The slug for the story on the metro section homepage reads: “New York often resorts to revenue-raising expedients like a lucrative new campaign to keep drivers on Broadway below Houston Street from venturing into the bus lane.”

Dwyer’s piece then uses the enforcement of the Broadway bus lane in lower Manhattan as a kind of poster child for what he sees as an excessive reliance on fines and fees in the city budget. He writes: “Whatever the virtues of bus lanes, and there are many, this one is a trap — a lucrative one.”

Dwyer’s source for claiming that the Broadway bus lane is a “trap”? Well, he doesn’t quote any transit planners with the MTA or NYC DOT, which implemented bus improvements on Broadway in 2007. He doesn’t quote any bus drivers familiar with the route. He doesn’t turn to any of the 41,000 or so passengers who ride the New York City Transit buses that ply Broadway every weekday. Instead he cites a cop who “concedes that traffic would be backed up to 14th Street if some drivers did not make their way into that Broadway bus lane.”

The other expert who turns up at the tail end of Dwyer’s piece is an anonymous state official who, “as it happens,” was pulled over for driving in the bus lane and “managed to wiggle out of the ticket.” A member of the placarded class who got busted but didn’t have to pay. Exactly the type of credible source Times readers should trust to render judgment on transportation policy. The official says of the Broadway lane: “It goes against the intent of bus lanes because it causes congestion.”

And here I thought the intent of bus lanes was to help bus passengers reach their destinations quicker. But who needs transit planners, bus drivers, and bus riders to weigh in on a bus lane when cops and anonymous state officials who drive in the bus lane are so generous with their expertise?

Go back a few years in the Times’ archive, and there’s a great explanation for why Broadway needs bus lane enforcement. From a Willie Neuman story in 2007:

As the bus continued south on Broadway, the driver pointed to the lane next to the curb, which was marked on the pavement as a bus lane. Despite that, the lane was mostly full of parked cars, most of them with city-issued placards on the dash, showing they were used by law enforcement personnel.

More than one bus stop was blocked with parked cars as well, some with placards, others with drivers sitting at the wheel. While the cars with placards are allowed to use the bus lane under the current rules, parking in a bus stop is prohibited.

“This is always like this,” the bus driver said. “And you know what’s missing? There are no ticket agents down here.”

Automated traffic enforcement cameras and lockboxes to protect transit funding are at the top of the legislative agenda for transportation advocates in 2012. Image: Wikipedia.

Many of Albany’s biggest transportation issues this year — the bloated and transit-free Tappan Zee, the unfunded MTA capital plan — will be decided by Governor Cuomo. But transportation advocates also have a slate of bills they hope to see make it through the legislature. Last year, the complete streets bill passed after a few prior attempts. Here’s what’s on the table for 2012.

Transit Lockboxes

Last year, lockbox legislation sponsored by Assembly Member James Brennan and Senator Marty Golden passed the legislature unanimously, only to have Governor Cuomo “eviscerate” the bill by amendment. The sponsors have vowed to try for the original language again.

The politics of the lockbox could be different this year if downstate legislators team up with their colleagues upstate. Buffalo Republican Mark Grisanti has introduced his own lockbox meant to protect dedicated funds for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority. He is amenable to working with those hoping to protect the MTA. “If we can get the upstate folks talking about a lockbox bill in the same breath as the MTA, then maybe that sends a louder message to the governor,” said Nadine Lemmon, Albany legislative advocate for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

Speed Cameras

Assembly Member Deborah Glick’s legislation to allow speed enforcement using automated cameras hasn’t gone anywhere in the past, but advocates have declared it a top priority for this year. “It’s speed cams all the time when it comes to Albany,” said Juan Martinez, general counsel for Transportation Alternatives.

The bill has support not only from transportation advocacy groups, but the New York City DOT and public health organizations. “There is a good coalition that’s gotten around it,” said Lemmon. That said, the bill still doesn’t have a Senate sponsor, an indication of how much work is left to be done.

Red Light Cameras

Three bills to increase the number of red light cameras permitted by the state, one each for New York City, Nassau County and Suffolk County, passed the Senate last year only to die in the Assembly transportation committee. Assembly transportation chair David Gantt has a history of blocking bills that would allow localities to implement life-saving traffic technology.

The red light camera bills didn’t have sufficient outside support last year, said Lemmon, who expects more action on the issue in 2012. If necessary, she said, the bills’ Assembly sponsors might be willing to use a parliamentary procedure to force a vote in committee. In the Senate, the bills are sponsored by Marty Golden, Chuck Fuschillo and Owen Johnson, respectively.

Transit Commuter Tax Benefit

The federal government may have let the tax benefit for transit fall to $125 per month while raising the parking perk to $240, but that doesn’t mean New York State has to. Senator Chuck Fuschillo’s legislation would reinstate the full benefit for state taxes. The benefit reduction doesn’t matter much for New York City residents — even now, the tax benefit covers a monthly MetroCard — but for those commuting into Manhattan on the LIRR or Metro-North, it’s a major incentive to take transit.

Fuschillo’s bill passed the Senate but died in the Assembly last year. Though it previously didn’t have outside advocates behind it, that will change in 2012.

Commercial Cyclist Responsibility

It seems that almost every community board in Manhattan has complained about unsafe riding by working cyclists. In order to effectively and equitably improve commercial cyclist behavior, Transportation Alternatives is lobbying for a bill sponsored by Senator Liz Krueger and Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh.

The legislation would place responsibility for traffic violations by working cyclists on their employers. “It’s the business owner who is in the best position to guide the cyclists’ behavior,” explained Martinez. “In order to make those deliveries, they feel they have to ride the wrong way or ride on the sidewalk.” On construction sites, Martinez said, employers receive violations for workers who don’t wear hard hats; he said the principle should be the same for cyclists.

Transportation Alternatives’ push for the bill comes as City Council Member James Vacca is launching his own campaign to regulate commercial cyclists. Under Vacca’s proposal, police would step up enforcement of existing rules and working cyclists would be required to take a new bicycle safety course.

Curbside Bus Regulation

The curbside bus industry is booming, to say the least. In 2007, 4.2 million people rode MegaBus, Fung Wah and other curbside buses along the Northeast Corridor, compared to zero a decade before, and the number of riders continues to grow rapidly. That means it’s easier to travel the East Coast in a way that’s both affordable and sustainable, but it’s also created significant pressures on the neighborhoods in which the buses load and unload, where passengers and luggage cramp the sidewalks.

A bill sponsored by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Senator Dan Squadron would, for the first time, allow the city to regulate how curbside buses work. In theory, the city would be able to shift curbside operations toward streets with more room, or to locations that otherwise fit the city’s transportation vision. Legislation along these lines was proposed by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign in a 2009 report on improving regional bus service.

The bill doesn’t allow for a situation like that in Washington, D.C., however, where the city attempted to charge bus companies an $80,000 annual fee, which the industry said would result in higher fares. Under Silver’s law, the maximum annual fee for a permit is $275.

Last year, the Assembly passed the bill but it died in the Senate. With Silver’s name at the top, its future likely depends on his willingness to wheel and deal with the Senate.

