Local-Motion

So, I was driving in on the Long Island Expressway Wednesday when I learned firsthand that sometimes there really is justice in the world. It was shortly after 6 a.m. Heading east, I came around a turn on the stretch just after Exit 39 to see a Nassau County Highway Patrol officer in an unmarked police car -- fresh off a traffic stop, I might add -- shut off his flashing lights and merge back into traffic. Drivers in the line of cars ahead of me began to slow down. Behind the wheel of my Mini Cooper S, I downshifted from sixth to fifth. The driver of the Hummer behind me, however, had different ideas. He had been just far enough back to have cleared the bend in the road too late to see that the unmarked police cruiser was, in fact, just that. He went around me, went around the line of cars, went past the highway patrol officer and began to hang on the bumper of some guy doing the limit in the fast lane. I watched as the cop, still in the slow lane, hung back a bit to pace the Hummer. Then, the driver of the Hummer -- impatient as he was -- committed the absolute cardinal sin: He crossed the dividing line and jumped into the HOV lane to go around the car ahead of him. This, of course, is very dangerous. Oh, and illegal. Which is why, of course, there's only something like a million signs warning drivers not to cross the divided line. But, the Hummer driver did. And, like that, the cop in the unmarked car jumped three lanes of traffic and then into the HOV lane behind him. Then, he lit him up. At last check the duo had moved all the way back to the righthand shoulder just shy of Exit 40. Would have loved to hear that explanation.

When he was stopped for DWI on Sunday night in Brentwood, 52-year-old Lugene Shepard was driving without a license. Again. We say again because the Bay Shore man has had his license suspended or revoked 40 times dating back to the 1980s, because he has previous arrests and convictions for DWI -- and driving while under the influence of drugs. Which is an outrage. Because it just goes to prove that the penal system doesn't work when it comes to license suspensions and revocations. Because the case of Lugene Shepard -- and of other drivers like him -- proves that stricter penalties need to be put into place when it comes to those who drive without a license. He has, after all, had his license revoked eight times for drunken driving, refusal to submit to a chemical test, driving without insurance and multiple speeding tickets. He hasn't killed anyone. Yet. As far as we know. Based on his track record, however, that might just be a matter of time. Drivers such as Lugene Shepard prove, simply, that the system fails all of us who obey the law. Who obey the rules of the road. Because as long as drivers like this are on the road, the rest of us are in mortal danger. Since it is obvious that simply revoking or suspending the license of such drivers does nothing to deter them, then it's time we face the harsh reality that the only penalty that will keep these repeat offenders off our roads -- and protect us and ours -- is to throw them in jail. Because, obviously, someone willing to shun the law more than 40 times has no conscience. And no sense or moral or civic responsibility. And the only deterent -- and prevention -- to keeping them from getting behind the wheel of a car is incarceration. Until our politicians and lawmakers have the guts to make that the absolute bottom line then none of us is safe from drivers like Lugene Shepard. And no one should be surprised when, the next time, the results are tragic. Instead of being merely offensive.

Shame on federal and state officials, as well as the airlines. Because, if the Thanksgiving holiday weekend proved anything it's that officials can actually make the system work if they want to -- they just don't want to. Case in point: Air traffic moved smoothly from Wednesday to Sunday in and out of the major metro-area airports, Kennedy, LaGuardia, Newark-Liberty and Long Island-MacArthur. This, after Pres. George W. Bush opened up previously restricted airspace to help the flow of air traffic and after officials bulked up security staff -- and, airlines bolstered support staff -- to make sure travelers moved through checkpoints steadily and without major snags or delays. The system worked. Most flights went off without a hitch. There were no major reported delays. The was far from the case Monday morning -- the Monday morning after the holiday weekend. After a brief downpour hit the metro-New York area the Federal Aviation Administration was reporting delays of more than three hours into LaGuardia and of more than 1 1/2 hours into Newark-Liberty. There also were departure delays of about a half-hour at both Newark and Kennedy. This is criminal. Officials have shown that they can get these three airports to work well -- if and when they want to. The airlines have shown as much, too. However, in the name of saving a buck all of the agencies and airlines involved in these airport operations have basically told air travelers to stick it -- and have told them they don't care if you're stranded for hours in the terminal. Or not. Of course, if you need to get somewhere you, the traveler, have little choice. Maybe it's time for some local politicians -- how about it, Chuck? -- to seriously investigate this situation and demand the system really be fixed? We're sure that Sen. Charles Schumer could figure out a way to force the airlines and the airport authorities to increase staffing levels in order to make traveling smoother. This is New York, for heaven's sake. It is supposed to be the center of the universe, the heart of the free world. We need to make our airports work. Now. Enough of these so-called "weather" delays. Travelers are being delayed only because the airlines don't care about them and are trying to cut corners on expenses. And so are the airport authorities. It's time to fix this. It's time to call officials on the carpet for this irresponsibility -- and make someone responsible.

