A Transit To-Do List for a Revamped NYPD and DOT

It is with mixed emotions that I mark the end of Mayor Bloomberg's time in office. The city's yawning gap between rich and poor has left many, including myself, wanting a new direction, and the result was Bill de Blasio's thumping of centrist Democrats and Republicans alike. But I will give credit where credit is due. Mayor Bloomberg and his transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, presided over an unprecedented expansion of transit and bike/ped options in New York. They weren't always well thought out, such as the 7-line extension which primarily served the interests of real estate developers at Hudson Yards, and they weren't always effective (watered down BRT on 34th Street comes to mind), but they did serve to fundamentally reshape New York's transportation landscape. While bike lanes and pedestrian plazas still arouse strong emotions (and the occasional lawsuit), their implementation over the past decade has become increasingly commonplace. Unlike many of the Mayor's policies, these improvements have enriched the lives of New Yorkers rich and poor, and I hope that Mayor de Blasio will continue - and improve upon - them as he takes office. With that in mind, I offer my own take on priorities for Mayor de Blasio and his to-be-appointed DOT and NYPD commissioners.

NYPD Bike Patrol / Photo: Streetsblog

Increase foot and bike patrols by the NYPD. For a city trying to heal itself from more than a decade of stop and frisk, foot and bike patrols have their own value as proven methods to develop trust between police and communities. But from a transit perspective, we should also push for keeping officers out of their cars and on the streets. The NYPD under Ray Kelly seems reluctant to investigate pedestrian injuries and downright intent on harassing and ticketing cyclists. Putting officers in the shoes of those they have failed to help is a powerful tool to help the NYPD develop respect and understanding for cyclists and pedestrians, and it will make officers more aware of the laws they are supposed to enforce.

Pursue SBS-type improvements for non-SBS routes. Obviously this is as much an MTA issue as a city issue, but NYCDOT does have control over bus infrastructure such as lanes and stops. Many of the improvements that have been shown to decrease travel times - offboard fare payment and increased stop spacing - can be implemented relatively quickly and (in well-traveled corridors) cost-effectively. Other improvements, such as bus bulbs and improved shelters with real-time arrival information, are well within the city's control. All of these could help improve the mobility of New Yorkers without requiring significant capital spending.

Expand the city's red light and speed camera programs. New York lags behind many major cities in its enforcement of moving violations by camera. The NYPD has been resistant to change (partly due to the risk of job cuts), but the fact remains that the NYPD issues shockingly few summonses for speeding and other moving violations. As New York moves toward a 20 mph citywide speed limit for residential streets, enforcement will become even more important. I hope that with a change at One Police Plaza and a mayor who has pledged to eliminate traffic fatalities, the new administration will fight to expand the use of cameras citywide.

Increase Citibike's footprint. The bike sharing program has proved very popular in Manhattan and the few areas of Brooklyn where it exists, and current plans have areas such as Cobble Hill and Park Slope slated for expansion. Given the Mayor's focus on inequality, I hope that he will also push for expansion into Red Hook, Bed Stuy, Bushwick, Sunset Park, and other less affluent areas with relatively good access to the city's wider bike network.

Couple development and transit. Massive new developments in Williamsburg, Greenpoint and the Astoria waterfront have the potential to strain limited transit resources in their respective areas. As a mayor who will seek to dramatically expand the city's affordable housing options, Mayor de Blasio cannot follow that blueprint. He and his planning team should consider proximity to transit and area capacity when deciding where to upzone - focusing the densest development near existing transit hubs (Downtown Brooklyn, Long Island City, Broadway Junction) rather than adding development in areas where transit would be strained or new residents would be forced to drive.

And finally...

Cut parking minimums citywide. The Mayor's goal of increasing affordable housing will never get off the ground if developers are constrained by the added costs of building unnecessary parking. Less than a third of New Yorkers commute by car, so Mayor de Blasio would be well served to enhance transit access, rather than give in to outdated planning ideas.

None of these ideas outlined are as costly or as ambitious as some of Mayor Bloomberg's larger plans, but they can nonetheless serve to enhance pedestrian and cyclist safety, give more transit options to all New Yorkers and help the new mayor achieve his goal of drastically increasing affordable housing options.

What If We Presented New York's Bike Lanes Like Transit Lines?

Today's thought comes from a post on the Atlantic Cites featuring the work of Mat Kladney. Kladney developed a bike map for San Francisco which radically simplified the official SF Bike Coalition map into one that resembles a subway map. Instead of detailed road maps and indications of type of bike land (protected, sharrow, etc.), Kladney's map shows crisp routings with critical features along the route denoted like stops and transfers between "lines" clearly marked.

