Although the NYC Dept. of City Planning says development plans would make the Far West Side a “transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly urban central business district” over the next 20 years, some aspects of the plan the agency is developing may work against that vision. Of particular concern are proposals to widen streets and the West Side Highway, and to require big additions to the parking supply in the district. 

City Planning, which is still working on the development plan, is considering two main options with some significantly different transportation elements.  The more intensive scenario, called the “Office Use Alternative,” projects development of primarily office, retail and hotel space, with some residential development. The “Multi Use Alternative” would substitute a sports and entertainment facility for office space in the the westernmost part of the area.

Both strategies would create a larger flow of people into the West Side.  While City Planning’s transportation analysis found that transit would account for the vast majority of projected trips, both scenarios plan to accommodate big increases in automobile traffic.  In both scenarios, all new development would be required to provide on-site parking facilities, constituting thousands of new parking spaces.  The intensive development plan also proposes widening 30th Street between 8th Avenue and the Hudson and the West Side Highway from 29th St. to 43rdSt.

Both plans propose the following changes:

• Use of articulated buses, which hold over twice the passengers of existing buses, on the M-31, M-34/M-16 and M42 routes.

• Re-striping and regulating on-street parking to add traffic lanes in some areas.

• Mandated on-site parking for new development.

• Displaced bus parking, requiring new facilities.

Some aspects of the two plans that differ: 

• Multi-Use Alternative would include improvements at 6 subway stations, Office Use only 5.

• Multi-Use would add 64 buses to routes in the district during a.m. peak and 61 during p.m. peak, Office Use 105 and 138 respectively.

• Office-Use would widen 30^th Street and the West Side Highway.

• Multi-Use would widen sidewalks to 20 ft. along 9^th, 10^th and 11^th Avenues between West 29^th and West 40^th Streets, Office-Use has less widening.

• Office-Use would add 25,000 new parking spaces and Multi-Use would add 16,000.

While transit service would be upgraded under both development plans, the changes could come at the cost of other, more pressing, transit expansions.  Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that a No. 7 subway extension – a key transit element for West Side development – was his top transit priority.  Any extension in West Side service — likely from Times Square to the Javitz convention center — would serve new trips to primarily new destinations riders, rather than improving service for the system’s existing ridership.

The #7 proposal would compete with construction of the long-postponed Second Avenue subway, a project integral to relieving overcrowding on the overwhelmed Lexington Avenue line.

City Planning's Far West Side Study

Bloomberg says #7 Subway Extension is Top City Transit Project
(Feb. 4, 2002)

MTR search facility and back issues:

Search our database of all past issues of Mobilizing the Region since Fall, 1994.

Go to index of all Mobilizing the Region back issues