Real-time bus info is now live for the entire borough of Staten Island. Multiple buses and routes can be seen at the corner of Hylan Boulevard and Richmond Avenue at 5:04 p.m. this evening.

Real-time bus information, previously only available on two routes, is now live for every bus in the borough of Staten Island. On an average weekday, that means 127,000 local and express bus riders will be able to find out exactly how far away their bus is.

“This means more time at home with your family, relaxing with a cup of coffee,” said MTA chairman Joe Lhota today at a press conference at the Eltingville Transit Center.

The bus information can be accessed through the MTA’s BusTime website, by scanning a QR code with a smartphone, or by sending a text message with your bus stop or intersection. (Disclosure: Streetsblog’s parent organization, OpenPlans, helped build the BusTime system.)

Real-time bus information will be particularly appreciated on Staten Island. State Senator Diane Savino noted that islanders had been jealously eyeing the countdown clocks on the subway system, up to now lacking similar information even though they had to wait out in the elements rather than underground.

At the same time, the introduction of BusTime to the entire borough of Staten Island marks an enormous leap forward for MTA bus-tracking technology. While the MTA had bought an expensive proprietary system for 34th Street and then rolled out its own in-house system on Brooklyn’s B63, the new system had to tackle some additional challenges. A given bus stop can host multiple routes, for example. Perhaps more important, Staten Island’s express buses run through tunnels and into Manhattan. Previously, GPS systems had struggled to function when Manhattan’s tall buildings blocked signals. A team of engineering students from Columbia and City College, however, solved that problem, and BusTime is working fine in Manhattan.

In fact, with those kinds of challenges overcome, the MTA is ready to roll out BusTime citywide. Every bus in the five boroughs will be brought into the system by the end of 2013, according to the MTA, and more than 6,000 buses will be upgraded in the next year. “Staten Island is at the forefront of a very ambitious project,” said New York City Transit President Tom Prendergast.

Staten Islanders will also get an extra digital goodie courtesy of Borough President James Molinaro. While the MTA is making its information available by phone or online, and opening up the data for third parties to use, it isn’t installing its own hardware at bus stations listing arrival times. Worried that senior citizens might not be able to use their phones to benefit from BusTime, Molinaro tapped his discretionary budget for $200,000 to pay for arrival signs at key bus stations.

One interesting subplot from today’s presser: Staten Island has a lot of love for Joe Lhota. “You’ve got a friend running the MTA,” City Council Member James Oddo said, recounting a story of working with Lhota during the Giuliani administration. It was just one of many accolades for the MTA chairman from elected officials gathered for the event. While working for Giuliani, Lhota was responsible for closing the Fresh Kills landfill and removing the fare on the Staten Island Ferry.

Two surface parking lots are set to be developed into a new downtown for Staten Island. But even in this transit-rich location -- the ferry, bus terminal and railroad are all visible in the lower right of this satellite image -- NYCEDC is making parking a priority. Image: NYCEDC

St. George Staten Island could become the region’s next great downtown. That’s the plan over at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, which is about to redevelop two waterfront sites immediately adjacent to the ferry terminal.

Yet even though EDC touts the unparalleled transit access at the sites, which are currently surface parking lots, and its desire to make this a pedestrian-friendly development, the agency is requiring that any development include a huge amount of parking. Not only would every surface space have to be replaced, but EDC intends to accommodate anyone who wants to drive to the developments and find a parking spot.

EDC makes the case for a vibrant urban development at St. George as well as anyone could in its request for expressions of interest, released yesterday:

The adjacent Ferry Terminal is Staten Island’s transit hub linking 70,000 daily commuters with the Staten Island Railroad, 20 Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“MTA”) bus lines, and the Bay Street and Richmond Terrace bikeway…

It is widely recognized that the neighborhood represents a great opportunity for Staten Island to accommodate significant population growth (Staten Island is expected to grow by +65,000 people in the next twenty years, including 35,000 seniors and 17,000 young adults) and establish the kind of vital downtown that has long eluded Staten Island but emerged in municipalities stretching from Jersey City to Long Branch.

Indeed, this is an ideal location for dense, downtown-style development. New Urbanist leader Jeff Speck even identified the site as crying out for construction in a presentation to the City Planning Commission in January of last year.

Yet EDC wants the island’s transit center and would-be downtown to make room for a sea of parking, which will draw more traffic to the neighborhood streets, eat up space that could be used for housing or offices, and degrade the pedestrian environment. At this stage in the development process, it’s not clear exactly how many spaces the new development might contain. But all the spaces in the enormous surface parking lots would have to replaced one for one, ensuring at least a full floor of parking almost by definition. On top of that, EDC expects that additional parking be provided for all “the expected demand produced by the proposed development.” With 14 acres up for development, that could be quite a lot of spaces indeed.

In the past, EDC has used the formulas embedded in the environmental review process to predict demand for parking; those formulas have contributed to thousand-space lots at the New Domino development in Williamsburg and Riverside Center on Manhattan’s West Side, among others.

