Streetsblog New York City

If Horodniceanu supports congestion pricing and light rail, he sounds very promising to me!

I suppose that they’ve worked out how Dr. H will divorce himself from the dozens of contracts his company currently has with city DOT.

Also note that everyone who *used* to be a DOT commish favors bridge tolling and congestion pricing, neckdowns, protected bicycle lanes etc.

Forgive me if I am sceptical that the guy who was in charge of DOT traffic operations during an era in which it was even less progressive or effective than it is now, is going to be the standard bearer for a new reform era. Consider that on Horodniceanu’s first watch about twice as many pedestrians a year were being killed in a city that had about a million fewer people.

The DOT doesn’t need a boss who knows how to move the most cars, it needs someone who has a vision of where the city should be going, and how transportation helps get us there. It needs someone who understands the idea of a hierarchy of street uses with pedestrians first, then cyclists, transit, commercial vehicles and private cars last. That’s right, a hierarchy, not a “balance.” The livable streets transformation underway in London and Paris stems from the vision of their mayors and their top aides, not the genius of their traffic engineers.

I’m also sceptical that Iris Weinshall was single handedly styming the livable streets vision of her Deputy Mayor boss Dan Doctoroff. Does anyone really think that this surpressed vision will now be released by Mike Primeggia’s predecessor, good friend, and major DOT contractor Mike Horodniceanu?

It also seems unlikely that Commissioner H will be the leader to articulate a new vision and forge coalitions with the community groups, advocates and others long at odds with DOT.

Nor does he seem suited to mobilizing business and environmental supporters of congestion pricing or even major on-street parking reforms.

In sum, I think Doctoroff has badly misread what DOT needed: which was an urbanist with solid transportation policy knowledge, who also has the political savvy, consensus building skills and vision to move the agency beyond traffic flow and street maintenance.

If he only is worried about cars and traffic it is scary as there is a lot more to DOT than just this as the Staten Island Ferry accident proved.

As for the Conflicts of Interests…Bloomberg and those attorneys in the city council had no problems with this so why would he?

A quick internet search for Urbitran projects/studies yielded these results:

New York City:

A formal study ordered by the city has essentially cleared the way for the largest taxicab-fleet expansion in nearly 70 years. It concluded that adding 900 cabs over the next three years would not pose environmental concerns and indicated that a moderate fare increase would probably assuage taxi owners…The impact study, required by law and conducted at the city’s request by Urbitran Associates, a New York City engineering firm, said that even intensified traffic jams posed by the influx of new cabs added to the 12,187 licensed taxis already on the streets could be mitigated by some modest adjustment in traffic-light sequences.

(“Study Clears Way For 900 New Cabs; Fares May Increase,” NY Times, 1-1-2004)

Cab ridership jumped 4 percent in 2002, posting the third-best year ever for drivers and taxi medallions owners, according to an article in this week’s issue of Crain’s New York Business… “There’s no question that there’s much greater demand for taxis. We can see it in the number of people begging for cabs out there,” says Lucius Riccio, a senior vice president at Urbitran Group, a transportation engineering firm. “There should be more cabs on the road,” said Riccio, a former city transportation commissioner.

(“New York City Taxicab Operators See Ridership, Profits Increase in 2002.” Knight Ridder Tribune Business News, 03-10-2003)

Contending that New York City is seriously polluting Manhattan’s air with its new system of trucking the borough’s garbage to New Jersey, Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer of New York has sued to force the city to submit a detailed environmental study and, if necessary, to reduce diesel emissions from the trucks. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, criticized an environmental assessment of the truck exhaust done by the City Department of Sanitation before it began hauling Manhattan’s garbage to New Jersey in October. All of the plans are intended to be temporary, lasting no more than five or six years, the city says. In Manhattan, trucks used to haul garbage short distances to marine transfer stations along the waterfront. Barges then hauled the waste to Fresh Kills. Under the new plan, 100 or so trucks make the longer trip each day to New Jersey using the three river crossings. The city’s environmental consultant, Urbitran Associates, said the truck emissions would have no effect on air quality.

(“Impact of Trucking Garbage Across Hudson Challenged.” NY Times, 02-01-2000.)

