Transportation and Development
Linking transportation and land use decisions is vital for
a more efficient transportation system. The location, design,
and appearance of any development dictate how people will travel
to the site.
In suburban areas of New Jersey, New York, and
Connecticut, decades of car-oriented development have created
massive congestion problems. Sprawling land uses far from traditional
town centers, like suburban strip malls and office parks, have
made suburban to suburban trips more common. For many people,
every trip made, whether to school, the grocery store, or work,
requires a separate car trip.
While transit offers a potential
solution to congestion problems, it requires destinations to
be somewhat clustered together. Otherwise, walking or shuttle
trips on either end of a transit trip become too long, and
people continue to use their cars.
Therefore, smart growth
and development around transit (called transit-oriented development,
or TOD, by urban planners) is becoming more common in New Jersey
and New York suburbs. In New Jersey, the state DOT is encouraging transit “villages” (link
to DOT web page in 5.1), and working for community friendly planning. In Long
Island, an ambitious planning effort is underway that could densify the Nassau
Hub area and offer transit service.
In New York City, the
city’s success and rapid economic and
population growth has spurred large developments and rezoning projects in the
five boroughs. But much of this development is poorly planned, encouraging driving
rather than transit, and bringing car-oriented suburban-style development into
an urban environment. The city generally rubber stamps proposed development with
little thought given to transportation impacts or overall planning. At the same
time, most city streets are treated as avenues for cars rather than for the millions
of pedestrians that use them daily.
Xanadu and Giants Stadium
Developer Mills Mack Cali is currently constructing Xanadu,
a nearly 5 million square-foot office, retail, and recreation
complex in the Meadowlands next to Continental Airlines Arena. The developer
is only paying for minor roadway improvements, and has not
offered any money to improve transit. At the same time, the New York
Giants and New York Jets are building a new football stadium
replacing the current Giants Stadium. New Jersey has pledged
$75 million to improve the roads around the sports complex. Both
projects are expected to greatly increase car trips to the area,
and along already congested roadways, like Route 3.
The Port Authority has pledged $150 million for a rail spur from
Secaucus Junction into the site. But that station will be a long
walk away from many Meadowlands attractions and may only encourage
a few people to leave their cars at home. Is this the best transit
option for the site? So far, data proving the efficacy of the rail
spur is missing from the discussion. For example, there are no studies
that examine bus access to the complex or offer ridership numbers
for the planned rail extension.
To address this, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and a number
of local municipalities are calling for New Jersey to immediately
launch a major transit access plan for the entire Meadowlands complex.
Four Bergen County municipalities (East Rutherford, Carlstadt, Lyndhurst
and Wallington) and the Hudson County Board of Freeholders have passed
a resolution calling for such a study.
So far, some of the improvements that the Tri-State Transportation
Campaign have called for, such as a better pedestrian routes between
attractions inside of the complex, have been included in current
plans. But more must be done to ensure that the new development does
not gridlock local roadways by discouraging transit use.
Development in Brooklyn
The Campaign is working to ensure the Brooklyn’s transportation
system can handle large scale projects proposed for the borough. Brooklyn
is the city’s most populous borough, has the largest number
of transit riders and residential development is booming.
The largest planned development is Forest City Ratner's ambitious
Atlantic Yards, which encompasses a 19,000-seat Nets basketball arena, 7,500 new
units of housing, and office and retail space all contained in 17
skyscrapers. The project will transform the Prospect Heights and
Fort Greene communities.
Development above the Atlantic Avenue transit hub is certainly appropriate,
but the scale of this project combined with other nearby development
could overwhelm Brooklyn’s transportation system.
Besides working for an honest transportation study, we support community
benefits from the project, including:
- tying transit fares into the price of arena tickets,
- extensive traffic calming around the site,
- a more pedestrian-oriented design,
- shuttle services from off-site parking locations, and
- a residential parking permit program.
Formerly, we worked to get more transit concessions from IKEA, which
is building a store in Red Hook. We are participants in the Downtown
Brooklyn Transportation Blueprint study, and are working for a similar
transportation analysis in recently rezoned sections of Greenpoint
and Williamsburg. For more, see links below.
Yankee Stadium
The plan to build a new Yankee Stadium adjacent to
the existing stadium will worsen game-day gridlock
in the South Bronx and on the Major Deegan Expressway because
the team’s plan calls for a roughly 55% increase in parking spaces with no
neighborhood traffic relief components.
Thanks to the advocacy of the Campaign and groups like Save our Parks, Good Jobs New York, and New Yorkers for Parks, ground has been broken on the long-promised Yankee Stadium Metro-North station. However, the stadium development includes three new parking garages with about 2,000 new spaces. Most
of them will be built on city parks.
We are working with groups in the South Bronx to implement the following
agenda to protect the South Bronx from worse traffic and air pollution:
- Minimize new parking.
- Institute residential parking permits near the stadium on game
days.
- Implement a thorough traffic calming plan in neighborhoods around
the stadium to prevent through traffic from using inappropriate
streets.
- Support mass transit use by including the price of the transit
fare in every Yankees ticket sold.
For more information:
West Side Stadium Lawsuit
In late 2004, the Campaign, along with the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign, filed suit in New York Supreme Court against the MTA and city over their environmental review of the West Side rezoning and proposed Jets stadium. The suit argued that the traffic study did not provide a hard look at the traffic and transit impacts of the proposed stadium, and that transit usage to the stadium was inflated.
Though we did not win the suit, the lawsuit contributed to the general critique and climate of opposition that eventually led state leaders to stop the project.
Parking Management
Parking supply is a major indicator of how
people travel to a location. Free, unrestricted parking encourages
driving and promotes congestion, even if mass transit options
are available. Large lots also create large, vacant, unsafe areas
that make nearby spaces less attractive for development.
The Tri-State
Campaign supports innovative parking management techniques
that reduce incentives to drive and promote other alternatives.
One examples of this is parking cash-out, a program that allows
employees to receive cash instead of a free parking space at work.
Others include reducing the supply of parking, imposing market driven
parking fees, or sharing parking spaces with a nearby facility or
store. For example, if a new store has free and abundant parking
and lacks a good pedestrian environment, shoppers will be likely
to drive, even if it is relatively close to transit.