That level of parking isn’t necessary. Only 63 percent of Staten Islanders drive to work. If the borough were to secede from New York City, it would have fewer car commuters, as a percent, than Portland or Los Angeles, and just a hair more than Chicago. Moreover, St. George is on track to become even more transit-rich than it is today; the city is currently studying the creation of a bus or rail rapid transit line along Staten Island’s north shore.

The prioritization of parking comes from the very top. In a press release announcing the development plans, the only official to mention parking was Mayor Michael Bloomberg himself. “The potential to develop these sites while maintaining the availability of parking – combined with projects at the Homeport, Howland Hook, and at the Ferry Terminal – will be a catalyst for the further revitalization of the North Shore, as well as the entire island.” EDC would not comment for this story beyond pointing us to the official press release.

The city’s belief that a “vital downtown” is compatible with parking requirements flies in the face of experience. Downtown Manhattan was largely developed prior to the enactment of any parking regulations; today a strict parking maximum is in place. Downtown Brooklyn is largely zoned so that commercial development does not require off-street parking; developers and elected officials in the area have been pushing hard for the residential requirements to be eliminated as well.

Jersey City, ostensibly one of the city’s models for St. George, took the opposite approach to parking in revitalizing its downtown. “Jersey City’s an interesting model for the area around the ferry terminal, since both places are transit-rich, with access to ferries, buses, and rail,” explained Steven Higashide of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. “In most downtown developments in Jersey City, developers aren’t required to provide any parking and there’s instead a parking maximum. That makes it less costly to build and makes it easier to create a lively streetscape that isn’t interrupted by parking lots and overrun with traffic.”

EDC isn’t the only guilty party in St. George. The St. George special zoning district, proposed by the Department of City Planning in 2008 and passed later that year, increased residential parking minimums to 100 percent and forbid developers from subdividing properties to waive the requirements. Keeping Staten Island suburban, even in its downtown, is official city policy.

A lack of good pedestrian infrastructure in Port Richmond makes walking to transit unsafe and unpleasant. Image: NYC DOT

In two low-income neighborhoods, DOT is planning to make it easier and safer for residents to reach transit. In East New York [PDF] and Port Richmond [PDF], features like curb extensions, new sidewalks, and improved pedestrian ramps will be installed by next year.

While both neighborhoods have rich transit options — that section of East New York is served by the A, C, J, Z, and L trains and the Long Island Railroad, while Port Richmond has some of Staten Island’s best bus service — non-existent or inadequate sidewalks and a lack of lighting make it unpleasant or unsafe to walk to transit.

DOT is eyeing improvements at ten target locations in Port Richmond and seven in East New York, with particular emphasis on Richmond Terrace and Atlantic Avenue. So far, the plans are very preliminary; the public meetings held in May were the first for each project, and no specific improvements have been planned yet. In each case, though, DOT says it will have completed the project by the end of next March.

Both projects are funded by the federal New Freedom program, which aims to make public transportation more accessible to people with disabilities.

The Capodanno bike lane will be erased from Midland Avenue to Drury Avenue, a few blocks south of Lily Pond Avenue.

This time the bike route on Capodanno from Midland Avenue to Drury Avenue will be wiped out. The bike lane on the inland side of Capodanno will be converted to parking and turning lanes, and, in a measure of compensation for sustainable transport, the bike lane closer to the shore will be converted into a bus lane. A portion of the bike lane that crosses Staten Island Expressway ramps will be preserved, according to DOT.

Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro and local City Council member James Oddo both applauded the change. Molinaro, Oddo, and the Advance editorial board have been clamoring for the lane to be removed for some time.

Now, without any discernible public process, most of the Capodanno lane will vanish, erasing one of the few routes for safer cycling on the island. “Father Capodanno is an integral piece of Staten Island’s meager bike network, connecting bike commuters to and from the Staten Island Railway and the St. George Ferry Terminal, local cyclists to the Snug Harbor Park and Cultural Center and the Staten Island Yankees Stadium,” Transportation Alternatives said in a statement released this morning. “The Bloomberg administration has apparently decided that the opposition of a few drivers and local political bosses can trump public process and the irrefutable evidence that bike lanes save lives and make streets safer for everyone.”

Staten Island cyclists feel blindsided by the change. “None of us saw this coming, from a mile away,” said Meredith Sladek, a member of TA’s Staten Island volunteer committee. “None of us were consulted.” The greenway that runs parallel to Capodanno, she said, mainly serves recreational users and doesn’t meet the needs of people biking for transportation.

After dark, the greenway is interrupted due to the nighttime closure of Fort Wadsworth, near the Verrazano Bridge, which forces cyclists to take a route that crosses Staten Island Expressway ramps. The bike lane will be preserved on that portion of Capodanno, north of the intersection with Drury Avenue.

Streetsblog has phone calls in with Molinaro and Oddo, the mayor’s office, and Staten Island Community Board 2 to find out about how the decision was reached.

DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told the Advance that the “redesign is tailored to meet Staten Island’s unique transportation issues. We heard from the community and worked closely with local leaders to engineer a solution that works whether you’re on transit, a bike or behind the wheel.”

While Molinaro and Oddo may have burnished their reputations with local bike lane opponents, Mayor Bloomberg is undercutting his own legacy on street safety and green transportation by allowing these erasures to happen on his watch without so much as a public hearing. Even as the city makes huge strides in expanding its bike network and introducing innovative designs that are making bicycling safer and more accessible, it is sending the signal that bikeways are vulnerable to political pressure.

