Got an e-mail this morning from someone complaining about a new valet parking area at the Palisades Center, in front of the Staples, facing the New York State Thruway.

Reporter David Schepp called over to the mall to check out the valet situation and he found that yes, indeed, there was a new area at that spot, in addition to those on Level 2 of the parking deck and in the underground parking garage.

“We moved the valet parking around a little bit,” mall spokeswoman Ann Marie Dell’Accio said.

Whether the valet area in front of Staples will remain after the holidays isn’t yet clear.

“That I’m not sure of yet,” Dell’Accio said.

What do you think? Should they keep it or can it?

State, county and local officials as well as representatives of businesses will once again get together Monday to discuss solutions to the pressing issues involving the James A. Farley Memorial Bridge on Route 9W in Stony Point.

The meeting is to follow up the ideas that came out of the Aug. 7 meeting, initiated by state Sen. Thomas Morahan.

“My role here is to make sure that they are all on the same page, they are all working together, and they all know what their needs are,” Morahan said, referring to the different parties who need to cooperate to solve the problem, at the Republican headquarters that opened this morning.

The state Department of Transportation has banned vehicles — trucks, buses, fire engines — heavier than 20,000 pounds, or 10 tons, from using the bridge, a major route for commercial traffic, since July 3 as a result of an in-depth inspection that revealed corrosion on the steel structure of the 85-year-old span.

The DOT is currently working on bridge repairs mainly on weekends to try to make the bridge available for heavier vehicles. But the state agency made it clear that the vehicles heavier than 80,000 pounds, or 40 tons, would never be able to cross the bridge until the bridge is replaced.

At the Aug. 7 meeting, ideas such as possibly creating a detour for trucks heavier than 80,000 pounds and expediting the planned replacement project of the bridge, although the bridge might have to be shut for nearly a year.

Confusion abounded this morning, the first rush hour affected by the Coach USA / Short Line bus strike.

Why?

Well, for starters, the bus company didn’t advertise to its customers that there might be a strike.

Then, many folks who read our article yesterday about the strike the other day were confused by it, and I can understand some of the confusion: Several bus lines that ferry commuters between Rockland and New York City are owned by Coach USA. Short Line is only one of them. Red and Tan weren’t affected by the strike, for example.

But, as noted in the article, drivers and others with other Coach USA lines weren’t going to cross the metaphorical picket line and take over driving the Short Line routes.

They did, however, continue to honor their own contracts and drive their own routes.

Check out our article in tomorrow’s paper for continued updates on the strike.

UPDATE: Coach USA/Short Line bus drivers went on strike as of 12:01 am this morning, forcing the company to cancel transportation into Manhattan for nearly 1,000 Rockland commuters.

About 240 drivers, mechanics and ticket agents who belong to Local 225 of the Transport Workers Union of America  failed to reach a contract with Hudson Transit Lines, a Coach USA subsidiary.

The strike would affect about 750 commuters who use Coach USA’s Express service from the Exit 14 park and ride lot in Nanuet and another 250 or so who catch Short Line buses from Suffern to midtown and downtown.

For more information call the CoachUSA at 800-631-8405 or go to www.coachusa.com/shortline for bus schedules for working routes.

In preparation for the bus strike, the MTA’s Metro-North Railroad and the New York state Department of Transportation released their plan to help ferry commuters into the city.

Here’s the news from MTA:

In the face of a potential strike by employees of Coach USA/Short Line bus company at midnight tonight, MTA Metro-North Railroad is making plans to increase service on the Port Jervis Line, the Newburgh to Beacon bus and the Newburgh to Beacon ferry.

Starting Friday morning, NJTRANSIT will be prepared to operate two extra trains from Suffern to relieve overcrowding through the end of the strike. On Friday only – one extra train from Harriman will operate if needed to accommodate any overcrowding. And in the afternoon NJTransit will add a car to the 4:08 p.m. from Hoboken due Port Jervis at 6:14 p.m.

There is available parking at all Port Jervis Line stations from Harriman to Middletown.

On Tuesday, NJTRANSIT will be prepared to operate two extra trains from Suffern through the end of the strike in the AM peak.

