I was not at the Congress for the New Urbanism last month, so I was unable to take part in the debate, "Can a city be successful without transit?" I understand it was all in fun, and I honestly can't say that I could have done much better than the debaters, with the amount of time available for preparation, but there was a problem with the historical perspective. Several of the debaters stipulated that for millennia there have been cities that have been successful, but that in the words of Andrew Burleson, "there was no transit before the 1890s". This last part is actually wrong, but there's a larger issue with transportation myopia.
First, there was indeed transit before the 1890s. Burleson and Edward Erfurt are probably thinking of the first trolleys, autobuses and underground railways, which were implemented around that time. But before then there were other ways of getting around. On the StrongTowns podcast page, Steve commented that waterways - rivers and canals - provided a transit function.
Beyond the waterways, there were horsecars. These were large, horse-drawn vehicles that ran on rails, and could carry twenty or more people at a time. These began to appear in the early nineteenth century. The London Underground ran on steam from 1863.
Mike Lydon was the only one who didn't suffer from persistent transportation myopia. Burleson said, "Imagine a European-scale city that had no transit, but also had no cars." Transit and cars - along with taxis, hansom cabs and personal horse-drawn carriages - are different ways of enabling long-distance commutes. Transit is a long-distance commuting option that is accessible to lower classes.
Cities did exist for millennia, but it's worth noting that until the nineteenth century, they were small enough that you could walk from any part of them to almost any other part within an hour. So as Erfurt observed, transit allowed cities to expand beyond that size, but so did personal vehicles. Ian Rasmussen pointed out that transit opened the city to all.
An interesting example that proves the rule is Versailles. By moving the court a long distance from Paris, Louis XIV essentially split the capital over a distance of twelve miles. To compensate for that distance, a public transit system - the "carabas" - was implemented. It covered that distance in six and a half hours at first, but by the beginning of the nineteenth century it took only two hours, and there were twenty-six round trips per day. It was not the first transit system in the Paris region - Bibliophile Jacob tells us that in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was a whole network of public coach routes linking the various suburban palaces, with the frequency adjusted to the whereabouts of the King - but it was the best developed.
On one level, Erfurt and Burleson are right and you don't need transit to have a successful walking city. But you do need vehicle commuting to have a successful large city, and you need transit to do that equitably. I commend the debaters for what they were able to do within the constraints they had, and I thank them and the debate organizers for raising a number of interesting questions, and for recording the debate for posterity.
Showing posts with label Paris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paris. Show all posts
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Calming big boulevards
You know that big ugly boulevard near you? Maybe when it was built it was the Champs-Elysées of your town. Maybe it wanted to be, but things didn't turn out quite right. Or maybe your town planners had a less ambitious model, like the Miracle Mile or Route 66.
Whatever the ambitions, today that boulevard is a stroad. It's one of the most dangerous places to drive or walk, but people keep going there anyway, because that's where the Target and the Old Navy and the Barnes and Noble are. Even though it's one of the most popular shopping streets, it brings in a relatively small fraction of the tax revenue.
There are a number of remedies that can be taken for a stroad boulevard (boulevaroad?). I want to focus on one particular remedy that combines traffic calming and transit expansion; we can call it green tracks.
The poster child for this method is Paris, in particular the Boulevards des Maréchaux. This is a ring of boulevards that runs just inside the city limits. They replaced the "rue Militaire" that ran along the inner extent of the fortifications built between 1841 and 1844 under Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers and torn down between 1919 and 1929 after they proved unable to stop heavy artillery in the Franco-Prussian War. The road is divided into 22 segments, each named (more or less) after one of the military leaders who bore the rank of marshal under Napoleon.
I've visited a few of the Maréchaux many years ago, and they were all pretty unpleasant places to walk. Definitely not what comes to mind when you think of a stroll through Paris. Even though they had trees, cafes and fairly wide sidewalks, they were noisy and felt dangerous. The 4-5 lanes of unbroken traffic and the long gaps between crosswalks made the boulevards feel like a barrier; I rarely crossed them, and usually took parallel streets when walking home from the metro. I never took the mixed-traffic "PC" bus, after trying once or twice and finding it slow and infrequent.
