Want to Speed Up NYC Buses? Get Bus Camera Legislation Through Albany Gridlock.

Albany hasn’t had a great record on public transit issues recently.  But state elected officials have a chance to pass legislation that would mean an easier commute for millions of transit riders: Allowing large cities to use bus lane enforcement cameras.  Like red light cameras, these would take photos or short video of license plates when a driver illegally holds up busloads of people by parking in a bus lane, and a ticket would arrive in the mail. (They’ve been used successfully in London and other cities around the world.)

2.4 million New Yorkers take the bus every day, according to MTA statistics.  But the city’s buses are also some of the slowest in the country. According to the Straphangers Campaign, the M42 crosstown bus is slower than “a five-year-old on a motorized tricycle,” traveling at 3.7 miles per hour.

New bus-only lanes, like the city is planning on First and Second Avenues in Manhattan, could give millions of commuters a faster ride and more time to spend with their friends and family.  But without real enforcement, the new lanes will probably look just like the ones NYC has now:

Governor Paterson has included a bus lane camera program in his budget.  Assemblyman Jonathan Bing of Manhattan and State Senator Martin Dilan of Brooklyn have introduced a bill that would do the same thing.  A great many NYC legislators have signed on, and the City Council passed a resolution supporting bus cameras two years ago.  But the biggest obstacle to passing the bill may be Assemblyman David Gantt of Rochester, who chairs the Assembly Transportation Committee.  He killed a similar bill in 2008 (by pressuring some of the bill’s sponsors to vote against it), citing privacy concerns — even though the New York Civil Liberties Union helped draft the language to ensure that safeguards were built in.

Want to support this bill?  Until the end of today, you can send a fax to Assemblyman Gantt through Transportation Alternatives’ website.

HiramMonserrate.com: Hilarious

The special election in New York’s 13th Senate District is beginning to heat up. Hiram Monserrate, who was stripped of his Senate seat last month for his assault conviction, is running for re-election to the SAME SEAT HE WAS REMOVED FROM. Only in New York, folks.

His constituents aren’t happy about it either. His campaign website’s own guestbook contains mostly vehement swears about his job performance, scandal, and poor priorities. My favorite quote: “You are a g–d-m law breaker and you want to continue to make laws for this state?!”  Another good one: “your politics are atrocious, your behavior even more so. I call for your resignation and a public apology to your girlfriend.”

There have only been 6 comments since June 2008, and just in case they wise up and take it down, I’ve provided a screen shot above. But this is an opportunity we just can’t pass up. I’m calling for all MYD members to post their true feelings about Hiram Monserrate on his guestbook by CLICKING HERE. Best comment wins!

Oh, and give some time this weekend to Jose Peralta, the real Democrat running to replace Monserrate in the Senate. Email Alex V. for details:  political@gomyd.com

Hat tip to my buddy Tracey Keij-Denton for this find.

MTA: Show Me Your Books ! (Its The Law)

A new era of transparency began this Monday for hundreds of our state public authorities – whether they like it or not.

For decades these agencies were able to keep multiple sets of books that advocates dubbed a “shadow government” – books that they were not obliged to share with anyone. This practice is now history with the passing of the Public Authorities Reform Act. It requires many of these quasi-governmental corporations to be more transparent and required even to subject themselves to independent audits.

“We certainly have the authority now to recommend that board members be censured, that they be warned and in the most extreme cases, we can recommend to the governor or to the local appointing authority that board members be removed from office,” said David Kidera, Acting Director for the Independent Authorities Budget Office.

But this information isn’t just for government officials like Liu or DiNapoli. The information is also going to be available online for anyone with an internet connection and a whole bunch of time ! Click here for your chance to play junior auditor.

Races In 2010 Are Going To Be Trouble For Both Sides

It’s no surprise that with the current stagnation in the Senate and a  fear of an anti-incumbent backlash, some Democrats are increasingly worried of what this November might mean for the balance in Congress and the future of President Obama’s legislative agenda. However before we all start assuming the worst, Nate Silver points out on fivethirtyeight.com, that Republicans have races of their own that are going to need some defending:

Even if Republicans can recruit a good candidate in Washington or New York, and make smart decisions in California, and win the toss-ups in places like Illinois, and not screw up any of the seven or so races in which they appear to be favored, they also have to make sure that Democrats don’t take over any of their own seats. And this is the factor that the market may not be properly accounting for. The Democrats are competitive right now in Missouri, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Kentucky, could become that way in North Carolina and possibly Florida, and there’s an outside chance they could get a wild card of their own like Arizona. In most of these races, you either have a Republican (in an anti-establishment year) who is more a part of the establishment than his opponent, primary dynamics that could lead to the selection of an inexperienced or too-conservative candidate, or both.

While Republicans look at present events as political opportunities, reminiscing over their 8 seat Senate gain in 1994, Silver explains that the Party of NO still remains nationally unpopular and much less united this time around as they struggle with their own internal factions like the tea party movement trying to pull candidates even further to the right.

The fact New York was mentioned at all should be a sign that this year organizing has to be stronger, campaigning has to be tighter and we’re all going to have to surpass our previous efforts to get the word out on why we need to keep Democrats in Congress.