Back in January, 2001, the leading tunnel-building expert in the world, Dr. Martin Herrenknecht, told Newsday it was technologically feasible — and, economically do-able — to build a tunnel under the Long Island Sound connecting Long Island to Westchester. “A tunnel in the Long Island Sound is not science fiction,” Herrenknecht said then in a phone interview from his home in Hamburg, Germany. “This is absolute reality.” Herrenknecht knew. He had designed and engineered state-of-the-art tunnel boring machines being used at the time to build the 6-kilometer-long Westerschelde tunnel 200 feet under Antwerpe Harbor in the Netherlands and had been enlisted to assess the feasibility of replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge with a tunnel -- as well as with the possibility of building one under the Sound between Syosset and Rye -- by a retired engineer named Alexander Saunders. Saunders, of Tarrytown, had stumbled upon the Westerschelde tunnel project while on vacation, giving him the brainstorm. But while Herenknecht said the Sound project could be done at “a fraction of the cost” of the long-ago proposed bridge across the Sound, the idea fell upon the deaf ears of politicians in New York. As Lee Koppelman, the then long-time executive director of the Long Island Regional Planning Board, said that January: “It’s not a pie-in-the-sky idea . . . The question is: Is it politically feasible? Don’t leave that word out. That's the only application of feasible that matters here on Long Island." Six years later, an investment group headed by Garden City developer Vince Polimeni has revived the idea with a privatized plan to build a 16-mile-long tunnel between the end of the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway in Syosset to the Interstate-95 and Interstate-287 interchange in Rye. We need it. It would be good for Long Island and a tremendous benefit for Long Island drivers. But, will it happen? Who knows? The cost to build this tunnel, in today’s dollars, would be about $10 billion, Polimeni said. But the cost to taxpayers would be — and, you’ll like this — nothing. Nada. Zero. Involved in the consortium to build the proposed “Cross Sound Link Tunnel” are the engineering firm Hatch Mott MacDonald, which is a world-leader in tunnel-building, as well as financial market analysts Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. and former Suffolk County Executive Patrick Halpin. They believe that by 2025 the tunnel could be moving 80,000 vehicles per day between Westchester and Long Island, turning a 45-mile trip into a 16-mile trip, cutting down on pollutants and traffic congestion and wear-and-tear on public roads. They see this for an average toll fare somewhere in the neighborhood of $25. The technology, of course, is there. Is the will? Halpin, a former Democratic big-wig on the local political stage, said Tuesday in a conversation with Newsday that he believes that will is there. And will be. And considering that the leaders of both counties, as well as the state, are now Dems -- we'll, Halpin certainly seems like the right guy to get them on board. Polimeni, too, believes that since the project would be built with private funding and not public taxpayer monies, politcal support will follow. There is, however, a potential stumbling block. It is a big one. That is the potential battle to be waged by property owners, a large percentage of them wealthy, on both the north shore of Long Island — and in Rye. Though any tunnel would be built about 150 feet below residential and private properties, there is a question of how it could potentially de-value land. Theoretically, the state government could argue eminent domain — and force the project on landowners. More realistically, Polimeni said Tuesday, is that the consortium would attempt to work out lease deals with owners. He believes that is feasible, pointing to correlaries with current under-Manhattan tunnel projects such as the Long Island Rail Road’s East Side Access and the Second Avenue Subway. Though potential state toll revenues could be affected by a reduction in traffic volume on Metropolitan Transportation Authority Bridges and Tunnels, chances are offsets would have to be negotiated into any lease with the consortium regarding revenues generated by the Cross Sound Link. We're not in love with the idea of privatizing roads -- or bridges and tunnels, for that matter. In fact, many times it's a bad idea since it allows a private company to mandate public access to public space. But, this would be unlike other privatization projects around the country — i.e., the Chicago Skyway, which earlier this decade was privatized in a 99-year lease agreement — because other privatized roads were built with public taxpayer dollars and then turned over to private companies. This tunnel would be built with private funds and operated with private funds and potentially would generate public funds to ease the tax burden. And if drivers chose not to use it, there remains other access via pubically-owned and operated bridges and tunnels. Right now, the project remains in the earliest proposal stages. But, members of the consortium claim the initial reaction among New York State Department of Transportation officials, as well as politicians, has been positive. And they believe the project will more forward. We can only hope that is the case. Because, we need it. But remember: The original proposal for a Long Island Sound Bridge is closing in on its 50th Anniversary. And it was never anything more than a pipe dream. Any proposed Cross Sound Tunnel will suffer the same fate — until, that is, officials in New York have the political will to make it reality.