At its core, the design of the Maréchaux privileged cars at the expense of pedestrians and transit riders. The city of Paris found an excellent way to adjust that balance in favor of the more sustainable users. They built a trolley.
Here in the United States, we have basically two ways of building a trolley. We can build "light rail" which operates primarily in an old rail right-of-way or highway median with some mixed-traffic or dedicated segments, or we can build a "streetcar," which operates entirely in mixed traffic. Jarrett Walker in particular is fond of slamming streetcars for offering no mobility improvements over buses. Both, notably, minimize the amount of street space reallocated from cars.
The Tramway T3 takes a third approach. Its entire route, except for intersections, is physically separated from all other vehicles. This helps trolley passengers get to their destinations faster, because they are much less likely to get stuck in traffic. To underscore this point, and to simply look nice, the right-of-way between and around the tracks is covered with sod. This evokes the grassy medians where trolleys have traveled in other cities - for me particularly, the "neutral grounds" of New Orleans.
The right-of-way of this new Paris trolley was not previously a train line, or private property. It was street. Two lanes of these boulevards were simply taken from cars and reallocated to transit. The sod has the additional function of marking the right-of-way as "not car space" and thus discouraging any use by cars.
The last time I was in Paris, the T3 was not yet running, but the street space had been reallocated. It made a huge difference. There weren't as many cars, and they were going much slower. The noise was much less oppressive. Crossing the boulevard was easier and felt much safer. There were two sets of pedestrian refuges at each intersection, not just one. But wherever I've seen street-running trolleys, they're always more predictable than cars, and therefore safer. They almost never leave their tracks.
Whatever the ambitions, today that boulevard is a stroad. It's one of the most dangerous places to drive or walk, but people keep going there anyway, because that's where the Target and the Old Navy and the Barnes and Noble are. Even though it's one of the most popular shopping streets, it brings in a relatively small fraction of the tax revenue.
There are a number of remedies that can be taken for a stroad boulevard (boulevaroad?). I want to focus on one particular remedy that combines traffic calming and transit expansion; we can call it green tracks.
The poster child for this method is Paris, in particular the Boulevards des Maréchaux. This is a ring of boulevards that runs just inside the city limits. They replaced the "rue Militaire" that ran along the inner extent of the fortifications built between 1841 and 1844 under Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers and torn down between 1919 and 1929 after they proved unable to stop heavy artillery in the Franco-Prussian War. The road is divided into 22 segments, each named (more or less) after one of the military leaders who bore the rank of marshal under Napoleon.
I've visited a few of the Maréchaux many years ago, and they were all pretty unpleasant places to walk. Definitely not what comes to mind when you think of a stroll through Paris. Even though they had trees, cafes and fairly wide sidewalks, they were noisy and felt dangerous. The 4-5 lanes of unbroken traffic and the long gaps between crosswalks made the boulevards feel like a barrier; I rarely crossed them, and usually took parallel streets when walking home from the metro. I never took the mixed-traffic "PC" bus, after trying once or twice and finding it slow and infrequent.
At its core, the design of the Maréchaux privileged cars at the expense of pedestrians and transit riders. The city of Paris found an excellent way to adjust that balance in favor of the more sustainable users. They built a trolley.
Here in the United States, we have basically two ways of building a trolley. We can build "light rail" which operates primarily in an old rail right-of-way or highway median with some mixed-traffic or dedicated segments, or we can build a "streetcar," which operates entirely in mixed traffic. Jarrett Walker in particular is fond of slamming streetcars for offering no mobility improvements over buses. Both, notably, minimize the amount of street space reallocated from cars.
The Tramway T3 takes a third approach. Its entire route, except for intersections, is physically separated from all other vehicles. This helps trolley passengers get to their destinations faster, because they are much less likely to get stuck in traffic. To underscore this point, and to simply look nice, the right-of-way between and around the tracks is covered with sod. This evokes the grassy medians where trolleys have traveled in other cities - for me particularly, the "neutral grounds" of New Orleans.
The right-of-way of this new Paris trolley was not previously a train line, or private property. It was street. Two lanes of these boulevards were simply taken from cars and reallocated to transit. The sod has the additional function of marking the right-of-way as "not car space" and thus discouraging any use by cars.
