While it's refreshing to finally see Queens civic groups tackling traffic congestion and transportation issues, there are at least two important things that we're not seeing in their proposal. First, the plan offers no incentive to get people out of their cars. And second, the plan does nothing to get private automobiles out of the way of city buses.

What I've been seeing from many Queens politicians and Trent and his group is that they're all for pedestrian and transit improvements, but as soon as there's any conflict with driving interests - in terms of funding, land use, or user fees - then pedestrians and transit users don't matter any more.

I'd love to believe that it's a win-win situation, and things can just keep getting better for pedestrians, transit users and motorists, but unfortunately it's not. At some point we're going to need to take away the car users' subsidies and "free" road and bridge use. We can't afford to keep paying and paying, and letting drivers dominate our streets and pollute our air. As long as Trent doesn't acknowledge that, he's no friend of transit.