More than 75 years after it was first proposed, it now looks like the Second Avenue Subway will become a reality for New York City. Hoorah. The long-proposed subway line got a much-needed boost Monday when officials announced $1.3 billion in federal aid for the project at a news conference attended by Gov. Eliot Spitzer and U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters. The funding, to be dispersed over a seven-year period, will cover approximately one-third the cost of building the new train line, which will run along Second Avenue from Harlem to the Financial District. The line was first proposed in 1929. That plan was revisited in the 1960s, but construction on the project was halted in the 1970s due to the financial crisis in New York City. There was a Second Avenue "El" -- or, elevated train line -- but that was demolished in 1942. The old Third Avenue "El" was taken down in 1956. Recently, the feds have taken a renewed interest in funding capital construction projects in New York. Earlier, the USDOT pledged $2.6 billion to fund the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Long Island Rail Road East Side Access project linking the system to Grand Central Terminal. The feds have also pledged funding for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's "Congestion Pricing Plan." All of which will help bring the metro-area transportation network firmly into the 21st Century. Which, by all accounts, is long overdue. The federal government should know, however, that while this is a good first step, more needs to be done. The subway system -- and the LIRR -- need funding to modernize signal systems and need funding for new equipment. And the three metro-area airports -- LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark-Liberty -- are in dire need of improved capacity, not to mention better airspace routing and use necessary to cut down on chronic massive flight delays. Of course, funding is also needed for better upkeep and maintenance of metro-area infrastructure: bridges, roads, overpasses. Not to be greedy, but if New York City really is as vital to the U.S. economy as everyone always claims, then this funding -- and these improvements -- are vital to the future of our nation. Meaning they need to be fixtures on the radar screen. And they need to remain at the top of the funding lists until they get funded, too.

The public has spoken -- in this case, the voice of legal U.S. residents living in New York -- and, finally, Gov. Eliot Spitzer had no choice but to listen. This is what happens in politics when your "mandate" of support has eroded so badly that you won't have a prayer of being re-elected if you continue on course. This is what happens when the people speak. And you have to listen. Which is the only reason why Spitzer announced Wednesday he was shelving his controversial -- and, plain old dumb -- plan to issue licenses to illegal immigrants. It was an idea criticized by near everyone: The public, political opponents, the Feds. Even fellow Democrats. Even Spitzer finally had to realize that to pursue it was political suicide. Especially after his approval rating, once closing in on 70 percent, had fallen to about 41 percent this week -- all over the issue of licensing illegal immigrants. We here at Local-Motion argued the idea was a dumb one from Day One. Spitzer said issuing licenses to illegal immigrants would enabled state officials to track terrorists. Wrong. He said it would force uninsured motorists to become insured. Wrong. He said it would improve security. Wrong. The fact is that New York instituted what amounted to the most-stringent licensing requirements in the nation in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- in part, to track potential illegal immigrants and prevent potential terrorists from being able to rent vehicles in which they could transport bombs or bomb-making equipment. And the fact is that New York's requirements were so state-of-the-art that other states have since decided to follow suit, using our plan as a framework for their policies. Meanwhile, some states that years ago elected to issue licenses to illegal immigrants have since scrapped that system -- calling it a failed policy. Officials in those states said they found the system often promoted fraud, instead of reducing it. But Spitzer thought he knew better. Thought he knew better than his constituents. Thought he knew better than the experts. Thought he knew better than everyone. Until, that is, the voters made him realize that he was just plain wrong -- and that, if he didn't back down, he could kiss his political ambitions goodbye. So, finally, Spitzer blinked. And abandoned his plan. That is good news for New Yorker drivers. And good news for the voting public. The legal voting public.

