More lanes, or more housing and parks? Image of proposed Deegan Expressway widening: NYSDOT. Image of the community plan for a de-commissioned Sheridan Expressway: SBRWA.

The DOT is considering tearing down the little-used Sheridan, a decision that would clear trucks off local streets and make room for housing, shops, and parks by the Bronx River. But the capital plan sets aside just $2 million for the project. As advocates said in testimony today, that's only enough cash to muddle through the studies already underway.

To repeat: The capital plan includes $266 million to widen a highway in an asthma-choked area of the Bronx, and $2 million for a project that could dramatically improve neighborhoods pummeled by truck traffic. Addressing a State Senate committee today, advocates made the case for a different approach.

"We call on the NYS DOT to reinstate funding for the Sheridan project by reducing the size and scope of the Major Deegan Expressway project," said the South Bronx River Watershed Alliance in a written statement. "With scarce resources, the agency must do a better job of prioritizing transportation investments that promote the safety, health and well-being of New York City residents."

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign submitted detailed commentary on the full capital plan, which you can read here. Here Tri-State explains why the New York State DOT, which doesn't expand highways to the same degree as other DOTs, still has a weakness for widening certain types of roads.

NYS DOT often plans large or over built rehabilitation projects under the guise of "bringing the roadway up to modern design standards." While certain modern design changes can help improve safety, spending millions of dollars, in some cases hundreds of millions, to simply widen interchanges, intersections, or build additional lanes does not make sense. Such projects often do little to solve congestion in the long-run, and come with very high price tags at a time when we have no money to waste.

In a post on Mobilizing the Region, Kyle Wiswall of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign raises another pertinent question. Why spend a quarter billion dollars on bigger ramps for the Major Deegan when more than a hundred bridges across the state are in perilously decrepit condition?

There are also urgent needs statewide to fix crumbling infrastructure that represent a better use of funds. Upstate, the Lake Champlain Bridge was allowed to deteriorate to such a degree that it was closed last month and must be demolished and a new bridge constructed in its place. Across the state, 110 bridges have lower safety ratings than the Champlain Bridge had before it was closed, according to the Albany Times Union.

The Champlain Bridge closure is wreaking havoc up in Essex County, all because the state DOT hasn't fixed the structures it's supposed to maintain. "Fix-it-first" is not one of the sexier planks in the national transportation reform platform, but without it, this is what you get at the local level. City-killing road expansion projects and crumbling bridges.

The Major Deegan at the 138th Street exit. Does the South Bronx need a bigger barrier to the Harlem River waterfront? Image: AA Roads.

As the Daily News reported earlier this week, local residents fear the highway widening would also stifle redevelopment plans for this area of the Bronx and cut off waterfront access to the Harlem River. As part of the city's South Bronx Initiative, 1,500 units of new housing, 220,000 square feet of retail, and five acres of new parkland are slated for the immediate neighborhood around the state DOT project, said Walter Houston, head of the Local Development Corporation of the West Bronx. The bigger ramp would effectively block off pedestrian access to the redeveloped waterfront.

"It’s a wall between the community and the waterfront, which would only contribute to the deterioration of the waterfront," said Houston. "DOT is proposing a narrow tunnel through this wall, and that's it." A pedestrian tunnel under a highway exit ramp. Sound like an appealing way to walk to the new riverfront park?

The Deegan is an aging structure, and no one disputes that this segment needs a rehab. But according to the DOT, more lanes and wider ramps are needed to "address safety and operational issues" and alleviate traffic jams. "There’s a back-up on the Major Deegan throughout the day that ends up causing a lot of problems with congestion and air quality," said Levine.

Will building more space for cars solve any of these problems? "They’re adding an auxiliary lane and making the ramps two lanes," said Kyle Wiswall of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, who attended yesterday's meeting. "You're now adding so much capacity for cars to get off the highway, in the long-term it’s going to attract more traffic. I don't see how that’s going to positively affect air quality, congestion, or safety."

DOT is also considering a rehab-only alternative, which would not add any new capacity. As of yesterday, said Wiswall, the agency could not provide a cost estimate for the rehab-only version. At a time when the state of New York is essentially broke and the state DOT has no funding for its $25.8 billion, 5-year capital plan, a simpler project with a smaller footprint should be a fiscal no-brainer.

