It’s only fitting that the crossroads of the world has not only myriad means to travel there, but even competing initiatives to add more. Today, Gothamist presented a round-up of the light rail proposal for 42nd Street, which manages to take on an air of kooky quixoticism, or at least a scene from Singles.
Around for years — since they ripped the ones we used to have out at the behest of General Motors, really — the plan would be a surface light rail that would run on a median from river to river. If you’ve been to Portland, or Houston (!?!), you are familiar with what a modern surface light rail is like — street-car rails or a traditional track bed, with varying degrees of barrier or separation, depending on the speed of the system. The reason they are preferable to buses is that the systems typically override traffic signals and run on dedicated real estate, improving route times considerably.
The Vision 42 people also recommend turning the entirety of 42nd Street into a pedestrian mall, which is a nice idea, but perhaps too utopian. The logistical reason is that parallel traffic would result in left-hand turns, even if they were only illegal ones, but those would be the ones mostly likely resulting in injury, and absurd criticisms. Local press in Houston have taken to calling their system the Death Train, after a number of injuries, including one in which the victim was sitting in the tracks. If someone decides to take a load off in the middle of Broadway and gets hit, they don’t call it Death Way.
But they also are promoting a notion which is gaining traction in pretty much every major western metropolis, that of a vehicle-free core zone, or with modified access rules (congestion fees and the like). It is a nice idea, but the geography of Manhattan makes this a poor place to kick start this particular idea. East-west travel has always been more difficult than the transverse, and thus recommending pedestrian malls north to south would be far preferable — say, Fifth Avenue from Central Park to Madison Avenue.
But not if the Department of Transportation has its say. Gothamist parrots their thick-headed comments pretty uncritically, so one might be inclined to think that serious consideration on the part of the DOT — which might as well be called the Upstaters SUV Enthusiast Club — had occurred. But such thinking is clearly the province of the tyro. Every recommendation the city makes, and proves is effective, requires the notoriously pro-car DOT to sit in on its hands and mouth platitudes about requiring more studies and concerns about traffic flows, with a solemn return to the status quo at the other side. They do one hell of a job creating an air of mystery and immutability when it comes to the role of cars and the impossibility of traffic. This is effectively sustained by the permanent lodging of heads in other areas.
See, it’s just engineering. Engineering is fascinating because, in principle, it is value neutral. Of course, that’s not the case in practice, but people get snookered with misrepresentations of capital costs, be it the avoiding of incremental residual effects or casting one bond issuance as a ‘tax’ and the other an ‘improvement’. What is comes down to is we basically subsidize the production, ownership and maintenance of a car culture to an extraordinary degree. The yearly payola to the auto industry, the Highway Bill, is one massive subsidy never properly termed, even as critics of funding rail deride those portions as such.
To traffic and urban planners, the insertion of light rail, a dedicated bus lane, or pedestrian mall, is not a spin of the roulette wheel, or an act of faith. Rather, it is only a matter of calculation. A great number of them, to be sure, and requiring other considerations to succeed, but the basics that are usually trotted out — congestion, reduced mobility of vehicles — are not actually inhibitions, simply parameters to be controlled for. So it would not be necessarily easy to introduce new methods or idea, but it would be no harder than any other major infrastructure project in the city. It would simply be a matter of priorities. And we know where these rest at the DOT — on an inflated rubber-wheeled platform that carries at most five people.
Peruse the Transportation Alternatives site for more information on just how bad it is. Even as studies consistently show that traffic calming does not increase commute times, that traffic light cameras reduce accidents, and as residents beg for speed humps or neckdowns, the DOT is obdurate in its march to speed traffic and enable drivers more opportunity to be reckless in the densest pedestrian environment in the country. Being a state agency, much of this agenda is driven by upstate prejudices about precedent and control, and perhaps a little inane obstinancy about our socialist agenda of a decent subway.
Certainly the pedestrian mall idea is somewhat grand, but it is too easy a target for the DOT. As there are literally dozens of examples of proven strategies to improve commuting via existing options (dedicated bus lanes, changes to stops and how passengers board) and new ones, such as surfacerail, the DOT has no good excuse for not vigorously pursuing their introduction.