The phrase "sinking money into a hole in the ground" has long been used to describe waste, futility and utter disregard for prudent economics. Not this time. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, capitalized by state and federal funding, is sinking about $6.3 billion into a hole in the ground that will eventually run from Sunnyside, Queens, to midtown Manhattan. And it couldn't be money better spent. For the price, the MTA -- and the Long Island Rail Road -- will get new train tunnels with direct access to Grand Central Terminal. Called East Side Access, the project will allow about 160,000 passengers a day to travel to Grand Central and the east side of Manhattan, instead of being forced to travel to Penn Station and then walk or take the subway back across to the East Side. This will save each of these commuters hours of commuting time each week. The tunnel is far from complete. In fact, the project won't be finished until 2013 -- and access won't be finalized until 2014. But when it's done, East Side Access will be the biggest improvement to the LIRR since the introduction of the electric fleet. It will be a huge step forward and a long-awaited one, since the project was first proposed in the 1960s. But the digging of the tunnels under Manhattan -- and the work on East Side Access -- just proves one other saying: Better late than never.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007. Time: 12:25 p.m. It's a gorgeous day. Temperature hovering around 50 degrees, visibility 10 miles. This, according to the National Weather Service -- and its forecast and report for Flushing. So, a question? Why is the Federal Aviation Administration reporting that departure delays are averaging 54 minutes at LaGuardia Airport -- due to "weather / wind?" The "wind" is blowing through at between 11 and 16 mph, according to the weather service. Hardly, it would seem, storm-like. Yet, there is a so-called "Ground Delay Program" in effect at LaGuardia. This is absurd. Ridiculous. Because, what this really is is another prime example of how tightly the air-traffic system is wound in the New York-metro area and of how sensitive it is to any kind of disruption -- even some barely-gusting winds. Instead of having minor holds as a safety precaution, anything that causes even a pause in the system results in massive, traveler-stranding delays in New York. A little rain? Delays. Patches of fog? Delays. Some clouds? Delays. A little wind? Delays. This is why the FAA not only needs to implement proposed flight re-routing patterns in the metro area ASAP, but also needs to push for long-discussed expansion programs at upstate Stewart Airport and renew discussions about expansion at Long Island-MacArthur Airport. It is why officials need to explore the potential development of Gabreski Airport as a realistic East End hub for Long Island. The sooner, the better. Be Polite . . . Uh, Please?The latest chapter in the "Be TrainSmart" safety campaign being conducted by the Long Island Rail Road? Um, a passenger -- and media -- blitz asking customers to "Let Them Exit First." Yes, a massive brochure and poster-laden campaign urging riders to allow fellow riders to exit trains before making their way on board. This, to put an end to all the pushing and shoving, banging and bumping in train doorways. So, we ask: If any rider is selfish enough to try and push past an exiting rider, therefore endangering everyone's safety, are they really going to stop to read a safety poster? Or a brochure? Are they really going to read it and say, "You know. I'm being so wrong here. I really need to be more considerate -- so, I can ensure the safety of my fellow riders." Uh, yeah. Exactly what we said. This is absolutely the dumbest campaign on record, a colossal waste of money. Better to put Metropolitatn Transportation Authority Police on platforms and have them issue warnings -- and, perhaps, tickets -- to inconsiderate and unruly passengers . . . instead of doing this. Now, a ticket would get the message across. Odds and Ends . . . and OddsDumb, but sort of funny, ad campaign? This one from the American Bus Association: "Save a Penguin. Take a Motorcoach." The idea is to persuade folks -- and, businesses -- to utilize luxury buses because, per passenger mile traveled, a full bus is actually more fuel-efficient than a single-occupant vehicle. The stats? The ABA claims a single motorcoach can replace as many as 55 passenger cars -- and could drastically reduce the output of CO2 emissions and therefore save polar ice-caps. Though, we do have to wonder how many trees were felled to produce the pamphlets, which feature pictures of Adelle penguins, Humboldt penguins and Rockhopper penguins -- as well as fancy motorcoach buses . . . By the way, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials -- that would be AASHTO -- recently distributed its 2007 publications catalog. These publications would be for highway engineers and contractors. Got insomnia? Some of these will fix that, for certain. How about these titles: "Report on Cold Recycling of Asphalt Pavements;" "Guidelines for Maintenance Management Systems;" "Improving the Quality of Environmental Documents;" and, "Highway Drainage Guidelines." The last one was highlighted by a "NEW" label. Want to know why highways really have potholes -- and why bridges really fall down? Because even engineers can't stay awake long enough to read this stuff . . . Those new electronic signboards on the Northern State Parkway tell drivers how many minutes it will take to reach the next exit, a figure based on reading E-ZPass tags at either end of the stretch of road -- and then averaging the time for cars whose tags it's averaged. Our question? What if everyone in that average pool is actually speeding? Uh, yup. The estimated travel time may actually be unrealistic and misleading -- because it's based on an average speed that is actually illegal. Bet no one at the New York State Department of Transportation has thought about that.