Following up on our post the other day about City plans to upgrade B44 bus service, I talked to Keith Bray, Deputy Commissioner at the Department of Transportation.
As mentioned earlier, the B44 line along Nostrand and Rogers is slated to be one of the first routes for New York's new bus rapid transit program. Bus rapid transit is expected to dramatically improve commuting time for those who ride the buses every day and make the buses more reliable. But recently, the Nostrand Merchants Association held a protest of the plan to upgrade, expressing concerns that the new bus lane would eliminate parking along Nostrand.
Bray said that his department was planning to sit down with Councilmember Tish James (who represents the district north of Empire; our Councilmember, Mathieu Eugene, has so far been silent on this issue) and the Nostrand Merchants to clarify some misinformation. According to Bray, there's not going to be any massive loss of parking. Select bus service is designed specifically to improve traffic congestion, not add to it. Bray believes that once DOT reps can sit down and openly discuss the plan with elected officials, merchants, and other community members, there's not going to be any serious opposition to it.
That said, the DOT does plan to have several public meetings in the future about the Nostrand buses. At those meetings, it'll be helpful to have bus riders and other community members come out and express support for public transit. We'll be sure to let you know when those happen.
The Straphangers Campaign has given the B44 bus, which runs along Nostrand Avenue, its annual Shleppie Award for being the most unreliable line in the City. And a runner up? The B41, along Flatbush. Both of these buses are likely to be either bunched together or spread far apart over 20% of the time, causing gaps in service.
Unfortunately, the one community effort directed to change the matter only promises to make things worse: the Nostrand Avenue Merchants Assocation organized a protest last week against Department of Transportation efforts to upgrade B44 service. The DOT has been working on a plan to implement a Bus Rapid Transit network, starting with Nostrand and Rogers Avenue. Streetsblog writes:
[Nostrand Avenue Merchants Association president Lindiwe] Kamau takes issue with bus improvements planned for Nostrand because, she claims, dedicated bus lanes will eliminate curbside parking along the corridor. Here's the thing: The most recent renderings of Select Bus Service on Nostrand [PDF] depict buses operating in an existing travel lane. The curbside parking lane would still be there.
[...]
On a typical weekday, more than 40,000 people ride the B44 on the Nostrand corridor. On Saturdays, average ridership is about 29,000. B44 riders can definitely use some relief: They currently depend on the second-most unreliable bus route in the city, according to the Straphangers Campaign. The improvements promised by Select Bus Service -- pre-paid boarding, dedicated travel lanes, signal priority -- would speed trips and enable buses to stick to their schedules.
[...]
When I had asked Kamau why she opposed plans for BRT on Nostrand, the indignities and inconveniences of riding the bus weren't foremost in her thoughts, nor were her own customers' transportation needs. She said merchants already get ticketed for parking their cars on this stretch of Nostrand during the p.m. rush, when the west side of the street is a no-standing zone. "We already have problems with parking," she said. "Our merchants get tickets constantly."
Bill Thompson, Bill de Blasio, and John Liu all came out to a Nostrand Merchants press event to protest the bus line upgrade, which, incidentally, is the kind of short-term thinking that made me not want to vote them (or, at least not in the primaries). In essence, they threw their weight toward a relatively powerful minority--car owners--ignoring the voices of the silent (unorganized) majority. Or, as one commenter put it, "Democrats [made] a huge effort to pander to a single merchant who,
essentially, wants nothing more than to be able to park her own car in
front of her shop."
When we first heard about the possibility of losing a clerk at the Prospect Park station we didn't know how certain it was. Now we know: it is a done deal. Starting on Sunday one of the token booths at the Prospect Park station will be unattended until the MTA gets its financial house in order (read: permanently). I don't know whether the clerk will disappear from the Lincoln Road or Empire Boulevard entrance.
Other local stations losing at least one station attendant are the Church Avenue Q/B and the Newkirk and Brooklyn College 2/5 stations. The full list of citywide station closings is here.
Last week workers from the Transport Workers Union were at the Prospect Park subway station warning that the MTA planned to remove one of the manned booths there. I called MTA customer service to try to confirm, but no one there seemed to know anything about it. And after making several calls in an effort to figure it out, I'm giving up for the time being.
So the Prospect Park station may or may not be among those losing a token booth worker (there are currently two booths, one at each end of the station). If true, it's certainly bad news. Booth attendants not only help people find their way around, their presence may deter crime and, of course, it's nice to know there's someone there in case of an emergency.
The biggest direct impact on my life is that, when attendants are gone, emergency entrances/exits are closed. So getting a stroller or a cart full of groceries on and off the subway platform suddenly becomes a major hassle. (Presumably only one token booth will be closed, so access will remain open at one end of the station, but still....)
That said, I'm not sure booth closings are the worst of it. Fare increases, reduced schedules, and failing infrastructure are no picnic, either. If it were up to me, any protest of MTA cuts would be linked to support for congestion pricing. The money has got to come from somewhere, and it's time for car drivers to pay their fair share.
A combination of the MTA's usual mismanagement and the global financial crisis is conspiring to degrade public transportation citywide. The Daily News reports that the MTA will release a budget tomorrow slashing service on buses and trains, including the complete elimination of the W and Z lines.
