Streetsblog New York City

In the wake of a scandal-soaked week in Albany, Governor Cuomo held a press conference this afternoon with district attorneys from across the state to announce a new anti-corruption law. As he seeks to tighten the rules in Albany, Cuomo could take immediate steps to make sure a transportation funding mechanism that featured prominently in last week’s scandals is fortified against abuse by lawmakers.

State Sen. Malcolm Smith. Photo: NY Post

“Money is what greases the wheels — good, bad, or indifferent,” City Council Member Dan Halloran said while accepting $7,500 in cash from Rockland County-based developer Moses “Mark” Stern, according to the U.S. Attorney’s complaint filed last week. Halloran promised to use council discretionary funds to advance State Senator Malcolm Smith’s mayoral ambitions. But with Albany discretionary funds — called “member items” – under scrutiny, Smith suggested a different source of funds to grease the wheels for Stern: the New York State Department of Transportation’s Multi-Modal Program.

If corruption festers where there is little sunlight, that explains why Smith suggested this transportation fund to dole out favors. Stern, who unbeknownst to Smith was collecting evidence for federal prosecutors, said he wanted state funds for road work near a project in Spring Valley. “Multi-modal money is outside the budget and it’s always around,” Smith told him on March 21, suggesting that Stern ask Senator David Carlucci, who was not involved in the scandal, to secure the $500,000 item.

“The Multi-Modal Program, with $288 million in reappopriated funding, is the largest potential source of discretionary funds that legislators can directly steer to projects in their districts,” according to government watchdog Reinvent Albany.

The money in the program, funded by Thruway Authority bonds, is controlled by legislators and the governor, and can be used for almost any transportation project: state or municipal roads, bicycle or pedestrian projects, freight or passenger rail projects, aviation, ports, or ferries. The funds are often used for small projects, or to bridge funding gaps in larger projects where other sources have already been secured, and are particularly popular with smaller cities and towns. The funds may go to projects for entirely legitimate, worthwhile purposes, but it is very difficult to verify whether that’s the case, because there is no full, public accounting of how the money is spent, or which legislator requested the funds.

Attempts to discover which projects are supported by the Multi-Modal Program and the lawmakers that requested each item have been unsuccessful so far.

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For years, Albany has raided the state’s highway trust fund, using general tax revenue to patch holes. This year, the governor’s budget, as filed in the Senate and Assembly, includes a mammoth $625 million road bailout, larger than the $519 million projected in the financial plan and higher than most trust fund bailouts in previous years.

As it siphons money from the state's highway trust fund, Albany continues to use the general fund to subsidize roads. Photo: Doug Kerr/Flickr

The Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund, created in 1991 using fuel taxes and vehicle registration fees, is meant to pay for road construction and repair. By 1993, it was already being used to pay off Thruway Authority debt. Soon enough, it was raided to pay for road plowing and DMV salaries. Through 2008, only one third of the fund’s revenue was used to cover capital costs, according to Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

A bill to keep highway trust fund revenue from being diverted has stalled in the Assembly. Even that bill, however, wouldn’t solve the underlying problem: New York is spending more on roads than it collects in fuel taxes, tolls, and fees. (All told, federal and state gas taxes and automobile fees pay for only 54 percent of New York’s state and local bridge and road spending, according to the non-profit Tax Foundation.)

“Raids from dedicated revenue streams and general fund transfers are not funding solutions,” said Veronica Vanterpool of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. “They are last resort measures when new revenue sources are not being considered.”

In the meantime, the trust fund raids continue, pushing more of the burden for supporting highways from drivers to all taxpayers, including the 54 percent of New York City households that don’t even own a car.

Advocates for safer streets are alarmed by a New York State DOT “blueprint” for capital investments that scarcely acknowledges walking or biking as modes of transportation.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign noted in November that the NYS DOT document released with the file name “Two Year Capital Plan” [PDF] made virtually no mention of pedestrians or cyclists.

Biking got no ink in a document described by the New York State DOT as a blueprint for future transportation spending. Photo: @BrooklynSpoke

“Although the document uses key buzzwords — ‘multi-modal,’ ‘users of all modes,’ ‘sustainable,’ ‘improve livability,’ ‘environmental protection’ — complete streets advocates are left hanging when the document lists the ways New Yorkers get around,” wrote Nadine Lemmon, Albany legislative advocate for Tri-State.