The last time I was in Paris, the T3 was not yet running, but the street space had been reallocated. It made a huge difference. There weren't as many cars, and they were going much slower. The noise was much less oppressive. Crossing the boulevard was easier and felt much safer. There were two sets of pedestrian refuges at each intersection, not just one. But wherever I've seen street-running trolleys, they're always more predictable than cars, and therefore safer. They almost never leave their tracks.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Planning the next New York transportation network
As I wrote in earlier posts, Paris's Regional Express Network (RER) of commuter/rapid trains was not simply designed to make connections, but to accomplish specific development goals. The same 1965 SDAURP (Master Plan for the Urban Development of the Paris Region) that laid out the RER also planned the development of the five "new towns" around the region and the suburban campuses of the University of Paris. Anticipating a new wave of residents who would study and work in the area, regional planners under the direction of Paul Delouvrier, the General Delegate to the District of the Paris Region, designed these train lines to connect residential developments with universities and job centers. They also aimed to relieve congestion on certain metro lines that were overloaded, particularly the 1 and 4 lines, the main east-west and north-south lines in the system.
Any similar system in New York should take into account similar planning goals. One of the reasons that the New York area is so fragmented is that we don't have a single Delegate, or a single regional planning agency. Instead we have three Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs): the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council Council (NYMTC), the North Jersey Transportation Planning Association (NJTPA), and the Southwestern (Connecticut) Regional Planning Authority (SWRPA). Each of the three have come up with plans similar to the SDAURP, some better than others. We can piece them together to get an idea of the priorities that our planners have.
Of course, these plans should be viewed with some skepticism. Although the planners are supposed to act in the best interests of everyone in the region, they have been known to occasionally fail in that task. Also, different people have different priorities, and you will probably not have the same priorities as these planners. With that in mind, I will probably revisit these plans and question them - and I encourage you to do the same on your own blogs or in the comments. In the meantime, though, let's operate on the assumption that the planners share our priorities, are working in the best interests of everyone in the region, and are knowledgeable and competent.
The NYMTC has actually just released their draft plan for 2010-2035. The NJTPA has their draft Long Range Plan for 2035 available, but in some ways the New Jersey State Plan is more valuable. The SWRPA released their plan in 2006, and it can be downloaded as a PDF from the Town of Weston's website.
I'll talk more about these plans in future posts, and their implications for future transit improvements, but feel free to have at them in the comments.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The RER as a development tool
Why are so many real estate executives on the MTA board? Because transportation drives real estate development, and they want to control that. So did the French government, and the Paris municipal government, and the regional government of the Ile-de-France, in the 1960s. They had particular ideas about where they wanted people to live and work, and they set about making it easy for them to do that.
Of particular interest was the planning and construction of five new towns in the Paris suburbs, with the idea of concentrating and organizing the new population of the region: Cergy-Pontoise, Marne-la-Vallée, Sénart, Evry and Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. There were also the two airports in Orly and Roissy, the business district in La Défense, and the new peripheral and suburban campuses of the University of Paris.
Alon Levy's proposal for an RER-style system in New York ties together every single commuter rail line. However, if you look at the map of commuter rail lines in Paris (PDF), you will notice that even after forty years, only a small number (lettered A-E on the map) have been converted to RER service. The RER program is very precisely targeted to achieve specific development goals. The first four lines served all these centers, as follows:
Line A: Cergy-Pontoise, Marne-la-Vallée, La Défense, University campuses VIII, X and XII
Line B: Orly and CDG airports, University campuses XI and XIII
Line C: Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Orly airport, University campuses IX and XII
Line D: Sénart, Evry, University campuses VIII, XII and XIII
Line A in particular included an entirely new branch to serve the new town at Marne-la-Vallée. It attracted so many passengers that within ten years it was transporting more than 55,000 passengers per hour in each direction at peak times. I have been told that during the late 1980s and early 1990s it was the most crowded line in the world.
The long-term value of the RER is potentially debatable: the poorer Paris suburbs are notorious for the extreme alienation of their residents, and we can speculate that the RER had some role in that. An anonymous Wikipedia author alleges that because residential development has been concentrated east of Paris and job development to the west, there is a commute imbalance resulting in overuse of the A line.
