MTR 45, Questions for Westchester HOV

Mobilizing the Region
Issue 45 August 3, 1995

Questions for Westchester HOV

The Environmental Defense Fund and Tri-State Transportation Campaign have submitted preliminary comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the NY Dept. of Transportation plan to add carpool or "high-occupancy vehicle" (HOV) lanes to the Cross-Westchester Expressway. The comments criticize the narrow range of options evaluated in the DEIS, request additional analysis by the DOT and recommends that a broad, flexible array of transit and transportation demand management measures be deployed in the corridor. The DOT's DEIS did not include the most cost-effective recommendation from earlier NY DOT studies of Tappan Zee/Cross-Westchester congestion relief strategies -- congestion toll pricing -- in any of the alternatives evaluated in the DEIS. The DOT's 1987 "Tappan Zee Corridor Study" estimated that discontinuation of the commuter toll discount in conjunction with new transit measures could reduce peak travel demand on the Tappan Zee bridge by 18% in the year 2010. The finding contradicts statements in the DEIS that such measures can only reduce peak car trips about 5%. Additionally, the DOT has not considered the effects of its roadway plans on land development patterns in Westchester and Rockland Counties, nor has it evaluated the effect of implementation of recently issued Westchester Development Guidelines on corridor travel. Consideration of improved transit access in the corridor, including enhanced bicycle and pedestrian access to transit facilities, is largely unexplored in the DEIS.

Other questions were raised about the project at a Westchester Legislature Environment Committee meeting this week. County representatives said the Westchester DOT, Planning Dept. and the County Executive all had reservations about the plan laid out in the DEIS. Legislators requested information from functioning examples of HOV lanes in corridors similar to I-287. Observers speculated that now that a detailed plan for the long-discussed HOV lanes is down on paper, interested parties are taken aback by features like the tangles of fly-overs and ramps the median HOV lane will require, and by the small number of HOV lane access and egress points the plan allows. Some legislators astutely recognized that the Cross-Westchester HOV lane only really has a chance of working if an HOV network exists on connecting highways, though the desirability of constructing the latter is not a question the NY DOT has posed to the communities of the Hudson Valley.

Last week, we reported that the Federal Highway Administration had recommended changes in the congestion pricing survey/study the NY Thruway Authority was considering for the Tappan Zee corridor. The Thruway Authority is apparently refusing to alter its approach, which FHWA had criticized as too academic and not oriented to ultimate implementation of a pricing policy. The Thruway Authority wants to have the NY DOT rather than FHWA fund the work, and observers believe the intent of both NY agencies is to conduct the survey in such a way as to kill the issue of Tappan Zee pricing altogether.

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