Walking the Region: Hempstead and Newark
The Tri-State Transportation Campaign and friends recently conducted walking tours with an eye toward traffic- and truck-calming improvements in traffic-besieged neighborhoods in Newark and Nassau County’s Hempstead Village.
Past is Future for G.S. Parkway Officials
In 1997 the New Jersey Highway Authority (which has since been merged into the New Jersey Turnpike Authority) began preparing an environmental impact statement for widening the Garden State Parkway between exits 30 and 80 (roughly from Toms River to Ocean City), a distance of 50 miles, or 100 lane-miles total. The study was completed in 2001, but it wasn’t released to the public until this August.
Options to Reduce MTA Debt?
NY State Comptroller Alan Hevesi may be embattled over his misuse of state vehicles, but a report his office issued in September points toward actions that NY State’s next governor may want to consider regarding the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s financial situation.
Who Will Win Race to Faster Buses?
Everyone’s talking about bus rapid transit, but the big question is who will actually deliver fast, attractive bus service in our region, and when?
Shays-Farrell Race a Window into Impatience with Gridlock-as-Usual
Transportation looms as an ever-more important issue in Southwest Connecticut, and candidates for the state’s 4 th congressional district — Democratic challenger Diane Farrell and Republican incumbent Christopher Shays — know it.
Small Project, Big Fight in Ocean County
For the roughly 25,000 people living in Ocean County’s Lacey Township, the most controversial item on the 2006 ballot is a proposition over whether or not to support a .8 mile street construction project on abandoned railroad tracks running parallel to Route 9 (Railroad Avenue).
Transit Villages an Opportunity for New York
“New York is more than 15 years behind New Jersey on smart growth and transit-oriented development” said Ellyn Shannon, a transportation planner for the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee (PCAC) to the MTA, to kick off a morning-long panel discussion on Wednesday at NYU’s Rudin transportation center.
NYC Truck Enforcement Still Lags
Thirty-four NYC civic leaders who wrote to NYPD chief Raymond Kelly this past May urging a higher priority for truck traffic enforcement have still received no reply nor noticed any significantly stepped-up police work to limit illegal truck driving in city neighborhoods.
Walking the Region: Hempstead and Newark
The Tri-State Transportation Campaign and friends recently conducted walking tours with an eye toward traffic- and truck-calming improvements in traffic-besieged neighborhoods in Newark and Nassau County’s Hempstead Village.
On Wednesday, Village Mayor Wayne Hall, village engineers, Nassau County planning staff, Long Island ACORN, and the Tri-State Campaign toured Hempstead Village by foot. The group was led by traffic calming expert Michael King of Nelson/Nygaard Consulting.
Participants discovered that many Hempstead crosswalk signals are too fast for even able-bodied walkers, and turning cars routinely endanger those crossing the street. Major roads, like Peninsula Boulevard, lack basic amenities, such as crosswalks and signals, even though they feature schools.
More than one-fourth of Hempstead Village families have no access to a car, and the Village boasts the second highest walking rate (8.8%) in Nassau County, not to mention excellent access to bus and train routes via the Hempstead Transit Center. Unfortunately, the Village also has the highest pedestrian hospitalization rate in the county. Mayor Hall hopes to make the streets safer, and preliminary documents from the new Hempstead Village Master Plan bode well for improvements.
The pedestrian environment in Newarkis similarly hostile. Last week, Tri-State and staff of La Casa de Don Pedro and other Newark activists, walked a portion of Bloomfield Avenue to identify truck route indicators and pedestrian safety hazards. Not one truck route sign was spotted, and many trucks were illegally traveling on residential streets. Generally, Newark streets are designed for through traffic, not for local residents walking around: streets are overly-wide, walking signals and crosswalks are lacking and students lack safe walking routes to school. Street signs pointing drivers to the convention center and other attractions are in perfect con dition, while signs about loc al parking, truck regulations and bus routes are covered in graffiti.
Newark has twelve of the state’s 25 most dangerous intersections, and 44% of Newark residents do not have access to a car.
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Past is Future for G.S. Parkway Officials
In 1997 the New Jersey Highway Authority (which has since been merged into the New Jersey Turnpike Authority) began preparing an environmental impact statement for widening the Garden State Parkway between exits 30 and 80 (roughly from Toms River to Ocean City), a distance of 50 miles, or 100 lane-miles total. The study was completed in 2001, but it wasn’t released to the public until this August. The EIS is the basis for all of the environmental permits the project needs to proceed.