Real-time bus info is now live for the entire borough of Staten Island. Multiple buses and routes can be seen at the corner of Hylan Boulevard and Richmond Avenue at 5:04 p.m. this evening.

Real-time bus information, previously only available on two routes, is now live for every bus in the borough of Staten Island. On an average weekday, that means 127,000 local and express bus riders will be able to find out exactly how far away their bus is.

“This means more time at home with your family, relaxing with a cup of coffee,” said MTA chairman Joe Lhota today at a press conference at the Eltingville Transit Center.

The bus information can be accessed through the MTA’s BusTime website, by scanning a QR code with a smartphone, or by sending a text message with your bus stop or intersection. (Disclosure: Streetsblog’s parent organization, OpenPlans, helped build the BusTime system.)

Real-time bus information will be particularly appreciated on Staten Island. State Senator Diane Savino noted that islanders had been jealously eyeing the countdown clocks on the subway system, up to now lacking similar information even though they had to wait out in the elements rather than underground.

At the same time, the introduction of BusTime to the entire borough of Staten Island marks an enormous leap forward for MTA bus-tracking technology. While the MTA had bought an expensive proprietary system for 34th Street and then rolled out its own in-house system on Brooklyn’s B63, the new system had to tackle some additional challenges. A given bus stop can host multiple routes, for example. Perhaps more important, Staten Island’s express buses run through tunnels and into Manhattan. Previously, GPS systems had struggled to function when Manhattan’s tall buildings blocked signals. A team of engineering students from Columbia and City College, however, solved that problem, and BusTime is working fine in Manhattan.

In fact, with those kinds of challenges overcome, the MTA is ready to roll out BusTime citywide. Every bus in the five boroughs will be brought into the system by the end of 2013, according to the MTA, and more than 6,000 buses will be upgraded in the next year. “Staten Island is at the forefront of a very ambitious project,” said New York City Transit President Tom Prendergast.

Staten Islanders will also get an extra digital goodie courtesy of Borough President James Molinaro. While the MTA is making its information available by phone or online, and opening up the data for third parties to use, it isn’t installing its own hardware at bus stations listing arrival times. Worried that senior citizens might not be able to use their phones to benefit from BusTime, Molinaro tapped his discretionary budget for $200,000 to pay for arrival signs at key bus stations.

One interesting subplot from today’s presser: Staten Island has a lot of love for Joe Lhota. “You’ve got a friend running the MTA,” City Council Member James Oddo said, recounting a story of working with Lhota during the Giuliani administration. It was just one of many accolades for the MTA chairman from elected officials gathered for the event. While working for Giuliani, Lhota was responsible for closing the Fresh Kills landfill and removing the fare on the Staten Island Ferry.

Bus riders waited at least 15 minutes for this crowded B61 during the morning rush today. A practically empty B61 was bunched up right behind it. Photo: Ben Fried

Toward the end of a press conference at the corner of Fourth Avenue and 9th Street this morning, Council Member Brad Lander remarked that not a single B61 bus came by during the 15-minute event. This was only fitting, since Lander was unveiling a new report from his office that found most rush hour B61 buses don’t arrive within the guidelines established by the MTA.

During rush hours, the B61 is supposed to arrive every eight to ten minutes, but the service is anything but reliable, according to the report, “Next Bus Please.” Fully 57 percent of buses are either spaced at least three minutes farther apart than they’re supposed to be, or bunched at least three minutes tighter together. For straphangers this translates into long waits, crowded buses, and the frustration of watching an empty B61 pull up right as you’re boarding that jam-packed bus.

“It gets really packed every morning,” said Vian Hernandez, a senior at South Brooklyn Community High School in Red Hook, who transfers from the train to the B61 to get to school. “Sometimes it comes really late.”

The current B61 route is the byproduct of the 2010 MTA service cuts (themselves a byproduct of Albany budget raids, the mounting cost of MTA debt service, and the collapse of the real estate market). The line was extended east from Red Hook to Park Slope and Windsor Terrace, absorbing passengers who used to take the now-defunct B75 and B77. The nearby B37 and B71, which served parallel routes, were also eliminated, and the Smith-9th Street subway stop has been closed for maintenance since June, further increasing reliance on the B61.

A year and a half after the cuts took effect, the study from Lander, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, and City Council Member Sara Gonzalez documents the strain on the riders who depend on this line, which is now the only bus or subway route that directly serves Red Hook.

Service seems to be deteriorating. A November, 2010 New York City Transit study of the B61 found that 36 percent of buses were arriving outside the MTA’s service guidelines. While NYCT was looking at all buses, not just rush hour service, the authors of “Next Bus Please” say their measurements — 57 percent of rush hour buses failing to meet the guidelines — indicate things have gotten worse on the B61 since then.

They outline a package of improvements for the bus line, including additional peak-hour service, limited stop service for the most popular stops, real-time arrival info, and better contingency routes in the event that a ship passes through the Gowanus Canal at the 9th Street Bridge, a drawbridge that can delay B61s for up to 15 minutes.

Some of those recommendations should come at little or no cost to the financially strapped MTA. (One recommendation, for instance, calls for merging bus stops that are too close together, which could actually cut the cost of operating the B61.) While adding peak hour service won’t be free, the MTA has restored service on several lines since the 2010 cuts in response to rider demand and political pressure. “Next Bus Please” is, I believe, the most rigorous and thorough attempt to document why additional service would benefit a specific bus line.

Velazquez said that Red Hook’s dependence on the B61 justifies the increased service. “The MTA has to prioritize needs,” she said. “Red Hook suffers from a lack of transportation options.”

The authors have shown the report to the MTA and are awaiting a response.

Bus ridership is down in Manhattan, but where Select Bus Service increased speeds on First and Second Avenue, New Yorkers are riding more than ever. Image: NYCDOT/MTA

Want to understand why more Manhattanites don’t ride the bus? Look no further than this year’s Pokey awards, given out annually by the Straphangers Campaign. Manhattan buses, as usual, top the list of the year’s slowest service.

The Pokey this year goes to the M50 crosstown bus, which averaged a mere 3.5 miles per hour at noon (imagine it at rush hour!). The 14 slowest lines are all in Manhattan, with the Bronx’s Bx19, which runs down Southern Boulevard and into Harlem, clocking in as the slowest bus in the other boroughs.

Those glacial speeds explain why Manhattan-wide, bus ridership is down five percent over last year. Some of that decline surely stems from broad economic and demographic trends, but speed clearly matters. Along First and Second Avenues, where Select Bus Service was installed and speeds rose dramatically, ridership jumped up nine percent.

The good news for New Yorkers is that the MTA remains on board with expanding Select Bus Service. “The past year established Select Bus Service as a game changer in New York, with 20 percent faster bus service now on three routes,” MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz told Transportation Nation’s Jim O’Grady. “We are working with the city to expand the SBS network, bringing faster boarding, dedicated bus lanes and enhanced bus lane enforcement to more and more routes.”

A map produced by the Pratt Center (PDF) shows neighborhoods with a high concentration of low-income commuters with long commutes.

Much progress has been made in the five years since Scott Stringer’s first transportation conference, but many transit riders are still wandering in the “transportation deserts” that were the focus of one afternoon panel at the Manhattan borough president’s follow-up event, Transportation 2030, this past Friday.