The state DOT released the report at a time when investments in walking and cycling are “getting hit left, right and center” in New York State, according to Lemmon. The new federal transportation bill, MAP-21, resulted in a 30 percent cut in federal dedicated funding, Lemmon says, and new NYS DOT policies put bike-ped projects at a disadvantage when competing for state matching funds.

The omission of walking and biking is particularly striking given the state’s new complete streets law, which took effect in February.

In an email to Streetsblog, NYS DOT spokesperson Beau Duffy distinguished between the document and the capital plan, which will guide state transportation spending for two years.

The document submitted by NYS DOT to the NY Works Task force for consideration represented an infrastructure investment blueprint from which an investment level to support the development of the Department’s next transportation capital program would be advanced. NYS DOT’s report was intended to address four broad-based investment categories (Construction and Program Support, System Maintenance and Operations, Local Roads and Bridges, and Modal Infrastructure) and was not intended to address all of the infrastructure assets or modes under its jurisdiction.

Notwithstanding, each one of the four investment categories detailed by NYS DOT in the report provides support and opportunities for bicycle, pedestrian and safety-related improvements. The Department’s capital program of projects will be developed in coordination with the Executive and the Legislature as part of the State budget process.

Advocates say that explanation is just a long-winded way to distract from the lack of specific commitments to walking and biking as the capital plan takes shape. ”In this document, they are asking for guidance on what funding level will be approved for the next capital program,” says Lemmon. “[T]his is about the capital plan — and [Duffy] says that.”

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After two crashes in six years that caused 13 fatalities and an outcry from an indignant press corps suddenly obsessed with traffic safety, the New York State Department of Transportation has turned its attention to the Bronx River Parkway.

Broadway at Dyckman Street, in Inwood. Twenty pedestrians died on Broadway in Manhattan and the Bronx between 2008 and 2010, according to federal data. Photo: Brad Aaron

The concrete barriers planned for the parkway seem designed to facilitate speeding, but the state DOT says it will work with NYPD to slow drivers down. While it’s obvious that change is needed, it remains to be seen if those measures will prevent Bronx River Parkway motorists from injuring and killing themselves, their passengers and others.

The terrible events of last Sunday, when seven members of a single Bronx family died in what is believed to have been a high-speed crash, sparked a wave of media coverage. The Daily News in particular has taken up the cause with zeal, all but blaming state DOT Commissioner Joan McDonald for the catastrophe.

Yet other streets where people are hurt and killed every day largely escape media attention. From 2008 to 2010, 13 pedestrians died on Broadway in Manhattan, according to the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, which compiles data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for its annual report on the region’s most dangerous roads. Seven pedestrians were killed on Broadway in the Bronx, seven on Kings Highway in Brooklyn, seven on the Henry Hudson Parkway/West Street in Manhattan, and seven on Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue during the same period. Most of the 250 traffic fatalities in New York City every year happen on local streets, not highways, and state agencies could be doing more to prevent these deaths.

“NYS DOT could bolster and expand its funding for the Local Safe Streets and Traffic Calming grant program,” says Tri-State’s Ryan Lynch. “They have repeatedly cut this funding in recent years [though it] works to calm streets and enhance pedestrian safety for streets on Long Island. If it was expanded and better funded it could be beneficial to NYC streets as well.”

Tri-State has called on states to designate additional federal funds for bike and pedestrian safety projects. Allowing large cities that get federal transit funds to receive federal road allocations directly, rather than having them funneled through state governments, could also help, says TSTC Executive Director Kate Slevin.

But you won’t find the editorial writers at the Daily News pressuring state and federal agencies to help make neighborhood streets safer for people who walk and bike. You won’t see them demanding that Ray Kelly’s NYPD keep New Yorkers alive and in one piece by enforcing traffic laws and investigating serious crashes. That’s because aside from sensational horror stories, transportation coverage from outlets including the Daily News, the Post, and CBS 2 tends to be limited to attacks on bike lanes, pedestrian plazas and other measures — basically any change to the streetscape intended to reduce injury and death. That is, when those same reporters and editors aren’t blaming the victims themselves.