Have Cool Videos To Submit?

What does history look like?

In the weeks leading up to the election of Barack Obama, filmmaker Jeff Deutchman wondered just that.  He asked friends around the world to grab their video cameras, still cameras, cell phones, whatever, and record their experiences of 11/4/08, a day that had become “historic” before it had even taken place.  Weaving together the footage that he received, he created Phase One of this transmedia-project, a feature documentary that will world premiere at the prestigious South by Southwest Film Festival this coming March.

The film is finished, but the community surrounding the movie is and will remain interactive.  Phase Two of the project is a website, www.11-4-08.com, that is collecting footage from Election Day.  Users can upload their own footage, and can also download others’ in order to edit their own version of the day.  We see this project as a means through which to reimagine and to democratize the process of writing history: tell your own story!  It doesn’t matter what format it’s in, it doesn’t matter where you were, it doesn’t matter what side you were on: if you shot anything during your waking hours on Election Day, the people at 11/4/08 want your footage!!

The goal is to start re-engaging people in the democratic process – not just by raising awareness of this film – but by encouraging them to upload their own footage to the website to partake in the writing of history.

Contribute your footage!! Click HERE.

Still coming to a hospital near you…

In case you had forgotten, the last Catholic hospital in NYC is still in danger of closing its doors.

St. Vincent’s is the only full-service hospital on the lower West Side.  And, according to the Advocate, was a major player at the epicenter of treating the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980’s.

A phonebank to prevent the closure is scheduled for 5pm today at 101 6th Avenue.

Is Higher Ed a H.M.O’s Biggest Fan ?

On the Times Economix blog, Uwe E. Reinhardt suggests that higher education and heath care might have similarities that inform the health care debate. Reinhardt was on a panel of policy experts during the 1980’s that made recommendations on how Congress should pay physicians who handled Medicare patients. He notes that doctors felt that the H.M.O model did not compensate physicians appropriately for their services.

He then moves on to dissect the doctors’ argument by looking at other goods the public deems vital, specifically education, and asks how those goods would look if they were provided in the same way as heath care.

He writes:

Correctly viewed, a modern university is a prepaid, staff-model, pedagogic group practice – the educational analogue of a staff-model health maintenance organization, or H.M.O., like the Kaiser Permanente Health Plan.

Like H.M.O.’s, which are prepaid an annual capitation for all of an insured person’s medically needed services, universities are prepaid one annual tuition fee for all the pedagogic services going into the education of the student.

But suppose universities operated instead on a piece-rate compensation basis, like the current health system. They would then be merely a pastiche of different pedagogic profit centers, each with its own fee schedules and ownership patterns.

What he describes is not a particular reassuring backdrop to figuring out how to pay for college and although his post does not solve the health care debate, I think that when we apply the same reasoning to higher education that is currently applied to heath care we see how unreasonable it is to argue that we should not reform the way doctors and hospitals currently do business.

Even CEOs Support Campaign Finance Reform

Turns out private citizens aren’t the only ones sick of being shaken down for campaign contributions…

From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON (AP) — About 40 current and former corporate executives have a message for Congress: Quit hitting us up for campaign cash.

In a letter to Congressional leaders on Friday, the executives urged Congress to approve public financing for House and Senate campaigns. They sent the letter a day after the Supreme Court struck down limits on corporate spending in elections.

“Members of Congress already spend too much time raising money from large contributors,” the letter said. “And often, many of us individually are on the receiving end of solicitation phone calls from members of Congress. With additional money flowing into the system due to the court’s decision, the fund-raising pressure on members of Congress will only increase.”

The companies represented by the executives who signed the letter include Playboy Enterprises, the ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s, the Seagram’s liquor company, the toymaker Hasbro, Delta Airlines, Men’s Wearhouse, the Quaker Chemical Corporation, the Brita Products Company, San Diego National Bank, MetLife and Crate and Barrel.

They sent the letter through Fair Elections Now, a coalition of good-government groups that has long lobbied Congress to pass legislation establishing public campaign financing.

A Senate proposal would finance campaigns with a fee on businesses that get $10 million or more in government contracts.

The House would finance it with revenue from auctioning off the television broadcast spectrum, which was opened when the country switched to digital broadcasting.

The Fair Elections Now Act is currently co-sponsored by our very own Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and 5 other Senate Dems.

Click here to sign the Fair Elections Now Act petition.

Do You Believe In Markets? If You Do, PHONE BANK TODAY. If You Don’t, Still PHONE BANK TODAY.

PHONE BANK

A Way To Help Haiti That Won’t Cost You Anything

From our friends at MoveOn:

No Fees on Contributions to Haiti

As the tragedy in Haiti unfolds, Americans are generously donating millions of dollars to aid organizations. But when they donate with their credit cards, the credit card companies take a big cut.

It’s outrageous and wrong–and it needs to stop.

Can you sign our petition to the major credit card processors telling them that they should waive ALL fees on charitable contributions to aid organizations providing help in Haiti.

A compiled petition with your individual comment will be presented to the CEOs of Visa, Mastercard, and Discover.

http://pol.moveon.org/nofeesforhaiti/

Hat Tip: Lee-Sean

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