Transportation deserts include neighborhoods from City Island in the Bronx to Mill Basin in Brooklyn to the North Shore of Staten Island. They are places where would-be transit riders face hour-plus commutes, multiple transfers or having to pay multiple fares. As panelist Elena Conte of the Pratt Center for Community Development put it, “It’s not just about deserts, its about being near a station that takes you somewhere you need to go in a timely fashion and is accessible even if you are older, or mobility challenged or traveling with small children.”

The city’s transportation network was planned to get commuters into and out of Manhattan. But as the Center for an Urban Future brought home in their recent report, “Behind the Curb,” there has been a huge jump in the number of residents who both live and work outside Manhattan over the past twenty years, leaving many New Yorkers without time- and cost-competitive transit options. Panelist and CUF Executive Director Jonathan Bowles said that this is due in part to the growth in the health care and education sectors, which have large campuses in the outer boroughs, sometimes in the middle of transportation deserts. Inadequate transit hinders the ability of these institutions to draw and retain top-notch talent and limits the economic development potential in large areas of the city.

Tamisha Chevis of Rochdale Village Community In Action For Better Express Bus Service noted these deserts also pose a major hardship for working class New Yorkers. Members of her organization “just want to be able to get to work,” she said. “We have decent jobs; we just want to be able to keep them, so we can feed our families.” According to research by the Pratt Center, nearly two-thirds of the 750,000 New Yorkers whose commute to work takes over an hour have family incomes under $35,000.

The Pratt Center and CUF both support the expansion of Select Bus Service or a more robust Bus Rapid Transit system as an efficient and cost-effective way to serve these trips. But as Conte and Bowles pointed out, the MTA often fails to consider the bigger picture of how to optimize service across local bus routes, SBS lines and the subway to minimize delays, transfers and paying multiple fares.

For example, New York City Transit for years has resisted calls to have buses run over the bridges, which would provide riders from Brooklyn and Queens a one-seat ride instead of forcing a transfer at the edge of a borough. The MTA seems stuck tweaking (or cutting) existing services instead of innovating and adapting to new commuting patterns. Governor Cuomo or the next mayor could convene a taskforce including leaders of outer borough hospitals and colleges to get their input on how transit could better serve their employees’ needs and inject some fresh ideas into the planning process. Of course, it would also be helpful if Albany was willing to commit to creative ways of funding transit expansion such as road pricing.

Another panelist, Hopstop.com President and CEO Joe Meyer, suggested that private companies like his share more data with the MTA to assist with their bus route planning. With tens of thousands of daily users, Hopstop’s data would give transit agencies another window into where people want to go and how long it takes them to get to those destinations today, revealing where services changes would be useful. NYC DOT has begun to work with the TLC to harvest private sector data on taxi trips and speed to better understand congestion patterns. DOT notes: “The methodology also helps augment the limited use of commuting-based Census data, which looks only at trips to work, which comprise only 18% of all trips, and not shopping, leisure or other trips.” Imagine if NYCT was able to use data from HopStop, Google, or even dollar vans to understand trips in parts of the city where the informal sector is filling in some pretty big transit gaps. All this data could be used for their route planning process.

Meyer said he has offered his data to the MTA in the past but the agency has not been interested. Unfortunately it seemed like no one from the MTA was in the room, or perhaps at the conference, to hear these ideas or offer up ones of their own.

Photo: Sabrina Porter

The Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives have chosen the winners for their best and worst of New York City Transit photo contest. The top “Good Transit Scene” was “Break of Day ” by Sabrina Porter, while John Wehmeyer took the prize for best “Bad Transit Scene” with “”Reassuring? Not so much!”

Photo: John Wehmeyer

Porter and Wehmeyer will each receive a 30-day MetroCard. Check out honorable mentions here.

“These photos show our transit system at its best — and its worst,” said TA Executive Director Paul Steely White. “It’s time we had more of the former and less of the latter. The winning photos shine a spotlight on the real-world consequences of transit funding cuts and remind us what we stand to lose if nothing is done.”

Not to diminish Wehmeyer’s victory, but White reminds us of another transit tableau that is sure to go down in history as one of the most repulsive of all time:

Photo: Liz Benjamin

The transit photo contest held by the Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives has moved into the final round. Five finalists have been selected for the photo that most captures New York City’s transit system at its best, and five have been chosen to represent the system at its worst. You can vote for your favorite here.

The winning photographers will each receive a free monthly MetroCard, while the winning photographs will be used in an ad campaign making the case for better transit, so choose carefully.

Not to influence your vote or anything, but I voted for the two photographs above. In the “best of transit” category, I thought this shot of light streaming onto a subway was just beautifully composed, though the image of three boys showing off for the camera best represents my favorite moments on the train. In the “worst of,” I had to vote for the picture of sludge piled up at the Canal Street station; that station is right next to Streetsblog HQ, so that pick was personal. Let us know in comments which you voted for.

Be sure to check out the full photo galleries as well. Some of the best photos in each category didn’t make it into the final round at all, and they’re well worth a look.

DOT's plan for 181st Street includes a part-time bus lane and pedestrian safety features, but it's less ambitious than other options the agency presented last year. Image: NYC DOT

With five bus lines, two subway stops, a busy commercial strip, the only entrance to the Hudson River Greenway for blocks, and major bridge crossings at both ends of the street, Washington Heights’ 181st Street is a tangle of cars, buses, bikes and pedestrians. For years, DOT has been looking to redesign the corridor entirely, with the goal of finding a way to serve all those different needs.

In a plan presented to the local community board last Monday [PDF], DOT finally came out with its proposal for the street. With a slew of pedestrian safety improvements and a bus-only lane designated for the evening rush hour, the plan should be a major improvement for the neighborhood, but like other recent redesigns on 34th Street and First and Second Avenues, it’s far less ambitious than what could have been.

As recently as last fall, DOT was considering a protected bus lane for this project. Local elected leadership seemed split. At a presentation on the project to Community Board 12, an aide to Denny Farrell conveyed the Assembly member’s opposition to a major reconfiguration, while local City Council member Ydanis Rodriguez seemed open to the ambitious reallocation of space, telling CB12, “We have to make a certain level of radical change in how traffic is organized in that area.” The changes on the table now are positive, but not radical improvements.

Currently, 181st Street has two travel lanes and a parking lane in each direction on the wider blocks east of Broadway, narrowing to a single travel lane and parking lane on the blocks west of Broadway. The proposed changes mostly focus on the eastern section, as no buses continue on to the narrower section.

Under the proposed design, pedestrians will be safer thanks to a curb extension at the intersection of 181st and Haven Avenue, leading pedestrian intervals where 181st meets Broadway and Fort Washington Avenue, and, if the community board wants them, pedestrian refuge islands at St. Nicholas Avenue. Longer-term plans to extend the sidewalks at St. Nicholas and Amsterdam Avenues would calm traffic further.

