Tag Archives: Transportation

The Federal Gasoline Tax

Funding Projections, courtesy of DC Streets

Follow LJF97 on Twitter Tweet  The 18¢ per gallon tax on gasoline is scheduled to expire on Sept. 30, 2011. Will it expire? Will it be renewed? Will that immediately lower gasoline prices by 18¢? Will state or local governments add 18¢ to state or local taxes (or both)? Will gas station owners pocket some or all of the difference?

And what are the monies used for? The answer is roads and other transportation projects.

If the revenue disappears then new roads won’t be built and existing roads won’t be maintained.

In the long run, we may drive less. In the long run there may be less air pollution. And, as Keynes once said, “In the long run we are all dead.”

Links: Treehugger, DC Streets Blog, Antiplanner.

Patrick McGeehan, NYT: A Bikes-Only Parking Lot in Midtown?

Patrick McGeehan

of the Times City Room Blog

reports that

A few business executives have dreamed up a private-sector solution to the problem of secure bicycle parking in New York: the city’s first bikes-only parking lot. They have a space on West 33rd Street. All they need is a corporation willing to pay as much as $200,000 a year to sponsor it.

“We’re really looking for a big number to build something quite spectacular,” said Daniel A. Biederman, president of the 34th Street Partnership. “We want this to be the premier bike parking facility in the country.”

Already, the group has cleared one high hurdle: Stonehenge Management, a developer, has offered a 2,600-square-foot lot next to an apartment building it owns on the north side of 33rd Street between Eighth Avenue and Ninth Avenue, Mr. Biederman said.

The partnership, which is financed by businesses and property owners in a 31-block section of Midtown, has developed a preliminary design for the lot and has ordered up a prototype of the racks it would contain, Mr. Biederman said. At first, it would hold 100 bikes, with room to expand if there is more demand, he said.

A Bikes-Only Parking Lot in Midtown?

 

 

New York City receives larger DHS grant for subway security

Jen Chung at Gothamist and Al Baker of the Times have good coverage of the new, much-increased Department of Homeland Security grant to provide security for New York City subways, including the 16 underwater tunnels that link the boroughs to each other, and to the mainland (the Bronx, of course, is actually on the mainland). From Gothamist:

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Solar Boats – up to 60 passengers and 11 knots in Europe; NYC ferry service suspended

The Swiss Firm MW Line makes solar boats that are ferrying people around lakes and rivers in Switzerland, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. The only backup power, apparently, is on-shore charging from the grid. They’re also the shipbuilder for the PlanetSolar project which plans to have a solar-only craft in the water ready for a two-person, 120-day around-the-world trip in 2009. bateau-vectoriel.png

isoview1.jpgThe New York Times reported on January 4th that New York Water Taxi, the only operator of Queens/Manhattan and Brooklyn/Manhattan ferry service has cancelled service for the winter – largely because of fuel price increases. That notwithstanding a monthly subsidy from the real estate developers who established Schaefer’s Landing, a high-end project in Williamsburgh. A ferry powered by photovoltaic cells wouldn’t be directly affected, if at all, by petroleum price increases. Given the relatively short distances involved, on-board solar panels and batteries could be supplemented with electricity dockside. If that electricity is generated via wind (often best captured on or near water) or solar, ferry operating costs could be insulated from petroleum price fluctuations.