On Tuesday, Metro-North also will add extra Newburgh-Beacon ferry service connecting to Beacon station on the Hudson Line. For a ferry schedule please check the MTA web site noted below.

The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) will be adding additional bus service through its contract with the Newburgh Beacon Bus Shuttle serving Route 17K Park and Ride in Orange County and the Metro-North Beacon train station. NYSDOT will also provide available updated traveler information at www.trips123.com and www.travelinfony.com.

Additional information will be available at mta.info

I reminded you this morning that work to move a gas main under Route 59 in Central Nyack was starting today and would continue for a couple weeks.

Guess what? Once Orange & Rockland Utilities tore up the road to get to its gas main that was supposed to have been causing drainage problems in the Central Nyack neighborhood near Nyack Lumber Yard and the entrance to and exit from the New York State Thruway, crews discovered the pipe was not the culprit, after all.

Turns out, O&R said today, the area around the culvert was “jammed with hardened mud and debris.” The main wasn’t even inside the culvert.

So O&R will repave the road tomorrow and all lanes will open by day’s end.

Will drivers have to be inconvenienced at some other time for the state Department of Transportation to clean out the culvert? (Route 59 is a state road and so the DOT has responsibility for its maintenance.) Or, it may be the Nyack Water Co.’s repsonsibility.

Stay tuned.

Starting at 8:30 this morning, two westbound lanes on Route 59 will be closed near the Mountainview Avenue entrance to the New York State Thruway in Central Nyack. As a result, traffic will be down to one lane in each direction for a half-mile stretch daily for two or three weeks. Work each weekday will end no later than 7 p.m.

We ran a story about the project last week, which you can download as a pdf here.

Officials suggest using other entrances and avoiding Exit 11 if at all possible.

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Thanks for your feedback about the new Nyack meters, which I blogged about here last week. Readers wrote and called to tell me they were ticked off that the meters were installed with little notice and no signage, and that they got tickets anyway.

Nyack’s Mayor John Shields believes that new signs, installed Friday, will put an end to the meter mess. See story here: Nyack hopes signs will clear up confusion.

In a sorta mea culpa, Shields said: “I’m very sorry this happened. I know it’s a difficult transition period, and at this point there is nothing I can do.”

Read the story and tell me, what do you think of the apology?

The Nyack Parking Authority says it didn’t have to bid for $424,900 in new parking meters because Parkeon Inc. was the only company that met its needs by offering full credit card processing without the need for additional equipment and staff.

But leaders in the parking meter industry say it’s not true. Executives from other multi-space meter companies say they offer the exact same services as Parkeon and were shocked that the NPA said Parkeon was a “sole-source provider.”

The NPA isn’t the only culprit there. The village also bought two meters for $23,605 without competitive bidding. But only the NPA is named in a related lawsuit.

Read the story here: No bids for Nyack parking meters

I will continue to follow up on this story. In the meantime, what are your thoughts on this issue?

The Watcher is interested in knowing if there are potholes in your neighborhood that you’ve reported to the municipal highway department, and that have gone unfixed.

Burt Singer of Pomona always thought that more parking spaces should be available at Pomona Village Hall when it serves as a polling site. He thought many residents might shy away from casting their votes because of the difficult parking situation there.

Through his observation, Singer realized that on an election day, election workers seemed to take up most of the spots in the small Village Hall parking lot. He thought election workers should park their cars in other locations so that voters can use more parking spaces.

To make the plan work, Singer offered his help in giving lifts for election workers who park their cars at the Hindu temple’s parking lot.

Singer said Mayor Nick Sanderson gladly accepted Singer’s offer, and Village Clerk Lisa Thorsen would help Singer.
So on Super Tuesday, voters should have a better chance to find a parking spot at the village hall.

Raphael Ziegler, chairman of the Rockland County Taxi and Livery Coalition, said he’s disappointed that legislators once again tabled a proposal to make Rockland County the sole licensing agency for taxis, limousines and the like.

Legislator Ilan Schoenbeger, D-Wesley Hills, and Vice Chairman William Darden, D-Hillcrest, said at last night’s meeting that more time was needed for discussions with Spring Valley, which does not want the county’s plan to mean a crush of new taxis operating in the village.