For bus riders, the curbside parking on the south side of 181st Street would be replaced with a dedicated eastbound bus lane from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., improving reliability by clearing the way for Bronx-bound buses at the very beginning of their routes. On the block between Audobon and Amsterdam Avenues, which a DOT spokesperson said was where buses suffered the biggest delays from congestion, the bus lane would be in effect from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

The entire project is part of DOT’s Congested Corridors program, and the plan includes left-turn bays to help traffic move more smoothly. Curb parking will be replaced with loading zones during designated times, intended to minimize the rampant double parking along 181st. By keeping the through lanes clear, said the DOT spokesperson, these features will also keep buses moving smoothly.

Finally, the plan calls for a few new safety features on north/south streets intersecting 181st, including a southbound bike lane on Fort Washington between 183rd and 181st Streets and a traffic-calming center median on St. Nicholas between 183rd and 179th.

An option the DOT chose not to pursue would have given 181st Street New York City's first physically separated bus lanes.

That’s a fair number of changes to a stretch barely over half a mile long, but it’s much less than what was on the table in October. One option, for example, would have built New York City’s first physically separated bus lanes on 181st. With one in each direction and a raised bus stop mid-street, that plan would have provided one fewer traffic lane and one fewer parking lane than the current plan, but done much more for transit riders.

Another option was an approach that would have made 181st a real multi-modal street. With large sidewalk extensions on the whole corridor, a buffered bike lane and a bus lane, this discarded option would have redistributed space from drivers to every other user of the street.

In another rejected option, 181st Street would have become a true complete street, with extra room for pedestrians, cyclists and bus riders.

One reason DOT trimmed its sails was the decision to maintain two-way automobile traffic along 181st. In addition to Farrell’s aide, a former chair of CB 12 and several other local residents expressed opposition to a one-way street in October, and the DOT spokesperson confirmed that the department acceded to that request. Council Member Rodriguez did not respond to Streetsblog’s request to comment for this story.

There were also technical problems with the more ambitious options, he said. In the protected busway scenario, buses would have difficulty turning into a physically separated busway, the spokesperson said, while in the multi-modal proposal, cars cutting across the unprotected bus lane to park would slow buses. Given the success of offset bus lanes on First and Second Avenues, however, at least the second objection seems easily overcome.

Jamaica rep Leroy Comrie. Photo: NY Observer

With thousands of bus riders per hour traveling each direction on Archer Avenue, DOT’s proposed bus improvements for Downtown Jamaica are some of the most important street redesigns on the table right now. But previous bus improvements in this part of Queens have been politically vulnerable — a proposed Select Bus Service route along Merrick Boulevard was scuttled after local merchants fought against it in 2007. So, for one perspective on the political prospects of the project, we checked in with Council Member Leroy Comrie, who represents Jamaica and hosted an open house on DOT’s proposal Tuesday night.

While Comrie told the Daily News that he’s not pleased with the part of the proposal that calls for converting segments of Jamaica Avenue to one-way traffic flow, in a phone call with Streetsblog he seemed willing to support the expanded bus lanes if merchant deliveries can be integrated into the plan.

The council member said that Tuesday’s open house was a success. The “free-flow discussion, more like a charrette” showed that DOT was open to suggestions, he said. Comrie himself has some recommendations for DOT, though so far he’s only made them informally. One question, he said, is “whether or not the bus lanes would be impacting during the non-rush hours that would prohibitively affect the businesses from getting deliveries.”

Comrie distinguished those concerns from the merchant fears of losing curbside parking that torpedoed the Merrick Boulevard SBS. On that route, he said, “most of the businesses, their prime time for customers was during the morning and evening rush.” Comrie is more concerned with off-peak delivery access as opposed to peak hour customer parking. Comrie said he hadn’t heard much from local businesses about the proposed bus lane changes yet.

Comrie also urged DOT to make sure that both public and private transit (dollar vans) were able to speedily access Jamaica. “What are we going to do to try and work the van traffic through and give them some dedicated space also, since they are here and people will use them?” he asked.

This gorgeous photograph of the Beverley Road subway station in full bloom, brought to our attention by Brownstoner, somehow manages to make peeling paint look beautiful. Photo: flatbushnelson via Flickr

We often describe the importance of transit in numbers, like the fact that 54 percent of New York City households don’t even own a car. But even the most convincing stats can get a little dry. To help capture what the subways and buses mean to a city where the transit system is the closest thing to a shared experience for eight million people, the Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives are launching a photography contest. A picture is worth a thousand words, after all.

The contest will feature two categories: the things we love about transit — only-in-New York juxtapositions, for instance, or the system’s speed and ease — and the problems that make us fed up with the MTA. The winners will be featured in an ad campaign intended to make the case for better transit, said Straphangers Campaign Coordinator Cate Contino, while photos showing specific problems, like the mysterious dripping at certain subway stations or the shuttered bus stop a community once depended on, will be sent along to the MTA in the hopes of resolving the issues.

“We know that the MTA has been forced to make some really tough choices,” said Contino, explaining the goal of the ‘bad transit scene’ category. “We want to capture these declines that we’re seeing mostly anecdotally.”

The winners will each receive a 30-day unlimited MetroCard. To enter, submit your photos at straphangers.org by June 10.

Plans call for doubling the mileage of bus lanes in Jamaica. Image: NYC DOT

We missed these when they were first released in late March, but DOT has come out with its preliminary recommendations for improving bus service in downtown Jamaica [PDF]. The plan calls for adding roughly a mile and a half of new bus lanes and beefing up an equal amount of existing lanes. It would also redesign two intersections and create new pedestrian space.

Anything that helps buses move quickly, smoothly and reliably through downtown Jamaica would be an enormous boon to Queens transit riders. Jamaica is both a subway hub and a job center unto itself, with 47 different bus routes running through the area. Archer Avenue carries more local buses than any other road in New York City, according to the DOT, with a staggering 180 buses per hour in each direction.

Along Archer, the existing bus lanes between 150th and 160th Streets will be visually strengthened, getting a coat of terra cotta paint and new signage. The eastbound lane will be extended on both ends, from Sutphin Avenue to Merrick Boulevard.

Similarly, along Jamaica Avenue the existing lanes (serving 90 buses per hour in each direction) will get the new paint and signage as well as expanded hours of operation and some new turn restrictions. The westbound lanes will be extended from Parsons Boulevard to Sutphin.

New dedicated lanes on Merrick Boulevard and 165th Street will help buses enter and exit the 165th Street bus terminal.

Currently, camera enforcement is not an option for these bus lanes, since the state law which enabled bus cams on Fordham Road and First and Second Avenues only applies to officially designated “Select Bus Service” corridors.

Turning the southern point of Home Lawn Street into a two-way street would allow buses to avoid an unnecessary turn while creating room for a new pedestrian plaza.

Some of these bus lanes will be offset from the sidewalk, leaving room for curbside parking, while most will run next to the curb. Queens merchants opposed to the loss of parking killed a bus rapid transit route along Merrick Boulevard in 2007, and similar complaints could crop up again.

For this project, DOT has incorporated several measures to address concerns about curb access. New truck loading zones are slated for 146th Street and 91st Avenue to ensure that businesses can receive deliveries, and the bus lanes may not be in effect during off-peak delivery windows. DOT would also set aside certain areas for livery vehicles and commuter vans.

Intriguingly, DOT’s proposal identifies the need to “relocate placard parking.” Placard users clog Jamaica’s streets, according to the recent Transportation Alternatives report “Totally Bogus.” Asking placard users to park somewhere else may not be too effective, however. Right now, 59 percent of placard users are using their permit illegally, according to that report.

