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Congratulations are in order for State Senator Bill Perkins, who has successfully condemned more than 32,000 crosstown bus riders to travel on 125th Street at speeds that are often slower than walking. His pressure to revise a plan for dedicated bus lanes and other measures to prioritize surface transit — culminating in an “emergency” town hall meeting last Thursday — resulted in DOT watering down its proposal.

State Senator Bill Perkins' office has no position on improvements for bus service on 125th Street, but Perkins himself has called Select Bus Service a "failure." Photo: NY Senate

When asked how Thursday’s meeting went, Perkins’ office was sunny. “We are definitely pleased,” deputy chief of staff Linda Wood-Guy told Streetsblog, insisting that the senator’s office did not concern itself one way or the other with actual changes to the street — or improvements for bus riders. ”Our office was only concerned about the process,” she said.

That process began last September, when DOT and the MTA held a public workshop sponsored by local community boards and elected officials, including Perkins, that attracted nearly 100 people. A community advisory committee — comprised of community boards, elected officials, community development corporations, the 125th Street BID, NYCHA residents, and transit advocates – began meeting in November and met for a third time in March. The project team also hosted a walking tour with more than 50 people to gather feedback in January.

But when the process resulted in a plan to actually improve conditions for bus riders — by adding bus lanes and left-turn restrictions — Perkins’ office began to marshal opposition, claiming that community members were not being adequately consulted.

Despite his deputy chief of staff’s claims that Perkins does not have a position on specific changes DOT might make to the street, the state senator was full of opinions about Select Bus Service in his April letter to DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, ignoring the speed increases, ridership gains, sales receipts, and high customer satisfaction reported on other SBS lines. “The feedback that we have received,” he wrote, “indicated dissatisfaction and even failure.”

The plan would have converted the M60 to a Select Bus Service route serving six stops along 125th Street with off-board fare collection and signal priority technology to hold green lights for buses. A one-mile, camera-enforced dedicated bus lane between Morningside and Third Avenues would have cut down on double parking, which currently slows buses to a crawl. Metering more parking spaces would have improved parking availability, further reducing incentives to double-park. With one general travel lane in each direction, DOT was proposing adding left-turn restrictions at most intersections to keep traffic flowing.

The new plan, presented by DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione at Perkins’ town hall, shrinks the bus lane in half, ending it at Lenox Avenue instead of Morningside. It also reduces the number of left-turn restrictions and scraps a proposal to add parking meters between Amsterdam and Morningside Avenues, according to DNAinfo. A copy of this plan is not available on the project website; Streetsblog has requested a copy from DOT but has not received a response. Update: A copy of DOT’s presentation is now available online.

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State Senator Bill Perkins is hosting an "Emergency Town Hall Meeting" tonight because DOT is proposing Select Bus Service improvements to 125th Street. Image: DOT

Spurred by transit activists demanding improvements to 125th Street buses that often crawl slower than walking speed, DOT and MTA have been moving forward with a project to improve bus service along the major crosstown corridor. But last month, State Senator Bill Perkins sent DOT a letter [PDF] in which he said Select Bus Service improvements were a “failure” and demanded  that ”the agency slow down” the process of bringing better service to bus riders on 125th Street.

Tonight, Perkins is hosting an “Emergency Town Hall Meeting” about buses on 125th Street. DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione will give a presentation, followed by a rebuttal from the 125th Street Business Improvement District, Disabled In Action of Metropolitan New York, and members of Community Boards 9, 10, 11, and 12. In his letter to DOT, Perkins said that “issues and concerns” raised by some of these groups “are not being adequately responded to or respected.”

In the meeting flyer [PDF], Perkins says there are “major changes coming soon to 125th Street” and encourages people to “come and share your concerns, opinions, ideas and alternative proposals before it’s too late.” In his April letter to DOT, Perkins did not put forth any suggestions for changes that would provide improvements for bus riders.

The meeting is from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at United House of Prayer for All People, 2320 Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Perkins’s office is asking attendees to RSVP by calling his office at (212) 222-7315.

State Sen. Bill Perkins wants to slow down a plan to bring dedicated bus lanes to 125th Street. Image: DOT

For years, crosstown bus riders on 125th Street — more than 32,000 per day — have had to put up with a ride that’s slower than walking. After months of planning, fixes are in sight, but State Senator Bill Perkins is objecting to the city’s effort to bring faster bus service to Harlem.