The borough president selected Urbitran Associates Inc., a leading planning and engineering firm, to examine high pedestrian and traffic volume at three intersections: Flatbush Avenue/Empire Boulevard/Ocean Avenue in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens; Flatbush Avenue/Avenue U in Mill Basin; and Atlantic Avenue/Pennsylvania Avenue between East New York and Cypress Hills, which the New York Police Department named one of the city’s 24 most dangerous intersections based on the accidents reported last year.

(“Golden Selects Leading Research Firm For Pedestrial And Traffic Safety.” New Voice of New York, 05-03-2000.)

The state announced yesterday that it had hired planning experts to study proposals for a new Yankee Stadium parking garage – which the team’s owners say is needed to keep the Yankees in the Bronx – and said it hoped to open the garage in two years. The $80,000 consulting contract was awarded by the state’s Urban Development Corporation to Urbitran Associates Inc., a Manhattan engineering concern. It was the low bidder among seven bids submitted to the U.D.C., ranging from $79,000 to $220,000.

(“Stadium Garage Plan Gains.” NY Times, 04-18-1986.)

Working with the NYC Economic Development Corporation, Urbitran provided civil engineering services for the redesign of Adams Street in Brooklyn. Improvements included a landscaped median and mall, a bikeway, and special pavement treatments. Design also involved geometric improvements, traffic signalization, drainage, and maintenance and protection of traffic. Moreover, a left turning lane was added to Adams Street, in order to provide access to the Brooklyn Renaissance Plaza, a new hotel and office complex…The project was the first to implement criteria established by the Downtown Brooklyn Streetscape Guidelines…

(Urbitran website)

Massachusetts:

The plan, which also would increase bus frequency along underserved routes and calls for extending bus operations to as late as 1 a.m., will be presented to the Advisory Board Thursday. After years of looking at service reductions in the regional bus system, the advisory board will see the first proposals to increase service in a long time, certainly since before the current WRTA administration arrived four years ago. If the proposals in the yearlong $80,000 study by New York City- based The Urbitran Group are implemented, service levels would be nearly doubled, according to Urbitran project manager John J. Broker.

(“WRTA may change routes; Proposal calls for service cuts.” Telegram & Gazette, 12-10-2004.)

Pennsylvania:

Bethlehem, PA – Nearly 100 Lehigh Valley community leaders gathered Wednesday to learn more about the findings of a North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority-led study of the Interstate 78 corridor. The study focused on how public transportation rather than additional travel lanes may be harnessed to solve traffic problems on the 65-mile stretch of interstate spanning east from Lehigh County to Somerset County… Lois M. Goldman, the authority’s project manager, said enhancing bus service to and from Warren, Hunterdon and Somerset counties, as well as expanding or constructing new park-and-ride lots throughout the Lehigh Valley and northwest New Jersey are the keys to easing congestion in the corridor. “Everywhere people can park to get on a bus they’re doing it,” said study consultant Gary Davies of the engineering, architecture and planning firm Urbitran…Davies said the data-driven study revealed a wealth of new information about I-78 motorists.

(“Traffic study results revealed,” The Express Times, 03-02-2007)

My previous post is tedious and lengthy. We want to know about Michael Horodniceanu, not Urbitran. So here are some search results:

“In Longstanding Plan for Met Expansion, Battle Line Is Fifth Avenue.” NY Times, 11-16-2003.

Opponents fear that the [Met Museum of Art] expansion will draw more visitors to the museum and add to the double-parked taxis, idling school buses and carnival of buskers, opera singers and boom boxes in front of the building. Opponents fear that the expansion will draw more visitors to the museum and add to the double-parked taxis, idling school buses and carnival of buskers, opera singers and boom boxes in front of the building.
Thomas Hoving, who as the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1967 to 1977 nearly doubled the museum’s size, to the current two million square feet, and Michael Horodniceanu, who was the city’s traffic commissioner from 1986 to 1990, submitted affidavits in support of the plaintiffs.