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It won’t be like Supertrain, it will just look like it.
It’s only fitting that the crossroads of the world has not only myriad means to travel there, but even competing initiatives to add more. Today, Gothamist presented a round-up of the light rail proposal for 42nd Street, which manages to take on an air of kooky quixoticism, or at least a scene from Singles.
Around for years — since they ripped the ones we used to have out at the behest of General Motors, really — the plan would be a surface light rail that would run on a median from river to river. If you’ve been to Portland, or Houston (!?!), you are familiar with what a modern surface light rail is like — street-car rails or a traditional track bed, with varying degrees of barrier or separation, depending on the speed of the system. The reason they are preferable to buses is that the systems typically override traffic signals and run on dedicated real estate, improving route times considerably.
The Vision 42 people also recommend turning the entirety of 42nd Street into a pedestrian mall, which is a nice idea, but perhaps too utopian. The logistical reason is that parallel traffic would result in left-hand turns, even if they were only illegal ones, but those would be the ones mostly likely resulting in injury, and absurd criticisms. Local press in Houston have taken to calling their system the Death Train, after a number of injuries, including one in which the victim was sitting in the tracks. If someone decides to take a load off in the middle of Broadway and gets hit, they don’t call it Death Way.
But they also are promoting a notion which is gaining traction in pretty much every major western metropolis, that of a vehicle-free core zone, or with modified access rules (congestion fees and the like). It is a nice idea, but the geography of Manhattan makes this a poor place to kick start this particular idea. East-west travel has always been more difficult than the transverse, and thus recommending pedestrian malls north to south would be far preferable — say, Fifth Avenue from Central Park to Madison Avenue.
But not if the Department of Transportation has its say. Gothamist parrots their thick-headed comments pretty uncritically, so one might be inclined to think that serious consideration on the part of the DOT — which might as well be called the Upstaters SUV Enthusiast Club — had occurred. But such thinking is clearly the province of the tyro. Every recommendation the city makes, and proves is effective, requires the notoriously pro-car DOT to sit in on its hands and mouth platitudes about requiring more studies and concerns about traffic flows, with a solemn return to the status quo at the other side. They do one hell of a job creating an air of mystery and immutability when it comes to the role of cars and the impossibility of traffic. This is effectively sustained by the permanent lodging of heads in other areas.
See, it’s just engineering. Engineering is fascinating because, in principle, it is value neutral. Of course, that’s not the case in practice, but people get snookered with misrepresentations of capital costs, be it the avoiding of incremental residual effects or casting one bond issuance as a ‘tax’ and the other an ‘improvement’. What is comes down to is we basically subsidize the production, ownership and maintenance of a car culture to an extraordinary degree. The yearly payola to the auto industry, the Highway Bill, is one massive subsidy never properly termed, even as critics of funding rail deride those portions as such.
To traffic and urban planners, the insertion of light rail, a dedicated bus lane, or pedestrian mall, is not a spin of the roulette wheel, or an act of faith. Rather, it is only a matter of calculation. A great number of them, to be sure, and requiring other considerations to succeed, but the basics that are usually trotted out — congestion, reduced mobility of vehicles — are not actually inhibitions, simply parameters to be controlled for. So it would not be necessarily easy to introduce new methods or idea, but it would be no harder than any other major infrastructure project in the city. It would simply be a matter of priorities. And we know where these rest at the DOT — on an inflated rubber-wheeled platform that carries at most five people.
Peruse the Transportation Alternatives site for more information on just how bad it is. Even as studies consistently show that traffic calming does not increase commute times, that traffic light cameras reduce accidents, and as residents beg for speed humps or neckdowns, the DOT is obdurate in its march to speed traffic and enable drivers more opportunity to be reckless in the densest pedestrian environment in the country. Being a state agency, much of this agenda is driven by upstate prejudices about precedent and control, and perhaps a little inane obstinancy about our socialist agenda of a decent subway.
Certainly the pedestrian mall idea is somewhat grand, but it is too easy a target for the DOT. As there are literally dozens of examples of proven strategies to improve commuting via existing options (dedicated bus lanes, changes to stops and how passengers board) and new ones, such as surface rail, the DOT has no good excuse for not vigorously pursuing their introduction.