There's much to be said for bike maps that do the opposite; maps which clearly define whether a lane will be adjacent to traffic or set off from it, or whether a road is simply "bike friendly" are invaluable resources, especially for first time riders. But I can't help but think the transit map model is a valuable one. New York features an extensive - and growing - network of protected bike lanes. They aren't always perfect (i.e. mixing zones for vehicle turns), and they are not always continuous, but they are by and large the closest thing this city has to permanent, dedicated bicycle infrastructure.

For this top-tier infrastructure, we could benefit from official (or unofficial) maps that abstract away the details and simply show what cyclists need to see: major routes with key features and transfers along the way. Much as a subway rider doesn't need to know every street and place a line passes under, a cyclist on the Brooklyn Greenway or 1st/2nd Avenue lanes doesn't need a detailed schematic. A map which only shows the major routes would give cyclists a better understanding of where the fastest and most protected lanes are (a particularly great benefit to Citibike users). It is not - and should not be - a replacement for the more detailed maps that already exist, but it could be a valuable complement, identifying the most robust portions of our bike infrastructure as being equivalent to bus or subway networks. What's more, such a map would clearly identify to anyone viewing the map gaps in the protected lane network. Making clear where cycling infrastructure doesn't make the cut, e.g. is not featured on the map, could be a tool for activism and a rallying cry for expansions of the protected lane network.

Morning Links: Election Edition

Links from around New York:

It's election day. Don't forget to take the time and vote.

Forget Gracie Mansion. Apparently you can buy a castle in the Bronx. (Curbed NY)

Renderings are in for the permanent pedestrian plaza at Fowler Square in Fort Greene. (Brownstoner)

Who doesn't love a good local food smackdown? Head down to the Brooklyn Winery in Williamsburg on November 11th to see local CSAs go head to head with a spot in the citywide final on the line. (Brooklyn Based)

Atlantic Yards is getting some Chinese can-do attitude. Greenland, which is buying 70% of the project from Forest City Ratner, has promised to complete the entire project within eight years. (Curbed NY)

And in not-so-New-York news:

DC's S-line buses are responsible for half of the people moved along 16th Street during peak period, yet they account for only 3% of vehicles on the road while most of the space is devoted to cars. Will these facts convince the city to implement dedicated lanes for bus movement? (Greater Greater Washington)

Delaware cyclists can feel a little safer - the state's DOT has agreed to drop its ambiguous "Share the Road" signs in favor of road signs that clearly indicate the rights of bicycles. (Streetsblog)

A former student's masters thesis on light rail expansion in Pittsburgh goes viral on tumblr. (Tumblr, Pittsburgh City Paper)

Rethinking the Blog

Well it's been quite some time since my last post. I've wanted this blog to be a lot of things: an outlet for my public transit and planning ideas, a source of information and commentary on local development, and a celebration of my adopted home, South Brooklyn. So far I fear these various goals have proven to be too many cooks for this one blog.

It is with that in mind that I am attempting to roll out a more focused version of The Culver Local. With a little luck (and a bit more persistence), I will give the blog more focus, with dedicated subject areas that will hopefully allow me to pursue all of my interests without losing focus. While there will always be posts that demand to be published right now, I want to add these genre pieces to give the blog some structure. They'll certainly be modified as I start fleshing them out, but for now I will be adding the following:

Morning Links. Like so many other blogs, this section (published weekly or more frequently, depending on the circumstances) will provide links to some of my favorite pieces on transportation, sustainability and local issues from around the web.

Transit Tuesday. This weekly piece will focus on a pressing streets/transit issue, with particular emphasis on issues in Brooklyn. I would, however, like to leave open the possibility of transit issues from outside of the New York region. This space is intended for the most transit nerd/policy wonk-y pieces I'd like to write.

Local Focus. Part opinion and part analysis, this weekly column will focus exclusively on South Brooklyn livability issues and will cover everything from local development and housing issues to the area's growing restaurant and bar scene. 

A Day In... This occasional piece (every 3 to 4 weeks) will profile a Brooklyn neighborhood or portion thereof. Each article will contain a bit of neighborhood history as well as a profile of the best local spots, shops, restaurants and bars from my daylong exploration. To get this section moving, I will begin with a profile of one of my favorite places in all of New York, Red Hook.

With any luck this structure will help me post more often and, more importantly, make this a better blog.

Reconsidering the Local

I'll admit, living on two local-only lines makes me a little biased against express trains. Expresses are one of the great oddities you encounter when moving to New York. We're conditioned to believe these trains, whisking past station after station, are getting us to our destination so much faster than those poor souls on the local tracks. Those long, uninterrupted stretches feel so much faster, and we arrive sooner than the equivalent local, and so we take for granted that an express train is a great upgrade in service.