Here is TA’s full statement about the bike lane removal:

Transportation Alternatives is deeply concerned about the City’s abrupt removal of the bike lane on Father Capodanno Boulevard in Staten Island. Father Capodanno is an integral piece of Staten Island’s meager bike network, connecting bike commuters to and from the Staten Island Railway and the St. George Ferry Terminal, local cyclists to the Snug Harbor Park and Cultural Center and the Staten Island Yankees Stadium. In a borough that is frequently denied the bike and pedestrian street safety improvements the Bloomberg administration has installed to make NYC’s other boroughs safer, the removal of Father Capodanno is effectively a foreclosure on the right to safe cycling for Staten Islanders.

The Father Capodanno Boulevard bike lane removal occurs one year after the Bloomberg Administration removed the Bedford Avenue bike lane in Brooklyn, another key Manhattan connection for cyclists. The Bloomberg administration has apparently decided that the opposition of a few drivers and local political bosses can trump public process and the irrefutable evidence that bike lanes save lives and make streets safer for everyone. Bike lanes across NYC have proven to decrease crashes for cyclists, pedestrians and drivers up to 60%. Mayor Bloomberg’s public health efforts like the ban of smoking and trans fats are never the subject of backroom negotiation — safe street design should not be either: all are life saving measures. We are working with the Department of Transportation to gain a better understanding of the Bloomberg Administrations’ ostensibly new political criteria for the removal of street designs that are proven to save lives.

Noah Kazis contributed to this post.

The lack of an eastbound toll on the Verrazano allows trucks to make three major crossings without paying tolls, creating a counterclockwise loop of truck traffic. Image: Sam Schwartz.

The one-way tolls on the Verrazano Bridge have been a major cause of truck traffic in New York City since they were instituted in 1986. Though numerous efforts to restore two-way tolls have failed over the last two and a half decades, technological progress may finally bring victory within reach. Congressman Jerry Nadler thinks that the MTA’s moves toward cashless tolling could make two-way tolls politically feasible, and he’s trying to pass the federal legislation necessary to allow them.

The one-way tolls concentrate truck traffic in the city along specific routes and hit some communities — like Chinatown — especially hard. Trucks from New Jersey can drive into Staten Island, cross east on the Verrazano for free, drive up the BQE or Brooklyn local roads to the free Manhattan Bridge, then cross Lower Manhattan and head back to New Jersey for free through the Port Authority’s tunnels, which impose no tolls heading westbound. This long counterclockwise circle can save trucking companies a fortune in tolls, while endangering and clogging up New York City’s streets for everyone else.

“A two-way toll would eliminate the flow of trucks entering New York City via Staten Island in order to escape the charges on the Hudson River bridge and tunnel crossings,” said Nadler, who represents hard-hit Lower Manhattan. “With the MTA now poised to test new toll-collection technologies, which are likely to be implemented across the region, all New Yorkers will reap the benefits and the MTA will generate new revenue that it sorely needs.”

You may be wondering: How did such a senseless policy get enacted in the first place? The answer: Staten Island politics. Residents were sick of the long lines of traffic building up behind the tollbooths on the Staten Island side of the bridge, spewing exhaust near their homes.

In response, Congressman Guy Molinari, with strong support from Senator Al D’Amato, stuck a provision into federal transportation law forbidding two-way tolling across the Verrazano in 1986. Eliminating the eastbound charge meant that tolls only caused back-ups on the bridge itself and in Bay Ridge. The MTA was opposed to the move at the time, and the following year reported increased traffic through Lower Manhattan and millions in lost toll revenue as a result of the switch.

For years, prominent New York politicians have fought to restore two-way tolling. In 1988, Governor Mario Cuomo recommended that two-way tolls be allowed at least for trucks, a move that had the support of Mayor Ed Koch. In 1993, Mayor David Dinkins joined with the Manhattan and Brooklyn borough presidents and the MTA to petition the feds for two-way tolls.

Those efforts were ultimately unsuccessful. In 1995, the one-way tolls were actually further entrenched, when the arrangement was codified in a permanent federal law, the National Highway System Designation Act, for the first time.

Attempts to bring back two-way tolls and dam up the river of truck traffic remained something of a regular, if futile, occurrence. Nadler’s predecessor, Ted Weiss, was also a fierce proponent of two-way tolling. And Nadler himself introduced legislation to allow one-way tolls in 1999, 2001 and 2003, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

Nadler thinks the situation might be different this year. The key is cashless tolling, a technology ready for widespread implementation. The MTA recently announced its plans to use cashless tolling for all traffic on the Henry Hudson Bridge by 2012. If traffic doesn’t even have to stop to pay the tolls, Staten Island’s whole objection to eastbound tolls should disappear.

According to a spokesperson for Nadler, the Congressman is working with Transportation Committee chair James Oberstar to determine the right legislative vessel for the Verrazano language. The federal transportation bill, which seems to have new momentum, is one option, he said.

Nadler’s district director Rob Gottheim was at a Manhattan Community Board 2 Tuesday night talking up the plan.

