The MTA is planning extra service for July 4th--and today! There are more trains from Penn Station on the LIRR and from Grand Central on the Metro-North today--"getaway service." NJ Transit also has additional train service departing NY Penn Station, Newark Penn Station, and Hoboken terminal. Tomorrow, most service will be operating on a weekend/Sunday schedule.......

5-Year Regional Transit Map of Planned Improvements, (large version) from Streetsblog The Regional Planning Association released a map of what service and capital improvements tri-state riders can expect, even in the absence of approval for a congestion pricing plan. NYC Transit riders have a lot to be unhappy about following a fare hike, followed by the announcement that promised service improvements were off the table, followed by the prospect of yet another fare hike......

Yesterday's windy weather has at least one casualty: According to WNBC, power lines in NJ. Jersey Central Power & Light's commercial power lines "fell across the tracks in Montville," prompting the Montclair-Boonton line to be closed for a while. The line is open again, but this means one-hour delays for the Northeast Corridor, NJ Coast and Raritan Valley lines. NJ Transit and Lakeland buses are honoring rail tickets. Interestingly, WCBS 2 says the problems are......

Photograph of a Giants fan in Times Square by Johnia! on Flickr After the stunning Giants' Super Bowl win, people cheered like they hadn't seen a Super Bowl victory in 17 years! Throughout the city, folks were stumbling onto streets, chanting the names of players and even getting arrested. A thousand people flooded Times Square, reportedly jumping on cars and sitting on top of phone kiosks, but the Post says no one was arrested.......

Photograph of MTA police K9 team by Diane Bondareff/AP Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced New York City will receive $153 million - up from last year's $61 million - in transit security grants. Wow - all we can do is remember Chertoff's 2005 remark, when trying discussing how security funding would be allocated, "The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the......

Hundreds of thousands of commuters can breathe a sigh of relief today as a threatened strike by Amtrak workers has been avoided. A strike would have shut down Penn Station, diverting travelers on the Long Island Rail Road, Amtrak lines, and New Jersey Transit to subways and the PATH system. The city was already preparing contingency plans to have LIRR riders disembark in Brooklyn, and Jamaica Station and Woodside in Queens to take the subway.......

Eight separate unions representing Amtrak workers are threatening to go on strike as early as January 30th if they are not presented with new contracts, which they've worked without for years. A strike would hurt more than people taking the Acela between Washington D.C. and Boston. If Amtrak workers strike, it would close Penn Station and hundreds off thousands of daily commuters on the Long Island Rail Road, NJ Transit, and Amtrak would be seriously......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an abduction on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, a double shooting at West 151st St. and Walton Ave. in the Bronx, and a pursuit/crash/bailout on 95th St. and the West Side Highway in Manhattan. The disbarred lawyer accused of murdering his wife and blaming it on a random carjacking admitted to cops that he'd sent flowers to his girlfriend that day and had various small affairs and used escorts outside......

In what seems to be separate incidents, NJ Transit and PATH commuters are facing a rough Thursday morning commute into the city. The NJ Transit issue is a downed wire just west of Newark Penn Station. Riders on the Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast Line, and Raritan Valley Lines have delays of at least 60 minutes. According to NJ Transit, Amtrak is working on fixing the problem but "commuters are encouraged to seek alternative transportation."......

The low-slung Port Authority bus terminal will be getting a heady addition: The Port Authority will announce a deal for a tower to be built at its north end. The NY Times reports that Lawrence Ruben Company and Vornado Realty Trust is buying air rights for $400-500 million, which the Port Authority will then be used to add 18 bus platforms, give the terminal a "major face-lift" and overall refurbishing. Well, finally - commuting to......

Yesterday afternoon, downed wires in a train tunnel caused hours of delays for trains in the Northeast Corridor yesterday. The downed wires stopped a passenger train from entering the tunnels, and then the domino effect: Amtrak trains from Boston were backed up on their way to NYC, while trains from Philadelphia to NYC only made it to Newark. The outage occurred around 8:30AM and service was restored around 2:30PM, after affecting at least 50,000 riders......

The Port Authority is investigating adding a second bus lane to the Lincoln Tunnel. There's a bus lane already (carved out of a westbound lane between 6:15-10AM), which carries 51% of all passengers who use the tunnel, but the Post calls it a "victim of its own success," since it's operating at capacity. The second bus lane would be for buses - and perhaps for drivers who would pay a premium toll (over the current......

Yikes! A NJ Transit bus that just left the city via the Lincoln Tunnel crashed into a divider on I-495, near the Park Avenue exit in Weehawken. One of the commuters told WABC 7,"All of a sudden we were just on top of the divider. Nobody seems to know what happened. Everybody was jolted forward ... a lot of people sustained injuries to their face ... my friend got cut, she needed stitches ... a......

On May 25, 2006, there was a power outage along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor line, a heavily traveled route that stranded over a hundred trains from Amtrak, NJ Transit and other transit companies. Now, nine months later, Amtrak has revealed what went wrong - and it's a doozy. The NY Times reports:A 4-year-old computer in Philadelphia failed to execute a single command given 36 hours earlier, after maintenance had been done on the evening of......

After Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver blocked Governor Pataki's Moynihan Station plans last October, we wondered how Governor Spitzer would take up the task and spar with Silver. To refresh your memory, Spitzer's problem with Pataki's Moynihan Station plans was that they were incomplete, given that developers had more extensive ideas about a Farley Post Office and Madison Square Garden revitalization (known as "plan B"); Pataki, on the other hand, wanted to get the plan A......

