News & Notes

Tea Partiers See a Global Conspiracy in Local Planning Efforts [Next American City]

Some might say that the Tea Party’s platform contains some contradictions. It seems that they’re|like most people, really|willing to ignore those spending programs from which they benefit directly. The subsidization of suburbia is one of these beneficial spending programs, too. But the nature of this subsidy is so diffuse that it’s hard to point at directly|cheap petroleum, tax incentives for homeowners, DOT money that goes straight to highway funds, etc|so that it is now taken for granted, a mere part of the “American way of life” that only really existed for maybe two and a half decades following World War II.

The Motorist’s Identity Crisis [Planetizen]

When a Los Angeles bus rider asked presidential candidate George W. Bush about transit improvements in 2000, Bush responded, “My hope is that you will be able to find good enough work so you’ll be able to afford a car.” Bush was undoubtedly sincere. Like many Americans|probably most|he saw a bus (like a bicycle) as a nothing more than a pathetic substitute for a car.

Bike Lanes: A One-Way Path To Controversy [WBUR-Boston]

Then there’s Charlestown, which received its first set of bike lanes on Main Street this fall, only to have those lanes scrubbed from the street this week when the neighborhood council complained.

Maybe that is the solution to Atwells. Complain that people are getting hit by cars and have the city close the street. Wha? It wouldn’t work that way?

NYC Will Try Out Taxis to Provide Access-A-Ride Service [Streetsblog]

In a bid to cut costs and improve transit service for New Yorkers with disabilities, the MTA and the Taxi and Limousine Commission will pilot a program to have yellow cabs provide Access-A-Ride service. The program could benefit everyone who rides subways and buses too | if it proves effective at curbing the cost of Access-A-Ride, the federally-mandated service which has been eating up an increasingly large portion of the MTA’s budget and putting strain on other aspects of the transit system.

New York’s Access-A-Ride is similar to RIPTA’s RIde Program.