Even with the advent of cashless tolling, however, two-way tolls could still be a heavy lift politically. The unused eastbound tollbooths were recently torn down and at that event, Staten Island Congressman Michael McMahon announced that “it gets rid of the specter of the two-way toll.” And unlike past mayors, Michael Bloomberg doesn’t appear to have ever publicly spoken up in favor of two-way tolls. We have calls in with both McMahon and Bloomberg’s offices to confirm their positions.

We are a huge supporter of bike lanes, simply because they make it so much safer to ride in the city and enjoy the benefits of cycling. Cycling is a healthy and liberating way to get around and commute — no one can argue with that.

But, as with anything new, there’s an adjustment period. In particular, the protected lanes — where bicyclists are separated from moving auto traffic by a lane of parked cars — are a revolutionary change to the streetscape.

The SI Advance thinks the city should let careless motorists, like the teenager who drove this car into a bus stop and killed Nathan Pakow last year, have more space on Father Capodanno Boulevard. Photo: Daily News

Over on Staten Island, the local media has a long way to go to catch up. On the same day the Express ran its piece, the Staten Island Advance reverted to bike lane-bashing form, urging the city to erase the lane on Father Capodanno Boulevard:

The bike paths on Capodanno force cyclists and drivers to interact on a street where speeding is commonplace. The bike lanes also interfere with traffic flow, especially where turning cars have to sift through bicyclists traveling straight through on Capodanno. In some places on the road, the bike lane is also the right-turn-on-red-lane for drivers.

Not surprisingly, this has caused lots of confusion and the occasional nasty dispute between motorists and cyclists.

And frankly, except when there’s a major cycling event, there just aren’t enough cyclists who use the bike lanes on Capodanno to justify their continuation, especially under the circumstances.

Yes… If only the bike lane disappeared, motorists could speed and turn right-on-red without “sifting through” cyclists or getting confused by the fact that they’re supposed to share the road. Meredith Sladek at the Examiner has the full response:

Instead of doing away with the bike lane because it “mixes cyclists with speeding vehicles,” how about we start a dialogue on how to curb those who illegally surpass the speed limit, in order to make that heavily residential stretch of road safer for ALL users–on bicycles, in cars, and on foot?  How about we ask the DOT to add to the road–add traffic calming measures… in order to curb speeding and dangerous behavior?

Instead of chalking road damage up to weather conditions, how about we also acknowledge the toll that constant motor vehicle traffic takes upon the pavement?  One winter of storms did not cause all the damage; several years of traffic helped it along more than their fair share.  How about a call for more widespread bus use, advocacy for more bus routes and the re-installation of the North Shore Rail?

Instead of blaming the island’s hardships on cyclists and the minute amount of space they are allotted, this borough  needs to fix the problems at their source.  When there are two major instances of drunk driving and excessive speeding that killed three Staten Islanders in a single week (August 28-Sept 4), more Advance space, political will, and community action needs to be devoted to curbing reckless drivers, and not taking away one of the few safe, protected bike routes that cyclists have.

A Staten Island catering hall erected this jury-rigged greenway-blocking fence and laid down a makeshift paintjob that "erases" markings on the path. They added the courteous touch of caution tape after cyclist Gregory DeRespino slammed into the fence. Photo: SI Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel

Parks has allowed a catering hall called the Vanderbilt ("Staten Islands only oceanfront ballroom") to fence off a portion of the greenway running alongside the boardwalk in South Beach, according to a report in the Staten Island Advance. The fence forces greenway users to turn around and detour to Father Capodanno Boulevard, and it's already claimed a victim: Local resident Gregory DeRespino landed in the hospital with injuries to his shoulder, neck and calf, after unsuspectingly biking into the fence the morning it went up.

Vanderbilt manager Joe Tranchina received permission from Parks to put up the fence after pitching it as a safety precaution to reduce conflicts between greenway users and the restaurant's delivery vehicles and valet service. Apparently, someone at Parks gave the green light "on a trial basis," according to a department spokesperson quoted by the Advance.

You've got to wonder how the city allowed such an idea to reach this point. A private business just convinced Parks to let it block off the public right-of-way and "erase" street markings with what looks to be a hasty paintjob. Did they even have to fill out any paperwork, or does it just take a few phone calls? Neither the Parks Department nor Tranchina have returned our requests for information so far.

Hat tip to Meredith Sladek for alerting us to this story.

Photo: Staten Island Advance.

Staten Island's newest speed trap is snaring unsuspecting drivers who must drop from a highway speed of 50 mph to 30 mph on the off-ramp, to a 20-mph crawl outside a school zone off the South Avenue exit of the Staten Island Expressway.

Police have been issuing summonses to lead-footed drivers who missed or ignored the new diamond-shaped yellow signs alongside Goethals Road North in Graniteville, where the new Staten Island School of Civic Leadership for grades K-8 opened earlier this month.

The tickets were given out as part of a targeted enforcement initiative, police said. While officers won't be outside the school every day, it will be on their rotating list of "hot spots," because of the nature of the school zone, and because a pedestrian was hit on the street in the past.