“Study gets Green Light: 92G to Boost Crosswalk Safety.” Daily News, 05-02-2000

Brooklyn officials want to know how to improve safety at three traffic-clogged intersections where pedestrians need fast feet and rubber necks to cross the street safely.

Using a $92,000 grant from the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee, Borough President Howard Golden has hired Urbitran Associates to study traffic patterns and recommend improvements.

The contract with Urbitran Associates, where former city Traffic Commissioner Michael Horodniceanu will lead the study, requires a report to be completed in July.

“Tuch up for Adams St.” Daily News, 08-12-1997

Driving into Brooklyn via the Brooklyn Bridge will soon be an urban delight.

The drab cityscape that now greets arriving motorists will be transformed into an elegant gateway boulevard, under a new plan unveiled by the city yesterday.

About $ 1.5 million is being spent to beautify Adams St. between Willoughby and Tillary Sts. with trees, ornamental lights and flowers.

The concrete medians between lanes will be widened to 15 feet and raised about a foot to resemble the flower-filled traffic islands of Park Ave. in Manhattan.

Pedestrians who are currently prone to jaywalking through busy Adams St. traffic rather than making the trek to the ends of the long block will be funneled over a new crosswalk at Johnson St.

A new left turn will give drivers heading south direct access off Adams St. into the Brooklyn Renaissance Plaza hotel.

Bicycle lanes will run the length of the stretch, although cyclists will still have to dismount and cross at lights to get on and off the bridge.

“The idea is to give a striking view as you get off the bridge and land in Brooklyn,” said Michael Horodniceanu, president of Urbitran, who designed the gateway with the city Economic Development Corp.

“Street Parking By Credit Card?” NY Times, 08-12-1987

AS Mayor Koch saw it, the coin-operated parking meter was doomed in New York, victim of a curse of riches. With 62,778 meters and a quarter buying as little as 10 minutes of parking in the streets, the city was hard put to keep the coin boxes from overflowing.

”Some of our traffic agents collecting this money look as if they are going to get hernias,” the Mayor said last September, observing that ”the wave of the future is the parking-meter credit card.” How close is the future? ”Realistically,” says Michael Horodniceanu, deputy transportation commissioner in charge of traffic, ”we would not be looking at a new system before the end of ’88, beginning of ’89.” But, he stresses, there ”absolutely” will be a new system.

Earlier this year, he says, the City Transportation Department asked 11 companies, including five foreign ones, to suggest alternatives to coin meters.

A 12-member committee will evaluate the proposals, Mr. Horodniceanu says, adding, ”We would like to go to demonstrations of a few systems late this year or early next year.”

Ed

I guess it depends on your definition of a good consultant.

Yeah, “I Know Dan,” It’s impossible to imagine a wealthy politically connected engineering firm CEO taking a high level job in government. I mean, that would be like the CEO of Halliburton offering himself up to be Vice President or something. Why would he do that? It would never happen!

In regards to the relative position of bicycles in the transportation hierarhy, I might add that bicycles require far less energy than does transit (or walking). You could also make an appeal to the fact that since a bicycle is human-powered, it’s an extension of a person, and thus bicycle-based transportation should be treated accordingly.

Michael Horodnicenau is more progressive than generally appreciated. He really knows city streets and how they could function better for everyone. His firm’s Technical Memo #1 to NYCDOT on Downtown Brooklyn so honestly reported traffic and transit conditions (including the penalty of “free” bridges) that developers’ EISs and compliant agencies have been covering up, that the rest of the high level study–a Mayoral commitment–has been buried for two years.

Mike was a pioneer traffic calmer. In 1986, as NYCDOT Deputy Commissioner, he offered $600,000 to carry out a community traffic calming plan that would have done 20 years ago what the City’s costly sidewalk cosmetics still ignore—protecting neighborhood streets from through traffic. He was so far ahead of his time that he took brickbats in a personal appeal to a skeptical community board that now rues the day they voted it down. Today, he uses graphic traffic network models (tools NYCDOT has refused for Brooklyn) to show how innovative pedestrian measures can benefit everyone. If chosen, he’ll know where in the agency to find good people ready to do the right thing.