“I think Spring Valley had plenty of time to work this out,” Ziegler said. “I think they should have done this a long time ago.”

The plan was first introduced in the spring of 2006. To become the county’s sole licensing agency, the county needs home-rule legislation from the state. Currently, state law allows towns and villages to license livery service companies on their own.

If you haven’t already, check out part one of our Year In Review below.

Part 2:

Download:

Links to related articles:

Rockland’s top stories of 2007

Download:

Links to related articles:

Ramapo supervisor overdue on property taxes
Spring Valley woman charged with ripping off immigrants
Baby Jesus statue stolen in Nyack
Builder delays Thiells housing complex
MTA approves fare and toll increase

Nyack’s dollar-per-hour priority zone isn’t happening after all.

The Village Board decided last night to reverse its vote to increase in parking from 25 cents to $1 in busy parts of downtown along Main Street and Broadway. The board made its decision after getting a deluge of complaints from business owners and residents about the price hike. Read the story here.

Still, there will be some increase. The cost of meters will go up to 50 cents an hour starting sometime in January, whenever the village installs new muni-meters.

Could this be the end of the Nyack Parking Authority?

The NPA has decided to suspend all activity, for now. The NPA says it will not do business until it settles a legal agreement with the village giving it authority over the marina and parking – if they settle.

The NPA and Village Board have butted heads for months now. The mayor was angry that the NPA demolished a shed in the marina without village permission over the summer, leading to a spat over who has power over what. Some residents have also complained the the NPA acts without accountability to the public.

The mayor asked Nyack’s attorney and the Village Board to reexamine the NPA’s lease agreement and to think about curbing the agency’s powers.

The final straw seemed to come on Friday, when the mayor pulled support of a new dollar-per-hour parking rate after getting a deluge of complaints from merchants. Don’t think the NPA was too happy about that. The NPA has been pressing for the price hike and other parking changes all year long.

NPA announced it would suspend activity on Monday.

The Nyack Village Board’s decision to raise the cost of parking meters has sparked lots of a local outrage. People are complaining up and down Nyack that the increase — from 25 cents to 50 cents an hour, or one dollar an hour in the “priority zone” — is a bad idea. They don’t want to shell out the extra money.

This issue has been debated for more than a year and the price hike is supposed to kick in on Jan. 1. Seems a little late to weigh in now.

Oh, but it’s not. In fact, Mayor John Shields has been swamped with complaints and is rethinking his vote. On Thursday, he will ask the Village Board to repeal the $1 an hour increase, but keep the 50 cent hike in place.

The price hike is one of a couple of parking changes that have been debated back and forth. There’s been lots of talk, lots of fighting between the Village Board and the Parking Authority, and lots of confusion about what changes will take place and when.

Things are about to get murkier.

It’s December, and that means we’re gearing up for the annual Year in Review, a look at the 10 biggest news stories in Rockland in 2007.

The main criteria we look at is that the news has to be Rockland-specific, so the war in Iraq would not qualify, but news regarding the criminal military case stemming from the fragging death of U.S. Army Capt. Phillip Esposito would.

We’d love your thoughts and suggestions. Some stories we’re looking at so far, in no particular order:

• Election defeats of District Attorney Michael Bongiorno and Haverstraw Mayor Francis “Bud” Wassmer.

• Wyeth Pharmaceuticals celebrates 100 years in Pearl River.

• The rabbi banned from baking matzos on a converted bus in his backyard.

• Rats, roaches in Clarkstown North.

• Scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades share in the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.

Twenty-five cents for an hour for parking? It was too good to last.

Come Jan. 1, drivers in Nyack will have to pony up 50 cents to park for an hour, and $1 for an hour in the busiest parts of Main Street and Broadway which the village is calling its “priority zone.”

The price hike became official last week after a vote by the Village Board, following a year of back and forth discussion and debate.

At least drivers won’t have to worry about lugging a bag of quarters. The village is installing new pay & display multi-meters, which will take bills, coins and credit cards.

Nyack officials say the price hike won’t deter visitors because the business district is so appealing. What do you think?

