Display of Georgia progress at the Welcome Center on I-85, near the South Carolina border

Big news out of Georgia. Governor Sonny Perdue, who in the past would have been about as likely to advocate for transit as to take his iced tea without sugar, is suddenly interested in commuter rail links between Atlanta and the 'burbs. Very interested, it seems. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:

Until now, no amount of begging or pleading seemed to get Gov. Perdue’s attention, much less his leadership.

Yet, last Thursday, there was the governor holding a news conference with all the transportation players in his office, speaking words that regional and state leaders have wanted to hear throughout his administration.

“Let’s move out aggressively,” Perdue said. “Once I’ve made up my mind, I’m usually impatient.”

How out of it was Perdue? This is the same man who, when Hurricane Katrina briefly interrupted fuel supplies in 2005, leading panicked drivers to line up at convenience store pumps all over the state, shut down the public schools for two days in order to save gas.

A study released today by Transportation Alternatives puts the congestion and waste caused by cheap metered parking in stark terms. The report, "Driven to Excess" [PDF], quantifies just how far Upper West Side drivers go in search of open spots: 366,000 miles a year, or about the distance from Earth to the moon.

The Post picked up the story this morning, making the connection between parking rates and traffic congestion:

"There are literally tens of millions of unnecessary miles driven in New York City every year because we've made such a mess of metered parking," said Paul Steeley [sic] White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives.

The major reason, of course, is that street parking in the area is comparatively a bargain - $1.50 an hour compared to $10 to $15 in private garages.

The organization recommended that the city impose graduated parking rates as it has done in Midtown commercial districts, where truckers pay $2 for the first hour, $5 for the second and $9 for the third.

On Tuesday WNYC's Brian Lehrer asked listeners to send in their suggestions for future "Summer Streets" locations. Responses -- which included Flatbush Avenue, one tube of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, and the Henry Hudson Parkway -- were mapped here.

Other picks?

Desperate times call for desperate measures. As part of a city-wide campaign to reduce speeding, Philadelphia is marking 100 intersections with painted-on faux speed humps, like the ones pictured above. Britain's Telegraph reports:

"The goal is to change the mindset," said Philadelphia's chief traffic engineer Charles Denny.

"The driver sees this in the roadway, and they think that it's some protrusion up out of the roadway, and not a perfectly flat surface. So they slow down before they drive over it."

Accident data will be collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to see if the pioneering scheme actually does make the roads safer.

The virtual humps are the latest innovative measure adopted as an alternative to traditional "sleeping policemen", which have been criticised for damaging cars, slowing down emergency vehicles, and lowering fuel economy.

We admire the Engwichtian spirit here, but It's not immediately clear how much of an impact virtual speed humps will have on drivers who, for example, pass over them more than once. And they don't sound nearly as much fun as the laser crosswalk wall, or this one:

Rubber speed humps that inflate only when a speeding vehicle approaches have been successfully tested in London.

Streetsbloggers, what say you? 

Photo: Telegraph

Our coverage of the Toward Carfree Cities conference continues with this Streetfilm from Elizabeth Press, who brings us a unique public service project.

Hundreds of conference participants helped break and remove asphalt from a 3,000 square foot parking lot. Depave.org is the mastermind behind the Fargo Garden Project. They promote the removal of unnecessary concrete and asphalt from urban areas. Depave.org will continue to work with Goldsmith Properties to transform this now asphalt-free site into a community greenspace. Once completed, the site will be used to educate the public about pavement removal and storm water drainage management.

A source sends along this roll call of the State Assembly transportation committee's vote on bus-mounted enforcement cameras. The names come from the official record; whether the record accurately reflects who raised a hand and who didn't is not certain, for reasons explained below. Note that the vote was on whether to table the bill, so "Yes" actually means "No" to better bus lane enforcement. You can match names to districts here.

YES: (14)
Gantt, Lafayette, Weisenberg, Hoyt, Perry, DelMonte, Latimer, Lupardo, Alessi, Gabryszak, Hyer-Spencer, Titone, Schimel, Spano.

NO: (11)
Cusick, Millman, R. Diaz, Maisel, McDonough, Thiele, Bacalles, Errigo, Reilich, Giglio, Tobacco.

Among the "Yes" column, Lafayette, Perry, Hyer-Spencer, and Titone represent districts in the five boroughs.

Multiple sources told Streetsblog that the vote was held soon after committee chair David Gantt called the meeting, at around two in the afternoon. They described a rushed scene in which advocates and legislators were scrambling to make it to the room where the meeting was held. The location of committee meetings is not known, even to legislators, until the chair announces it.

Not everyone on the committee made it in time for the vote. According to parliamentary rules, the votes of absent members are automatically counted as "Yes" votes. There is some time between the committee vote -- in this case, a show of hands -- and the official recording of the roll call. During this gap, one source told us, legislators can change how their vote is recorded, but the tally of the committee vote cannot be altered.

