New York City Transit has updated its annual list of bus crashes, and 2009 data show E. 57th Street and Third Avenue, mapped above, to be the most dangerous intersection citywide, with 29 collisions. Sutphin Boulevard at Archer Avenue in Queens saw 20 crashes last year, while Brooklyn's Flatbush Avenue and Avenue U was the site of 19 bus-involved incidents. Manhattan's E. 59th at Third Avenue and Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street in Queens round out the top five, with 17 crashes each.

The complete 2009 list is here, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Though the data compilation is framed as part of NYCT's "Cross With Caution" campaign, aimed at making pedestrians aware of especially hazardous intersections, the agency doesn't differentiate between pedestrian collisions and crashes involving other vehicles. This renders the list essentially useless in terms of taking steps to increase safety beyond advising pedestrians to exercise "extra" care.

When we asked if NYCT keeps a separate count of pedestrian-involved collisions, here was the official response:

We want customers and pedestrians to be well-informed and safe. The purpose of listing "Cross with Caution" intersections on our website is to encourage pedestrians to use extra caution when crossing at these corners because they have been the scene of accidents in the past.

Not surprisingly, a spot check of Transportation Alternatives' CrashStat shows that intersections cited by NYCT tend to be historically dangerous for pedestrians, suggesting that factors such as street design and the risk posed by drivers of private vehicles are also at play. (What if bus drivers didn't have to operate in a stream of unpredictable lawless traffic?) Still, of the four pedestrians we know of who were killed by a city bus in 2009, only one of those crashes occurred at an intersection on the "Cross With Caution" watch list.

NYCT is making important traffic safety info publicly available, which is more than we can say for NYPD. But there must be room for improvement in the methodology. For starters, a complete accounting of bus-involved pedestrian injuries and deaths would reinforce the case for real improvements that could save lives.

Staten Island pols have weighed in opposing center-lane SBS for Hylan Boulevard. DOT and NYC Transit want to know which configuration you prefer. Image: DOT/NYCT

You can take the survey here. For more on SBS, including the "Introduction to Bus Rapid Transit Phase II" report, see DOT's BRT web page.

Photo: Brad Aaron

Tonight's event will be held at New Dorp High School (465 New Dorp Lane, between Hylan Blvd. and Mill Rd.) in Staten Island; the final workshop is set for Thursday at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan (Bldg. A, enter on W. 27th St. between Seventh and Eighth Aves.). Each begins at 6:30 p.m.

For more background, check out the SBS web page and the "Introduction to Bus Rapid Transit Phase II" report [PDF] for the basics of New York-style BRT.

Preparations for the next phase of Bus Rapid Transit in New York City ramp up tonight with the first of seven public workshops to gather ideas for future routes. Tonight's workshop gets underway at 6:30, at the College of New Rochelle (it's in the Bronx -- 332 East 149th Street, between Morris and Courtlandt Avenues).

The city's first rapid bus corridor, on Fordham Road, has sped trip times by 20 percent and attracted 5,000 additional riders each day. Now New York City Transit and DOT are looking to collect "feedback on where new BRT routes should be established and how they should operate." In a recent report, "Introduction to BRT Phase 2" [PDF], the agencies identified more than 30 potential corridors for BRT service. These workshops will help winnow the field down to about 10 corridors.

As for how the routes operate, the Phase 2 report lays out all the options, from fare payment to station design. The most significant variable to weigh in on is probably lane treatments. Planners are considering an array of options, including off-set bus lanes, busways that run along the median, and -- for wide streets with lots of bus traffic -- physically separated lanes.

Head over to DOT's website for the full schedule of BRT workshops. The next one is scheduled for Tuesday in Jackson Heights.

Select Bus Service has sped trips along the Bx12 route, but falls short of full BRT. Photo: Brad Aaron.

Streetsblog: What's your evaluation of the SBS pilot route on Fordham Road? Does it qualify as BRT?

Walter Hook: The Fordham Road "Select Bus Service" pilot route was a very successful bus service enhancement -- including a number of BRT elements. The city is not calling it "BRT," though, and I think that is reasonable. A rule of thumb should be whether or not a map company would include the BRT system in a map of New York City. If it doesn't appear on any map other than as a standard bus route, then it has failed to enter the public consciousness as something above and beyond normal bus services.

Fordham Road has a dedicated lane for most of its length, but it is not physically segregated and not enforced as well as it could be.

Fordham Road has a dedicated lane for most of its length, but it is not physically segregated and not enforced as well as it could be. A BRT system does not necessarily need to have a physically-segregated lane. If the road is not congested, or bus frequency is very high, or enforcement is very tight, physical separation is not necessary. They removed a lot of parking, which took political courage, and this helps keep the lane free of vehicles. And the dedicated lane and signal priority are helping to increase speeds during the peak periods. But I suppose they have occasional problems with vehicles in the bus lanes because of too meek enforcement. If the New York state legislature would allow the city to have bus lane cameras that would help enforcement efforts.

SB: What do you think of the payment system they've set up?

WH: NYCT has instituted a pre-paid boarding system where people pay at the bus stop rather than when entering the bus. Off-board fare collection is a critical element of any BRT system. Once passengers get on, a ticket inspector checks periodically to make sure people have their receipts. This is the biggest innovation on Fordham Road and it brings the biggest benefit. User surveys and data collected so far indicate that the amount of time spent waiting for passengers to board and alight has dropped significantly while overall speeds -- due to the lanes, signal priority and off-board fare collection -- have gone up as much as 20 percent during peak period, when it counts.

