Streetsblog New York City

This morning, the Bloomberg Administration announced the developer for the first phase of Hunter’s Point South, a Long Island City project the city is billing as the largest middle-class housing project since Co-Op City and Starrett City went up in the 1970s. A team led by the Related Companies will be developing the first 900 units at what will eventually be a 5,000-unit complex along the East River.

Whether Hunter’s Point South turns out to be the most recent in a line of auto-oriented projects along New York City’s deindustrialized waterfront, or a project in line with the city’s sustainability goals, will depend on whether developers choose to build all the parking they are entitled to, whether the MTA extends bus service into the complex, and whether the city’s attempts to foster ferry transit across the East River are successful.

The nearest subway station to Hunter’s Point South is the Vernon-Jackson Ave stop on the 7. The northeastern corner of the site is only two blocks away from the station. Those are long blocks, however, making the walk about three-tenths of a mile. That’s not right on top of the subway, but it is walkable. The far end of the 30 acre site, however, will be 0.6 or 0.7 miles from the subway, more than the half-mile rule of thumb for transit-oriented development.

Over the course of the project, the city has been in talks with the MTA to extend bus service, most likely the Q103, into Hunter’s Point South. There is no concrete promise to provide transit to the heart of the project, however, nor have funds to pay for more buses been publicly identified.

Read more…

Mayor Bloomberg delivered his tenth State of the City address this afternoon, laying out what he believed to be the city’s accomplishments, challenges, and priorities for the future. And if the speech is any indication, taxis and ferries are at the top of his transportation agenda.

Bloomberg’s plan to create a new class of taxi for the outer boroughs was included in a list of programs intended to make city government more efficient. “Why shouldn’t someone in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, or Staten Island be able to hail a legal cab on the street?” asked the mayor. Under the plan, livery cabs would be allowed to legally pick up street hails so long as they met a set of taxi-style requirements, including metered rates, credit card readers, standard markings, and GPS. A memo by TLC Commissioner David Yassky and Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith argues that expanding cab service in the boroughs would make a car-free lifestyle there easier; currently, 97.5 percent of yellow cab hails are in Manhattan or at the airports.

Bloomberg also discussed his administration’s continued redevelopment of the city’s waterfront. He touted plans to institute city-subsidized ferry service along the East River, the only other mention of transportation policy in the speech. Bus service, walking and cycling didn’t make it into the speech.

A few more details about the city’s new subsidized East River ferry service were revealed at a Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance panel yesterday afternoon, including the route’s stops and hours. Mostly, however, the panel offered advice on what it will take to make ferries successful and provided some valuable context for the public discussion about waterborne transit.

New York City Economic Development Corporation Vice President David Hopkins offered a little more information about the city’s upcoming East River ferry route. The route will be privately run but publicly subsidized; the city is currently in negotiations with operators. How much it will end up costing the city, and how much it will cost riders, wasn’t mentioned. According to a report in Crain’s Insider today, the city subsidy could approach $20 per passenger. (For comparison, in 2009 the total cost per passenger of weekday New York City Transit bus service was $2.73, with an average fare of $1.14 [PDF].)

The ferry will have “transit-like routing,” according to Hopkins, running both north- and southbound along a path from Hunters Point South in Long Island City, to India Street in Greenpoint, to North 6th Street and South 8th Street in Williamsburg, to Fulton Ferry, and then to Manhattan. With the current levels of waterfront development, he said, there isn’t yet the market for the point-to-point service that has proven successful from New Jersey to Manhattan.

Hopkins also said that the service would run at least every 20 minutes during peak hours, less frequently than City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden said that morning. The service would run seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Finally, Hopkins emphasized that this ferry program is meant to be a pilot. The city’s ongoing ferry study, which is measuring demand for a much larger set of routes, is still underway, and this two- to three-year program is intended to lay the groundwork for a potential expansion, allowing EDC to test demand, marketing strategies, ticketing systems, and their ability to connect ferries with other modes of transport.

Read more…

Big news from today’s Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance conference: a new city-subsidized ferry service will begin crossing the East River in May. City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden announced that the new service will run for at least two years, departing at least every fifteen minutes during rush hour.

Making the ferry service possible, said Burden, were the series of rezonings that have spurred growth along the transit-poor waterfront, creating a pool of potential customers. Accordingly, the service will begin by serving Hunters Point South, Greenpoint, North Williamsburg, South Williamsburg, Fulton Ferry, and both Downtown and Midtown Manhattan.