During rush hour, buses on 125th Street crawl at barely more than a third of the already-slow 7.7 mph average pace of other New York City buses. Six out of every ten minutes a bus spends on 125th Street, it’s standing still. A major culprit: double-parking drivers. On the busiest blocks, double-parked cars block at least one traffic lane more than 40 percent of the day, according to a DOT study.

More than three quarters of the households in Bill Perkins's State Senate district don't own cars. Photo: NY Senate

Last fall, after Upper Manhattan transit advocates demanded improvements, DOT began planning better bus service for riders along the corridor. The agency has surveyed merchants, held three Community Advisory Committee meetings, three public workshops, presented before three community boards, and according to DOT spokesperson Nicole Garcia, attended more than 30 private meetings as the plan moved forward.

But that isn’t enough for Perkins, who wrote a letter to Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan asking her to delay the plan because of what he calls a lack of consensus [PDF]. “We believe that your proposal is being forced and implemented without our opinions, suggestions and comments taken seriously,” he wrote.

Perkins goes on to claim that the speed increases, ridership gains, sales receipts, and high customer satisfaction reported on other SBS lines aren’t indicative of success. “The feedback that we have received,” he wrote, “indicated dissatisfaction and even failure.”

Perkins, who was the lone committee vote against closing a loophole in the state’s careless driving law last month, doesn’t say what types of bus improvements he and his constituents would like to see implemented. His only demands are that “the agency slow down” and present “alternative plans and proposals.”

In the meantime, outreach for the project continues. On Tuesday, DOT and MTA held a public workshop to gather feedback on the proposal [PDF].

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TRAC members participate in a May Day rally. One of the transit rider coalition's top demands is for Select Bus Service on 125th Street. Image via Facebook

Select Bus Service is a big success on First and Second Avenues and 34th Street. Speeds are up, ridership is up, and the MTA is using the time savings to run even more buses along the busy corridors. So where in Manhattan is next for the popular package of bus improvements? One group of uptown transit riders hopes the answer is 125th Street.

The Transit Riders Action Committee is a new project of WE ACT, the northern Manhattan environmental justice organization, founded last year in response to the most recent round of fare hikes. After reaching out to neighborhood riders at bus stops and subway platforms, TRAC asked new members for their priorities in the neighborhood. After generating a long list of options, the new committee voted to focus on three priorities: keeping the fare affordable, improving the condition of Upper Manhattan’s poorly-maintained subway stations, and improving bus trips on 125th Street.

“The buses are incredibly slow,” said Jake Carlson, WE ACT’s transportation equity coordinator. “They are constantly battling for their own piece of the road. It’s an issue that really hinders people’s mobility.” He noted that he often ends up walking crosstown on 125th rather than taking the bus.

Despite slow speeds, bus ridership on 125th Street is sky-high. Four routes travel on 125th Street: the M60, M100, M101 and Bx15. Between them, around 32,500 passengers board on 125th Street on an average weekday, said Carlson, and around 31,000 get off.

TRAC organizers and members have already started to meet with community board members and feel there’s room for persuasion. “When you start talking about the problem, most people get it right away,” said Carlson. “They know what it means to get across 125th Street.”

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Good news for cyclists, joggers, and others using the Hudson River Greenway: The ten blocks of the off-street path between 135th Street and 145th Street which had been blocked off were reopened at 10:00 this morning, according to a spokesperson for the city Department of Environmental Protection.

While the path was closed due to repairs on the adjacent wastewater treatment plant, greenway users were forced to take an arduous and unmarked detour. This reopening restores the connectivity that makes the greenway the most heavily-used bike path in the country and a particular favorite of cyclists who don’t want to ride with motor vehicles.

"Bike Path Closed" is about all the information cyclists will get about the closure of the heavily-used Hudson River Greenway between 135th and 145th Streets. Photo: Noah Kazis

The Hudson River Greenway is the most heavily used bike path in the United States, carrying roughly one-seventh of all cyclists entering Manhattan below 50th Street. In Upper Manhattan, where there are fewer bike lanes and much less on-street protection for cyclists than further south, it is truly the backbone of the bike network.