That clears things up, right?

Readers emailing their Assembly reps to voice displeasure with Albany's opacity might consider copying their messages to Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Photo: julieleone/Flickr

In another PR coup for the MTA, board members yesterday asserted their worthiness for free toll and transit passes, a perk deemed illegal by State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and unseemly by virtually everyone who isn't a present or former board member. Vice Chair David Mack (pictured), a well-to-do Long Island developer, puts it in perspective for us:

"We're invaluable," Mr. Mack said, speaking to reporters during a break between meetings of two board committees that he heads, one on the Long Island Rail Road and Long Island Bus and the other on the authority's bridges and tunnels.

"If you saw something and called it in, it goes right there," he added, as he put his foot on top of a wastebasket. "When the normal public calls it in, you know what happens with the bureaucracy, they don't get the response that a board member would get."

But Mr. Mack, a Long Island resident who says he typically rides the railroad 5 to 10 times a year, said that if he had to pay, he might change his habits.

"Why should I ride and inconvenience myself when I can ride in a car?" he said.

Similarly, he said, without free E-ZPasses, some board members might use the city's free bridges and avoid the authority's tolled bridges and tunnels.

Mr. Mack also questioned Mr. Cuomo's motives on the issue.

"What he's trying to do was strictly a soap box, where it looks good to the common people," Mr. Mack said.

As the board heads for a potential split vote -- if not a conflict with the state -- Mack's enlightening comments, in addition to grabbing headlines, have prompted a call from the City Council for him to explain himself or else step down from the board.

We hate to pile on more bad news today, but these tipster-submitted photos of the Brooklyn Ikea grand opening bear witness to the onslaught of traffic about to engulf Red Hook. Apparently, the cars queuing up for cheaply-constructed furniture are stretching the store's 1,400 parking spaces to the max (which would explain why Ikea thought it necessary to annex the old Revere Sugar refinery lot next door). Judging from this anecdotal evidence, Red Hook will not only be subject to the 17,000 car trips projected for peak days, but most of those vehicles will be of the huge, extra-cargo-hauling variety.

One shopper, at least, braved the trip on a bike, despite the fact that Ikea's website doesn't supply directions to cyclists. His picture comes after the jump.

Next Thursday, artist Olaf Eliasson's much-anticipated "New York City Waterfalls" installation will debut along the East River. The project, as elegantly described in this week's New Yorker, "features four tall, widely separated, openwork steel towers housing powerful pumps that will pull river water up to a high basin and send it cascading down again, continuously, from seven in the morning until ten at night, through mid-October."

There will be one waterfall each near the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, one off the Brooklyn Heights promenade, and one off Governors Island. If you want to see all four by bike, DOT has you covered with its "Bike the Falls" guide, featuring a map to viewing points along with written directions to lanes and paths along the route. Road markings will also be in place. Check it out.

Legislation central to New York City's implementation of Bus Rapid Transit died in Albany yesterday, when the State Assembly transportation committee, chaired by Rochester Democrat David Gantt (right), defeated a bill authorizing bus-mounted enforcement cameras by a narrow 14-11 vote. Another traffic enforcement bill, which makes it easier to issue tickets for blocking the box, did make it through the committee.

"It's really outrageous that after a year of pretty unanimous agreement about New York's congestion problem, that all we're left with is don't block the box," said Wiley Norvell of Transportation Alternatives. "It's pretty sad when that's the best Albany can do."

Without bus-mounted enforcement cameras, which have proven successful in London, getting transit up to speed on DOT's five planned BRT routes faces significant hurdles. "It's going to make it a lot harder to move buses faster through the city, without camera enforcement of the lanes," said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign. "It's going to hurt this experiment with Select Bus Service."

Transit and environmental advocates arrived at the state capitol yesterday optimistic that the bill, introduced by Manhattan Democrat Jonathan Bing, would get through committee. "We had the votes, we had the support, especially from Assemblyman Bing, who put in a lot of effort," said Josh Nachowitz of the New York League of Conservation Voters. "Unfortunately, the chairman was completely opposed to it, and used the legislative process to send it to defeat."

From Streetsblog regular BicyclesOnly comes this shot of construction work going on now at Madison Square. More photos here, and here is DOT's project presentation. When complete, the renovation -- one of two planned for Broadway this summer -- will reclaim over 37,000 sq. ft. of public space from auto traffic.

The World Carfree Network's Towards Carfree Cities conference is underway in Portland, Oregon this week. Now in its eight year, it's the first time the event has come to North America. Streetsblog EIC Aaron Naparstek made the trip, along with others from The Open Planning Project Livable Streets crew.

TOPP's Nick Grossman is live-blogging the conference, and if we can get Aaron off his rental bike we'll have coverage on Streetsblog as well.

Photo: Nick Grossman