The system is a technical success but I think full BRT can really hit the public consciousness to a greater degree.

The main downside with this approach is fare evasion. Given the fiscal climate at the MTA, this is a worry. However, NYCT believes that because roving inspectors can fine evaders, evasion on Fordham Road is the same or lower than it was before, which bodes well for off-board fare collection in New York City.

Most full Latin American BRT systems have physically-enclosed stations with a manned ticket booth and turnstiles, like in a metro, to reduce fare evasion. These enclosed stations give the passenger a sense of security and make them feel like they are inside a system. They do have their downside, however. They take up a lot of space physically and visually, and sometimes create problems for pedestrians. They also increase operating costs significantly. Personnel are always very expensive in the U.S.

SB: And the Select Buses themselves?

The identity of the system remains an issue on Fordham Road. Though they have a distinct paint scheme, buses look like normal articulated buses, and the stations don't have much of a separate identity from the new ones used in the rest of the bus system.

So, I think the system is a technical success but I think full BRT can really hit the public consciousness to a greater degree.

The latest subsidy I've encountered most viscerally is the requirement that exists, even in most parts of New York City, to build parking when you construct a building. This is nothing more than an enforced subsidy of driving, for if you require parking, you are encouraging people to buy cars to fill up those spaces.

I've been thinking about development these days more, and it struck me that the severity of this requirement would be demonstrated if we thought of it a different way.

What if we required that developers subsidize mass transit the same way we require them to subsidize car use? What if we required property owners and developers to kick in say, $25,000 for every unit of housing they built and give it to New York City Transit as compensation for the riders the new development would generate?

So if you built a 40 unit apartment building, you would hand the Metropolitan Transportation Authority a $1 million check. With private developers constructing tens of thousands of units of housing every year, that would soon add up to a nice additional source of revenue for the region's mass transit system.

This may sound absurd, but we already do that with car use by requiring the construction of parking in most parts of the city. There are some exceptions, like in Midtown Manhattan, but in the boroughs and even much of Manhattan -- including the new Hudson Yards redevelopment zone on Manhattan's west side -- constructing parking is a requirement.

This gets expensive, very quickly, particularly in the higher-density areas that also have the best mass transit access, and so don't need the parking.

For example around Prospect Park in Brooklyn where I live, many areas require one unit of parking built for every two units of housing. So a 40 unit apartment building would have to build 20 parking spaces. Twenty parking spaces do not come cheap.

Because land itself is so valuable, a developer in Crown Heights or Park Slope often choose to pack these spaces underground. This is a good thing urbanistically, or at least less of a bad thing, but very expensive. It costs about $150 per square foot to build below grade, my developer friends tell me, and a parking spot including necessary accompanying space takes up about 300 square feet. So one parking spot might cost $45,000, or even more in higher construction costs areas.

In lower density areas farther out in Brooklyn, Queens and the other boroughs, developers will build surface lots. These cost less, but they have their own ill effects. They take away land that could have been used as yards, and help insure that street design is less urbanistic and thus less compatible with a mass transit system.

Let me ask a simple question: At a time when our roads are crammed, when we need open space, when we need lower cost housing and more recreational areas, when our climate is changing because of exhaust from cars, why are we demanding developers construct parking that jacks up housing prices, spews more cars onto burdened streets, takes away land that could be used for either housing or open space, and contributes to global warming?

This is such a crazy policy that I would like any planner out there, and to step forward and defend it.

Someone may ask what all this has to do with livable streets. The answer is a lot. The more we encourage and subsidize car use, the more our streets will be filled with cars, and which will push out other users. The more we require parking, the more our urban fabric will be torn with curb cuts and driveways. I'm not against cars, but I do believe that in urban settings they should be in their rightful place, which is basically last in line.

Considering the consistency of the articles, it seems less likely that the newspapers -- which by and large support pricing -- spun Roberts' remarks and more likely that the transit chief, let's say, gave the wrong impression. After all, congestion pricing would be a boon to the MTA, providing funds to upgrade subway lines, extend bus service on overtaxed or underserved routes, and improve bus rapid transit and ferry service -- and much of this in advance of pricing, thanks to an expected $500 million federal allocation. Also, even if 10 percent of Manhattan-bound drivers make the mode shift (an estimate considered to be on the high end), it would equate to a mere 2 percent jump in transit ridership, spread across subway and bus lines throughout the boroughs.

When his warnings were interpreted as a knock at pricing, Roberts summoned reporters back to his office.

Metro reports:

Amid all the bad news, the president of NYC Transit feared an underlying message had been lost about the benefits of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed congestion pricing plan.

 
During rush hours, the busiest train lines -- including the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and E -- are running at or over capacity. Yet Roberts insisted the system could still “fully support” the increased ridership projected from congestion pricing. “In fact the current strain on parts of the system is a big argument in favor of congestion pricing, not against it,” he said.

Roberts believes the business-day toll could pay for subway improvements and for such big-ticket projects as the first leg of the Second Avenue Subway, which is already $1 billion short.

On Monday, Roberts proposed quick “fixes,” including adding more cars to trains and extending station platforms. But these remedies would take “four or five” years. More importantly, they all require money the MTA doesn’t have.

“Congestion pricing is critical to putting these fixes into place,” Roberts said yesterday.

Photo: Scott Beale/Laughing Squid