General Contractors Association Managing Director Denise Richardson. Photo: GCA

Earlier this week Streetsblog sat down with General Contractors Association Managing Director Denise Richardson for a wide-ranging discussion on the financial state of New York’s transportation systems. In the first installment of the interview, we discussed the MTA’s capital program, which is moving forward with important repair work but saddling transit riders with huge amounts of debt, and the inability of the federal government to pass a new transportation bill.

In the second part of our conversation, we discussed New York’s highway system, which consumes hundreds of millions of dollars in general taxes a year, and Governor Cuomo’s enigmatic New York Works Fund. We also touched on why construction costs are high and always seem to get higher, and the timing of transit construction on the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement.

Noah Kazis: I want to ask about the New York Works plan. To start off, what is the New York Works plan, in your mind?

Denise Richardson: Well I know what I’ve read in the papers.

If you look at New York’s history, we are a state that developed around our infrastructure. New York, from colonial times, was a business city, it focused on trade. The Erie Canal, the railroads, the road system. We are an infrastructure state, even though we pretend not to be. The governor said, “Where do we stack up nationally, in terms of infrastructure?” And that was not a very good picture at all. In a state that needs to create jobs, the linkage was obvious. And I think it’s a great program.

“We have to stop treating the public like idiots. If we’re going to do some major public works project, we should tell the public what it’s really going to cost.”

My concern about it is obviously funding. The governor has made the statement that he doesn’t want to raise taxes. I think that to make New York Works a permanent part of the infrastructure funding strategy, there needs to be real money there. His discussions about tapping pension fund investments –pension funds are seen as a source of easy money, but there are a lot of issues associated with pension fund investments. As a trustee on some pension funds, I can tell you that it’s not as easy as it sounds. There needs to be a very stable rate of return, tied to very definite revenues, and that’s not saying, “The state guarantees to pay.” From what revenue source?

But I think the fact that the governor announced that Felix Rohatyn is going to head it up — everyone living in New York City, if they don’t know who he is, should learn, since he was instrumental in saving the city — I think the fact that he has once again come to the fore gives us a level of confidence that it will be a stable, funded program.

NK: To confirm, there haven’t been any sort of real monies attached to the New York Works yet?

DR: Not that I’ve seen. Hopefully, as the governor puts the team together, I’m sure that the funding pieces will fall into place.

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The New York area’s urban planning community issued a striking rebuke to the Cuomo administration over its plans for a new Tappan Zee Bridge last week. In a letter to the state Department of Transportation [PDF], the regional chapter of the American Planning Association, which represents 1,200 professional planners, challenged the Cuomo administration’s claims about the project and urged the immediate restoration of transit infrastructure to plans for the bridge.

Professional planners aren't buying the Cuomo administration's line about preserving the option to build transit on the Tappan Zee Bridge. Photo: Angel Franco/Newsday

In a four-page letter, the APA New York Metro Chapter methodically rebuts the state’s inaccurate and even dishonest claims about the bridge.

Most importantly, the letter rejects the Cuomo administration’s central promise about the new TZB: that it is being designed so as “not to preclude” transit. “We believe a project design so as ‘not to preclude’ transit realistically does have the effect of precluding transit,” the writers state. The Cuomo administration hasn’t given these professional planners sufficient reason to believe that the details of transit accommodation are being considered. The state’s only answer to the ever-growing coalition of local officials who are demanding transit — that it can be added later — apparently earns a grade of incomplete.

That isn’t the only weak point that the APA identifies. The Cuomo administration, for example, claims that it cannot afford to build transit. Its projections of the cost of a bus rapid transit system, however, are two to five times higher than what the state had estimated just two years before. “We believe the costs associated with the BRT option appear to be inflated in the DEIS, possibly skewing the comparative analysis,” reads the letter. “The assumed costs per mile seem significantly higher than the industry standard for constructing BRT systems.” They call for an itemized breakdown of transit costs from the state.

Similarly, the state’s draft environmental impact statement asserts that the new Tappan Zee Bridge, which will double the width of the bridge yet dedicate no space to transit, meets the requirements of the state’s smart growth law.