In addition to adding and strengthening bus lanes, DOT’s preliminary plan calls for redesigning two intersections. Right now, buses traveling south on Home Lawn Street are forced to turn onto 169th Street just north of Hillside Avenue. DOT calls for straightening out Home Lawn so that buses can move south directly, eliminating the extra turn. As part of that plan, added pedestrian space would be carved out of the street, creating a small public plaza. Another street redesign, not shown in the March powerpoint presentation, would be implemented at 168th Street and Jamaica Avenue.

The local City Council Member, Leroy Comrie, is hosting an open house on the project tomorrow evening, co-sponsored by colleagues Mark Weprin, James Gennaro, Ruben Wills and James Sander Jr. DOT will have some new findings to present from outreach to local businesses.

The crush of traffic using the free Queensboro Bridge is the limiting factor holding back DOT's plans for faster buses and safer streets. Photo: R36 Coach/Flickr

At the CB meeting, DOT presented plans to speed buses across the Queensboro Bridge and extend the bike lanes on First and Second Avenues from 34th Street to 57th Street. Those changes are underwhelming: mostly traffic signal tweaks for buses, and mostly shared lanes for cyclists.

In explaining why only minor tweaks will be employed to help Queensboro Bridge bus riders and why protected bike lanes won’t be built through Midtown, DOT officials made it clear that anything that slows traffic is off the table. When push comes to shove, in this case, DOT’s other goals are getting trumped by traffic. One can only imagine what might have been if Albany had enacted congestion pricing, easing the peak hour crush of cars on this free bridge.

The need for faster bus service across the Queensboro is pressing. During the evening rush, there are two buses crossing the bridge every minute. They spend their time in grinding traffic, however. From 5:00 to 6:00 p.m., buses travel at only 12.2 miles per hour. That speeds up to 21.2 mph just an hour later.

Eric Beaton, the director of transit development at DOT, defined the department’s goal for the project as increasing bus speeds “without having too much of an impact on the many cars and other people that use the bridge.”

The limits of that approach quickly became clear. One of the four improvements proposed would grant eastbound buses at 57th Street and Third Avenue heading onto the bridge a leading green light so that they can merge from the right side of the street to the left. The buses would get their green during an already-installed leading pedestrian interval at the intersection. “We’re not taking any green away from cars,” promised Beaton.

DOT's plan will improve bus reliability by reducing conflicts between traffic exiting the bridge and the Q60, as buses turn from 60th Street onto Second Avenue at the beginning of the route.

The other modifications are equally minor. When the Q60 needs to turn left from 60th Street onto Second Avenue, for example, it will get a short leading interval so that it can get a head start and avoid conflicts with traffic exiting the bridge. Again, said Beaton, the change wouldn’t slow the traffic pouring off the Queensboro.

The bus stop where the Q60 sits before making that turn will also be lengthened. A rerouted Q101 will be able to avoid an extra half-mile loop it currently makes by sharing that longer bus stop with the Q60.

On the Queens side, one signal change will give buses a head start turning onto Van Dam from Thomson, and another will improve safety for cyclists approaching the bridge but won't improve bus speeds.

On the Queens side of the bridge, buses turning right from Thomson onto Van Dam will get a little bit of extra time, which will come during an existing left-turn phase. During the evening rush, 100 express buses will take advantage of this signal change.

The final piece of the Queensboro package is a worthy safety project, but it will actually slow buses slightly. At Queens Plaza North, buses turning onto the bridge have to cross the new bike lane, and both currently get a green light at the same time. DOT plans to grant the cyclists a ten second “leading bike interval” so they can get out into the intersection and be visible to bus drivers. That’s good for safety, but doesn’t help bus speeds.

When asked how much time these improvements would save bus riders, Beaton admitted “it’s relatively small amounts.” Instead, he said, the changes would mainly improve reliability by preventing the very worst delays.

Added Ted Orosz, the director of long range bus planning for New York City Transit, “Even if it only saves two minutes, it’s saving two minutes at the most important spot.” If the Q60 gets delayed at the very beginning of its route in Manhattan, for example, “you’re going to get uneven boarding all the way to Jamaica,” and even worse bus bunching.

The kind of change that’s really needed to make buses go faster — dedicated lanes free from the crush of traffic — only earned the promise of further study, including further traffic analysis. That’s despite the fact that exclusive bus lanes were the top suggestion of both local and express bus riders in a DOT survey. According to Beaton, DOT is considering a reversible bus lane — taking space from traffic heading in the off-peak direction — adding though “it takes a lot of work to move the poles every day,” and funding would need to be found to do so.

Creating a bus or carpool lane across the Queensboro Bridge was a promise in the original PlaNYC, and DOT’s proposal for providing buses with priority treatment over the bridge was supposed to be revealed last November. The specific promise of a dedicated lane on the Queensboro was removed in PlaNYC 2.0, replaced with a pledge to “improve bus priority.”

In CB 6′s discussion of the First and Second Avenue bike lanes, it became equally clear that bike infrastructure had been sacrificed to keep cars moving. “There’s extremely heavy traffic in this area,” said DOT bike and pedestrian director Josh Benson. “We need all five lanes for cars.”

Members of the community were quick to point out that extremely heavy traffic doesn’t have to necessitate leaving out bike lanes, depending on your goals. “That same lot of traffic that makes you concerned about cars makes me feel like I’m putting my life at risk,” said Flannery Denny, a cyclist who lives on the Lower East Side and works on the Upper East Side. “Biking to work is absolutely not an option for me.”

The disappointment of DOT’s justification for the lack of high-quality bike facilities in Midtown was only heightened by seeing the agency’s stats on the success of the bike lanes downtown. If the new separated bike lanes and pedestrian refuge islands cut injuries by 17 percent, wouldn’t it be worth extending them north? Benson also pointed out that bike volumes on First and Second at 50th Street are almost exactly as high as they were in the East Village before the installation of the protected lanes, implying that the bump in ridership could be similar.

DOT said that buffered bike lanes instead of shared lanes in Midtown are still on the table, but they are asking for a strong CB 6 statement of support. CB 6 did call for buffered lanes in its resolution last year, but Benson said that “we didn’t really feel like we got strong support of that proposal.” He said DOT reverted to its original proposal of shared lanes “in the interest of keeping the project moving,” suggesting DOT is extremely spooked about the possibility of further opposition to its bike program.

Committee chair Fred Arcaro put off discussion of the bike lanes and a vote until a later meeting, despite — or perhaps because of — the standing room only crowd who had come specifically to talk about that issue. Arcaro has limited discussion and been accused of mismanaging the community board’s procedures to work against livable streets projects before.

Last night, bus riders and bike riders saw DOT unwilling to improve their trips if it means slowing Midtown traffic at all. That suggests one more reason congestion pricing or bridge tolls are so necessary. If high traffic volumes mean DOT won’t fight for street safety or efficient transit, high traffic volumes have to go.

In 1974, the Franklin Avenue Shuttle derailed, a not infrequent occurrence as deferred maintenance took its toll on the transit system. Photo: Doug Grotjahn via nycsubway.org.