That said, it seems to have been fairly successful at accomplishing at least some of our goals. All RER lines except the Malesherbes branch of the D line have service at least half-hourly, and large sections of the suburbs are within walking distance of an RER station. According to the INSEE (PDF), car ownership in the Paris suburbs is 77%, compared with 45% for the city itself and 81% for the country as a whole. I'd like to get the comparable numbers for the New York region, as well as figures for pollution, energy usage and carnage, to make a full comparison, but these figures make a good impression.
As I wrote in my earlier post, I think we need to think out in more detail the reasons for any of these regional rail improvements. That thinking out can quantify some of the potential benefits more and lead to better prioritization of the steps involved in implementing such improvements, and hopefully to a better chance of selling them to politicians and the public.
Of particular interest was the planning and construction of five new towns in the Paris suburbs, with the idea of concentrating and organizing the new population of the region: Cergy-Pontoise, Marne-la-Vallée, Sénart, Evry and Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. There were also the two airports in Orly and Roissy, the business district in La Défense, and the new peripheral and suburban campuses of the University of Paris.
Alon Levy's proposal for an RER-style system in New York ties together every single commuter rail line. However, if you look at the map of commuter rail lines in Paris (PDF), you will notice that even after forty years, only a small number (lettered A-E on the map) have been converted to RER service. The RER program is very precisely targeted to achieve specific development goals. The first four lines served all these centers, as follows:
Line A: Cergy-Pontoise, Marne-la-Vallée, La Défense, University campuses VIII, X and XII
Line B: Orly and CDG airports, University campuses XI and XIII
Line C: Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Orly airport, University campuses IX and XII
Line D: Sénart, Evry, University campuses VIII, XII and XIII
Line A in particular included an entirely new branch to serve the new town at Marne-la-Vallée. It attracted so many passengers that within ten years it was transporting more than 55,000 passengers per hour in each direction at peak times. I have been told that during the late 1980s and early 1990s it was the most crowded line in the world.
The long-term value of the RER is potentially debatable: the poorer Paris suburbs are notorious for the extreme alienation of their residents, and we can speculate that the RER had some role in that. An anonymous Wikipedia author alleges that because residential development has been concentrated east of Paris and job development to the west, there is a commute imbalance resulting in overuse of the A line.
That said, it seems to have been fairly successful at accomplishing at least some of our goals. All RER lines except the Malesherbes branch of the D line have service at least half-hourly, and large sections of the suburbs are within walking distance of an RER station. According to the INSEE (PDF), car ownership in the Paris suburbs is 77%, compared with 45% for the city itself and 81% for the country as a whole. I'd like to get the comparable numbers for the New York region, as well as figures for pollution, energy usage and carnage, to make a full comparison, but these figures make a good impression.
As I wrote in my earlier post, I think we need to think out in more detail the reasons for any of these regional rail improvements. That thinking out can quantify some of the potential benefits more and lead to better prioritization of the steps involved in implementing such improvements, and hopefully to a better chance of selling them to politicians and the public.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Terminal approach capacity and the Paris RER
In thinking about Paris and New York in the context of Alon Levy's guest posts at the Transport Politic (one, two, and my reply, and Jarrett's), one of the big differences that struck me between the two commuter rail networks is the approach tracks to the stations. Paris's are huge: the six main line stations had between six (Austerlitz) and fifteen (Nord) from the city limits to the stations. This number of tracks continues until the various lines branch off. Only the small lines had less: four for Invalides, two for Vincennes and two for Sceaux.
By contrast, here in NYC, we had a maximum of four tracks at five stations: Grand Central, Penn (for the LIRR), Bay Ridge, Hoboken and Jersey City. All the rest have or had two, and the Empire line has only one track over the Spuyten Duyvil bridge.
In the comments to my previous post, Adam writes, "in order for a rail terminal to be effective, it must have six tracks going into it at least." If he's right, it's not surprising that commuter rail in New York has been less effective than in Paris. It also points to the benefits that Alon's plan could bring to commuter rail in New York.