We’ll bring you more information about the ferry plans as it becomes available.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn called for the introduction of comprehensive, citywide ferry service at her State of the City Address a couple of weeks ago. That made John Kaehny wonder how the ferries would be paid for and how much they'd cost. This week's Queens Chronicle seems to have part of the answer:

"(This) is an absolutely great idea," said Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing), chairman of the council's Transportation Committee. "We need to rediscover and utilize this tremendous natural transportation resource to overcome many of the challenges faced by a growing city."

Operating costs for the five borough ferry service could reach up to $100 million annually, according to Liu, and will require the city to combine them with debt service on capital expenditures, like building docks. But when compared with other mass transit expansions, he added, "this is a very manageable investment for the long term."

Sounds expensive.

Last week Streetsblog reported on the Traffic Commission's proposal to create a "Livable Streets Lock Box" fund from parking revenue and taxi surcharges generated in the congestion pricing zone. If created, the fund could become a substantial new source of money for bicycle, pedestrian and public space projects in New York City. The fund would be controlled by the Department of Transportation per the approval of City Council. Its creation would mark the first time in the modern era that a dedicated transportation fund will be created in New York City. Currently, all parking revenue disappears into the City's general fund.

Now, thanks to documents published by the Traffic Mitigation Commission, we have a better idea of how big this Livable Streets Lock Box fund will be: Roughly $39 million a year. As spelled out in the "Increase Cost of Parking" document in Appendix J of the Commission's final report:

Annual Funding for NYC DOT Fund:
$22 million Eliminate Manhattan resident parking garage tax exemption:
$17 million Increase rates for on-street parking (widely considered a low estimate).
Total: $39 million

Though perhaps modest by London standards where the Mayor just announced that the City would be spending $100 million a year on bicycle projects, the Fund could get bigger in the future if it also receives revenue from curbside parking reforms being contemplated by DOT. However, big questions about how the money will be spent remain. The Traffic Commission called for the fund to be spent on:

"transit, pedestrian, bicycle, and parking management improvements, including, but not limited to, expanded ferry service, bus signalization, BRT investments, bicycle facilities, and pedestrian enhancements."

Yet, in her State of the City address earlier this week, Council Speaker Christine Quinn called for the creation of a "comprehensive five-borough, year-round New York City Ferry System." Ferries require heavy subsidies. The Staten Island Ferry costs the city about $74 million a year to operate and New York Water Taxi is currently going bust. Quinn's proposed ferry network will be expensive. And yet the city is entering a period of budget cuts.

The Speaker is in a powerful position right now. The Mayor is dependent on her to deliver congestion pricing in City Council. So, how will Quinn's new ferries be paid for? Is she aiming to redirect the Livable Streets Lock Box funds to ferries?

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn made a big pitch for enhanced ferry service in her State of the City Address today:

With some neighborhoods more than three quarters of a mile from a subway station we need to examine other modes of transportation. It's only natural to look at our natural highways ... our water ways ... to move New Yorkers efficiently and sustainably.

That's why we are proposing and the Mayor has agreed to begin developing a comprehensive five-borough, year-round New York City Ferry System.

Once again, this is an idea that came straight from listening to New Yorkers.

At a hearing that my colleagues Joe Addabbo, John Liu and I held in Broad Channel, we heard complaint after complaint about commute times from local residents.

Soon after, we began exploring the concept of a pilot ferry service for the Rockaways ... got a commitment from the Mayor to fund it ... and that service should be up and running by this summer.

But why limit ourselves to Rockaway?

Imagine getting on a ferry in Hunts Point for a day trip to Coney Island.

Or commuting from Astoria to downtown without having to brave the traffic at the Triboro Bridge.

Or traveling from Brooklyn to Queens without waiting for the G train.

And think of how it will enhance our infrastructure, open up our waterfronts and create jobs.

Later this month, we'll unveil a detailed plan for developing what will be one of the most significant transit initiatives in recent New York City history.

Before we do, I'd like to thank the Mayor, my colleagues, and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, for helping us make this vision a reality - and for working with us to keep our city moving forward.

The recommendation of a modified congestion pricing plan put forth last week by the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission has elicited another editorial from Bronx Assembly Member Jeffrey Dinowitz. Tellingly, the piece, from this week's Riverdale Press, starts off with talking points that fellow Assembly Member Richard Brodsky and "Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free" spokesman Walter McCaffrey have repeated again and again since the TCMC released its recommendation report:

The Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, whose job it was to evaluate Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan, has succeeded in only making a bad plan worse.

... it seems this new version has raised more questions than it has answered.