So, enforcing the speed limit near an area swarming with kids -- everyone can get behind that, right? Not if you identify with those "unsuspecting drivers" more than the K-8 students who have to navigate the streets near their school. Proving that no form of traffic enforcement can avoid scorn from a certain subset of motorists, many Advance commenters take the speed trap as evidence of a city campaign to "milk the taxpayer."

As irresponsible as it may be to call speed enforcement a revenue-generating exercise, some of the complainers kind of have a point. This stretch of Goethals Road North is definitely sending some mixed signals. Those 20 mph school zone signs compete for drivers' attention with huge green highway signs on a street that looks designed for maximal vehicular flow. The stepped-up enforcement is great, and let's hope the cops keep it up, because the students at the School of Civic Leadership need it. They also need a street designed to put drivers on notice that doing 40 is totally wrong and unacceptable.

Council Members Vincent Ignizio (l) and James Oddo scientifically prove that bikes can't fit on Jefferson Avenue in Dongan Hills. Photo: SI Advance

For its part, three times in the past two months the Advance has editorialized against bike infrastructure, while criticizing NYPD for enforcing laws intended to keep drivers out of bike lanes. Here's a passage from the first screed, published July 4, entitled "The City's Bike Obsession":

More people should ride bicycles, for a number of reasons. But in the real world, that's not going to happen to the degree the cycling true believers fantasize about. Many people simply can't. And the great majority of those who have the physical ability have no desire to ride bicycles for transportation or sport -- especially on city streets. So hard-core cyclists will always be a finite minority, no matter how many bike lanes the city creates. And the notion that all these new lanes will promote a massive surge in cycling is pure fantasy.

Not only do they object to safer cycling conditions on the grounds that so few Staten Islanders bike -- in part because it isn't safe -- Advance editors claim that helpless motorists are bound to occasionally act out against cyclists who insist on exercising their right to the road.

You really have to read this August 21 editorial in its entirety for the full effect, but here's a sample:

An ugly incident of road rage recently on Father Capodanno Boulevard underscores the folly of the Bloomberg administration's over-the-top infatuation with dedicated bicycle lanes.

The particulars of the incident -- this time between a motorist and a bicyclist -- are in dispute. The bicyclist says the enraged motorist got out of his car and pushed him off his bike.

The motorist, who was arrested and charged with assault and harassment, insists he merely tried to pull the bicycle off the street after the bicyclist had gotten off it.

What seems certain, however, is that the confrontation was the direct result of the city's contradictory and confusing policies regarding the rights of bicyclists and drivers, respectively.

In other words, if a driver stops and exits his vehicle to physically accost a cyclist in a bike lane, Mayor Bloomberg made him do it. Amazingly, the Advance stops short of calling for charges against Graziuso to be dropped. Perhaps a cyclist-induced temporary insanity defense is in order.

Foran urges cyclists and others interested in safer street conditions -- bike riders aren't the only vulnerable ones, after all -- to contact the mayor, DOT Commish Janette Sadik-Khan, and Council Member John Liu to show support for Staten Island bike lanes and continued enforcement of the law. And it couldn't hurt if Messrs. Ignizio, Oddo and Molinaro, and the editors of the SI Advance, were admonished to tone down their rhetoric, before the next like-minded road rager decides to take action.

Photo: SI Advance via MTR.

Last month, the state DOT opened the dedicated bus lane on the Staten Island Expressway to cars with two or more passengers. Tri-State's Michelle Ernst has more:

The conversion aims to appease some politicians and drivers who’ve pressured NYSDOT to open the bus lanes to cars since the lanes were opened. But even the commenters in the Staten Island Advance recognize that it will do little to alleviate congestion in the general purpose lanes, and will completely obliterate any time savings currently enjoyed by Staten Island’s bus riders.

The Expressway was widened to add the bus lane in 2005. Now, opening the busway to private cars turns that transit enhancement into a de facto highway expansion. Before the change, average bus speeds in the dedicated lane averaged 50 mph despite lax enforcement of the bus-only policy. With any multi-passenger car allowed in the lane, and even more license for solo drivers to break the rules, buses may soon move at the same speed as the regular traffic lanes -- 25 mph.

"There's already plenty of people carpooling on the Expressway," Ernst said. "This is just going to pull cars from the regular lanes and induce more traffic." The state DOT, for its part, says bus-exclusivity will be restored if riders end up saddled with slower rides.

So where did the political pressure come from? The Advance reports:

Many people welcome the change. Sen. Charles Schumer, Rep. Michael McMahon and Councilman James Oddo are three elected officials who have been outspoken in their support of the switch to HOV lanes.

Mr. Oddo said upon hearing of the DOT's plan, "Maybe they've woken up," adding, "You have to maximize the infrastructure."

Someone should inform the efficiency-minded Oddo that buses carry a lot more people than cars, and that potentially cutting their speeds in half is no way to "maximize infrastructure." Meanwhile, at least one of those Advance commenters is pinning responsibility on -- you guessed it -- the MTA.

Here's State Senator Andrew Lanza, a Staten Island Republican, explaining why he supports tolls on the East River bridges. For Staten Island drivers looking at a $3 hike in cash tolls to cross the Verrazano (or a $1.32 hike for locals with E-ZPass), the sight of other motorists getting a free pass into Manhattan must be a source of perpetual gall and resentment.