Despite the greenway’s centrality to the city’s bike network, a ten-block stretch of the path between 135th and 145th Streets has been closed for a week, with scarce effort to provide an alternative route for cyclists and other park users.

Last Wednesday, a fire at the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant forced that plant offline, sending untreated sewage from Manhattan’s entire West Side directly into the Hudson. As part of its round-the-clock repairs, the city Department of Environmental Protection closed the greenway where it runs in front of the plant. A DEP spokesperson said that the greenway was closed to allow for emergency responder access, but would not elaborate further.

The plant is separated from the street grid by both train tracks and the West Side Highway, so it’s not implausible that the greenway space is needed for vehicle access or staging. I did not, however, see any vehicles, emergency or otherwise, on that stretch of the greenway this morning. Since the area in front of the wastewater plant was restricted, it was difficult to get a good view of the entire closed-off greenway segment and what it’s being used for.

As I learned when I rode my bike up to the area to investigate, the closure forces cyclists heading north or south on the greenway into a confusing, time-consuming, and potentially dangerous detour without any sort of signage or guidance.

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Manhattan Community Board 9 became the latest to endorse a car-free Central Park trial last night. By a vote of 32-9 with five abstentions, the board overwhelmingly overturned the 2-1 vote of its transportation committee, which had been the only committee in the borough not to endorse the plan thus far.

CB 9 is the fourth full board to vote in favor of taking automobiles off the Central Park loop drive for a trial period starting this summer, joining CBs 5, 7 and 8. In addition, committees from CBs 1, 10 and 11 have also endorsed the plan.

Before the meeting started, City Council Member Robert Jackson announced that he was in support of the trial, though not ready to take cars off the loop drive permanently. “I’m willing to try anything,” Jackson said.

Brad Taylor, a board member, explained the importance of taking cars off the loop to the West Harlem community. If the drive isn’t closed, he said, “traffic that wants to cut across to Midtown will be coming through our community. If they don’t have that option, they’ll stay where they are on the East Side or the West Side.”

Car-free park advocate Ken Coughlin cited a 2007 survey that found one third of the drivers on the Central Park loop came from the Bronx, ten percent from New Jersey, and six percent from Westchester. That adds up to 1,200 to 1,800 cars per day “that would not be on Harlem streets if it were not for the availability of the Park Drive,” he said. “Harlem has the most to gain from this trial.”

Said Lenna Nepomnyaschy, a long-time resident of the community district, in support of the proposal: “Having cars in the park is unbelievably horrible to see. All of a sudden the cars come in, there’s honking, there’s exhaust, there’s anger. There’s just not enough space for everyone.”

In order to ensure that the trial provides information that is as accurate as possible, the board amended the resolution to request that the car-free period extend sixty days after Labor Day, in order to be able to measure the effect of the closure on heavier traffic days.

In 2006, car-free Central Park advocates delivered a petition with an unprecedented 100,000 signatures to City Hall. Image via Streetfilms

Despite the impressive shows of support from three Manhattan community boards over the last two weeks, the effort to take cars off of the Central Park loop for a summer-long trial hit a major snag last night. In a resounding vote of two to one with two abstentions, the transportation committee of CB 9 voted against the car-free trial.

Before last night, the car-free Central Park trial won the endorsement of five committees in three different community boards, with only one no vote between them all. Those committees were far larger than the CB 9 committee. Wednesday night’s vote at CB 8 was something along the lines of twenty to one. In contrast, it’s hard to say that the two opponents of the car-free trial last night have a much stronger claim to speak for the residents of Morningside Heights and West Harlem than the one supporter.

According to Ken Coughlin, a long-time leader in the effort to get cars out of Central Park, the two people who voted against the trial appeared dead set against it from the start. He also noted that the NYPD representative in attendance at the meeting made his opposition to the car-free park trial no secret.

Taking cars out of Central Park doesn’t require community board support; this is a decision that will be made at the mayoral level. So last night’s CB 9 vote isn’t an insuperable obstacle for car-free park advocates. Given the mayor’s current opposition to taking cars out of Central Park, however, building as strong a grassroots coalition of support as possible is critical.

To that end, it’s possible that advocates could bring the issue back before the full board meeting of CB 9 in two weeks with the goal of having the larger body overturn the committee’s decision.

The four Democrats running to replace Eric Schneiderman in the State Senate - Miosotis Muñoz, Mark Levine, Anna Lewis, and Adriano Espaillat - met last night to debate transportation policy. They were joined by Green Ann Roos, not pictured.