However, I will point out another difference between Paris and New York. There were some lines that were entirely taken over by the RER, like the Sceaux line, and their central terminals were converted into simple stations on the new lines. Most of the RER is made of lines that used to terminate in one of the six main-line stations, however. Some of them were rerouted into totally new alignments within the city: for example, the Saint-Germain line was run through the RER A tunnel instead of to the Saint-Lazare station. This was essentially what the Pennsylvania Railroad did in 1910. The rest were diverted into new through-stations built underneath their former terminals, such as the RER D, which connected lines from the Nord and Lyon stations. This is more or less what the LIRR East Side Access plan is doing under Grand Central, except that the line isn't going through.
The result of this is that in Paris the capacity of the old stations is pretty much untouched. Every new RER line represented an indisputable increase in central capacity. However, Alon's plan takes capacity from the existing Penn Station trackage for the through tracks. I think that the increased capacity from through-running would more than make up for it, but I felt it was worth noting.
By contrast, here in NYC, we had a maximum of four tracks at five stations: Grand Central, Penn (for the LIRR), Bay Ridge, Hoboken and Jersey City. All the rest have or had two, and the Empire line has only one track over the Spuyten Duyvil bridge.
In the comments to my previous post, Adam writes, "in order for a rail terminal to be effective, it must have six tracks going into it at least." If he's right, it's not surprising that commuter rail in New York has been less effective than in Paris. It also points to the benefits that Alon's plan could bring to commuter rail in New York.
However, I will point out another difference between Paris and New York. There were some lines that were entirely taken over by the RER, like the Sceaux line, and their central terminals were converted into simple stations on the new lines. Most of the RER is made of lines that used to terminate in one of the six main-line stations, however. Some of them were rerouted into totally new alignments within the city: for example, the Saint-Germain line was run through the RER A tunnel instead of to the Saint-Lazare station. This was essentially what the Pennsylvania Railroad did in 1910. The rest were diverted into new through-stations built underneath their former terminals, such as the RER D, which connected lines from the Nord and Lyon stations. This is more or less what the LIRR East Side Access plan is doing under Grand Central, except that the line isn't going through.
The result of this is that in Paris the capacity of the old stations is pretty much untouched. Every new RER line represented an indisputable increase in central capacity. However, Alon's plan takes capacity from the existing Penn Station trackage for the through tracks. I think that the increased capacity from through-running would more than make up for it, but I felt it was worth noting.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
What we can learn from Paris
Last week, the Transport Politic ran two guest posts (part one, part two) from Alon Levy about the benefits of Paris's Regional Express Network (RER) and ways to bring them to New York. For many months I've found Alon's commentary to be very well-informed and helpful, and I encourage everyone to read and digest these two posts. Alon's explanation of the benefits of through-running will be useful to any plan for transit in New York, regardless of mode. I have a few quibbles with the analogy, and a few suggestions that I hope will fine-tune Alon's proposal and make it even better.
In some ways, Paris and New York are two very different metropolitan areas. According to Wikipedia, the population of the New York urban area is about twice that of the Paris urban area, and covers almost three times the area. Paris is the capital of France and of the Ile-de-France region, while New York is not even the capital of New York State, and the metro area is spread out across New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
Still, there are many similarities: both are cosmopolitan centers of finance and culture, and have long attracted and absorbed large immigrant populations from afar. By the early twentieth century, both cities had extensive subway and intercity/commuter/freight rail networks; I've written before about where they diverged, how Paris developed a better rail network while New York stagnated, how the ARC project showed promise for replicating Paris's success, and how it currently seems to be headed down a dead-end.
Now to Alon's proposal. The first place where it differs from the Paris RER is in the initial segments. Alon writes, "RATP bought two unprofitable commuter lines from SNCF and connected them with new subways." These lines (the Saint-Germain and Sceaux lines) also happened to be lines with minimal branches or connections to other lines, which allowed the fare and electrification systems to be implemented in a contained way.
Of course, the isolation of the lines (and of the Vincennes line which was not sold by the SNCF but still used for the RER, and of the five-mile initial branch that was constructed to Marne-la-Vallée) was part of the reason they were unprofitable, and tying them into the network raised their profitability. If not for the RER they might have been abandoned like the Old Put and the New York, Westchester and Boston, or used only for freight like the West Shore and Lehigh Valley lines.
