Streetsblog New York City

Construction is set to begin on the first stages of the South Bronx Greenway this summer, marking the first tangible results of a community-based, bottom-up campaign for more livable streets. The project will bring safer walking and biking and much-needed green space to neighborhoods where people-oriented streets are in short supply.

The redesigns of Lafayette Avenue and Hunts Point Avenue, as well as new waterfront park space at Hunts Point Landing, will all begin construction this summer, according to the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Those streets will receive landscaped medians, expanded sidewalks, and new bike lanes. Work on Food Center Drive, which will include the first physically protected bike lane in the Bronx, is scheduled to begin this fall.

Implementation is close enough that people are getting excited about each construction truck that comes to the area, even though so far the crews are just doing regular road maintenance, said Miquela Craytor, the executive director of Sustainable South Bronx and a longstanding advocate for the greenway. 

Construction of the Randall's Island connector, which will eventually tie the South Bronx Greenway into the Manhattan bike network, is scheduled to begin in fall 2011, according to EDC. Adding a biking and walking path from the South Bronx to Randall's Island will give residents better access to the island's recreational facilities and provide a safe route to the new bike lanes planned for First and Second Avenue in Manhattan. When the connector is finished, said Craytor, the greenway will be between a quarter and a third complete.

What's about to be built differs somewhat from the original plans for the greenway, first put forward in 2006. In particular, plans to place pedestrian and bike paths along a median on Lafayette Avenue have been revised, with space for biking and walking shifted to the side of the street at the request of the Fire Department and the Department of Environmental Protection.

"We ended up putting quite a bit of that streetscaping to the sidewalk and expanding the sidewalk," said Craytor, noting that the center median will remain planted with trees and shrubs. She isn't particularly disappointed. "We successfully pushed back and ensured that the concept of slowing down traffic and narrowing the street was increased," said Craytor. "This will be an area for people, not vehicles."

More pictures below the fold:

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This just in: The State DOT will not widen exit ramps from the Major Deegan Expressway, the Mott Haven Herald reports. NYSDOT Region 11 spokesperson Adam Levine confirmed to Streetsblog that the agency will also refrain from adding "auxiliary lanes" as part of its plan to fix a segment of the Deegan along the Harlem River. Instead, the agency has opted to rehab but not expand the 50-year-old roadway.

Opposition to expanding the highway was widespread. Community activists, city officials, and electeds -- including Congressman Jose Serrano -- condemned the proposal as a threat to redevelopment planned for the Harlem River waterfront. Transportation advocates warned that the project would attract more traffic, negating the promised reductions in congestion.

By choosing the rehab-only option, the agency will save somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million. NYSDOT had previously set aside $266 million for the expansion option in its five-year capital plan. And the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, which collected dozens of public comments opposing the proposed ramps and lanes, reported yesterday that NYSDOT had pegged the full cost of the expansion project at $343 million. The rehab-only project, by comparison, will cost an estimated $170 to $200 million, said Levine.

Here's one suggestion for where to invest some of that savings: Tear down the Sheridan.

Last week we reported on the state DOT's expensive plan to widen part of the Major Deegan Expressway in the southwest Bronx, even as the agency fails to maintain upstate bridges. The dubious Deegan project sucks up $266 million in the state DOT's new five-year capital plan, while more promising initiatives -- like the potential removal of the Sheridan Expressway -- languish without much money at all.

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

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

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

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

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

Following Tuesday's citywide elections, Streetsblog asked leading advocates and experts to lay out their ideas for the next four years of New York City transportation policy. What should the Bloomberg administration try to accomplish? Kate Slevin, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and editor of its excellent blog, Mobilizing the Region, kicks things off with today's installment.

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

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

Over the next four years, the mayor has an opportunity to rebuild the public's trust and reverse the perception that he doesn't care about the average citizen. It's in his best interest to spend significant time on the latter. A wealthy, assertive politician can seem arrogant to voters in the best of times, and third terms are notoriously difficult for elected officials. If the mayor wants to create a legacy that builds on his existing record, he will have to prove that his policies, including transportation, help working New Yorkers. Here are four ways to help get him there, starting with the most specific.

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

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

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

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When it opened its doors this spring, the Gateway Center mall was plugged as a boon to the South Bronx. So invested was the Bloomberg administration -- along with city taxpayers, thanks to subsidies granted by the NYC Economic Development Corporation -- that the mayor himself participated in the grand opening of the center's Home Depot store.

In modeling the sprawling complex on the typical suburban big box slum, developer Related Companies seems to have made a tactical error. From a Times piece featuring Related honcho Glenn Goldstein:

Mr. Goldstein said that Related originally expected about 40 percent of the mall’s customers to arrive by public transportation, but so far a majority of customers had been traveling this way. Livery cab service is available for shoppers who make bulky purchases, and some stores, like Best Buy and Home Depot, provide delivery for a fee.

Who would have thought that a shopping center served by subway lines and city buses would attract so many transit-riding customers? Not Goldstein and company, whose 2,800 parking spots are proving to this point to be a lot of wasted space (likely in part because parking isn't free). Unfortunately, Related went all in with its auto-driven design by making entrance points unwelcoming to shoppers arriving on foot, as shown in these Streetsblog photo pool contributions from Jacob-uptown. Imagine how many more people would walk here if they had actually made this a walkable environment.

