One Stop, One Bidder

Remember, $2 billion would buy many, many buses — maybe enough to make commuting more attractive even*:

The $2 billion plan to extend the no. 7 subway line has received only one bid for what is likely the project’s biggest contract, a factor that could weaken the state’s ability to leverage a low-cost final agreement.

The group that submitted the bid for the tunneling was a venture including one of the most active builders in the city, Skanska USA, which has received hundreds of millions in city and state contracts in recent years. Skanska’s projects in the region include the PATH hub at ground zero, construction of the Croton Water Filtration Plant, a contract worth more than $1 billion, and work on the Delaware Aqueduct water tunnel.

“It’s not ideal to only have one,” the executive director of the New York City Transit Riders Council, William Henderson, said. “This is a good chunk of the money for the project, and my understanding is, more importantly, it’s the part where you don’t have a good a hold on what the price is going to be.”

. . .

The no. 7 line extension, which will run 1.5 miles between Times Square and the southern end of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, lacks any guarantee of funding beyond the $2 billion committed by the city. Given that rising construction costs could contribute to cost overruns, transit advocates have expressed concerns about the project, which the city has pegged as a key driver in its effort to spur development on the West Side.

*Like John Liu says (in the headline at least), mass transit is better than congestion pricing.

The Live Poultry Escape Clause: You Make It, You’re Safe Then

The cow who bolted is the latest animal to find amnesty at the Farm Sanctuary upstate:

A Queens bovine who turned city cops into cowboys is heading for her new home – the sprawling Farm Sanctuary in upstate Watkins Glen.

“Their working days are over when they get here,” said Wendy Hankle of the animals in the sanctuary.

She said the cow — who is living temporarily in an Animal Care and Control shelter — will be named “Maxine” once she gets to the shelter, a five-hour drive away.

While nobody has claimed the cow, Patrick Kwan, of the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals, said Maxine likely escaped from a slaughterhouse.

“She’ll now be able to live her life and not end up as somebody’s steak,” he said.

“The cow is in custody,” deadpanned Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. “The Emergency Service officers, they’re used to corralling all sorts of different wildlife.”

Axle-F’ed: Remind Me Again Why Semis Need Those Nifty Double Tires — Is It Only So There’s A Backup In Case One Spins Away And Slams Into Us?

This is like my worst nightmare:

A massive double-tire flew off a moving big rig Tuesday evening on the Lower East Side, hurtling onto the sidewalk and striking a jogger.

The rolling tire also damaged an FDNY call box and shattered the plate-glass window of a Dunkin’ Donuts.

. . .

The tire “was going fast. The truck was going fast, too,” said passerby David Ferron, who called police after witnessing the incident at First Avenue and Sixth Street. “He was speeding down the street.”

The truck, an 18-wheel tractor-trailer, had not returned to the scene nearly a half hour after the jogger was struck about 8 p.m., Ferron said.

Police at the scene said the truck driver stopped several blocks up First Avenue, when he realized two of his tires were missing.

There You Go Again

This is fancified lawyerspeak for what exactly? A cab driver’s right to unencumbered privacy? Who knows:

Officials with a taxi-driver advocacy group and the Taxi & Limousine Commission are slated to meet today with a federal judge after the drivers’ group filed a class action lawsuit Wednesday to keep global positioning technology out of the city’s 13,000 yellow cabs.

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which orchestrated a two-day strike earlier this month, and eight individual drivers filed the suit against the commission, saying the GPS technology is unconstitutional. A lawyer for the plaintiffs said the opposing parties were to meet in court Thursday at noon.

If no resolution is reached, cabbies may strike again, the alliance said.

. . .

Of the eight individual plaintiffs, six allege that they refused to sign a contract with one of four vendors of the GPS technology. They now face costly penalties and suspension of their medallions, according to the suit. The other two argue they would have to pay for the equipment even though one leases the cab, and the other owns his cab but not the medallion.

“We will fight any attempt by the TLC to encumber our client’s property without due process or which violates our client’s right to privacy under the guise of improving taxi service,” Richard Koehler, the alliance’s attorney, said in a statement.

Tom Robbins outlined some legitimate sounding reasons to oppose the GPS requirement — so how come we get platitudes about privacy rights? They should stick with the facts, assuming that what Robbins reported is correct:

After cab owners began installing the devices in their taxis this year, drivers noted other problems as well: The gadgets often didn’t work. Apparently, there were blackout areas in the city where the credit-card machinery failed to kick in. This resulted in the taxi meters instantly shutting down as well. In the taxi business, a nonworking meter is the equivalent of a “closed” sign hanging in a restaurant window.

. . .

One of the approved vendors, a startup New Jersey firm, has had no experience in taxis or anything else. Another is a Queens company that already services taxi meters and whose wireless credit-card units were panned when originally introduced. Another firm is co-owned by Ronald Sherman, the head of the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, the group that represents the powerful taxi-fleet owners. When the commission originally said it was going to make the equipment mandatory in all cabs, Sherman complained at a public hearing that it would be too expensive. Then he realized that wouldn’t be a problem if he started his own company to provide the units. This he promptly did. Amazingly, his was one of those the commission approved.

The commission’s experts never even examined the product of a British company, Cabvision, whose credit-card and wireless-communication units are already working in 1,000 London taxis. The British proposal was especially intriguing because it offered to provide and install the units for free, just as it does in London.

Unfortunately, the Cabvision proposal was rejected after it was deemed to have missed the deadline. Company owners protested that they’d been assured by taxi-commission officials that a one-day delay in transoceanic mail wouldn’t be a problem. Then it turned out that the agency’s chief contracting officer had opened and read the proposal, even though it is against all the rules to do so once a submission has been rejected for tardiness. Commission officials apologized for the slipup and promised to send the proposal back. When last heard from, the British firm was still waiting for the package.

Yeah, Uh, We’ll Give You Forty Bucks For It*

This should be profitable, right? Or not:

All 277 underground stations in the subway system are to be wired for cellphone use, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced yesterday.

But riders may have to talk fast, because the subway tunnels will not be wired, out of consideration for riders who do not want to be stuck in a subway car full of chattering cellphone users.

The company that won the right to wire the stations, Transit Wireless, will pay New York City Transit a minimum of $46.8 million over 10 years, the agency said. The company will also pay the full cost of building the wireless network in the underground stations, estimated at $150 million to $200 million.

Under the agreement, cellphone providers would pay the company a fee to carry their signals on the network.

. . .

Transit Wireless is a joint venture involving Nab Construction, Q-Wireless, Dianet Communications and Transit Technologies. Nab Construction and Transit Technologies have done other large-scale construction projects in the subway system, and Dianet has been involved in designing and installing cellphone antenna systems in buildings and airports. Q-Wireless makes software for wireless systems.

Transit officials said they chose Transit Wireless in part because it offered to pay more to the authority than the others. One bidder, American Tower, offered a total 10-year payment of $6.2 million. A consortium of the major cellphone providers, including Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, offered a total payment over 10 years of just $40, according to a summary of the deal that will be provided to the authority’s board members. (A transit official said the figure was not a typo.)

Transit Wireless initially made an offer of $34.4 million, but it increased the offer during negotiations.

*Hey — four dollars a year could feed one of Sally Struthers’ peeps though, yes?