Waiting for the local / Photo by the author

Expresses do a lot of great things for the subway, namely add capacity that would not exist in a traditional two-track setup, so that the system has incredible throughput capacity, even with its aging infrastructure (signals, switches, interlockings, and so on). And express trains are faster - that's no illusion. But go through the timetable or take a moment to track just how much time you're saving, and you'll quickly realize that an express, fast as it feels, doesn't offer the sort of mythical time savings we've been conditioned to believe. Take for example a trip from 168 Street to Euclid Avenue. On the local C train, it takes about 63 minutes. If you took the A instead, it would last about 52-53 minutes, depending on the train. In relative terms, that's a big savings (15-16%), and even in absolute terms 10 minutes is something. But that's a ride over the entire length of the C line, not a jaunt from uptown to downtown or Brooklyn to Manhattan. On most trips, the savings offered by an express over an equivalent local is only a couple of minutes - convenient, but not exactly life changing.

That's an important distinction to note when considering our system, because the express good/local bad paradigm seeps into most conversations about subway service. Here on the Culver line, the unused express tracks rear their ugly head on a regular basis. Adding express service would lengthen headways on the local tracks (the MTA has stated it would not add net service and is otherwise constrained by 6th Avenue and Queens Boulevard track capacities) and would add express trains that bypass the some of busiest stops on the line, save for 7th Avenue and Church Avenue, all for a time savings of a few minutes for express riders (and an added wait of 4+ minutes for local riders). Even so, local politicians and advocacy groups love to talk up the prospect of an express, as if that 3-5 minute time savings from Kings Highway will be more than a drop in the bucket. If the line needed more capacity and the MTA were offering more trains, then express service would be a no-brainer, but that's not the situation. Time, effort, and resources spent on advocating for express service could be spent instead on improving service, such as by implementing Communications Based Train Control (CBTC), which would allow faster and more frequent service at all stops.

The express/local dynamic also keeps us from considering other options that could improve service. Local service along the 4th Avenue line was hit hard by the 2010 cuts, which eliminated M service and reduced local stations R service only. The N and D trains run express from Atlantic Av-Barclays Center to 36 St, skipping 4 stops along the way. Late at night, however, the D runs local along this stretch (the N does too, but it replaces the R). Based on the MTA's timetable, an express train from Atlantic to 36 St should take 6 minutes. The local? 8-9 depending on the train. If we could get away from denigrating local service vis-a-vis express, we might be able to consider a new service option: run the D local in Brooklyn (these 4 stops plus DeKalb) at all times. It might sound crazy to make an express service local, but consider the benefits: a new, one-seat ride to areas in Midtown and the West Side for growing areas like Gowanus, South Slope, Greenwood, and Sunset Park; and vastly improved transfer options for F and G riders at 4 Av-9 St (the nearest F-D transfer is at Broadway-Lafayette and no G-D transfer exists). And the costs for such a change are quite minimal: a delay of 2-3 minutes over the entire 36 St-Atlantic stretch - one that could likely be managed away over the length of the route.

This is just one possibility, but it goes to show that by reconsidering our perception of express service, we can find low- or no-cost ways to improve service. And who knows, maybe someone will think this is a worthwhile idea.

Dead in the Water

Transit advocates in the Twittersphere have been (rightly) taking our ragtag group of mayoral candidates to task for their near-universal devotion to five-borough ferry service as a solution to the city's transportation problems. And rightfully so. Even though the city refuses to release numbers for some of their subsidized programs, such as the Rockaway service, it's generally assumed that the subsidy per rider far exceeds what we spend on bus and subway operations. 

The East River Ferry / Courtesy: East River Ferry

But ferries remain an appealing fix in a city where every change to a street or local disruption is subject to unruly community boards, local protests, vitriolic press coverage and, not least, the astronomical cost of doing business in New York City. Ferries, in contrast, require subsidies but are run by private companies. They run on the water, a place with far fewer stakeholders, and as a result require virtually no infrastructure except for relatively simple docks. For a politician looking to win voters, ferries offer an attractive combination of limited capital spending and easy implementation that doesn't kick up opposition the way subway construction or bus lanes do.

Of course, that approach also ignores the many shortcomings of ferry services, starting with their private ownership. With the exception of the city-owned Staten Island Ferry, which is free, the services running on New York harbor have independent ticketing and fare structures. That means fares aren't harmonized with local agencies. Worse, it precludes the one feature that could make ferries part of a robust network: interoperability. NY Waterway, the operator of many of the city's ferries, operates its own free shuttle buses in Midtown, but that separate network reinforces the idea that ferries are a different system. If riders could pay with a Metrocard and receive discounts (or free transfers) going between the East River Ferry and the A/F at Brooklyn Bridge Park or J/M/Z at Schaefer Landing, the East River Ferry would become a more functional service. Instead, a one-way trip using both MTA and the ferry costs $6.50 - hardly an incentive to use the service if you're already shelling out the $2.50 for the bus or subway.