I wrote a story for Sunday’s paper on a group of West Nyack residents and businessmen who came up with some largescale solutions to eliminate flooding on Route 59. In the story, I mentioned some “choke points” they described. Basically, it’s where railroad trestles, culverts or bridges could be widened and/or heightened to allow more water to flow underneath during a storm. Here’s a graphic with specific locations that didn’t make it into the paper:

If you want to read the story, you can find it here.

By the way, just a reminder that the meeting on flooding issues in Clarkstown is still on for Thursday, Sept. 20 at Clarkstown Town Hall at 1 p.m. The meeting is open to the public so anyone else with flooding concerns is encouraged to talk about them there!

Seniors who need transportation to medical appointments within the county can get a voucher for up to $6 each way. The county’s Office for the Aging is sponsoring the program and is contracting with the Rockland Taxi Company to provide the service.

Vouchers can be picked up at the office, in Building B of the Dr. Robert L. Yeager Health Complex in Ramapo (everyone calls it Pomona because of the ZIP, but it’s not within the village’s boundaries), betwee 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. They also can be mailed to residents homes.

Those receiving the vouchers must be at least 60 and must provide proof of residency.

The New York State Office for the Aging provided a $13,352 grant to the county for the program, which is similar to one in Suffern and at the Montebello Commons complex. Seniors living in those areas are asked to keep using those programs.

Want to know more? Call the Rockland Office for the Aging at 845-364-2108.

The Watcher’s looking into a complaint about potholes on a Spring Valley street.

Are there others out there that are both annoying and put motorists at risk?

I’m not talking about little potholes, but those larger ones that appear year after year, and never get more than a patching that works loose.

The people of South Nyack are particularly interested in the fate of the Tappan Zee Bridge. The darn thing’s so close to their homes that they can practically set up toll booths in their back yards.

So it’s no surprise that candidates seeking office in the March 20 elections put the bridge’s future at the top of their watch lists.

Read about South Nyack and other village elections at:

www.lohud.com/elections/airmont

www.lohud.com/elections/chestnutridge

www.lohud.com/elections/grandview

www.lohud.com/elections/montebello

www.lohud.com/elections/pomona

www.lohud.com/elections/southnyack

www.lohud.com/elections/uppernyack

Parking. Any mention of word in Nyack will get a strong reaction — it’s practically a bad word in the village. Meters, a garage, employee parking , tickets and walking — all hot topics.

The Chamber of Commerce of the Nyacks recently threw its opinion into the heated discussion. Earlier this week, the Board of Directors of the chamber called plans for downtown parking “flawed� and asked the village board to delay any implementation until news signs are installed, employee parking arranged and advanced public notice given.

The chamber’s board unanimously passed this resolution at its meeting earlier this week.

It reads:

“Resolved that the proposed plan for downtown parking in its present form is flawed and its implementation should be delayed until the new ‘muni’ meters and signage are installed, alternate employee parking has been arranged and adequate information and advance notice has been provided to the public.�

A memo was circulated by the chamber executive director, Lorie Reynolds.

What’s the village board to do? Delay an already long process or proceed and anger a lot of business owners.

There’s always the status quo.

So, what do you think?

I’ve been wanting to use both acronyms in one sentence since the six proposals for the Tappan Zee Bridge were unveiled this month. There. Got that out of my system.

Photo by Seth Harrison/The Journal News

In tomorrow’s paper, readers will get their first in-depth look at what Bus Rapid Transit is and what it would be on the TZ Bridge.

The Cliffs Notes version:

• The buses travel in their own lanes (and therefore don’t get snarled in regular tie-ups).

• As the buses approach an intersection, the driver can cause the traffic signal to turn from red to green.

• Stops are limited, when compared with traditional buses.

In other words, they’re more like a train than a bus, but rails and other related structures don’t have to be built to accommodate them.

Tomorrow’s story is part of our ongoing series of stories to let readers know what is happening with the Tappan Zee Bridge and what the options are to either fix it or replace it. Two of the six options include BRT. Two options don’t include anything really new — one is maintenance and the other is rebuilding about 2/3 of the bridge, but no mass transit options would be added in either case. The other two options include commuter and/or light rail.

We’ll be addressing these other options on down the road (rimshot, please). Meanwhile, check out our page on the LoHud.com website, The Road Ahead.