The only thing more congested than Canal Street might be Canal Street's sidewalks. Photo: Bertrand Duperrin via Flickr

Canal Street, to put it mildly, is due for a makeover. The street is clogged with traffic from the Holland Tunnel and the un-tolled Manhattan Bridge. Pedestrians jostle for space on the packed sidewalks, and they’re especially at risk of getting hit by a car, according to the city’s Pedestrian Safety Study.

Fortunately, the funds are in place for an eventual reconstruction and re-imagination of the street, thanks to federal World Trade Center emergency relief aid. To help determine how to design Canal Street, which must strike a balance between serving the local community and the regional transportation system, NYMTC, the region’s metropolitan planning organization, has been engaged in a nearly decade-long process of studying the area and drawing up recommendations for the corridor.

In a report released last Thursday [PDF], NYMTC recommends making Canal Street friendlier for pedestrians by adding significant amounts of sidewalk space. But larger changes, in particular the creation of a carpool lane in the Holland Tunnel, weren’t included. According to the NYMTC report, NYCDOT has agreed to use the recommendations to inform its plans, though a DOT spokesperson said only that the agency was reviewing the findings.

The Canal Area Transportation Study process began in 2002, and the first phase ended with some relatively small improvements to the area, like high-visibility crosswalks, new signage, and temporary improvements near Allen Street. Since 2005, the second, larger-scale phase of the study has been underway, bringing together all the regional transportation agencies as well as others with a stake in the project.

The NYMTC team studied a wide array of congestion-busting ideas for the corridor. Some, like two-way tolling on the Verrazano Bridge or congestion pricing, were dismissed because they required legislative approvals well outside the project’s scope. Transit expansions, like bringing the PATH train north from the World Trade Center or building light rail on Canal, were rejected as too costly. Some ideas were nixed because they lacked community support or because they conflicted with New York City’s Street Design Manual. Other ambitious proposals, like keeping traffic off side streets including Pell, Doyers, Mosco, and Mulberry, were referred to the appropriate agency for further study.

What’s left still has a lot to like.

In addition to a few recommendations that have already been implemented, like a HOV lane on the Manhattan Bridge and a median on Bowery, the plan calls for significant new pedestrian amenities. Those include leading pedestrian intervals at intersections and a redesign for the intersection of Bowery and Canal, at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge. Curb extensions would be built on Canal at Varick Street, between Elizabeth and Mulberry and between Baxter and Lafayette, replacing traffic lanes.

A separate memo on parking policy [PDF] also puts forward some powerful suggestions for making the most of scarce curb access and reducing parking-induced driving. That document recommends a further crackdown on parking placards, which in Lower Manhattan would significantly cut traffic. It also suggests that Park Smart might be successful in the area and puts forward the goal of keeping ten percent of spaces open at all times, which Donald Shoup would approve of. Though the report does raise the idea of building more parking on the area’s periphery, it notes that this hasn’t been particularly successful in other downtowns.

But NYMTC recommends against one significant change. Putting a HOV3 lane through the Holland Tunnel, the NYMTC model found, would shift cars with one or two passengers from the Holland Tunnel to the Lincoln Tunnel, George Washington Bridge, and Staten Island crossings. A NYMTC spokesperson added that those new trips, since less direct, would likely add extra vehicle miles traveled overall, and that a HOV lane already exists for the approach to the tunnel on the Jersey City side. While the tunnel itself would have less traffic with a HOV lane, NYMTC projected, the Manhattan streets it empties into would just fill up again with other traffic from the over-congested streets nearby.

NYMTC also looked into turning Canal Street one-way headed east, pairing it with a westbound Grand Street. While that option would have allowed for even wider sidewalks on Canal, wrote NYMTC, “the wider Canal Street sidewalks in the one-way alternative would be offset by the negative traffic impact of the one-way pair on both Grand Street and Spring Street.” In other words, the cars won out over the pedestrians on that one.

The study also includes a wealth of data for those interested in the area’s travel patterns. Congestion on Canal Street is worst on Sundays, for example, because non-work trips mean that there are more turns onto side streets, more cruising for parking, and more passenger drop-offs. The sidewalks are the most overcrowded between Broadway and Centre Streets. And during the weekday rush, there are roughly equal amounts of vehicles crossing Manhattan, beginning or ending their trip in Manhattan, and traveling within the Canal Street area.