Last week we wrote about how the looming $10 billion deficit in the MTA’s capital plan could lead to a $3.00 fare and $137 monthly pass within three years. That’s not the only way the transit authority could decide to respond to a lack of funding, however.

At the other end of the spectrum from fare-backed borrowing, the MTA could decide that it cannot take on any additional debt. In that scenario, the MTA would simply have to cancel or postpone every unfunded maintenance and expansion project — most of the next three years of the capital program. You can see those projects at the MTA’s capital dashboard, here. The result will be breakdowns, delays, and a slide back toward the decrepit and dangerous subway system of the late 1970s.

“You can expect to see the condition of the system decline pretty rapidly if you’re not doing this work,” said Felice Farber, the director of external affairs for the General Contractors Association of New York. “It’s not too hard to get back to the poor quality service of the past,” she said.

“You’ll have older buses, so they’ll be breaking down more often,” explained Pete Foley of TWU Local 100. “Subways will have to go slower,” as they pass over worn out tracks, he continued. “Eventually you’re going to have cracks. You’ll have derailments if you have a crack in the rail.”

Delays will be more common during rush hour as well, due to the lack of regular preventive maintenance. “You’ll be fixing things when they break,” said Foley. “They’ll wait until it’s an emergency.”

In the final three years of the capital plan, Farber said, 23 percent of the cost is network expansions like East Side Access, 27 percent are basic repairs to the system, 35 percent goes to regular replacement of tracks or buses, and thirteen percent to system improvements like new communications technology.

Expect to see more of this if the state doesn't fund the MTA capital plan. Buses and subways will start to break down pretty quickly without necessary repairs. Photo: Cory Doctorow via Flickr.

Over time, said Farber, putting this work off would force riders to pay more for less. “What happened on the New Haven line is the perfect example of what happens when you defer maintenance.” In 2000, then-governor John Rowland refused to buy new Metro-North cars. That decision ended up resulting in a ten percent service cut during rush hour this winter, when the repairs needed to the old cars overwhelmed the MTA. “They also paid huge overtime expenses while they struggled to get their system up to speed,” said Farber.

Both Farber and Foley noted that even though the capital program is currently funded, the transit system is already starting to struggle. “If you ride the train now, we’re already starting to see train delays because of signals, starting to see the doors have only one side open,” said Farber.

Foley pointed to scaled back plans for the MTA’s mega-projects. One of the two stations on the 7 line extension won’t be built, for example, and the corridors connecting the different subway lines at the Fulton Street Transit Center were narrowed by around six feet.

Station repairs and customer service improvements could be some of the first to go if the MTA’s capital plan deficit isn’t closed. “That’s the direct passenger experience,” said Farber. The current round of station repairs are mostly in Brooklyn and Queens, she said.

The expansion of real-time arrival signs to the lettered subway routes, the new subway intercoms, and security cameras also won’t go into effect, said Foley. “They’ll just have to cut these out.”

In reality, of course, the MTA can choose to mix and match between fare-backed debt and deferred maintenance, putting off the features that might be nice to have and charging riders for the ones they need to have. The MTA could also potentially swap in service cuts or layoffs for fare hikes.

The bottom line is that without the revenue that a solution like congestion pricing or bridge tolls could provide, none of the MTA’s options are good for riders. Should our transit system buy what it needs by taking out a huge loan and sticking transit riders with the bill? Or just let the system begin to fall apart? Albany shouldn’t be content with either.

If Albany doesn't do something about the $10 billion deficit in the MTA's capital program, MTA debt will pile even higher and transit riders will be forced to pay it off at the farebox. Image: NYS Comptroller

With each passing month, the MTA comes closer to the day of reckoning on its unfunded capital plan — the maintenance work that keeps trains and buses running and the expansion projects that provide more access to the system. While the first two years of the 2010-2014 capital budget were funded, there is a $10 billion deficit in the remaining three. So far, there doesn’t seem to be any plan from the city, state, or federal government to find this funding. In fact, between the State Senate’s goal of repealing the MTA payroll tax and the House GOP’s budget-slashing, there may be more obvious paths to the MTA losing revenue than gaining it.

Albany has twice passed up the chance to plug a major part of this gap by enacting bridge tolls or congestion pricing. Increasingly, it’s time to ask what happens to transit riders if legislators just don’t do anything. The options aren’t appealing: a $3.00 base fare or 1970s-style breakdowns and delays.

In one scenario, the MTA could decide that everything in the capital plan, from basic repairs to the system to megaprojects like the Second Avenue Subway, has to happen. In this case, they’d have to borrow the money to pay for the improvements up front. If the MTA borrowed all $10 billion, according to the state comptroller’s office [PDF], the MTA’s yearly debt service obligations would soar even higher than they are already projected to. In 2010, debt service cost the MTA $1.9 billion. If the capital plan is paid for by borrowing, by 2019 debt service would total $3.9 billion.

To pay for all that extra debt, the MTA would have to increase its yearly revenues the only way it can, by raising fares and tolls. According to Neysa Pranger of the Regional Plan Association, the MTA would need between $1 billion and $1.5 billion in new annual revenues to pay for $10 billion in bonds.

The 7.5 percent fare hike scheduled for 2013 — that’s on top of this year’s equivalently sized hike — is predicted to raise around $460 million a year, according to the comptroller’s report. Based on that number, it will take roughly a 24 percent fare hike to get $1 billion in new revenue and a 32.25 percent hike to reach $1.5 billion.

For riders, that’s a steep price to pay. If the fare hike is distributed evenly across different types of fares (for the latest hike, the base fare was held constant while the price of a monthly pass soared), that means a base fare between $2.80 and $3.00 and a monthly pass between $129 and $137.50 by 2014. If you think that people get mad about typical fare hikes, just wait.

For a single person buying a 30-day pass every month, that could add up to $400 more in transit costs each year. Families with children would be paying more than $1,000 more each year.

Another way to think about it is that this 24 percent fare hike would basically be in effect for 30 years, as straphangers gradually pay off this $10 billion loan. Over the 30-year lifetime of the bond, a single transit rider would spend an extra $12,000 to pay off just the next three years of unfunded capital projects.

The 2015-2019 capital program will need another revenue stream. Leaving that program unfunded would trigger a whole new cycle of borrowing and fare hikes.

In the end, the MTA is unlikely to put the entire cost of the capital program onto fare hikes. As Pranger pointed out, New York already puts more of the cost of its transit system onto riders than anywhere else in the country. “While it’s reasonable to ask riders to assume some of the costs of maintaining the system, the operating ratio needs to remain stable,” said Pranger.

In a follow-up post, we’ll look at the alternative to massive fare hikes: deferred maintenance, unreliable service, and the deterioration of the transit system.

Peter and Lillian Sabados were killed by a driver who had racked up 29 license suspensions. The calls for stricter licensing procedures following their deaths were far less numerous than the calls for reforming the tour bus industry following last week's fatal casino bus crash in the Bronx.