The EIS says the widening is needed to cope with congestion and safety concerns created by past and anticipated “development and growth of the Central Jersey Shore Region,” but the document does a poor job showing that more lanes will actually solve any problems. Notably, it does not even consider that a more capacious parkway will actually create more traffic over time by encouraging more and longer car trips along the shore, along with additional development. Elsewhere along the East Coast, many of the most congested areas are abandoning large-scale highway projects as self-defeating (because the new lanes fill with traffic in a short period) in favor of better planning, mass transit and thoughtful lane-management schemes. Ironically, the New Jersey Dept. of Transportation — whose commissioner, Kris Kolluri, is a member of the Turnpike Authority board — is at the forefront of this thinking.
Adding 100 lane miles to the Garden State Parkway will forever alter the transportation and development climate along a wide swath of the Jersey Shore, and represent a giant public investment. Citizens of the state deserve an analysis of the project that reflects its importance and potential impacts, and also offers some assurance that the road capacity the project promises will not be completely eaten up by new traffic in a short period of time.
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Options to Reduce MTA Debt?
NY State Comptroller Alan Hevesi may be embattled over his misuse of state vehicles, but a report his office issued in September points toward actions that NY State’s next governor may want to consider regarding the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s financial situation:
Not diverting $307 million in state general fund aid and dedicated taxes away from the MTA, as Governor Pataki has proposed;
Using $450 million of the 2005 surplus — now in an off-budget account — for MTA operations; and
Reconsidering future bonding for MTA capital programs, especially the pace of system expansions.
The MTA is facing debt of $1.9 billion in 2010, and it will reach $2.1 billion by 2012.
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Who Will Win Race to Faster Buses?
Everyone’s talking about bus rapid transit, but the big question is who will actually deliver fast, attractive bus service in our region, and when?
NYC: Although the pace of work for the effort begun several years ago made us wonder whether implementation would take place during Mayor Bloomberg’s term, the city recently announced it was moving up implementation of two of five anticipated first-phase routes.
NJ: NJ Transit has been studying BRT applications for the suburban Route 1 corridor between Trenton and South Brunswick and now has launched an initiative to develop two Newark BRT routes. Spokespeople say the agency plans an “aggressive” approach to bus rapid transit.
CT: The Hartford-New Britain project, that will run mainly over rail rights-of-way, has been talked about for about a decade and has recently enjoyed status as a focal project for new transportation revenue raised by the state (MTR #539). However, a recent announcement by Governor Rell indicated a very extended completion date, putting the start of service well beyond the next governor’s entire term.
BRT is also under discussion for central Nassau County and the Tappan Zee corridor, but at more conceptual stages that do not warrant forecasts for implementation.
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Shays-Farrell Race a Window into Impatience with Gridlock-as-Usual
Transportation looms as an ever-more important issue in Southwest Connecticut, and candidates for the state’s 4 th congressional district — Democratic challenger Diane Farrell and Republican incumbent Christopher Shays — know it. Farrell lost to Shays in 2004 by a close margin (MTR # 472).
Farrell, former First Selectwoman of Westport, told the Fairfield Citizens News that she will work to solve transportation issues by bringing jobs into the “community where people live, work and play” – a nod to smart planning (Farrell is also on the board of the 1000 Friends of Connecticut). If elected, Farrell told the Bridgeport News she will secure more federal transportation dollars than Shays, and secure a seat on the House’s transportation committee. According to her campaign website, the only road project she supports is “modifications to I-95 on-ramps and off-ramps,” with the rest of her platform focused on improving bus transit on Route 1 and expanding rail freight service to Bridgeport Harbor. If elected, she promises to investigate “gateway tolls” — using E-ZPass at the state border — as an alternative revenue strategy to higher gas taxes. As Selectwoman, she was a member of the metropolitan planning organization for southwestern CT.