The Daily News had an exclusive on something a couple of the transit agencies are considering: A "smart" that commuters could use for NJ Transit buses, PATH train, and maybe even city subways. And a dream plan would also include the AirTrain and ferries! According to the News, the Port Authority has asked financial institutions to "put together a system that essentially would feature some version of debit or credit cards that function like MetroCards......

If you drive into the city from Queens or Long Island, it might be worth your while to stop by Shea Stadium today between 10AM and 2PM. Why? Because the NYC Department of Transportation is trying to relieve holiday gridlock by giving 350 $4 Metrocards to commuters who park at Shea and will use mass transit today, next Wednesday (December 27) and January 3. This is supposed to be part of the DOT's holiday traffic......

The federal government has approved $2.6 billion in funding for the East Side Access project. The project would link the LIRR and Grand Central, in an effort to relieve congestion at Penn Station as well as cross-town congestion. NY1 reports that the "deal is being called the single largest transit investment in American history." Governor Pataki and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters signed the "Full Funding Grant Agreement" at Grand Central. Pataki said,......

A man was shocked after touching high voltage wires over a NJ Transit train parked inside Penn Station. The man had tried opening the train's doors, but when he couldn't, he climbed on top of the train. Authorities suspect the man may be homeless and was trying to get into the train to sleep. An Amtrak employee found the man, who was taken to New York-Weill Cornell Hospital for third-degree burns. Roofs of trains are......

We wish you a happy Thanksgiving, however you may spend the day, whether it's on a cold, wet corner waiting to see the parade balloon and floats, traveling to your family's for a big meal, or staying in and watching football. It's our favorite holiday because it's about gathering - without any worry about gifts (maybe some worry about the sweet potatoes, though). Remember to give thanks - we're all very lucky. Here are Thanksgiving......

Yesterday afternoon, a 51 year old Bronx woman was fatally hit by a city bus. Rachel Levy had been crossing a road near the Henry Hudson Parkway around West 236th Street. The bus driver didn't realize someone was hit and didn't stop; the driver was not charged. And on Friday morning, 33 year old kidney surgeon Lawrence Yoo was hit by a bus at Ninth Avenue and 39th Street in Manhattan. Yoo, who was headed......

Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver did the expected thing at a state Public Authorities Control Board meeting to discuss the Moynihan Station: He refused to support it, ensuring that the city is at least another year away from starting a new transportation hub for NJ Transit and LIRR commuters. Well, we guess Governor Pataki's decision to delay a vote didn't work out very well, but it's not like Silver would suddenly be convinced in three......

- The Brooklyn community of Gerritsen is quiet to the police after hate-crime arrests - A newspaper vendor was killed by a hit-and-run driver in the Bronx yesterday - and a pedestrian was hit by a car in Queens - Mayor Bloomberg wants solid proof that September 11 made rescue workers ill when their relatives are applying for September 11 death benefits - The Little League teammates of Shamar Porter, the 10 year old......

After Jennifer Moore's death after partying at West 27th Street club, Guest House, last week, the local papers decide to head down to West 27th between 10th and 11th Avenues to report on the scene there. So there are mentions of drunken girls using tire to rest their heads as they lay on the street (NY Times) or girls super-excited that photographers are taking their pictures outside a club like paparazzi (NY Post). Here's a......

It's hot, humid, and I want to go to the beach. What are my options? Well, Gateway National Recreation Area is right in our neck of the woods, extending in three New York City boroughs and into northern New Jersey. It is a good place to start your quest for the perfect patch of sand and cooling waters. Queens: Jacob Riis Park 2 to Flatbush Ave., Q35 Bus to Riis Beach Staten Island: Great Kills......

Five different riders' groups - the Straphangers Campaign, the Empire State Passengers Association, the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility in New York, the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers and the Lackawanna Coalition in New Jersey - sent a letter to NYC officials citing concerns that plans for railways and a commuter terminal are dangerous. The MTA and NJ Transit are planning new tunnels and a station that are 100-150 feet underground, and the natural......

At present, trains on Amtrak and NJ Transit are running on schedule, but commuters are wary (and weary) after yesterday's power outage along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor that stopped service for both train system between Queens and Washington DC. This was the biggest transit power failure since, oh, the blackout of 2003 (and, yes, we heard words like "cascading" and "tripping circuitbreakers" on the news last night and cringed, too). Officials are unsure of what......

The busiest - and most profitable - section of Amtrak's routes, the Northeast Corridor Line, has suffered a major power outage this morning from DC to Queens. At least four trains - three NJ Transit and one Amtrak - were stuck in the tunnel under the Hudson River, and one is stuck in a tunnel outside Baltimore. We're hearing that Amtrak is bringing in diesel-powered trains to push the trains out. Amtrak says power......

The latest new design (the fourth!) for the planned Moynihan train station at the James Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue was revealed yesterday, and while it is less dramatic than previous incarnations, it seems like this design might actually be the one that's built. Funnily enough, the Empire State Development Corporation can't quite keep up, as the images it has are old designs, but architect grubbykid analyzed the drafts of the general project......

A couple weeks ago, Gothamist wondered what was going on with the scaffolding outside the James A. Farley Post Office at 33rd Street and Eighth Avenue. Sure, there must be restoration work of some sort, but it looked very Christo, as it is a huge building that takes up two blocks. Now the Daily News reveals that the scaffolding is being offered as advertising space. That's 21,000 square feet of space! The space will be......