Today, in a Times feature story on the Bloomberg administration’s development policies, former planning commissioner Ron Shiffman said the mayor has “failed to steer” the city’s most recent building boom. The real estate cycle may be cratering now, but eventually it will swing back up. When it does, will New York be ready to steer investment toward walkable development that matches the sustainability and transportation goals of PlaNYC? Or will we get swamped by even more Gateway Centers?

More pics, with commentary from the photographer, after the jump.

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

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

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

Former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, widely credited as the architect of PlaNYC, spoke at the Museum of the City of New York last week on the potential impact of Mayor Bloomberg's signature program. According to City Room, Doctoroff considers the two-year-old environmental blueprint on par with such grand projects as Central Park and the development of the Manhattan street grid.

Among the outcomes so far: The conversion of 15 percent of the taxi fleet to clean-fuel vehicles, the construction of 79 new playgrounds, $100 million a year to increase the energy efficiency of government buildings, 20 pilot projects to clean up city waterways, hundreds of miles of new bike lanes. Ninety-three percent of the 127 initiatives are under way, Mr. Doctoroff said.

"The biggest achievement of them all," he said, is a greenhouse-gas inventory showing a 2.5 percent reduction in citywide carbon emissions, "at a time when greenhouse gases in cities around the nation continue to increase."

There is little doubt that PlaNYC is an ambitious and noble undertaking, despite the failure of congestion pricing -- which Doctoroff rightly cites as a direct cause of the current MTA funding crisis. But it seems a little specious to brag about reductions in greenhouse gas emissions when the Bloomberg administration has continued to vigorously promote VMT-inducing suburban-style parking, a contradiction not lost on City Room commenters like Chris, who writes:

What’s most frustrating is how Bloomberg and his advisors fail to make some very basic connections between their policies, for example working for modest transit improvements while promoting development that is very parking-intensive. Bronx Terminal Market is a prime example of this. Big box development with considerable parking availability which will do exactly what it is designed for- bring more cars, congestion, and pollution into the city.

So give credit where credit is due, but so many people wish Bloomberg would connect the dots.

Indeed. Even as he lobbied for PlaNYC and congestion pricing, Doctoroff himself was a prime mover behind the Yankee Stadium parking deal and greenhouse gas catastrophes like the Gateway Center. There's the legal battle waged by the administration to bring some 20,000 parking spots to Hell's Kitchen. And just last week Bloomberg celebrated the opening of driving-intensive commercial development at the Gateway project -- one day after announcing a new "green" buildings initiative. In fact, when asked point blank by Streetsblog about the connection between more parking and more driving, the mayor either didn't understand the question or chose not to address it.

Chris believes there's something "far more complex than just ignorance" at work here. We agree. The question is, will the Bloomberg administration safeguard the progress of PlaNYC by reversing its disastrous parking policies?

We've got a few more details about another local ped-bike project getting a lift from stimulus cash. The street improvements announced for Hunts Point and Port Morris in the Bronx will fund the first three sections of the South Bronx Greenway. This project has been years in the works. When complete, it will bring 11 miles of pedestrian and bicycle paths to neighborhoods where places to play and bike are scarce, and where childhood asthma and obesity rates run high.

"This is extremely helpful moving these projects forward in a time of fiscal crisis," said Miquela Craytor, director of Sustainable South Bronx, which has been instrumental in shaping the project and shepherding its progress. "It's a big win for South Bronx communities that have been underserved for so long."

The three segments include Lafayette Avenue, a connection to Randall's Island, and access to Hunts Point Landing. The Sustainable South Bronx web site has a handy map of the full project [PDF].

The Post reported last week that the Cross-Bronx Expressway -- perhaps the most infamous urban freeway on the planet -- has earned the title "America's worst highway." According to traffic analysis firm INRIX, several of the nation's top bottlenecks are located on the Cross-Bronx:

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

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

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

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

Someone in the Bloomberg administration needs to sit the mayor down and explain to him the relationship between parking and driving. Streetsbloggers have followed Bloomberg's parking escapades on the West Side of Manhattan and in the South Bronx. Now, the man behind PlaNYC wants federal stimulus funds to finish a new six-story parking garage for the New York Botanical Garden, a stone's throw from Yankee Stadium. Crain's reports:

The garden started the project over the summer, paying $13 million to design the facility and acquire the site at the intersection of Webster Avenue and Bedford Park Blvd. in the Bronx. Since then, everything was put on hold, leaving a big hole in the ground.

To complete the parking garage, executives at the garden have set their hopes on the stimulus plan expected soon from Washington. They are asking for $20 million—the remaining amount needed—and have been put on Mayor Bloomberg’s list for federal stimulus money. 

Though more people are visiting the garden, revenues are down. Apparently management believes more parking will bring more money. So why not take that $20 mil and instead use it to improve the streetscape from nearby bus and subway hubs, making for a more pleasant walking experience?

Instead of taking a transit-oriented approach to boosting the garden's bottom line, the new garage will bring more cars, which will lead to more air pollution and other attendant dangers for the people of the South Bronx. And once again, if the mayor has his way, taxpayers will help foot the bill.