Much of the attention has centered around whether Ophadell Williams, the bus’s driver, should have been licensed to operate the bus in the first place. Governor Andrew Cuomo took a break from high-stakes budget negotiations to order an investigation of Williams’ driving and criminal records and Senator Chuck Schumer has called for the state DMV to audit every driver’s license held by a tour bus driver. Said Schumer in a WNYC report, “Looking after a crash, or a spot check while the driver is behind the wheel, that’s good, but what would be better is preventing these people who shouldn’t be driving, from getting behind the wheel in the first place.”

Schumer’s focus on prevention must be cold comfort to the family of Peter and Lillian Sabados. The elderly couple were killed in a hit-and-run crash while walking to Thanksgiving Mass in 2009. Their killer, Allmir Lekperic, had amassed at least 29 license suspensions in the three years beforehand. Any attempt to prevent Lekperic from getting behind the wheel in the first place was clearly ineffective.

You’d never know it from watching the news this week, but there are far more Allmir Lekperics in the world than deadly bus drivers. Each year, around 375 people are killed in bus crashes nationwide, according to a 2009 report by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration [PDF]. The bulk of those deaths come from crashes involving school buses and transit buses; charter and tour buses were involved in only 396 out of 2,629 fatalities between 1999 and 2005, around 57 a year.

Compare that to the number of people killed in crashes with improperly licensed drivers. One in five fatal traffic crashes nationwide involves at least one driver without a valid license, according to research by the AAA Foundation [PDF]. Those crashes killed an average of 8,801 people each year.

Crashes involving unlicensed drivers, therefore, killed more than 154 times as many people as all crashes involving charter buses.

Here in New York, the problem is just as acute. According to Transportation Alternatives, unlicensed drivers are four times as likely to be involved in traffic crashes as properly licensed drivers, but 75 percent of motorists with suspended licenses continue to drive.

Attempts to ensure that private automobiles are driven by people with proper licenses never seem to get the traction that the current push to regulate tour bus operators has managed to generate. A bill introduced in the state legislature last session, which would have increased the penalties for drivers with suspended licenses who cause serious injuries, went nowhere. A 2009 City Council resolution on the issue was ignored at its hearing and died in committee. And of course, one important reform proposed by Governor Eliot Spitzer — allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for a driver’s license — was abandoned after two months of intense political opposition.

Over the last week and a half we’ve seen an extraordinary focus on the importance of licensing to ensuring traffic safety. If the goal is to save lives, however, rather than score political points in the wake of a high-profile tragedy, the focus needs to include private cars, not just tour buses.

Between Ninth Avenue and Third Avenue, the proposal for 34th Street calls for a curbside bus lane on one side of the street, and an off-set bus lane with expanded pedestrian space and loading zones on the other side of the street. Image: NYC DOT

“Consensus” and “process” were the buzzwords last night when NYC DOT presented its new concept for improving transit on 34th Street [PDF]. Gone was the plan for New York’s first physically separated busway — scuttled by local property owners and residents seeking drive-up curbside access. In its place was a package very similar to Select Bus Service on the East Side of Manhattan: bus lanes offset from the curb, off-board fare collection, camera enforcement, and bus bulbs to speed boarding and relieve sidewalk crowding.

The average bus speed on 34th Street is 4.5 mph, and DOT’s preliminary estimates suggest these improvements could improve speeds 15 to 25 percent.

City Council Member Dan Garodnick supplied one of the evening’s most apt remarks, calling the plan “a lot more modest than some earlier ideas, and I believe it is extremely promising.” (His East Side colleague on the Council, Rosie Mendez, also seemed to capture the spirit of the moment when she handed the mic back to transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and quipped, “There are some potholes that we need to cover up. I hit them on the way here.”)

The new plan, which DOT expects to hone and present in more detail this fall, may not be the groundbreaking project originally envisioned, but it still has a lot going for it. In addition to improving bus speeds, the project would add 18,000 square feet of pedestrian space to some of the most crowded sidewalks in the city. It also drastically increases the number of legal mid-day loading spaces along the corridor, from 55 to 355.

The details are still getting hashed out, but the general concept for 34th Street now looks like this:

• Between Ninth Avenue and Third Avenue, the street is 52 feet wide and will accommodate one lane of general traffic in each direction, one curbside bus lane, one bus lane off-set from the curb, and one parking/loading/turning lane for general traffic. The curbside bus lane and the off-set bus lane will swap sides of the street as needed — so that the loading lane serves the side with the greatest demand for pick-ups and deliveries.
• On the western and eastern ends of 34th Street, DOT has 60 feet to work with, and the geometry will be more symmetrical, with one loading lane, one off-set bus lane, and one general traffic lane on each side of the street.

West of Ninth Avenue and east of Third Avenue, 34th Street would have offset bus lanes and bus bulbs on each side. Image: NYC DOT

Bus lane cameras and off-board fare collection can launch this year, said DOT, with the new bus bulbs and off-set bus lanes slated for construction in 2012.

There’s still a long way to go before this project reaches its final form, and as the public process continues, it’s not clear that bus riders will be heard any more going forward than they have been to date. Will this process work for the majority of people who walk and ride the bus on 34th Street?

Last night was the fourth meeting of the 34th Street project’s Community Advisory Committee, the group of stakeholders including local residents, property owners, and businesses who have helped shape the plan. One participant in last night’s workshop, where the committee split into four groups to discuss different segments of the proposed redesign, reported that bus service issues didn’t come up in at least one of the groups. Most of that group’s focus was on the concerns of property owners and real estate interests.

If you’d like to have a say on the future of 34th Street, mark your calendars for March 30 and 31 — that’s when DOT will hold open houses for the public to ask questions and give feedback on the redesign.

The rush-hour pedestrian crush on the south side of 34th Street, at about 5:45 p.m. yesterday. Photo: Ben Fried

The Fulton Street Mall prioritizes buses and pedestrians, like the 34th Street plaza and transitway would have. It is the most successful retail strip in New York City outside Manhattan. Photo: Sean Marshall/Flickr

As the New York Post continues its increasingly tedious assault on pedestrians and crosstown transit riders, its writers always seem to suggest that giving priority to buses in an important retail area is both radical and self-evidently bad for business. If they bothered to look just one borough away, they’d see that nothing could be further from the truth. The eight bus- and pedestrian-only blocks of downtown Brooklyn’s Fulton Mall make up the most successful retail strip in the city outside of Manhattan.

It was a similar bus- and pedestrian-only plaza that the DOT scrapped for a single block of 34th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues — partially, it seems, at the behest of Macy’s and local real estate interests. So it’s revealing to compare the current clamor over the 34th Street plaza, the 34th Street transitway, and now, in the Post at least, any transit improvements whatsoever, to the creation of the Fulton Mall.

The Fulton Street Mall has its roots in the planning vogues and racial turmoil of 1960s New York. “The idea of a transit mall was what every downtown revivalist was talking about in the 1960s,” explained Meredith TenHoor, the co-author of Street Value: Shopping, Planning and Politics at Fulton Mall. Prompted by department store owners worried about retaining their white customer base, she said, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership proposed a series of improvements to make the area “feel more like an indoor shopping mall instead of a dirty downtown street.”

Over time, however, the design morphed — in some ways unintentionally — from one intended to compete with Long Island shopping malls into one that embraced its Downtown Brooklyn location. According to a 1977 article in the New York Times, for example, plans for a Plexiglas arcade covering the street were scrapped by the time construction started.