But rather than raising more questions, Dinowitz, for the most part, simply restates the same asked-and-answered arguments we've come to know by heart. Still, at the risk of repeating ourselves, we thought we'd answer them again, one by one, for old time's sake.

Who could support a plan that creates a regressive tax on middle-class and working people from the Bronx and the outer boroughs while giving an exemption to drivers from New Jersey who are more likely to be able to afford such a tax?

According to census data, less than five percent of New Yorkers drive into Manhattan's central business district for work. An analysis by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and the Pratt Center for Community Development shows that in all but one state Assembly district in the city, households with a vehicle are 50 percent wealthier than those without. In nearly half of the districts -- including Dinowitz's -- average income is twice as high. So actual figures suggest that the popular "regressive tax" cry is so much faux-populist bluster. Further, nearly all of the "middle-class and working people" Dinowitz and other pricing opponents claim to be speaking up for are now relying on a transit system that will benefit from congestion pricing.

As for the toll credit "exemption," New Jersey drivers would pay $8 to enter the CBD, same as everyone else, even if the money doesn't go into the same pot. Are New Jerseyans really "more likely to be able to afford" a fee than New Yorkers? If so, Dinowitz offers no data to back the claim. Even if he did, the argument itself is a red herring intended to put New Yorkers on defense against "the other" -- just as Dinowitz and his fellow pricing opponents have tried to cast the "Manhattan elite" as the beneficiaries of a plan designed mainly to improve access to Manhattan from outside the borough.

Read more...

Meghan Goth reports:

With city buses slogging their way past double-parked cars on Archer Avenue just outside, Queens community members and elected officials testified on Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal for a three-year congestion pricing pilot program at York College Performing Arts Center last night.

The Traffic Congestion Mitigation hearing, one of seven being held around the city, gave community leaders the chance to voice their opinion before the 17-member commission and a packed house.

As expected, a majority spoke against the mayor's plan. Many, like the Queens Civic Congress, offered suggestions for how to solve New York City's traffic problems without making it more expensive to drive private automobiles into Manhattan's transit-rich Central Business District.

Though they were clearly in the minority, a surprising number of Queens residents spoke up in favor of Bloomberg's plan. Just about everyone who stood up to testify agreed that traffic congestion is a serious and growing problem and the city needs to come up with solutions now.

"I might have to pay to go to Manhattan, but I support congestion pricing unequivocally," said Marc Scott, a Jackson Heights, Queens resident. "The Mayor's plan is a step in the right direction."

The plan, Scott said, would keep Queens streets safer and would help his son, who is asthmatic.

"If we reduced idling on my street, that would help him breathe better," Scott said. "I've lived in New York City for more than 20 years, and the man has a vision to make New York City better."

The audience clapped and cheered in response.

Read more...

On Wednesday, Jeffrey Zupan, Regional Plan Association's transportation analyst, issued a comprehensive rebuttal of the main traffic reducing measures proposed in Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free's anti-congestion pricing report, “Alternative Approaches to Traffic Congestion Mitigation in the Manhattan Central Business District."

Thanks to Zupan, Transportation Alternatives and other critics, four fundamental problems with the Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free plan have emerged:

1. Any alternative plan which does not include some form of congestion pricing will forfeit $354.5 million in federal transportation aid -- much of which is dedicated to bus improvements in Brooklyn and Queens.

2. The plan does not address through traffic, which accounts for 39% of driving in the Manhattan CBD. Congestion pricing does.

3. The plan does not address -- and may worsen -- traffic diversions from paid river crossings to free East River and Harlem River bridges, which hurt neighborhoods including Downtown Brooklyn, LIC/Woodside, Harlem and the South Bronx. Congestion pricing directly addresses these traffic diversions.

4. Some of the traffic reducing measures in the plan -- value parking pricing, variable tolls and BRT, for example -- would be far more effective if used with congestion pricing, instead of as a substitute for it. Many of the measures are not "alternatives" to congestion pricing but complements.

Among other problems with the report, the Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free plan applies an "equity double standard":  It harshly criticizes congestion pricing for its pocketbook impact on middle class motorists while ignoring the impacts of value parking, variable tolling and $200 double parking tickets that the plan would impose on these same motorists.

Zupan sums up the "Alternatives" report:

While many of these measures are worthwhile, the report overstates both their traffic reduction impact and their revenue potential. Many of these estimates are speculative, and the costs and difficulties of implementation are largely unaddressed. More importantly, nearly all of these would be far more effective if implemented in combination with congestion pricing.

The full text of Zupan's comments appears after the jump.

Read more...