Not so, say the professional planners: “The DEIS claims that the project is consistent with the New York State Smart Growth Public Infrastructure Policy Act. However, the project is inconsistent with at least 2 of the 10 criteria.” The letter states that the new bridge will induce more driving, something the state’s analysis denies.

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Andrew Cuomo inspecting the Tappan Zee Bridge in 2010. The governor seems willing to delay construction on its replacement to get a federal loan, but not to add transit. Photo: Angel Franco/Newsday

Using a federal loan to finance $2 billion of the cost of the Tappan Zee Bridge could delay construction work significantly, warns trade journal Project Finance today. Trading time for a low interest rate might save money, but it puts the lie to the Cuomo administration’s claim that adding transit would unacceptably slow the Tappan Zee project.

“Waiting for TIFIA debt to close could delay the Tappan Zee project,” wrote Project Finance, referring to the federal loan program the state applied to. The last TIFIA deal, for a rail line in Denver, just closed in December 2011, though the application was submitted in fiscal year 2010. None of the fiscal year 2011 TIFIA applicants have received a loan yet.

TIFIA loans are about as cheap as borrowing gets and worth the wait. When it comes to financing, the Cuomo administration recognizes that it’s better to do the project well than to do the project instantly. But Cuomo is using much different logic when it comes to transit.

This January, state DOT Commissioner Joan McDonald told a Hudson Valley audience that adding transit to the Tappan Zee would push back construction by at least two years. Without transit, she said, construction would be able to begin in 2012.

With a bridge meant to last a century, it’s worth waiting a little bit longer to build a span that includes transit. Without transit, a new Tappan Zee Bridge will just promote sprawl while doing nothing to curb congestion, reduce environmental damage, or help residents get around affordably.

The Cuomo administration’s plan for an extra-wide, transit-free Tappan Zee Bridge is exactly the kind of project that New York state’s smart growth law is supposed to prevent.

The Cuomo administration's draft EIS for the new Tappan Zee Bridge makes a mockery of New York's smart growth law.

Passed in 2010 under David Paterson’s administration, the Smart Growth Public Infrastructure Policy Act requires any state infrastructure project to meet 10 smart growth criteria. Under the law, the state should only build projects that support sustainability and downtown revitalization, not sprawl.

Nowhere is the Cuomo administration’s hypocrisy regarding the Tappan Zee Bridge project more clearly displayed than in its arguments that the new bridge complies with the smart growth law. In its draft environmental impact statement, the state walks through each of the 10 smart growth criteria, arguing that a new Tappan Zee with no transit and twice the width of the current bridge fits the bill. In the process, the fact that Cuomo’s Tappan Zee is really not a smart growth bridge becomes painfully clear.

Criterion 6, for example, requires the project to “provide mobility through transportation choices including improved public transportation and reduced automobile dependency.” The state argues that since the new bridge will “improve mobility” with highway improvements, it’s consistent with this requirement. “In addition,” reads the draft EIS, “the bridge would be designed not to preclude transit.” Not precluding transit, of course, is hardly the same as improving it. Instead of reducing automobile dependency, the project does the opposite, spending billions to improve car commutes and double the width of the bridge.

Criterion 5 calls for infrastructure “to foster mixed land uses and compact development, downtown revitalization, brownfield redevelopment, the enhancement of beauty in public spaces, the diversity and affordability of housing in proximity to places of employment, recreation and commercial development and the integration of all income and age groups.” In a brazen affront to common sense and empirical evidence, the Cuomo administration denies that transportation decisions even affect the way regions develop. “Not Applicable,” the DEIS says. “The Replacement Bridge Alternative would be a transportation infrastructure improvement project” and “would not directly affect community development.”

If smart growth means anything, it means understanding how a cars-only bridge promotes dispersed, sprawling development while including transit would help promote growth in town centers. It means acknowledging how automobile-dependency isolates low-income and elderly people who rely on transit.

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Each span of the new Tappan Zee Bridge would be as wide as the current bridge, leaving room for future administrations to convert eight traffic lanes into ten or more lanes. Click to enlarge.