If the state DOT wants to invest in this part of the Bronx, there are plenty of streets which could use some improvements. The Grand Concourse is one of the deadliest streets in the city: From 2006 to 2008, five pedestrians died in traffic collisions along the corridor.

It's not unheard of for the state DOT to funnel money toward pedestrian safety enhancements on local roads. Federal funding, for instance, helped build the Hudson River Greenway. But safety doesn't seem to be a high priority at the state level. As Tri-State analyst Michelle Ernst reminded us, the state DOT recently gave up 85 percent of its 2009 federal funding for ped-bike projects.

For Houston, the Deegan project exemplifies an agency stuck in the past. "This project was first conceived in the late 90s -- no one took into account the new way we look at transportation and mobility these days," he said. "Our redevelopment efforts are geared to the development of people, not the movement of cars."

Update: Elana Schor at Streetsblog Capitol Hill sends word from Congressman José Serrano's office. "I am distressed to hear that in a proposed redesign of exit and entrance ramps to the Major Deegan, the community could suffer a loss of access to their waterfront," Serrano said through a spokesperson. "Cutting access to these precious locations is unacceptable to me, to the community, and should be seen as a non-starter by the DOT."

New York State devotes just 1 percent of its federal transportation funds to pedestrian infrastructure. Photo: Wikipedia

In the last 15 years, more than 76,000 Americans have been killed while crossing or walking along a street in their community. More than 43,000 Americans -- including 3,906 children under 16 -- have been killed this decade alone. This is the equivalent of a jumbo jet going down roughly every month, yet it receives nothing like the kind of attention that would surely follow such a disaster.

Counterintuitive as it may be, "Dangerous by Design" also finds that, when it comes to investing in pedestrian-friendly streets, New York has little room to boast. Here are local stats culled from the report, issued in a joint statement from TSTC, Transportation Alternatives, the Regional Plan Association and TWU Local 100:

• 22.5 percent of total traffic deaths in New York State are pedestrians
  
• 31 percent of total traffic deaths in the NYC metropolitan area are pedestrians
  
• Only 1 percent of New York State federal transportation funds are spent on pedestrian infrastructure, an average of $0.73 per person
  
• New York State ranks 44th in the nation for federal spending on walking and biking
  
• The NYC metropolitan area receives only $0.61 per person in federal funds for pedestrian and bike facilities, well below the meager $1.39 spent per person for metro areas nationwide

Advocates are calling on Governor Paterson and the New York State Legislature to designate 10 percent of federal Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) and 10 percent of federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) funding for pedestrian safety; to enact a statewide complete streets policy; to increase funding for Safe Routes to School and Safe Seniors programs; and to create a statewide Safe Routes to Transit program.

"From 2005 to 2008, New York has received $5.6 billion in federal transportation funds," reads the statement. "In the same amount of time there have been 1,215 preventable pedestrian deaths."

You can download "Dangerous By Design" in its entirety here. Elana Schor has more on the report's national implications at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

Mr. Bloomberg, tear down this highway. A vision of West Farms Road with housing and shops instead of the Sheridan Expressway. Image: South Bronx River Watershed Alliance.

The headlines after last week's mayoral contest weren't kind to the winner. "NY Voters Seen Wanting More Humble Bloomberg," proclaimed Reuters. "Bloomberg Sweats Out Third Term," wrote the Post. The incumbent's slim margin of victory points to two major takeaways from campaign season in New York City: 1) Mayor Bloomberg is seen as out of touch with everyday New Yorkers, yet 2) was reelected, grudgingly, because the electorate thinks he is doing a decent job.

First up: Publicly support the removal of the Sheridan Expressway as a green jobs program.

First up: Publicly support the removal of the Sheridan Expressway as a green jobs program. This highway is a redundant, little used stub running through the Hunts Point community of the South Bronx. For nearly a decade, advocates in the South Bronx River Watershed Alliance (including the Pratt Center, Nos Quedamos, Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, The Point, Sustainable South Bronx, and my organization, Tri-State Transportation Campaign) have called on the New York State DOT to remove the highway. Doing so would create 700 permanent jobs and hundreds of construction jobs, improve access to the Bronx River, and open up 28 acres for parks and affordable housing.

