- But Cars Still Official Technology of NYSDOT -

On Wednesday, Transit advocates, bus drivers and riders and Brooklyn neighborhood activists called on the NY State Dept. of Transportation to convert the carpool lane on the Gowanus Expressway to a bus-only lane.

State DOT officials tried to pour cold water on the idea, despite the fact that its own analysis says such a move could become necessary in the near future, and that over 80% of the passengers traveling in the lane are bus riders.

The groups took their stand at a press conference at a Brooklyn site overlooking the Gowanus, between Sunset Park and Bay Ridge. Spokespersons for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 726 and the United Puerto Rican Organizations of Sunset Park (UPROSE) made statements on the issue. The call for a bus-only lane was also supported by the Brooklyn Heights Association, Gowanus Expressway Community Coalition, the Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives. They also repeated the ATU's call from last fall that the MTA institute bus-only lanes on the Verrazano Bridge.

The groups' argument comes in light of a report released in April by NYSDOT that said increasing traffic in the lane is slowing it down. Bus riders and drivers have heralded these findings during the last year, complaining that heavy car traffic is slowing the Gowanus bus commute. "On any given morning, the so-called fast lane travels at a slower speed than the non-designated lanes -- in its present form, the HOV lane isn't achieving much," said Brian Whalen, a regular express bus commuter.

The report said further increases in the lane's use would require the DOT to look at increasing carpool rules to 3 or more passengers, or reserving the lane exclusively for buses. NYC Transit is planning to add at least 100 new buses to existing Staten Island Express routes. Citizens and elected leaders are petitioning for new routes to serve S.I.'s South Shore as well.

DOT's report also estimated that 10-15% of the cars using the Gowanus HOV lane are single-occupant cheaters.

"Because of terrible congestion and the need for better mobility in New York City, people and planners need to think about I-278 -- the SIE, the Verrazano and the Gowanus -- as much as a transit-way as a highway," said Jon Orcutt of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. The ATU's Larry Hanley said bus commuters from western New Jersey and Pennsylvania often had quicker commutes to Midtown than Staten Islanders, thanks largely to the Lincoln Tunnel bus lanes. UPROSE leader Elizabeth Jeampierre said "Anything that will increase use of mass transit and keep overall traffic and pollution from getting worse will benefit Sunset Park." She was accompanied by a dozen Sunset Park youth concerned with health impacts of air pollution.

In a statement Wednesday to New York 1 News, the State DOT put the worst possible face on the idea. "At this point, we don't think converting HOV lanes to bus-only lanes is the right thing to do. It would end up diverting vehicle traffic to local streets," the agency said.

It's unclear to what extent this would be true, since much of the in-bound Gowanus HOV lane is a contra-flow lane on the south-bound side of the Expressway. If cars were prohibited from the HOV lane, they would be no worse off than they were a few years ago.

The DOT's April study said "The more vehicles using the HOV lane, the more its ability to provide reliable service will deteriorate." It said that once the HOV lane slowed to the 14mph crawl of the Gowanus general lanes, the Dept. would have to act to increase the HOV standard, or permit buses only. The bus lane advocates said on Wednesday it would make a lot more sense to take action to speed the bus commute long before HOV lane congestion develops to such an extent.

The MTA was embroiled in a separate issue over claims that it had masked the existence of a steep toll discount at the Verrazano bridge for multi-occupant cars and did not respond to the bus lane issue. It dismissed the need for such a lane when the ATU raised the issue last fall, but with the State DOT constructing a bus lane on the portion of the Staten Island Expressway nearest to the Verrazano, and planning to extend the Gowanus HOV lane southward to the bridge by the end of this year, the MTA's Verrazano ironically stands to be a missing link in an I-278 bus-way.