I covered the NYC Transportation Department for six years as a reporter, first for the AP, and then for Newsday, when Mike Horodniceanu was traffic commissioner. He bowled me over with his knowledge, integrity, efficiency and lack of ego. He was also the only transportation official I ever met who drove himself to work every day (from Queens, through bad traffic) in his own car. I thought he was the best traffic commissioner the city’s ever had, and I think he’d make an outstanding commissioner.

What a ringing endorsement, Molly.

So, Michael is yet another city government official with free parking who drives to work into Manhattan every day rather than using transit like the vast majority of his fellow citizens and neighbors.

I just don’t believe that a car commuting transportation commissioner will be a friend to peds, bikes and buses. He will inevitably spend time trying to make his own commute faster and more efficient. He will work on solving the problems that he sees and experiences while driving. It’s only human.

It should also be noted, Molly that when you’re driving to work from Queens you’re not driving "through bad traffic" — you ARE the bad traffic. The traffic isn’t something outside of you. It is something that you are creating. Commissioner H is the traffic.

Sorry for my muddy verbiage, Corporate Elite; As a cyclist and transit user who has never owned a car, I fear that I have not explained myself adequately. So let me clarify: Horodniceanu drove himself to work because as traffic commish he believed it was important to experience for himself what the problems were, and not hand down autocratic decisions that did not address the realities. His predecessors and successors all had drivers and city cars. They didn’t get stuck in traffic themselves and personally experience the idiocy that’s out there. Mike H has always been a big supporter of reducing traffic and increasing public transit. If I gave any other impression it was unintended and inaccurate.

It looks like someone is getting personal here. Reading some of latest comments it would seem that Mr. Horodniceanu, while being the Traffic Commissioner, was personally mowing pedestrians down and creating traffic jams. It’s just silly. The fact of the matter is that his firm is on the forefront of pedestrian and traffic modeling, as well as does a lot of work related to public transit. And Safe Routes to School is also Urbitran’s project. So, a reasonable person should be able to make a reasonable conclusion here.

I also agree with Carolyn. Mr. Horodniceanu has a rare for these days quality to recognize talents of others. And in my book this is the best qualification of a leader.

P.S. If he is appointed, I hope he clears up this mess with the City issued parking permits. It seems that DOT prints them faster than the Feds print money.

JK, while it is true that the city controls the DOT budget, it also reflects public pressure and the agency’s priorities and clout in getting them met. Government is always reluctant to spend public money on repairing infrastructure because the public can’t ‘see’ the immediate benefit, only the cost, until a disaster strikes. Sam Schwartz and MTA Chair Richard Kiley mobilized public opinion to get the money for those long overdue repairs, just as bike and pedestrian advocates have mobilized support in impressive ways since the 80s, which is why the situation has improved somewhat. It all happens in response to pressure.

The ’80′s were good for punk music, squatting, drinking and good cheap food. It was more anarchical which has its pluses and minuses. The cops didnt care if you blocked traffic to demonstrate for whatever. If you got some friends with banners you could just wander around for awhile. The cops didnt care either if some mugger camped out on the Brooklyn Bridge and robbed everyone who came by on a bike. This was a problem because the subways were always catching on fire and had no AC.

I’ve worked at Urbitran with Michael Horodniceanu for several years during the early days of Urbitran and during his tenure as deputy commissioner. Urbitran slowly became “well connected” due to the top quality work produced under Mike’s leadership and not due to any political liaisons. While Mike was deputy commissioner, Urbitran was under a magnifying glass, and many lower and mid level DOT staffers (the people who actually run the projects), were extremely tough on Urbitran, trying to prove “impartiality.” I don’t think the company will fare well with Mike in the commish chair.
He will be an excellent choice for the commisionner position. Mike is an incredible engineer, very creative and open to new ideas, and most importantly, has very little tolerance to the BS which is so prevalent in City Hall.
Frankly I don’t know why he would take such a thankless appointment, but if he is willing, please Mayor Blumberg, grab him now!
P.S. I am a Professional Engineer, out of the engineering business for many years, I live in New Jersey, and I will not benefit in any shape or form Mike’s appointment. I am sure the city will be better off with Michael Horodniceanu