Congressman Chris Shays has a solid history of bringing transportation dollars into the state and is especially keen on reducing truck traffic. He has been a strong advocate with NY Rep. Jerrold Nadler of a cross harbor rail freight tunnel, pointing to its potential to relieve Connecticut highways of some truck traffic (Farrell also supports the cross harbor project). Recently, he secured $15 million for the StamfordUrban Transitway Project which would construct an HOV lane to the Stamford Train Station. Though a transit-related project, it has been controversial because it will require taking private houses and businesses to widen a road. He also helped fund the ferry-bus-rail Bridgeport Intermodal Center, and seeks more ferries to Long Island. Shays is more interested in new road capacity projects than Farrell – he recently told the Bridgeport News that he secured funding for improvements to Route 111 in Monroe, a new ramp to Route 8 in Trumbell, and the widening of Canal Street in downtown Shelton. He also supports the widening of I-95 between Branford and Rhode Island.
Both candidates support expanded commuter rail service and more parking along Metro-North, and moving more freight via rail and barge. Farrell has said she will “get in the DOT’s face” to speed up rail car procurement.
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Small Project, Big Fight in Ocean County
For the roughly 25,000 people living in Ocean County’s Lacey Township, the most controversial item on the 2006 ballot is a proposition over whether or not to support a .8 mile street construction project on abandoned railroad tracks running parallel to Route 9 (Railroad Avenue).
The measure is opposed by environmentalists and bike/pedestrian advocates who argue the town has already voted on this project by supporting a 2001 ballot initiative proposing a rail-trail along the same stretch of tracks.
NJDOT is interested in the street idea, first proposed by Lacey officials, as a way to build a street grid to alleviate congestion that will be worsened by two planned big box stores. Despite political pressure along the Shore, the DOT wants to avoid widening Route 9, the “main street” of many shore towns. However, last March, the NJ Dept. of Environmental Protection denied coastal area impact permits needed for the street.
The Lacey Rail-Trail Committee and the shore environmental group Save Barnegat Bay have waged a tenacious battle to prevent road construction in right-of-way that had been previously allocated exclusively for a trail. The segment is indeed the missing link in a county-approved project for a 14-mile trail through the area. It has been seen as a bright spot in a relentlessly sprawling landscape where the philosophies of “place-making” and walkable communities have yet to be acknowledged by developers or local government.
The impact the proposition will actually have on the future of the project, whether it passes or fails, is unclear. In any case, the town and DOT will have to modify the street’s design before DEP will look at the project again; a local vote doesn’t change permit requirements. There’s also no guarantee the vote’s failure will kill the project. We think NJ DOT is willing to consider the matter water under the bridge and perhaps incorporate the rail-trail into its Route 9 corridor plan, but previous setbacks seemed to be viewed by Lacey Township as obstacles to overcome, not as final decisions.
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Transit Villages an Opportunity for New York
“New York is more than 15 years behind New Jersey on smart growth and transit-oriented development” said Ellyn Shannon, a transportation planner for the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee (PCAC) to the MTA, to kick off a morning-long panel discussion on Wednesday at NYU’s Rudin transportation center.
Presentations bore Shannon’s observation out. NJ Transit’s Vivian Baker provided an overview of the relatively numerous development projects Transit has launched on property it owns, or that have been coaxed into being by state policies that provide incentives and technical assistance — via a formal Transit Village program housed at the NJ DOT — to municipalities willing to create pedestrian-friendly mixed use zones around bus and rail stations (see MTR #s 525, 530).
The push for transit-oriented development in New York’s suburbs is far less organized. A project at the Beacon train station that has involved developers, Scenic Hudson, municipal, civic and business leaders as well as a major Metro-North planning process and multi-stage station area overhaul is the big example for the MTA commuter railroads. Planning work in Ossining and several other locations has been driven by developers and/or local officials, but could provide valuable experience for creation of a programmatic approach to fostering station-area development throughout the Metro-North and perhaps the entire MTA area.
The Long Island Railroad has been involved in station area planning (as opposed to station structure improvement) to an even lesser degree, although a new PCAC report gives the agency credit for strong involvement in the creation of a recent Mineola master plan, centered on the LIRR station.
A formal transit village program, patterned after New Jersey’s, at each of the MTA railroads or operating across the two territories would appear to be one of the easier initiatives that the next New York State government could launch to create better communities and improve economic development opportunities while addressing gridlock and sprawl.
Presentations from this week’s forum will be posted in the future at the Rudin Center website (
www.wagner.nyu.edu/transportation). The new PCAC report is available at www.pcac.org. Information about New Jersey DOT’s Transit Village program is available on-line at www.nj.gov/transportation/community/village/. NJ Transit’s “transit-friendly land use” work is described at
www.njtransit.com — click links for “About NJ Transit” and then “Transit Friendly Land Use.”
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