end placards entirely.  Enough of this easily abused, above-the-law nonsense for officials and employees alike. 

"A $300,000 late-model Ferrari bearing a police parking placard sat unattended in a No Standing Zone in Lower Manhattan yesterday afternoon, no doubt on official police business. Given that the placard is registered to the Sea Gate Police Department, a private police force wholly separate from the NYPD with full arrest powers that patrols a gated community in Coney Island, 12 miles from where the vehicle was parked, what official business do you think they were on?"

Unacceptable.

Peter Orszag Syndrome

That's what I call it anyway. What the astrophysicists and linear
algebra geeks did to finance, these arrogant, hubristic dicks will do
to government policy. If we let them get away with it.

This isn't just a failure of an overly conservative Administration
that has somehow bought into the austerity line. It's not just the
failure of a Washington culture dominated by corruption and neoliberal
economic theory.

It's also the failure of a crew of Ivy League technocratic wonks in
love with their ability to design complicated legislative contraptions
designed to cut costs by using abstruse measures to slice away fat
from people they think can take it, while leaving just enough meat on
the bone so no one completely starves.

The complexities of this Social Security "solution" remind one of the
Affordable Care Act. The answer to the healthcare crisis should have
been Medicare for All from the very beginning. Politically feasible?
Perhaps not. But that should have been the starting point for
negotiations.

And the answer to the Social Security non-crisis, such as it is,
should be to raise the payroll cap. It's that simple. Politically
feasible? Perhaps not. But that should be the starting point.

It's impossible to prove, of course, but one gets the sense that these
arcane machinations are being pursued not so much out of necessity, as
out of a wonkish belief that the new crew of preppy budget wonks can
rightsize the government to behave with greater efficiency and lower
cost without real damage to the system. It's as though the lean
company craze that overtook corporate America in the 1990s has finally
hit the government as well, with predictable results.

The Obama Administration promised a bloodless government that
abandoned ideology in order to reach across the aisle to do what is
"practical." The only problem is that trend-seeking Ivy League wonks
vastly overestimate their ability to cut efficiently and bloodlessly
without nicking an artery. "Practical" is usually in the eye of the
beholder. When all the beholders went to Harvard and make six figures,
their eyes tend to shaded.

Spot on. Enough with these ridiculous, Rube Goldberg policy approaches
where we have better, simpler solutions available. You'll ruin the
country, ruin lives, and wreck the Democratic Party with these
too-cute bullshit shell game policies.

End rant.

John Liu's Bridge Toll Plan Panders to Motorists - Streetsblog

This is embarrassing, pandering crap:

By exempting motorists who live in the five boroughs, Liu's plan would not solve the city's transit funding problems — the next MTA capital program will still have a gaping hole. (Compare Liu's $410 million to the $2.8 billion projected net revenue from the Sam Schwartz plan.) While Liu suggested devoting revenue to "infrastructure," he also mentioned that it could be used for "offsetting increased city contributions to the MTA," which might just lead to tolls that pad other areas of the city budget.It's somewhat baffling why Liu would propose a non-starter like this. Exempting millions of motorists negates the value of tolls as a tool to meaningfully reduce congestion, and it undermines the notion that motorists should pay for using roads. Let's hope this idea doesn't infect the other campaigns.

I guess it's good to hear someone talking about tolling the bridges at all, which is necessary.  But this is not the way to do it.

The Sam Schwartz plan now being advocated by MoveNY has a lot of sensible features.  This is a plan that officials should get behind.  But the keys to implementing any such plan lies in Albany.  And we also need action from Albany to bring back the commuter tax if we're to have any hope of adequately funding our infrastructure needs.

   

More Thoughts On The 7 Extension Study

Ben has some analysis on the study:

"The questions though outweigh the answer. First, the report dispatches with the idea of any additional stations on the New Jersey side of the tunnel. It should at least contain a stop in Hoboken, if not a second prior to the Secaucus terminal. Second, the section on legal issues raises a number of concerns that warrant more than a few paragraphs in this feasibility study."

I said in my post that I was agnostic on the alignment of an extension of the 7.  That's not quite accurate.  If we do Gateway, I'm not sold on the Secaucus alignment for a 7 extension.  It could be a good destination. But what I'd really like to see is real NYC subway service in the densely populated towns (and those with potential to be densely populated) across the Hudson. Even if Secaucus is the terminus, there should be stops along the way. 

Again, my views on the 7 extension are premised on the idea that we do the Gateway project first or concurrently. And with Gateway in place, a 7 train to Secaucus that skips key population centers in Hudson County would be a boondoggle of Xanadu proportions. 

Plan To Extend 7 Train To NJ Back In The News; Still A Good Idea, Still No Money To Do So

A possible alignment. Parsons Brinckerhoff via nycedc.com

So, the NYC EDC issued a new report that says extending the 7 train to NJ is a good idea.  A couple of things. First, I think the proposed Gateway project should take precedent over the 7 train extension proposal - not that it should be one or the other, but just in ordering priorities. 

Second, I'm agnostic on what the alignment of such an extension should look like.  And third, there absolutely should be MTA subway service into northeastern NJ. New York's "Sixth Borough" is a natural fit for a comprehensive 24-hour metropolitan rapid transit system. PATH ought to be integrated into the system as well. 

A report commissioned by New York City, posted this morning on the city's Economic Development Corp. website, extols the benefits of the plan.
"The extension of the No. 7 Subway would result in the first trans-Hudson tunnel connection that would provide direct rail access from New Jersey, not only to the West Side of Manhattan, but also to the East Side and multiple locations in Queens," noted the report by the Parsons Brinckerhoff engineering firm. "It would provide needed capacity across the Hudson River and advance the broader goal of enhancing regional connectivity."The report, obtained Tuesday night by The Star-Ledger, noted the next step would be an advanced study on the feasibility of extending the No. 7 subway line — which runs from Queens to Times Square — into Secaucus Junction. Coordinated with the Federal Transit Administration, the study would include a cost benefit analysis, identification of financing opportunities and analysis of ridership and revenue."It's been a century since there was a new rail tunnel under the Hudson, and demand for travel between New Jersey and Manhattan is growing rapidly and quickly exceeding the capacity of existing transit infrastructure," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said today in a statement. "The lack of new transit investment is creating a serious and urgent threat to New York City's economic competitiveness. Extending the 7 train to Secaucus is a promising potential solution – it would leverage existing investments and be compatible with other proposed projects – and is deserving of serious consideration."

Of course this raises the question of how to equitably pay for such assets.  The MTA does not have the money to do so.  We need to take a hard look at the structure of both the MTA and the Port Authority and how we can best manage transportation in the NYC metro area.  Along with a restructuring of those two agencies, it's long past time to bring back the Commuter Tax to replace the poorly designed Payroll Mobility Tax.  There are a lot of different conversations we need to have about how we best plan and fund infrastructure on a sensible, equitable, regional basis. I view this report as an opportunity to get those conversations started again.

Story found via Gothamist.