The choices behind the decision
Major infrastructure decisions are usually settled by assumptions the public never sees.
I find those assumptions, test them against the record, and make the real choices visible — for Penn Station and through-running, highway removal, congestion pricing, and the infrastructure fights shaping the New York region.
Commentary and analysis featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and other outlets. Media and public commentary.
Selected work
All projects-
Capacity planning scopeService optimization studyConsultant scopes and contractsRecords productionsComparison of operating assumptions
Penn Station expansion and through-running
Agency studies, consultant scopes, and capacity claims compared to determine whether through-running and operating reform received a credible test before expansion was treated as the default solution.
Records, operating analysisView project
-
Public space along the BQE corridor
Concept images showing the triple cantilever reused for walking, cycling, surface transit, and reclaimed land, drawn against the structure's real constraints and shown publicly beside the baseline rebuild.
Concept images, policyView project
-
0.51%–1.78%
Share of a district's commuters
liable for the tollWho actually pays the congestion toll
Census journey-to-work data joined to every legislative district in New York and New Jersey, narrowed to drivers entering Manhattan below 60th Street, then published as a fact sheet for each one.
Public data, district analysisView project
How I work
Records research, technical analysis, and visualization, treated as one sequence rather than three separate specialties — most projects need all of it before an alternative is credible enough to put in front of the public.
Obtain the record
Public-records requests, contracts, consultant scopes, property and permit files, capital schedules. Filed as a coordinated set rather than one letter at a time, so the administrative sequence can be reconstructed instead of guessed at.
Test the claim
Compare what the documents say against what agencies say in public: capacity figures, ridership methods, cost models, ownership and jurisdiction. Where the record supports the public claim, say so. Where it does not, show the gap — and check whether the alternative was actually tested, or just listed.
Make the choice visible
Turn the finding into something people outside the process can use: a scene drawn from the site's real conditions, an alternative beside the proposal from the same viewpoint, a district fact sheet, a map that answers a resident's own question.
The region already owns most of the rail network it needs. The immediate task is to operate it as one system.
Frequent all-day service, integrated fares, and through-running at Penn Station are service and governance problems before they are construction problems. That order — organization, then technology, then concrete — runs through most of this work.
Recent writing
Read all writing- Jul 2026How the MTA, Amtrak, and NJ TRANSIT Built—and Failed to Sustain—Regional Rail to the MeadowlandsA history of the agencies' on-again, off-again service to the Meadowlands, and what it says about building infrastructure without a plan to operate it.Read
- Oct 2025What is the Penn Station Capacity Improvements Project (PCIP)?An explainer on the Penn Station Capacity Improvements Project, what it actually builds, and what it leaves unresolved.Read
- Jun 2022From Here to There: Regional Rail for Metro New YorkTri-State Transportation Campaign. Frequent all-day service, fare integration, and through-running at Penn Station. Covered by Bloomberg CityLab.Read
Questions, corrections, or work
If something is about to be decided, it helps to see it first.
I work with civic organizations, newsrooms, research teams, public-interest clients, and planning coalitions that need a proposal explained, a record reconstructed, or an alternative made visible before the decision closes.