In the absence of funds, transportation agencies are looking for cost-effective ways to move people. The Port Authority suggested it would be open to increasing Holland Tunnel capacity with a bus lane, for example. Photo: keithlam via Flickr.

The state’s top transportation officials delivered some tough news to the construction industry Friday: Public agencies are so cash-strapped they don’t even have enough money to maintain existing infrastructure.

With budgets battered by rising maintenance costs and recession-ravaged revenues, an industry-sponsored conference offered little prospect of further expansions to the state’s transportation system beyond the projects currently underway. Some combination of new revenue streams, cost-saving measures, and public-private partnerships will be necessary simply to keep New York moving, most suggested. Meanwhile, the cozy relationship between public officials and construction industry heavyweights was on full display, at times contradicting the general message of austerity.

Speaker after speaker laid out the costs involved just to maintain the state’s aging infrastructure. Joel Ettinger, the head of the New York City region’s metropolitan planning organization, said that over the next twenty-five years, “an amazing 98 percent of the money is going to go just to state of good repair and operations.” That’s a full $950 billion through 2035, he said.

Port Authority tunnels, bridges, and terminals director Victoria Cross Kelly presented her agency’s top capital project priorities, including billion dollar replacements of the Goethals Bridge, the George Washington Bridge suspender cables, and the New Jersey approach to the Lincoln Tunnel, as well as a number of smaller projects. “Each and every one of these has somewhere in their title ‘rehab’ or ‘replace,’” she said. “There’s no new added functionality.”

New York City Transit’s chief engineer, Fredrick Smith, pointed to the system’s dire need for new track signals. Currently, a quarter of the subway’s signals are over 70 years old. “How reliable do you think that is?” he asked. Unfortunately, the MTA capital plan for 2010-2014 is only funded through next year and the bulk of the signal work is theoretically scheduled for 2012.

Even for the basic tasks of keeping bridges up, roads paved, and transit running, current funding is inadequate. “Increased, stable resources need to be provided,” said acting NYS DOT director Stanley Gee. Gee singled out the project to rebuild the deteriorating Tappan Zee Bridge and add transit access across it as particularly problematic. “There’s no way that existing tolls can build that bridge,” he said.

As for where that money might come from, Gee was open to any possibility. “Pricing obviously is one,” he said. He also suggested a mileage tax to replace declining gas tax revenue. Gee isn’t counting on help from one potential savior, however: the federal government. “We don’t expect a long-term extension of federal funding any time soon.” Gee ultimately urged the audience, filled with politically powerful firms, to convince elected officials to fund transportation.

From a sustainability perspective, the upside of the funding scarcity is that many transportation agencies are looking to do more with less — and that can mean prioritizing transit. “We need to focus on making the best use of what lanes and tracks we have,” said Port Authority Director of Regional Development Andy Lynn. Calling the Lincoln Tunnel’s exclusive bus lane a great success story, Lynn said “We need more of that.” During the Holland Tunnel’s evening rush, he noted, buses make up less than three percent of the vehicles, but carry 48 percent of the people. There is currently no exclusive bus lane in the Holland Tunnel.

But cost saving measures won’t always favor transit riders. “If we can save money on our operating budget, that’s more money we can use for capital,” said Hilary Ring, director of government affairs at the MTA. The MTA’s goal is to reduce its operating budget by $750 million per year, he said, and the agency is well on its way to achieving it. Those savings don’t just come from administrative efficiencies but also unpopular layoffs. “It’s a very contentious situation that we need support for.”

Ring’s comment was a reminder of the constant conflict between operating budgets and capital investments, leading to tradeoffs between fares and service on the one hand and repairs and expansion on the other. The more debt the MTA takes on to pay for its capital program, the more its interest payments will rise and the greater the upward pressure on the fare will be. In one revealing moment that could only have played well before an audience of construction industry insiders, Ring dismissed popular anger over fare hikes, saying that “most people don’t really have a problem with the amount that they pay.”

The Tappan Zee Bridge is deteriorating rapidly and no one has decided how a new bridge will be paid for. Photo: joseph a via Flickr.

One potential way to relieve the pressure of tight budgets to give more control of the transportation system to business, through public-private partnerships. Such partnerships could speed up project times, cut the risk of cost overruns and add “incentives for innovation,” argued Samara Barend, an exec with engineering giant AECOM.