Bulldozing acres of parks for the new Yankee Stadium gave the impression that the mayor was more willing to help out developers than the average Bronx resident. Removing the Sheridan would help pay back that debt, and fit naturally with the Mayor's long-term sustainability agenda, PlaNYC 2030.

Next, the Mayor should commit to boosting New York City's funding for public transit.

During his campaign, Bloomberg announced an ambitious mass transit proposal. Like any good campaign document, the plan would improve the quality of life in all five boroughs, especially neighborhoods underserved by transit, like eastern Queens. But few of the proposals are under the mayor's control and all of them require money. At a press conference last week, Bloomberg indicated that he doesn't intend to boost city funding for MTA operations. He should reconsider. If the mayor wants support from the MTA, he must increase support to the MTA.

Third is to prioritize space for buses on city streets. The mayor should do all he can to ensure timely implementation of bold Bus Rapid Transit projects, as called for in PlaNYC, and help the Port Authority deal with the rogue buses that are increasingly affecting communities like Chinatown and Hell's Kitchen. Better management will unclog the streets and improve the customer experience. (Believe it or not, those people lined up with their luggage on the sidewalks waiting for the Megabus are voters, too.)

Existing efforts to use city highways in a way that benefits working people in the outer boroughs should be preserved and expanded. Last year, the state DOT caved to politicians and started allowing cars with two or more passengers in the Staten Island Expressway bus lane. This is not only illegal (the lane was approved for buses only, not cars), but also hurt bus riders who are now slowed by greater congestion in the lane. Similar bus lanes should be put in place on highways throughout the city, a boon for New York's car-free households, which make, on average, less than half as much as households with cars.

And finally, the mayor should recognize the work of NYCDOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan by ensuring that she continues in her post for four more years. Sadik-Khan has become one of Bloomberg's key spokespeople for PlaNYC. Her message about greening the planet with small changes to city streets resonates with the young, diverse population struggling to afford life in New York. In two-and-a-half years, Sadik-Khan and her staff have transformed a frustrating city agency whose biggest victory was speeding cars through Midtown into an international model for results-based sustainable transportation policy.

Mayor Bloomberg is already known as a skilled manager who gets things done. With a little effort, he can use transportation to expand his legacy as a leader in sustainability who stood up for the working people of New York.

Here's a scenic shot of the Sheridan Expressway in the South Bronx during the evening "rush," courtesy of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and the advocates behind the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance. Even in the peak direction, reports Tri-State's Steven Higashide, the Moses-era relic is barely used at all:

The gaps in the traffic weren’t quite long enough for a sit-down picnic, which is too bad because the South Bronx is sorely lacking parks and other places for families to recreate and relax. The needs of the area and the light traffic are just two of the many reasons why the Alliance is calling for a teardown of the 1.2-mile Sheridan, and why NYSDOT is studying it. A demapped Sheridan could be replaced not only with open space, but also affordable housing and mixed-use development.

The State DOT is scheduled to decide the fate of this huge piece of riverfront real estate by 2012. Acting Commissioner Stanley Gee was in the news this week for agreeing to expand 1.2 miles of the Staten Island Expressway, under pressure from borough politicians. It's hard to see where any pressure to preserve the Sheridan would come from.

State DOT Commissioner Astrid Glynn

"It comes at a tough time," Neysa Pranger of the Regional Plan Association said of Glynn's departure. "It complicates things if there's a leadership change at the head of DOT."

Progressive transportation advocates credit Glynn, who was appointed by Eliot Spitzer in 2007, with introducing a gradual shift in culture at the state DOT. "She didn't start whipping everyone into shape immediately," said Tri-State Transportation Campaign director Kate Slevin. "She took a more measured approach."

One of the more noticeable changes transpired at DOT's District 10 office, which covers Nassau and Suffolk counties. "Before Glynn took over, we would fight every single road project," said Eric Alexander, director of the smart growth organization Vision Long Island. "Communities would say, 'We don't want your transportation money, take your checks back.'"