Among the planned service cuts is a reduction of service on the B train. The Daily News sidebar says that it will go from every 8 minutes to every 10 minutes on weekends but, as the B doesn't run late nights or weekends, they must have meant weekdays. The J train is also shifting from express to local service, presumably to replace the Z. I mention the J because sometimes - and I've never been able to figure out exactly when - the J will run from Prospect Park to Essex Street. I have no idea if this mysterious service will be affected.
It is hard to look at the dire budget issues facing the MTA and not be angry all over again that congestion pricing was voted down. By falling for the canard that congestion pricing is a tax on the middle class, the State Assembly instead placed a broader tax on the far more numerous New Yorkers that ride the buses and trains. Congestion pricing and the connected federal transportation subsidy would have eased the MTA's budget problems. The money was earmarked for increasing public transportation and instead, we are facing substantial service cuts.
Instead of a forward-thinking transportation plan and financial solvency we are pushing more people towards driving and the MTA may as well have as change its logo to a man wearing a barrel forlornly looking down the track for a train that will never come.
The idea behind para-transit is to use technology to organize a variety of cars, buses, and vans to move people. Unlike the mass transit we know and love, para-transit vehicles don't run on predetermined routes. "Instead, a central computer collects information about requested trips, figures out how best to group passengers, and dynamically dispatches to service the required trips."
Take, for example, the group of people who want to travel from Tribeca to Montclair, NJ around 5:30 PM on a Tuesday. There might be a dozen people who plan to make this trip by car in a 15 minute period. These dozen people might require 8 separate cars for their trips. Instead of 8 separate cars, one large van could fit 12 people and consolidate these 8 vehicles into just one vehicle. The van could make 3 quick stops in Tribeca, pick up all 12 people and head directly to Montclair. Once in Montclair, the van could stop at a couple of central transit points, and then continue directly to some passengers houses.
A commenter on Streetsblog, where the paper was originally posted, pointed out that a simple way of executing this sort of plan would be to enlist taxis (already wired centrally with GPS) and to switch to a zone system, allowing cabs to pick up more than one customer at a time. (They've been doing this in New Jersey for ages and it works well, and it's relatively simple, tech-wise.) On the downside, cab users will need to share rides. On the upside, they'll be more likely to catch a cab when it's raining, rides would be cheaper, and there'd be less traffic.
Anyway, it's an interesting idea and hopefully it's help get pols thinking up new ways to solve traffic congestion and MTA shortfalls.
While strolling down Lincoln Road this weekend we couldn't help but notice that the city bike rack there has been uprooted. I called the DOT to ask them to replace it. The DOT rep said that this particular rack had been run over by a truck and that, as far as he knew, no bikes had been stolen. But it does make you wonder how secure these things really are. It's no secret that bikes have been stolen from broken city racks in other neighborhoods.
All the more reason to encourage any enterprising designers you know to participate in the NYC Department of Transportation's CityRacks Design Competition.
In a speech on Monday, MTA chief Elliot Sander mentioned one possibility for increasing the capacity of New York's subway system: converting a "lightly used Bay Ridge freight line into a subway service that would run in an arc from southern Brooklyn to Queens to the Bronx."
The proposed plan, Triboro RX, would create a new line - the X train - that would run south and east of PLG, hitting other parts of Flatbush. But it would nonetheless be a boon for the area. Triboro RX would ease crowding during rush hour (by decreasing riders coming from the south on the B/Q), help reduce car traffic through large swaths of Brooklyn, and provide alternative routes for residents to get to Queens and the Bronx. Lest you think this no big deal, consider that Brooklyn's population is ever-expanding, and is only expected to rise further still in the foreseeable future.
From maps of the proposed line, it's a bit difficult to see where exactly the X train would intersect with PLG's subway lines. But it looks like it would hit the Q/B around Avenue H; and the 2/5 at Flatbush and Nostrand (Brooklyn Junction).
UPDATE: Frumination has lots more about this. Really, as much as you could possibly want to know: interactive maps, usage projections and GoogleEarth superimposed images. Spectacular stuff. (Via Brooklyn Junction).
Following up on our previous discussion of traffic calming methods, here's a new one that I'd love to see in these parts: the chicane. In addition to slowing down speeding cars, these spaces would add space for plantings, providing a host of environmental benefits.
Of course, car owners who don't pay for parking will be upset about losing a few free parking spaces but, hey, you can't please all the people all the time.
This reminds me: a month or two ago, there was talk of the Lefferts Manor Organization organizing a neighborhood discussion of traffic calming methods. I posted a query about it on the PLG yahoo group and will let you all know if it actually happens...
Now here's a transit reform I could get behind: free subway and bus rides in conjunction with charging cars to drive in Manhattan's Central Business District. Gothamist has an interview with Ted Kheel describing his new study, one of many suggested alternatives to Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan. (See also Kheel's Daily News op-ed.)
The premise of our study is that there is an interrelation between
automobile travel and mass transit travel, so that it is critical to
look at both together to achieve a proper balance. This is what our
city should be doing, but instead, we did it.
Indeed, the City has done such a lousy job of connecting the dots between mass transit and car travel that we're actually headed toward MTA fare hikes!
The possibility of Kheel's plan actually passing is quite remote—the City is more likely to go toward a variant on the proposals to toll the east river bridges—but it's nice to see a counter-plan that increases sustainability for a change.
Recent Comments