Lanza spends most of this video, however, in standard MTA-bashing mode, lashing out at the agency and unnamed politicians in other boroughs who "support" the doomsday scenario. Not a word about his fellow Senate Republicans, who refused to budge on an MTA rescue package that needed only a few more votes to pass. Lanza himself is on the record opposing the payroll tax in the Ravitch plan, so, by his own logic, you could say he also "supports" higher tolls on the Verrazano.

When you're about to set off a scenario of mutually assured destruction, the person who blinks first helps everyone win. Lanza could play a big part in walking the State Senate back from the brink of doomsday, and holding down the one-way toll on the Verrazano. All he has to do is reconsider the Ravitch plan and rally a few other Republicans to do the same. Hard to see how anything else would fulfill the promise he makes here to fight the MTA austerity plan "every step of the way." We called his Albany office to inquire about his plan and expect a response later today.

Photo: New York Daily News

On Thursday, as Nathan Pakow, 47, waited for a bus at the intersection of Seaview Avenue and Capodanno Boulevard in the Ocean Breeze area, an out-of-control car driven by 19-year-old Joseph Catrama came up onto the sidewalk, pinning Pakow against a metal pole. Pakow was later pronounced dead at Staten Island University Hospital.

Catrama, a licensed driver for a little over a month, was suspected of speeding at the time of the crash. Police initially let him go, but a short time later a charge of criminally negligent homicide was issued, and Catrama surrendered to authorities.

Last Monday, 84-year-old World War II veteran Howard Adrian was hit by an SUV driver turning left at the intersection of Burgher Avenue and Hylan Boulevard in Dongan Hills. Adrian died Monday evening. A quote from the driver seems to paint the victim as the culpable party.

About two dozen relatives crowded the waiting room of Staten Island University Hospital's Intensive Care Unit in Ocean Breeze ... some sobbing, others raging against the driver who hit him.

That man, Michael Pierre of Castleton Corners, said he had just pulled out of the parking lot of the TD Bank on the corner; he made the left, he said, after the two cars ahead of him started moving.

"He [Adrian] tried to rush, you know, to cross the street," Pierre said.

No charges had been filed against Pierre as of last week, as Adrian's relatives and neighbors continue to grapple with the most basic of questions.

Alex Harris, who lived in the apartment above Adrian on Delaware Avenue, wondered why the driver didn't stop for Adrian as he crossed.

"Why wouldn't you slow down? You're not speeding to make a left turn," he said.

In what she half-jokingly called "probably the first-ever co-presentation" between their two agencies, Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan stood with New York City Transit President Howard Roberts earlier this week to unveil the city's current Bus Rapid Transit program in its entirety -- including a plan that would "redefine the public realm" on Manhattan's 34th St. by redesigning it as the city's first "transitway."

At a forum co-hosted by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, Transportation Alternatives, the Pratt Center for Community Development and the Straphangers Campaign, over 100 people gathered at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx Tuesday morning, just a few blocks from where the city is poised to launch its first BRT project on Fordham Road, to hear international experts explain how other programs work, and don't work, around the world. Walter Hook, executive director of New York's Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, profiled elements of BRT models in cities like Jakarta, Indonesia and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where his organization has served a consultatory role. Oscar Edmundo Diaz, also with ITDP and once a senior advisor to former Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, detailed the workings of the wildly successful TransMilenio, which Hook described as state-of-the-art in Bus Rapid Transit.

Outlining New York's plans, Sadik-Khan previewed big changes for some of the city's major corridors.

The block between 5th and 6th Aves. would be reserved for buses and people, with cars traveling away from the CBD on either side

• 34th Street, Manhattan: DOT will repave and restripe for five lanes between Third and Ninth Avenues by the end of this year, with painted bus lanes on the north and south sides and three auto lanes in the center. Service hours will also be extended. Phase 2 calls for a 34th Street Transitway, closing the street to cars between Fifth and Sixth and installing pedestrian plazas. On either side of that block, there would be two lanes for cars heading in one direction -- toward the rivers -- while on the other half of the street, buses would have two extra-wide lanes separated from traffic. In other words, buses would constitute the only through traffic on 34th Street. According to Sadik-Khan, 34th Street BRT will eventually tie in to new East River ferry service (details to be announced next week). Here's the 34th St. slideshow.
  
• Hylan Boulevard, Staten Island: BRT will run from Richmond Avenue across the Verrazano Bridge. The route will include a reversible center-lane protected busway with raised boarding stations. We hope to have more on this soon.
  
• Fifth and Madison Avenues, Manhattan: On Fifth, dual bus lanes will be installed from 23rd to 59th Street, while dual lanes on Madison will be extended from 42nd Street to 23rd.
  

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has pledged a unit dedicated to bus lane enforcement, Sadik-Khan said. But she added that the city needs Albany to approve bus-mounted cameras as well. Though the program lost $112 million in funding with the defeat of congestion pricing, Sadik-Khan said the city has applied for federal funds to expedite BRT build-out. While the timetable for some projects is still undetermined, Bx12 Select Bus Service will launch in June as planned, and Phase 1 of 34th Street will be completed this year.