The DOT's plan to convert 15 miles of an east-west state road, Route 347, into a high-speed, limited access highway had met with particularly vociferous opposition for the better part of the past ten years. Under Glynn's leadership, says Alexander, the change at the regional office "was like night and day." Smart growth advocates had a seat at the table. A new plan for 347 unveiled in January would create a "suburban boulevard" with a lower design speed, planted median, bus shelters, and a pedestrian and bicycle path. The regional office is now talking to businesses about building infill on big parking lots that line the road.

Glynn's DOT had its lapses -- witness the changes underway on the Staten Island Expressway, where $40 million in stimulus cash will be spent on auxiliary lanes and ramp adjustments, and a formerly exclusive busway just opened up to private cars -- and in terms of institutional change, it didn't match the rapid pace at New York City DOT under Janette Sadik-Khan. But the overall direction of the agency boded well for more sustainable transportation and land use policies in the state. Advocates hope her successor will build on that momentum and strengthen new programs like the "Smart Planning" initiative, an attempt to foster smart growth practices among municipalities.

Glynn's resignation takes effect May 8, with first deputy commissioner Stanley Gee slated to take over until Paterson names a replacement. The next commissioner, says Alexander, should be someone "who's looking at best practices, instead of old practices. The last thing you want to do is take a step back."

Photo: SI Advance via MTR.

Last month, the state DOT opened the dedicated bus lane on the Staten Island Expressway to cars with two or more passengers. Tri-State's Michelle Ernst has more:

The conversion aims to appease some politicians and drivers who’ve pressured NYSDOT to open the bus lanes to cars since the lanes were opened. But even the commenters in the Staten Island Advance recognize that it will do little to alleviate congestion in the general purpose lanes, and will completely obliterate any time savings currently enjoyed by Staten Island’s bus riders.

The Expressway was widened to add the bus lane in 2005. Now, opening the busway to private cars turns that transit enhancement into a de facto highway expansion. Before the change, average bus speeds in the dedicated lane averaged 50 mph despite lax enforcement of the bus-only policy. With any multi-passenger car allowed in the lane, and even more license for solo drivers to break the rules, buses may soon move at the same speed as the regular traffic lanes -- 25 mph.

"There's already plenty of people carpooling on the Expressway," Ernst said. "This is just going to pull cars from the regular lanes and induce more traffic." The state DOT, for its part, says bus-exclusivity will be restored if riders end up saddled with slower rides.

So where did the political pressure come from? The Advance reports:

Many people welcome the change. Sen. Charles Schumer, Rep. Michael McMahon and Councilman James Oddo are three elected officials who have been outspoken in their support of the switch to HOV lanes.

Mr. Oddo said upon hearing of the DOT's plan, "Maybe they've woken up," adding, "You have to maximize the infrastructure."

Someone should inform the efficiency-minded Oddo that buses carry a lot more people than cars, and that potentially cutting their speeds in half is no way to "maximize infrastructure." Meanwhile, at least one of those Advance commenters is pinning responsibility on -- you guessed it -- the MTA.

Westbound exits at the Sheridan Expressway rank third worst, White Plains Road, fourth, and Westchester Avenue, 11th among all the awful choke points in America.

Decommissioning the Sheridan happens to be one of two options being considered by New York State DOT to improve truck access to Hunts Point and its huge wholesale food markets (currently, trucks exit the Sheridan and make the last leg of their trips on local streets). Without the Sheridan, trucks would get to the markets via a new exit off the Bruckner Expressway. The other option also entails constructing the Bruckner exit, but would preserve the Sheridan as a truck route.

NYSDOT is in the traffic analysis phase of evaluating each alternative. If traffic flow is the name of the game, then chalk up another reason to tear down the Sheridan: It would ease congestion on the country's most clogged-up highway. Of course, there's also the 28 acres of land for riverfront public space, housing, and commercial development that a teardown would free up.

The Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance is the leading advocate for the teardown option, called the "New Community on the Sheridan Plan." Getting NYSDOT to consider highway removal in its EIS has taken some serious advocacy, said SBRWA's Melanie Bin Jung, and there's more to come. NYSDOT is expected to release its final EIS for the project next year, and select the final option by 2012.

