Stephen Miller

Flashing lights on Select Bus Service vehicles are designed to help riders distinguish between pay-before-boarding SBS and pay-onboard local service. After years of operation without issue, Staten Island lawmakers exploited a minor state law to have the MTA turn off the lights 16 months ago. Bills in Albany to find a solution are stuck in committee, and now the bill's most powerful sponsor is backing away.

When Select Bus Service launched in 2008, the program included blue flashing lights on the front of each bus to help riders distinguish the service from local buses. This is particularly important for Select Bus Service, since most SBS routes require riders to pay their fare at a machine before boarding. The flashing lights help riders know whether they're boarding an SBS bus, with its special payment system, or a local bus.

After nearly two decades of advocacy and planning to transform the Sheridan Expressway, South Bronx residents and businesses have a plan they agree on. The next step: Governor Cuomo's State DOT must launch an environmental review to begin implementing the plan. The State Senate included $3 million for the review in its budget proposal [PDF]. With a unanimous 10-0 vote this afternoon, the City Council transportation committee urged the state to follow through and conduct the study. The full City Council is expected to endorse the request tomorrow.

Yesterday, members of Families for Safe Streets traveled to Albany to speak with legislators about legislation to lower NYC speed limits and increase automated enforcement of dangerous driving. They came away with an early victory: Assembly Member Joe Lentol of Brooklyn, a street safety ally who had been skeptical of a bill to lower the city's default speed limit to 20 mph, surprised the families by showing up at their press conference and giving a moving speech about why he now supports the measure.

On Friday, the Tappan Zee Mass Transit Task Force released its final report [PDF], recommending bus improvements across Westchester and Rockland counties that could be completed when the new Hudson River span opens in 2018. But the path to implementation is vague at best. If these bus upgrades are going to materialize, task force members say it's up to the governor to push for them.

Yesterday, a group of Assembly members and advocates took Governor Cuomo to task for the $40 million transit raid in his budget proposal. The legislators unveiled a letter [PDF] urging Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to restore the funds in the legislative budget, due for a vote on March 12.

Last week, nearly three dozen advocates from across the state went to Albany to meet with legislators, asking for dedicated bike-pedestrian funding from the state. But some timely announcements by Governor Cuomo put a damper on their request.

A group of uptown elected officials, including City Council Transportation Committee Chair Ydanis Rodriguez, sent a letter today to Governor Andrew Cuomo asking him to include dedicated funds for bicycle and pedestrian projects in his executive budget [PDF]. The request echoes a call from street safety advocates and comes as the de Blasio administration must marshal resources to implement its Vision Zero agenda, set to be released in days.

Transit advocates are sounding the alarm as Governor Cuomo again tries to quietly raid dedicated transit funds and back away from the state's promises to the MTA so he can plug Albany's budget holes.

If you were expecting Governor Cuomo's transportation policy to match up with his socially progressive yet fiscally conservative reputation, he didn't deliver during today's State of the State address, which featured a ringing endorsement of a multi-billion dollar highway across rural areas near the Canadian border. While the governor's focus on expensive highway projects, not transit, during the annual speech is by now a well-established pattern, today's address did feature a few positive signs, including a continued push to increase penalties for drunk and distracted driving.