As New York City reaches to host the Olympics in 2012, its transportation concept bears heavy scrutiny and public input before any final decision in 2005.Can the city move 16,000 athletes and other participants and tens of thousands of spectators each day for two weeks without severely disrupting the weekday commerce, life and commutes of workers and residents?  If so, can it be done without distorting long-term development and infrastructure priorities?

The good news from an “operations” point of view is that NYC claims it will host the most compact games in recent history.29 of the 40 events will be held in the five boroughs.  The details about access are not satisfying, however.  NYC does not intend to provide for motorists with more parking beyond park-n-rides along major rail lines.  It says drive-up events will be limited to venues that already have mammoth parking supplies, like Giants Stadium and Nassau Coliseum.

But strategies for reducing traffic look weak.  Employers will be told to stagger hours, promote carpooling, encourage telecommuting and ask employees to take vacations.  Truck deliveries will be time-restricted.  If these things are possible, perhaps some of them should be implemented now.  But a more workable plan would probably resemble the post-September 11 Manhattan HOV rule (nominally still in force downtown) and be in force over a wider area.  Atlanta imposed SOV prohibitions during its 1996 games. Still, some increase in car traffic seems inevitable — not every venue in the city is on a subway stop.  All events on Staten Island, for instance, are simply shown as accessible from the Staten Island Ferry and SI Railway.

However, when combined with the transport plan to move the 16,000-strong “Olympic family” of athletes and others on separate commuter rail trains, off-limit platforms, and private high-speed ferries with special stops, such measures may feed New Yorkers’ feelings that the games are an elite festival parachuted into their midst.  The public and spectators will be prohibited from new ferries and the reserved trains.

NYC’s application notes that the games’ late summer schedule puts them into the subway system’s seasonal trough, when nearly 900,000 fewer people each day use city subways and buses (compared to the fall peak).  However, projecting transit use and capacity on specific segments of the system ten years out seems guesswork at best. This would be especially the case if the robust economic conditions predicted by various tax increment financing and corporate underwriting plans indeed prevail.

The infrastructure plan for transporting the “Olympic family” is based on two transit axes, one water and one rail, forming an “Olympic X” along which most competition venues will be located.  The north-south axis follows the East and Harlem Rivers and will be served by high-speed ferries. The east-west axis runs from Flushing Meadows through Manhattan, and out to the NJ Meadowlands.  It will be served by “Olympic Rail” trains.

For spectator use, the application explicitly counts on extension of the #7 subway (the bid claims the project is receiving widespread support).

LIRR rail riders allegedly will not be inconvenienced because the plan anticipates completion of the East Side Access project, which will add to LIRR capacity.  The project is slated to be done by 2011, but the 2012 deadline doesn’t leave room for technical or funding delays.  No additional accommodations are anticipated for NJ Transit riders

The city’s assertion that the #7 project will not compete with other elements of the MTA capital plan will have to hold true if the plan relies on finishing the #7 project and the LIRR-Grand Central link in roughly the same time frame.  Second Avenue subway proponents have a right to be worried that that project will receive lower priority.

The “X” plan shows a rail line heading west from Penn Station with a northwestern spur off the Northeast Corridor to reach events at Giants stadium and Continental Arena.  The land in between area is preserved wetlands.  Moreover, there is no plan for such a rail line on NJ Transit’s books.  The Hudson River rail tunnel NJ needs to increase capacity for commuter rail and Amtrak is not mentioned at all; instead the rail spur is said only to require completion of the Secaucus Transfer Station.  But none of the lines that meet in Secaucus reach the Meadowlands venues.  Newark may have a transit-friendly stadium by the time the games roll around, solving part of the problem, but rail to Giants stadium would be a brand new project.

NYC2012 documents are online at www.nyc2012.com.An opposing perspective is at www.hellskitchen.net

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