Ben Fried

[Editor's note: Streetsblog will not be publishing Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.]

Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed the speed camera bill into law, enabling New York City to use automated enforcement technology to deter speeding in school zones.

The elimination of flashing blue lights on the MTA's Select Bus Service vehicles is probably the most absurd transit setback of the past year. Since New York state law limits the use of flashing blues to volunteer firefighters, the MTA caved in to pressure from Staten Island pols and took them off SBS buses this January.

If you thought Albany had gotten over the habit of raiding the MTA for cash, think again.

This item slipped under the radar late Friday afternoon: The New York State Republican Party is calling out Governor Andrew Cuomo for abandoning transit on the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Regrettably, this was an April Fool's Day post. It should be noted that Streetsblog's prior April Fool's Day stories have a way of coming true, at least in part.

In its headlong rush to build a new Tappan Zee Bridge, the Cuomo administration still hasn't answered basic questions about why the project won't include transit or how it will be financed.

In a letter to MTA Chair Joe Lhota, State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos writes that he's withholding approval for $770 million in MTA capital funding and a hike in the agency's borrowing limit because "a staggering $42 billion bonding debt level is of great concern." (Hat tip to Dana Rubinstein at Capital New York.)

When Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled his state budget proposal earlier this year, perhaps the best news for transit riders was the inclusion of $770 million to support the next three years of the MTA capital program. The funding would help pay for maintenance and expansion projects without forcing the MTA to borrow quite so much. And the less the MTA borrows, the more your fare pays for train and bus service, not debt. (Of course, while helpful, the $770 million is no substitute for a revenue stream like congestion pricing; the governor's budget still called for raising the MTA debt limit by $7 billion.)

After Andrew Cuomo's State of the State address last week, Streetsblog looked a little closer at the governor's plan to build the nation's largest convention center at the Aqueduct racino in Ozone Park, Queens. Counting on a huge convention center near JFK airport to deliver economic development seemed like a dubious proposition, but the other side of the plan -- converting the Javits Center site on the West Side of Manhattan into a mixed-use neighborhood -- has a lot to recommend it.