That brings me to my next point - one of my favorite ones: why should we implement any kind of RER-type system in New York? Today we just found out that financial pressures have forced the MTA to push the Second Avenue Subway completion date back another year. Alon wants us to not just finish the subway, but to dig three new commuter rail tunnels deep below Manhattan, two below the Hudson, one below the East River - and another one across the harbor lengthwise.
We're talking billions of dollars here. What would we get for it? That's the question that the politicians and voters will be asking. Now we transit geeks know what we want out of it: a shiny, flashy, speedy new train network. But there are lots of non-transit geeks who would argue that for a mere fraction of the cost we could simply buy one-way tickets to Paris for all the transit geeks to go look at the one over there.
Alon gives some further justification for his plan. The primary benefit he foresees is a huge gain in efficiency from through-running trains instead of turning them in Manhattan and storing them in the nearby yards. Additionally, there is the potential to increase ridership, presumably leading to higher farebox recovery and possibly recouping some of the cost of the tunnels and electrification. Finally, there is the potential for transit-oriented development.
I agree that we should make improvements of this kind here in New York, and I agree with Alon's reasons, but I think they need to be thought out in a bit more detail. That thinking out can quantify some of these benefits more and lead to better prioritization of the steps involved in implementing such a plan, and hopefully to a better chance of selling it to politicians and the public.
So thanks to Alon for putting these posts together, to Yonah for giving him the space, and to everyone who's commented so far. I'm looking forward to a lot more interesting posts on this topic.
In some ways, Paris and New York are two very different metropolitan areas. According to Wikipedia, the population of the New York urban area is about twice that of the Paris urban area, and covers almost three times the area. Paris is the capital of France and of the Ile-de-France region, while New York is not even the capital of New York State, and the metro area is spread out across New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
Still, there are many similarities: both are cosmopolitan centers of finance and culture, and have long attracted and absorbed large immigrant populations from afar. By the early twentieth century, both cities had extensive subway and intercity/commuter/freight rail networks; I've written before about where they diverged, how Paris developed a better rail network while New York stagnated, how the ARC project showed promise for replicating Paris's success, and how it currently seems to be headed down a dead-end.
Now to Alon's proposal. The first place where it differs from the Paris RER is in the initial segments. Alon writes, "RATP bought two unprofitable commuter lines from SNCF and connected them with new subways." These lines (the Saint-Germain and Sceaux lines) also happened to be lines with minimal branches or connections to other lines, which allowed the fare and electrification systems to be implemented in a contained way.
Of course, the isolation of the lines (and of the Vincennes line which was not sold by the SNCF but still used for the RER, and of the five-mile initial branch that was constructed to Marne-la-Vallée) was part of the reason they were unprofitable, and tying them into the network raised their profitability. If not for the RER they might have been abandoned like the Old Put and the New York, Westchester and Boston, or used only for freight like the West Shore and Lehigh Valley lines.
That brings me to my next point - one of my favorite ones: why should we implement any kind of RER-type system in New York? Today we just found out that financial pressures have forced the MTA to push the Second Avenue Subway completion date back another year. Alon wants us to not just finish the subway, but to dig three new commuter rail tunnels deep below Manhattan, two below the Hudson, one below the East River - and another one across the harbor lengthwise.
We're talking billions of dollars here. What would we get for it? That's the question that the politicians and voters will be asking. Now we transit geeks know what we want out of it: a shiny, flashy, speedy new train network. But there are lots of non-transit geeks who would argue that for a mere fraction of the cost we could simply buy one-way tickets to Paris for all the transit geeks to go look at the one over there.
Alon gives some further justification for his plan. The primary benefit he foresees is a huge gain in efficiency from through-running trains instead of turning them in Manhattan and storing them in the nearby yards. Additionally, there is the potential to increase ridership, presumably leading to higher farebox recovery and possibly recouping some of the cost of the tunnels and electrification. Finally, there is the potential for transit-oriented development.