The idea already has a foothold in the New York region. The new Goethals Bridge will be built under a “design, build, finance, maintain” partnership, which importantly allows the Port Authority to retain control over toll rates, said the PA’s Cross Kelly. She also noted a public-private partnership in place to rebuild the George Washington Bridge bus terminal.

But Cross Kelly expressed skepticism about the way many public-private partnerships across the country have been structured. She suggested that the public sector should usually maintain control over tolls and explore shorter leases than the 49 or 99 year contracts signed in states like Illinois and Indiana.

Similarly, Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch sounded cool on private-sector control of transportation in his keynote address. “Every bus, every subway, every railroad line,” he said, “they were all privately owned and they all went broke.” Though he admitted that was partly because the government wouldn’t let the private operators raise fares, he implied that pricing essential public resources like transportation ought to remain a public prerogative. He also dismissed arguments about government inefficiency. “The Wall Street firms that push this and lobby for all of this very vigorously don’t innately have any better capacity to design or operate these systems,” said Ravitch.

One cost-saving device that didn’t get mentioned, of course, was getting tough with the contractors sponsoring the conference. Instead, the too-close-for-comfort relationship between public agencies and the industry was on full display. Describing the head of the General Contractors Association, NYS DOT Director of Civil Rights Warren Whitlock said that “her leadership on behalf of her industry is advancing our agenda,” as if there was no daylight between them.

The only elected politician to speak, State Senate President Malcolm Smith, did promise state support for transportation. But his remarks focused exclusively on high speed rail, not the urban transit systems and existing infrastructure that face catastrophic disinvestment, and which New Yorkers already count on to get around.

Touting his support for HSR, Smith promised that “there will be enough money spent that many of you who might be doing quite well will be doing a lot better” and that “there will be future millionaires and billionaires in this room.”

Average weekday eastbound trips, 2008. Source: TSTC/Port Authority of NY & NJ.

The Lincoln Tunnel XBL was established all the way back in 1971. In the last 38 years, bus ridership crossing the Hudson has boomed, especially this decade, but capacity for buses hasn't kept pace. Unless provisions are made to accommodate more bus travel -- and soon -- riders will face slower trips, the ridership gains of recent years will flatten out, and traffic troubles will deepen as more commuters choose to drive.

The good news is that it doesn't take all that much time or money to deliver some significant enhancements for bus riders. In a new report, "Express Route to Better Bus Service" [PDF], Tri-State lays out a strategy to expand on the success of the Lincoln Tunnel XBL and make bus travel more attractive for all trips across the Hudson. It's a wake-up call for the Port Authority to get moving on some long-overdue improvements.

"A population nearly the size of Cincinnati travels by bus across the Hudson River every weekday, but plans to enhance service for these riders are stalled," said Tri-State's Veronica Vanterpool, co-author of the report. "With bus travel anticipated to grow, we need to stop treating bus riders like second-class citizens and provide them with faster commutes and better access to information."

Tri-State recommends creating a westbound Lincoln Tunnel XBL during the evening rush and moving full-speed ahead with plans for a new high occupancy/toll lane for the morning commute (which has been stuck in the study phase for way too long). The report also touches on strategies to speed bus service across other Hudson River crossings, organize on-street loading for the city's growing volume of private bus operators, and make it easier for riders to plan their trips.

Follow the jump for the full slate of Tri-State's major recommendations.

Key Recommendations 

Short Term

1. Expedite the completion of the Lincoln Tunnel High Occupancy Toll Lanes study and implement the recommendations immediately.
2. Establish a westbound XBL in the Lincoln Tunnel during the evening rush hour.
3. Create an online portal for regional bus riders, with maps, route schedules and carrier information.
4. Improve communications technology for buses and update signage.
5. NYC should develop, with community input, strategies for formalizing bus loading/unloading and bus parking areas in neighborhoods across the city.
6. Coordinate with MTA and Westchester County’s Bee-Line to create and/or expand existing bus service between Westchester County and George Washington Bridge Bus Station.

Long Term

1. Study the potential for High Occupancy Tolling on the Holland Tunnel and GW Bridge.
2. Move forward plans to renovate and add capacity to the Port Authority Bus Terminal with community input, and to construct a bus garage on the West Side.