Earlier this week, we asked Tri-State's Michelle Ernst and Steven Higashide about the state DOT wish lists, especially New York's. (It's reasonable, they say.) With the transportation debate set to play out again on a massive scale as the multi-year federal reauthorization approaches, there's no better time to get acquainted with the arcane world of transportation spending. If you're not familiar with the term "sub-allocation" yet, you will be.

Streetsblog: What do urban areas stand to receive compared to rural areas in the New York state list?

Steven Higashide: I should start by saying that it’s not clear how NYSDOT will prioritize the projects on its wish list -- that is, how much money will each regional office actually get?

I did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation. Based on that, it looks like urban areas get roughly 25 percent of NYSDOT highway funds, while suburban areas get around 25 percent and rural areas get 50 percent. Again, this is pretty back of the envelope; but we can say pretty confidently that rural areas have more road funding in the list than urban areas.

This changes once you incorporate transit funding, since the vast majority of that goes to urban areas, and unlike other states' lists the New York list is evenly split between transit and highways -- about $1.6 billion requested for each. So once you add MTA and other transit funding to the NYSDOT highway funds, it's more like 50 percent urban, 25 percent suburban, and 25 percent rural. I'm not including Thruway Authority money in the calculation since so much of it is just to stop the Tappan Zee from falling down.

SB: If urban areas get shortchanged for routine maintenance/repair projects in the state list, does that affect cities' ability to invest in transit/bike/ped projects?

If a municipal agency gets federal money for maintenance work -- which has to be performed -- it frees up local money to be spent on other capital projects. In a progressive agency like NYCDOT, that means more resources for innovative projects like public plazas or redesigning streets for bus rapid transit.

SB: Does the same situation apply to a municipal agency like NYCDOT -- if they use stimulus money for maintenance and repair, that frees up resources for more innovative and progressive projects?

SH: It’s basically a similar situation. If a municipal agency gets federal money for maintenance work -- which has to be performed -- it frees up local money to be spent on other capital projects. In a progressive agency like NYCDOT, that means more resources for innovative projects like public plazas or redesigning streets for bus rapid transit. An old-fashioned agency, of course, might choose to spend its freed-up resources on road widening.

SB: What do state lists tell us about the need to reform the federal formulas that divvy up transportation dollars? What's wrong with those formulas now and how can they be adjusted to work better for cities?

Michelle Ernst: Of the highway funds, HR 1 (the stimulus bill) sub-allocates 45 percent to metropolitan areas, with the rest going to state DOTs. This is significant. Research by Linda Bailey (now at NYCDOT) has shown that sub-allocated funds are far more likely to go toward transit, bicycling and walking projects. That said, it really depends on how progressive the metropolitan agency is, just as the distribution of non-sub-allocated funds really depends on how progressive the state DOT is. In California, where the state currently sub-allocates 75 percent of all federal funds, this works great.

We should subject new or expanded road capacity to the same rigorous review that we subject new transit systems and lines to.

The second issue is how the formulas distribute funding across the major federal funding programs (National Highway System, Interstate Maintenance, Surface Transportation Program, Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality, etc.)  Most of these programs are very highway oriented, with the exception of CMAQ. That said, ISTEA made almost all of them very flexible, so that it's really up to the states to determine how best to spend the funds. STP is particularly flexible and can be spent on almost any type of project (including transit), but even NHS can be used for bike/ped projects (apparently the Hudson River bikeway was funded in part with NHS funds).

I'm not sure that the structure of the current federal formulas is the problem. In my opinion, the state DOTs are the primary obstacle to putting more money into transit and bike/ped projects.  We need to encourage states to embrace the flexibility inherent in the current bill.

Nevertheless, we could do a lot to improve the bill. To get more money to cities, we could sub-allocate more than the six percent or so that's set aside under SAFETEA-LU. I've also been lobbying for a "New Starts for Roads" program, the idea being that we should subject new or expanded road capacity to the same rigorous review that we subject new transit systems and lines to. I want a cost-benefit analysis conducted for every new road or road widening project which quantitatively demonstrates that adding road capacity is an effective use of federal dollars. I've seen this rhetoric in some of the Obama administration's stuff.