Sadik-Khan and Roberts acknowledged the gap between New York BRT and other world-class systems, where six-door, articulated, level-boarding buses travel in buffered lanes, taking on up to 42,000 passengers per direction per hour. For one thing, Roberts said the MTA has yet to find a manufacturer that can produce a bus that both meets modern BRT standards and can stand up to the city's demanding transit schedule (this bus wasn't mentioned). So for now, the city is moving ahead with components it can put into place relatively quickly: pre-board payment, signal prioritization, more buses, fewer stops, and painted (mostly curbside) lanes.

"We're not Curitiba and we're not Bogotá," said Sadik-Khan, "but we're getting there."

The Staten Island Advance reports:

Guttu was crossing Bement, heading east from Chase Manhattan Bank at around 2:40 p.m. Saturday, when he was struck by a 2006 Nissan Pathfinder driven by 47-year-old Theresa Totorelli of West Brighton, according to a police report.

Ms. Tortorelli -- who had been heading west on Forest Avenue and just made a left onto Bement -- claimed she did not see Guttu in the road until it was too late.

Guttu was conscious when police arrived and complained of "pain all over his body," the report said.

There were no tickets issued at the scene, though police say an investigation is ongoing. Reports say Tortorelli was not speeding and was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs. According to NY1, the medical examiner "has ruled the death an accident, caused by the impact of the crash."

As Wagner faculty, alumni, and acquaintances and friends of Guttu pay their respects, SI Advance readers are debating who, if anyone, is responsible for the popular chaplain's death.

Some want justice and safer conditions for Staten Island pedestrians:

If Rev. Guttu was just walking down Forest Avenue IN THE CROSSWALK, this then should be a vehicular homicide. Whenever a car makes a turn, the car MUST give right of way to any pedestrians in the crosswalk when the pedestrian has a green light or a walk sign!

While to others, c'est la vie: 

They call these situations accidents because thats what they are. The Reverend was loved by all who knew him but he also knew how to love. If he were here he would remind you to forgive. Rest in peace, Reverend Guttu. My families prayers are with you and the unfortunate soul who will forever grieve over this accident.

In other news, an unidentified woman was killed on Queens Boulevard Wednesday when she was hit by a cement truck. The victim, according the Daily News, "was walking north along Woodhaven Blvd. toward the Queens Center Mall about 1 p.m. when she tried to cross in front of the truck." Unfortunately, she "may have stumbled and fallen beneath the ... truck's wheels." A witness told the News the victim was trying to "beat the light." There were no such speculations regarding the actions of the driver, who reportedly wasn't sure he had hit the woman lying in the street with tire marks on her clothing, and who was not charged. His boss described her death as "an unfortunate thing, especially at this time of year."

All elected officials who attended (Borough President James Molinaro sent a representative) declared their support for some sort of congestion mitigation program––but only if Staten Island's share of the dollars on offer from the Feds were made commensurate with the problems of a borough whose average commute is acknowledged to be the longest in the entire country.

Staten Island may be New York City's most car-oriented borough, but Icolari notes that many of those who testified at last night's hearing advocated for improving mass transit:

Patrick Hyland of the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce expressed his organization's support for Congestion Pricing, provided five thoughtful recommendations that address a range of transit-related problems experienced island-wide are implemented. Significantly, every recommendation involves mass transit.

•Reinstitution of rail service (roadbeds are deteriorated but right-of-way is intact)
•Increase in the number of Bus Rapid Transit routes (the first and so far the only such route was instituted earlier this year; ridership was surprisingly strong from the beginning and continues to grow)
•Fast ferry service to and from the South Shore--the most remote and least well served by mass transit of the island's three community board areas
•Full extension of the currently limited-distance express bus lane on the Staten Island Expressway, and
•A fourth bus depot (the third, already in the MTA capital budget, has already been outpaced by demand for express bus service)

The hearing, amazingly, adjourned 10 minutes early, at 8:50 pm. Icolari writes:

I took the bus home. No one else from the hearing joined me. We've obviously got a lot of work to do on Staten Island. But the (very) conditional willingness of many Staten Islanders to at least consider some sort of pricing scheme to reduce traffic and improve local mass transit services was encouraging.

Spurred by the death of third-grader Prince Harris, Jr. (pictured), the fourth pedestrian to die this year along a notorious stretch of Ninth Avenue, the Clinton/Hell's Kitchen Pedestrian Safety Coalition (CHEKPEDS) is again urging the city to convene an interagency panel "to address this critical health issue."

On Friday, 8-year-old Harris was on his way to a park with his father and siblings when he reportedly "darted on W. 17th St." and was hit by a Toyota Scion, driven by an unidentified 44-year-old man. Harris's father said the Toyota and a taxi "were speeding down the block to make the light." The driver stayed at the scene and was not issued a ticket.

Today CHEKPEDS issued an e-mail bulletin offering condolences to the Harris family, and imploring the city to turn its attention to the pedestrian casualty epidemic.

The "new DOT" is moving fast and all problems cannot be tackled in one day. Priorities must be set, and in our book none is more important than pedestrian safety. 11,000 injuries and 163 deaths annually would qualify as a national disaster if they were all happening in one day. But they keep happening year after year.