Five candidates vying to become Upper Manhattan’s next state senator met in the 168th Street Armory last night to make their case to the car-free voters of Riverdale, Inwood, Washington Heights, West Harlem, and the Upper West Side. At a debate sponsored by Transportation Alternatives and WE ACT for Environmental Justice, important differences emerged over how best to solve the MTA’s budget crisis and make streets safe for pedestrians and cyclists.

Democrats Adriano Espaillat, Miosotis Muñoz, Mark Levine, and Anna Lewis were joined last night by Green Party candidate Ann Roos. Whoever wins, the victor’s first term will be dominated by the ongoing budget crisis afflicting the state of New York, which affects transit quite directly. State legislators made the MTA’s funding crisis even worse last December by stealing more than $100 million in dedicated transit taxes to plug gaps in the general fund. The debate began with a revealing discussion of how each candidate would secure adequate funding for transit given the current fiscal climate.

Assembly Member Espaillat, considered the front-runner due to an advantage in name recognition, strong fund-raising and prominent endorsements, began with a warning: “It would be irresponsible of me to say there’s not a deficit that’s going to hit across the board,” he said. Without new revenue, the legislature will be forced to make impossible choices between priorities like education, health care, and transportation.

Though he didn’t make a specific revenue proposal during the debate, afterwards Espaillat told me that “congestion pricing is certainly something that we must bring back to the table.” He argued against cobbling together a piecemeal funding scheme for transit, saying that “the main engine of economic development in our community” needs a “solid revenue stream.” Even so, he maintained his opposition to any tolls over the Harlem River bridges, which carry torrents of toll-shopping drivers through the district.

Mark Levine, considered to be a close second to Espaillat, also argued that congestion pricing would be the best solution. “I also support, short of that, a plan to toll the East River bridges,” he explained. Harlem River bridge tolls were conspicuously absent, however, a stance that he earlier explained to Streetsblog by characterizing those bridges as essentially local streets.

The other two Democrats, Muñoz and Lewis, each suggested reinstating the commuter tax to raise revenue.

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Candidates for the 31st Senate District: Miosotis Muñoz, Mark Levine, Anna Lewis, and Adriano Espaillat. All except Lewis have confirmed they will attend tonight's debate to talk transportation.

Labor Day and the Jewish high holidays make this an abbreviated week, but with the critical primary elections just seven days away, the state’s political world is going full-tilt. Tonight, at least three of the four candidates running to replace Eric Schneiderman in the State Senate will meet at a debate co-sponsored by Transportation Alternatives, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, and the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance to talk about how they plan to provide for the transportation needs of the Upper West Side, West Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood, and Riverdale.

Whoever wins the seat will be replacing one of the more pro-transit members of the State Senate. Before entering the Senate, Schneiderman represented the Straphangers Campaign as a private attorney, and in office he publicly embraced PlaNYC. However, even Schneiderman remained out of sight during the most recent fights over MTA financing.

The three candidates expected to show up tonight are Adriano Espaillat, Miosotis Muñoz, and Mark Levine. Espaillat currently serves in the Assembly representing an overlapping district; Muñoz was an aide to Congressman Charlie Rangel and Manhattan borough presidents C. Virginia Fields and Ruth Messinger; Levine was chair of Community Board 12′s transportation committee and founded a credit union for low-income Upper Manhattanites. A fourth candidate, Anna Lewis, has not yet confirmed whether she will attend, according to a DNAinfo report.

Streetsblog last looked at the race in June, noting that while each of the candidates to represent this largely car-free constituency expressed strong support for transit, none would support tolling the free Harlem River bridges that run through the district. Plenty of other revenue sources got the thumbs up: Espaillat was a vocal congestion pricing supporter, Muñoz wanted to reinstate the commuter tax, and Levine was even willing to toll the East River bridges on top of a commuter tax. But when it comes to new tolls inside the district, these candidates seemed to draw the line.

To find out where they stand on transit funding, what they’d do to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety, or to pose your own question, show up tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the Armory Foundation, located at 216 Ft. Washington Ave., between 168th and 169th Streets. The debate will be moderated by West Side Spirit reporter Dan Rivoli and Columbia urban planning prof David King.