That said, I have to defend some of the ferry proposals. Do I think we need five-borough service? Probably not. The Bronx has transit issues, but plodding ferry service to Manhattan will not solve most of them. Ferries simply distract from the more difficult task at hand, which involves making tough choices to improve or augment local bus and rail (like the newly opened Bx41 SBS or new Metro North stations along the Hell Gate line).

But ferries can provide a useful service when linking areas that are transit poor, provided the service is part of a broader transit plan. Ferries by themselves are expensive gimmicks, and their lack of infrastructure means they can disappear as quickly as the are introduced. Ferries such as the free weekend shuttle from IKEA and Red Hook to Pier 11 seem nice, but the City is missing a huge opportunity to tie the service into local bus routes, making the ferry part of the transportation network instead of a standalone novelty. Neighborhoods such as Red Hook, College Point, Hunts Point, or Astoria could benefit from service if an adequate feeder system (buses) were in place. Likewise, launch points such as Atlantic Ave/Pier 6, which are already serviced by multiple bus routes, could make use of an integrated network.

As it stands the proposals by Anthony Weiner, Christine Quinn and co. will do little to improve transportation if their expensive subsidies result in services that burden riders with additional costs and fail to link with existing transportation. And while ferries can provide value in select areas, it is a shame to see our elected officials eschewing important decisions about New York's transit infrastructure at a time when our city is growing again.

I Know Better: Fourth Avenue and the Power of Anecdote

I'd like to take the opportunity to remind anyone reading that Brooklyn Community Board 6 will hold a meeting this Wednesday 10 July to discuss DOT's proposed traffic calming for Fourth Avenue between Pacific Street and 15th Street. As many may remember, Fourth Avenue has received pedestrian safety and traffic calming improvements along virtually its entire length south of 15th Street, and the world has not come to an end. In fact, the improvements north of 15th have received the overwhelming support of our local elected officials, particularly Councilmember Brad Lander. They have had support from all corners, with the sole exception of Brooklyn Community Board 6. 

Left turn reductions and median expansion on Fourth Ave / Courtesy: NYCDOT

Even though CB6's transportation committee overwhelmingly approved the changes, in June CB6 made the surprise decision to oppose DOT's plan. The reason? Last minute opposition from groups which claimed a reduction in traffic lanes and left turn restrictions would result in traffic backups and force - yes, force - more traffic onto Park Slope's bucolic side streets. But here's the kicker - none of these assertions were backed up with facts. As we see in virtually any transportation project that disrupts an established pattern, the war of information is an asymmetric one. 

Contrary to what some might believe, DOT does not simply lay out and implement a vision, a la Robert Moses. Instead, it goes through a study process - one that is filled with opportunities for public feedback that ultimately is incorporated into the final design or decision. So did DOT miss these traffic backups? Were they unaware that trucks would invade Park Slope en masse? Of course not. Even in the summary of the study available on DOT's website, you can see the empiricism that was applied. Cars and pedestrians were counted, and the impact of various changes on both parties were weighed before the final recommendation was made. In the end, DOT used traffic counts to justify reducing travel lanes and weighed average volumes of cars against pedestrians when recommending left turn restrictions. To wit, DOT recommended maintaining 3 travel lanes on the northbound side of Fourth Ave above Union St specifically to avoid traffic backups. Data can always be reanalyzed from different angles, but this is hardly evidence of regulatory fiat by DOT.

Unfortunately, opposition doesn't have such exacting standards. Whereas one side makes use of objective counts and models, the other only needs to voice its fears. And that's what has nearly scuttled a sensible project to make a dangerous stretch of road safer for pedestrians and drivers alike. It doesn't matter that cutting down the highway-like design to a more reasonable urban boulevard is not expected to increase traffic. It doesn't matter that left turn restrictions and fewer traffic lanes will create a safer crossing environment for the area's multiple school zones and subway stations. What matters is who can shout the loudest and stir up the most fears. In lieu of facts, opponents present anecdote and emotion. And once we lower ourselves to knowing better than the evidence at hand, the entire process becomes a joke. In the case of Fourth Ave, years of planning and advocacy for safer streets have been placed in jeopardy, not because the project lacks merit, but because its proponents have remained in the land of facts, not fantasy.

It is fortunate that CB6's approval, while desired, is not necessary for DOT to receive. It would be a rare case of override by the Council and the Department, particularly during an election year, but the project is fortunate to have a local Councilmember who remains a steadfast supporter, in spite of the CB's intransigence. I remain hopeful that this Wednesday's meeting will feature a thoughtful discussion of the project's safety enhancements and its minimal impact on vehicle traffic, but I won't hold my breath. As with every improvement to our streets, opponents will have to be dragged to the table, kicking and screaming, only to see when everything is finished that the model was right all along.