In March, CHEKPEDS worked with Community Board 4 to draft a letter (PDF) to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer asking them to organize a citywide task force "bringing the various players to the table to address street and signal engineering, agencies jurisdiction, enforcement and traffic safety laws, reporting traffic problems and police procedures in accidents." But it hasn't happened.

Also over the weekend, a speeding taxicab jumped a curb and struck three members of the same family, killing 60-year-old TV helicopter pilot Paul Smith; no criminal charges have thus far been reported. On Staten Island, a 4-year-old is "fighting for her life" after being hit by a car yesterday while trying to cross the street with a group of other children; the unidentified driver was not ticketed. And yesterday morning in Coney Island, the driver of a charter bus making a U-turn hit an 60-year-old woman, knocking her down and running over her abdomen; the driver was not charged.

This weekend's carnage comes after last week's angry memorials to Hope Miller and Julia Thomson, who were run down five days apart at the end of September.

Photo of Prince Harris via New York Daily News

They'll be following up with information about transit improvements coming to Staten Island as part of PlaNYC and congestion pricing. It will be a good chance for residents to ask questions of transportation experts on how this plan will affect their daily commutes.

Tonight, Tuesday August 21st.
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Everything Goes Book Café
208 Bay St. (bet. Victory Blvd. & Hannah St.)
St. George, Staten Island

The Staten Island Advance ran an article last Thursday about a "perfect storm" of crushing Staten Island-bound traffic on the Gowanus Expressway and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. To give you a sense of the frustrated tone of the article, it was entitled "21-Month Nightmare: Agency Offers Zero Solutions for Verrazano Lane Mess." Here's how it began:

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A best man missed his nephew's wedding rehearsal.

A truck driver was forced to pull over and cool his heels.

Countless commuters rued that extra cup of Joe before leaving work.

And then there was the pizza delivery to a group of exasperated bus riders left stewing in the parking lot that was the Gowanus Expressway last Friday afternoon.

Experts say there's no way to fully manage the crush of rush-hour traffic expected to continue for the next 21 months while lanes are closed on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

Island commuters don't care what the experts have to say.

Their bottom line: Fix this mess.

Otherwise, it will be a long, hot summer.

"I could have gone to Florida in as long as it took me to get home," fumed Grasmere's Marlee Tanenbaum, who was stuck for two and a half hours aboard an X2 express bus Friday evening. "It is so insane that it's unbelievable. I am outraged!"

If this isn't the perfect argument for why we need congestion pricing, I don't know what is. The fact that so many people are crushing onto the bridge shows that it is too cheap to travel over it. The toll is $9 (charged toward Staten Island, the direction of this jam), but that obviously is not enough to prevent this kind of traffic. Motorists want travel to be cheap and fast, but one who demands cheap travel can't turn around and complain about how slow it is.

Instead of using rational pricing to solve the problem, officials are horsing around with palliatives aimed at making it easier to drive, which of course will encourage more traffic. A Verrazano traffic working group made up of elected and agency officials managed to avoid the issue of pricing or tolls, but did come up with some ideas to speed up traffic without inconveniencing anyone. (It's magic!) Specifically: "An increased police presence, and the dispatch of traffic agents at certain Brooklyn intersections near the bridge, to help keep traffic moving smoothly, without backing up local neighborhood streets."

Prediction: None of these things are going to achieve the hoped-for increase in traffic speed. But congestion pricing -- with funds directed towards more and better mass transit -- should solve it just about instantly.

In fairness, more sensible proposals came from Councilman Vincent Ignizio, who suggested speeding up implementation of a fast ferry to the island's South Shore and fast-tracking the planned extension of the Staten Island Expressway's bus-only lane. More to the point, however, motorists' expectations need to be managed better. They need to be told that their commute can be more expensive, it can be done in a bus or a ferry, or they can remain stuck in traffic on the Verrazano. There are no other options.

Clearly, the bridge's $9 toll should be raised, if it's not doing the job. The Staten Island Ferry is already free, so maybe pay people 25 cents to ride it. I'm not even kidding. Better yet, impose congestion pricing in Manhattan, and fewer people will drive to Manhattan, leaving fewer people to be stuck fuming on the Gowanus.

What a big weekend for public cycling events. This Sunday, more than 30,000 cyclists enjoyed perfect weather for the 30th anniversary of the Five Borough Bike Tour, a 42-mile traffic free ride through the city including a jaunt along the Gowanus Expressway in Brooklyn. It is the largest recreational cycling event in America.

Photo: diddlbiker/Flickr

"We have five vehicles in our family and would greatly appreciate being able to park in front of our own house," the letter writer stated. "We use both driveway spots as well as the entire front of the house so please be courteous and park in front of your own house. We are tired of getting tickets for double parking."

The argument didn't wash with the person who got the note:

"To the owner of the house," the neighbor replied on the back of the note left on his windshield, "This is not a block that you can tell people not to park in front of your house. A lot of people have more than one car. But sometimes we need to park in those spaces. I know it's hard but you do not own the street..... If you feel this way, maybe you should move upstate."

Learning to live with fewer than five cars in one family would apparently be too radical a suggestion.