The Cuomo administration’s plan for the new Tappan Zee Bridge, described in yesterday’s draft environmental impact statement, is more than a missed opportunity to provide New Yorkers with faster and greener commutes using transit. It also foreshadows a potential environmental disaster, as the state prepares to spend huge sums on a span that can funnel much more traffic than the current bridge.

The new Tappan Zee will be more than twice as wide as the existing one. While the state government says the new bridge will carry the same amount of traffic as today’s bridge, the designs in the DEIS include enough pavement to carry far more cars, which could lead to more pollution and more sprawl, and will certainly incur hundreds of millions of dollars in unnecessary spending. The one silver lining is that a more transit-friendly administration could use the extra space to add bus rapid transit service in the future.

Together, the two spans of the proposed Tappan Zee Bridge would measure a full 183 feet across, while the current bridge is 91 feet wide. Where the current bridge has seven travel lanes, the new bridge will have eight. A shared bicycle/pedestrian path adds a few more feet. But the lion’s share of additional asphalt comes from the addition of wide shoulders bracketing the traffic lanes in each direction, and an additional “emergency access” lane in each direction.

The reason to make the bridge so incredibly wide, according to the DEIS, is to ensure that either span on its own can carry as many cars as the current bridge, in case one span has to close for whatever reason. “In the event that an incident or extreme event would require the closure of one structure, the second structure could remain open to traffic,” reads the DEIS. “To provide adequate capacity for such short-term traffic operations, each of two road decks would need a minimum width of 87 feet to provide for a minimum of seven temporary highway lanes, shoulders, and an adequate buffer for two-way traffic operations.”

The extra lanes are an extraordinary concession to the automobile, predicated on the idea that we should build roadways so that even a rare disaster won’t cause any reduction in traffic capacity.

Building each span with the full capacity of the existing bridge — up to 14 total lanes, if need be — is incredibly costly. A back-of-the-envelope calculation by Streetsblog based on the state’s 2006 financial numbers puts the cost of the emergency access lanes at around $825 million, or about one-sixth of the entire project budget.

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The Cuomo administration’s latest thinking on the new Tappan Zee Bridge, contained in the draft environmental impact statement it released yesterday, reinforces the state’s commitment to building a sprawl-inducing, highway-only bridge. The document not only dismisses bus rapid transit, but also clears the way for an enormous expansion of automobile capacity and makes a mockery of New York’s statewide smart growth law. We’ll be breaking down the DEIS in a series of posts today.

The Cuomo administration doesn't envision advancing transit on the Tappan Zee in the foreseeable future. Photo: Angel Franco/Newsday

The release of the DEIS presents three new obstacles for bus service across the Tappan Zee:

• The Cuomo administration has stopped planning for bus service while it moves forward with a highway-only bridge.
• The state has significantly inflated its cost estimates for BRT without a clear explanation.
• Some elected officials who have supported transit now seem willing to go along with the Cuomo plan for the bridge.

While the Cuomo administration continues to tout the fact that its plans for the new Tappan Zee Bridge do not preclude the construction of transit at some later date, the DEIS makes clear that the date in question will be significantly later, if it ever comes to pass at all. “The previous corridor project has been rescinded and the State Sponsors do not intend on advancing it in the foreseeable future,” the document states.

The state will not continue to study or plan transit improvements, the DEIS reveals. A Tappan Zee transit project won’t continue along some parallel, slower track; under Cuomo, it isn’t moving forward at all.

In justifying the elimination of transit, the DEIS presents new cost estimates for transit far out of line with previous calculations. In 2009, a state report [PDF] pegged the cost of building a full BRT corridor at $897 million, with the system running in HOT lanes in Rockland and on a mix of dedicated lanes and a separate busway in Westchester. The more expensive alternative, which entailed building separated busways through Westchester, was estimated to cost $2.5 billion.

Now, estimates in the DEIS say the first design will cost $4.6 billion and the second $5.3 billion. The document provides no explanation for the dramatic increase in projected costs, and the state has not responded to Streetsblog’s inquiries regarding the matter. One possible explanation, though, is that the state is calculating the cost of both transit improvements and construction projects on the I-287 roadway, and then attributing the total entirely to transit.

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