One thing we've learned from the stimulus saga is that many state DOTs still haven't kicked the highway habit. New York's state DOT is one of the exceptions: Expansion projects are mercifully absent from its stimulus wish list, according to a recent analysis by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

Under Commissioner Astrid Glynn, the agency is building a reputation as one of the country's more progressive state DOTs. Streetfilms' Elizabeth Press sat down with Glynn yesterday to discuss smart growth, shovel-readiness, and -- stay tuned til the end -- how she gets to work in Albany. Keep an eye out for the upcoming Streetfilm on Bronx greenways and the Sheridan Expressway -- a prime teardown candidate -- projects that are counting on Glynn's DOT.

A new report from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign names five New York City streets among the region's 10 most dangerous roads for pedestrians, based on the number of fatalities from 2005 to 2007. Making the list were:

• Third Avenue, Manhattan: 10 fatalities
  
• Broadway, Manhattan: 10 fatalities
  
• Grand Central Parkway, Queens: 9 fatalities
  
• Hylan Boulevard, Staten Island: 9 fatalities
  
• Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn: 8 fatalities

TSTC found that two Long Island routes, Hempstead Turnpike in Nassau County and Sunrise Highway in Suffolk County, were the most deadly in terms of raw numbers, with 15 and 12 fatalities, respectively. Roads in New Jersey's Atlantic, Burlington, Middlesex and Ocean Counties rounded out the list.

"The most dangerous roads are either extremely busy urban roads, such as 3rd Avenue in Manhattan, that handle many pedestrians and cars," said TSTC analyst Michelle Ernst, in the media release accompanying the report, "or, as with the case of Sunrise Highway in Suffolk County, they are major suburban roadways dotted with retail destinations but designed exclusively for fast-moving car traffic."

During the three years covered by the study, there were 147 pedestrian deaths in Brooklyn, 128 in Manhattan, 95 in Queens, 53 in the Bronx, and 26 in Staten Island. Narrowly missing the regional top 10 list were First and Seventh Avenues in Manhattan and Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. Each saw seven fatalities.

TSTC acknowledged city DOT efforts to improve pedestrian conditions, but gave lower marks to New York State.

"It’s upsetting that roads on Long Island have more pedestrian fatalities than roads in dense urban areas, where people tend to walk much more," said Ryan Lynch, Senior Planner and Long Island Coordinator for the Campaign.  "It’s clear that the New York State Department of Transportation isn’t providing safe walking routes for Long Islanders. This needs to change."

Borough and county fact sheets are available on the TSTC web site, and Mobilizing the Region has further analysis.

Today the Tri-State Transportation Campaign joined the One Region Funders’ Group* and The Fund for New Jersey in announcing a grant program to foster metro area transit-oriented development.

The program intends to encourage transit oriented development, or mixed use development within a fourth to half mile of a train or bus station, by offering financial support to municipalities ready to address the linkages between affordable housing, energy efficiency and development near transit stations. Up to ten small grants will be awarded to communities across downstate New York and Connecticut. Up to five grants will be awarded in New Jersey.

The grants, according to a TSTC press release, will be awarded to help fund project planning and design. While the state of New Jersey and New Jersey Transit have had TOD funding programs in place since the 1990s, resulting in a number of projects including the Transit Village Initative, New York and Connecticut have not kept pace. Last spring the MTA announced a new plan to encourage TOD development, but has so far not followed through with a formal program. The New York State Department of Transportation, meanwhile, has come up with a "smart growth" web site, and not much else. Connecticut has embraced TOD concepts, but has also been slow to realize a blueprint for carrying them out.

In addition to filling state TOD gaps, the non-profit grants will ideally bring more of a focus on environmentally sound, affordable development. Says TSTC's Kate Slevin: "It makes total sense to include affordable housing near your transit stations."

To this point, Slevin says, much TOD housing has been targeted at high-income buyers.

By putting homes and businesses near public transportation, transit-oriented development is of course considered a crucial element in reducing auto dependence and its attendant health and environmental impacts. For more, check out TSTC's new online TOD clearinghouse.

* The One Region Funders’ Group includes the Fairfield County Community Foundation, Long Island Community Foundation, New York Community Trust, Rauch Foundation, Surdna Foundation, Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and Westchester Community Foundation.

Image: Tri-State Transportation Campaign