More important was the inclusion of buses in the plan, a consequence of the budget realities of the fiscal crisis years. “The city had no money at the time,” said TenHoor, “so they were able to use federal transportation grants to make the pedestrian mall” by adding a transit corridor. It helped that as the city’s planners studied the area, “they found it had all these incredible links to transit and most of the shoppers were coming through transit.”

Of course, the suburban concept never disappeared entirely. According to TenHoor, the department stores also built a series of large parking garages behind Fulton Street in order to try and attract shoppers heading out to suburban malls.

Politically, the Fulton Mall was relatively uncontroversial. While a Lindsay Administration plan to pedestrianize Madison Avenue was defeated by the Board of Estimate (at the hands of future mayor and then-comptroller Abe Beame), Brooklyn Borough President Sebastian Leone and the taxi industry, both Beame and Leone supported the Fulton Street project.

The Fulton Mall’s smooth path through city government was in large part paved by the strong support of large downtown Brooklyn retailers. A senior VP at the department store Abraham and Straus, for example, told the New York Times that the plan would create a “pedestrian paradise.”

Though TenHoor said their support didn’t drive the project forward, many smaller merchants also supported the plan. In a 1973 article headlined “Small Merchants Hail Brooklyn Mall,” the Times quoted Jack Gindi of Joy Gifts as saying the plan would improve sales by “bringing more people in who will feel more relaxed to stroll and window-shop without the crowding and hazards of traffic.”

Integral to winning business support, said TenHoor, was ensuring that deliveries could be made. “That was the first thing that the planners of the street did to get businesses on board.” In many cases, they developed delivery routes on the side streets, she said, though delivery vehicles are currently allowed on Fulton Street between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.

Today, the Fulton Mall is one of the most successful retail streets in New York City. Rent for retail is more expensive than anywhere else outside of Manhattan, according to industry data. “It is a point where all of this transportation converges and people come from all over Brooklyn to shop,” said TenHoor.

“Pedestrianization really helped things because it made things feel more welcoming,” continued TenHoor. The extra space makes the street more comfortable and creates room for activities not possible on narrow sidewalks. “There’s actually ample public space for culture to take root,” she said. “It’s quite important for the people who shop there.”

Any comparison between the Fulton Mall and the abandoned plans for 34th Street isn’t apples-to-apples, of course, but the concepts were fundamentally similar. Prioritizing bus riders and pedestrians along Fulton Street earned strong political support and has proven popular for shoppers and profitable for retailers. What’s so different on 34th Street?

Around 1928, streetcar tracks ran down Broadway and 34th Street. When they were ripped out of 34th Street in 1936, it was a major event attended by Governor Al Smith and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Photo: New York Public Library.

In the media hyperventilating over plans for 34th Street that led up to last night’s cancellation of the pedestrian plaza between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, the biggest constant was the fear of change. An editorial in the Observer on Tuesday summed up the strange preference for the status quo: “From river to river, 34th Street moves cars, trucks, buses and pedestrians as efficiently and quickly as humanly possible in one of the world’s most crowded pieces of real estate.”

There was no indication that improvement is achievable, nor any understanding that the least efficient modes on 34th Street — private cars and taxis — slow down the far greater number of people who take the bus, and make the street more dangerous and unpleasant for the even greater number of people on foot.

What the naysayers never seem to acknowledge is that 34th Street has changed and changed again over the course of New York City’s history. To argue that 34th Street should never change again is to argue that at some point in the mid-20th Century, the city’s planners hit on a solution that was perfect for all eternity.

Since then we’ve learned a lot about how traffic works. We know that traffic volumes are not constant, and that when streets change, drivers adjust their decisions and their behavior. We know that on 34th Street and other major crosstown streets in Manhattan, traffic is strangling transit service, slowing buses to walking speeds. And we know that other cities have successfully created transit malls in their central shopping and business districts.

So we’re posting some photos of what 34th Street once looked like, not because we want to return to the good old days, but to show that there’s nothing sacred about the current design of the city’s streets.

Looking back, it’s clear that at least until painted bus lanes were installed along 34th Street in 2008, the current configuration of the street gives more space to the automobile than any before it. In 1911, for example, the city took seven and a half feet from each sidewalk on 34th Street in order to widen the street. 34th Street has changed a lot, and it will have to change again to work well for New York City in the 21st Century.

In 1931, elevated railroad tracks shadowed the east end of 34th Street, taking New Yorkers to the ferry terminal. Photo: New York Public Library.

A clearer look at how much of the width of 34th Street went to streetcar tracks. Photo: New York Public Library.

In the 1890s, Herald Square was dominated by the el, with horse-drawn trolleys ferrying passengers along 34th Street. Photo: New York Public Library.

Pedestrians on 34th Street no longer have to worry about Greyhound buses crossing the sidewalk north of the old Penn Station. Photo: New York Public Library.

More than half of all LI Bus lines will be eliminated under planned service cuts. Image: Newsday.

Nassau County’s unwillingness to pay for its own buses is ending in disaster for Long Island Bus riders. The MTA has announced that it plans to cut 25 of the 48 LI Bus lines and axe weekend service on two more.

“It’s absolutely devastating,” said the Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s Ryan Lynch. He noted that as eight percent of Nassau County households don’t have access to an automobile, many of LI Bus’s 106,000 daily riders will be left without any way to get around. “They’re going to be stranded,” he said. “They’re going to lose their jobs. They’re going to have to drop out of school.”

According to Lynch, the routes selected for elimination generally have the lowest-ridership in the system. Some communities, such as Bethpage, Elmont, and Lindenhurst, will be left entirely without bus service.

These extremely deep cuts come because the MTA decided it could no longer continue to offer Nassau County a special deal on its bus system while the recession and Albany raids were battering its own budget.

Nassau County pays less for its bus system than Westchester or Suffolk County, and is the only one to receive MTA subsidy. Image: Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

For the last decade, Nassau County, one of the wealthiest counties in the country, contributed only $9.1 million a year to its bus system. The MTA covered the more than $25 million deficit that created, something it doesn’t do for any other suburban bus system. “Nassau County had a really good deal for a decade,” explained Lynch. “The MTA is in financial straits and they felt that they couldn’t support it anymore.”

After years of wrangling with Nassau County, the MTA finally decided that it could no longer afford to provide a special subsidy for Long Island Bus. Nassau County didn’t step up to replace the lost funds, forcing the current cuts.

Nassau County hasn’t publicly made any significant move to increase its funding and restore service, said Lynch. Their only plan so far has been to somehow privatize the system without providing any subsidies and take a cut of the farebox revenues, a plan Lynch said doesn’t add up.

When residents call the county and urge them to increase their contribution, said Lynch, “They tell them that it’s the MTA’s problem. They don’t think it’s their responsibility to fund the bus system.”

Given the magnitude of the cuts, said Lynch, “It’s time for Governor Cuomo and Senators Skelos and Fuschillo to step in and show they care about Long Island bus riders.” Particularly given the fact that both the Senate majority leader and transportation committee chair hail from Nassau County, Lynch said, Albany needs to either provide state funds to keep LI Bus running or help negotiate a settlement.

Lynch said a public hearing on the changes is scheduled for March 23.