People

City district attorneys and NYPD have reached an agreement that could speed the process of collecting blood evidence from drunk driving suspects who refuse to take breath tests.

Following Tuesday's citywide elections, Streetsblog asked leading advocates and experts to lay out their ideas for the next four years of New York City transportation policy. What should the Bloomberg administration try to accomplish? Kate Slevin, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and editor of its excellent blog, Mobilizing the Region, kicks things off with today's installment.

"If I put train tracks down the street, you wouldn’t park your car on them. If I said this is a bus lane, somehow it becomes fair game. One person’s use of a road impacts upon another person’s use of the road. My point is, if we have to make a choice, make the choice for the bus, not for the car.”

Jimmy Vielkind at the Politicker files a dispatch from the first State Senate hearing about MTA chair nominee Jay Walder's severance package (yes, there will be more than one).

In case you've forgotten who's in charge these days, Governor Paterson's nomination of Jay Walder to succeed Lee Sander as MTA chief was quickly met with a joint statement from Malcolm Smith, John Sampson, and Fare Hike Four members Pedro Espada and Carl Kruger. In the interest of "transparency and accountability," the senators say they plan to put Walder in front of their committees before any decision is made. Kruger, for his part, tells The Daily Politics that he doesn't consider the backbone of the region's economy to be a particularly urgent agenda item.

After spending the last five weeks affirming Albany's status as the nation's most dysfunctional state capital, the State Senate will have one last extraordinary session this Wednesday before calling it a year. The chamber is not expected to pass much in the way of transportation bills. (The Assembly wrapped up its session last month.) Here's a short summary of unfinished livable streets business which the Senate and Assembly will leave behind until the 2010 legislative session.

Last night, shortly after Pedro Espada secured his $41,000 majority leader perk, the State Senate returned to the business of legislating. Liz Benjamin has several posts today explaining what that looked like. In less than 24 hours, the chamber passed 135 bills. It could have passed 136, but Bronx Democrat Ruben Diaz, Sr. sided against his party and killed a measure to stiffen penalties for traffic violations on Long Island:

MetroCard machines aren't the only place where the price of transit is going up. Reader Steven O'Neill points out that New Yorkers who sometimes rely on rental cars are now being hit with an additional five percent "bailout" tax, bringing the total tax for renting close to 20 percent. Says Steven:

While the New York State Senate scrambles to salvage some dignity from the current legislative session, the Assembly has busied itself with a flurry of one-house lawmaking. Last week, for instance, the chamber passed a safe driving bill aimed primarily at teen drivers, sponsored by transportation committee chair David Gantt. It includes some good stuff, like extending the number of practice hours that must be completed before taking the driver's license exam. And it would create a new traffic infraction to penalize driving while texting or using any handheld electronic device, no matter how old you are. The bill cleared the Assembly in a 146-0 vote.