I agree that we should make improvements of this kind here in New York, and I agree with Alon's reasons, but I think they need to be thought out in a bit more detail. That thinking out can quantify some of these benefits more and lead to better prioritization of the steps involved in implementing such a plan, and hopefully to a better chance of selling it to politicians and the public.
So thanks to Alon for putting these posts together, to Yonah for giving him the space, and to everyone who's commented so far. I'm looking forward to a lot more interesting posts on this topic.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Access Denied: ARC Nibbled to Death
In 1955 Paris had six major train stations, all with commuter rail components, and three commuter rail lines that terminated in small stub stations. All of these lines stopped short of the heart of the capital, requiring passengers to transfer to the metro if they were going to central locations or to the other side of the city. The metro system had only two-track local lines, which meant a frustrating trip for anyone who wanted to go any distance within the city.
The 1965 infrastructure master plan laid forth a grand vision for access to the city, which has gradually been put into practice. Four new tunnels were bored deep below the surface, connecting the stub stations with the commuter rail networks of four of the major stations. Two gigantic new stations (Châtelet-Les Halles and Saint-Michel-Notre-Dame) were created in the center of the city to allow transfers between the lines, and a series of stations were created along the lines allowing transfers to the metro. A zone payment system was implemented, allowing people to use the new Regional Express Network (RER) for intra-city trips at the same price as the metro, and with the same tickets. The result is that people from the suburbs can now be almost anywhere in the city in a short period of time, and people can cross the city quickly.
In New York in 1955, there was a similar situation. There were two major stations in Midtown Manhattan, four major terminals just across the river (Weehawken, Hoboken, Exchange Place, Communipaw Terminal and Long Island City) and two stub terminals (Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn and Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx). Four other stub terminals (Bay Ridge and Bushwick Terminals in Brooklyn, 180th Street in the Bronx and Saint George in Staten Island) had lost passenger service earlier in the century, but still had the tracks in place. Two subway lines, the Flushing and Canarsie Lines, also stub-ended under 41st and 14th Streets.
Instead of a visionary plan like in Paris, New York's leaders chose to retrofit the city for the automobile. Between 1955 and 1965 they opened the Tappan Zee Bridge, the Newark Bay Bridge, a third tube for the Lincoln Tunnel, a lower level for the George Washington Bridge, the Throgs Neck Bridge and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Long Island Expressway, the Garden State Parkway, the New England Thruway and Interstate routes 78, 80 and 84 and a section of the FDR Drive were built during this time.
In the meantime, rail infrastructure in the New York area languished. The Independent Subway Second System plans collected dust on the shelves. The New York, Westchester and Boston Railroad had already been cut back to the city line and turned into a branch of the IRT. The Putnam Line, which terminated at Sedgwick Avenue, was torn up and is now a recreational trail. Bushwick Terminal was closed and the tracks removed. The Central Railroad of New Jersey bridge across Newark Bay was torn down, and the Communipaw Terminal at Jersey City turned into a museum. The Pennsylvania Railroad's Exchange Place terminal and the West Shore Line's Weehawken Terminal were abandoned along with their tunnels through the Palisades. Staten Island's North Shore Line and the Arthur Kill Lift Bridge were also taken out of use. Traffic to Hoboken and Long Island City was gradually reduced. In a symbolic attack on the rail system, Penn Station's celebrated above-ground structure was demolished and replaced with a new Madison Square Garden arena.
While Paris built several expressways as well, during the economic crisis of the 1970s they chose to abandon their expressway plans and focus on the RER, while New York abandoned its subway plans and focused on roads. The single major rail project that was completed during that time was the 63rd Street tunnel, but its lower-level tubes, intended for commuter rail use, have still not been connected to anything, and have been called "the tunnel to nowhere." A few minor connections made slight improvements in the system, but there were still obvious deficiencies. Most of the trains terminated at Penn Station, but a large number of jobs are in East Midtown or Downtown, requiring a subway transfer. Travelling between Queens and New Jersey, or Brooklyn and Westchester County, requires a series of complicated transfers.
In the 1990s transportation planners, perhaps motivated by the success of Paris's RER, proposed a series of upgrades to connect portions of the transit system. A few of these have been put in place, mostly by New Jersey Transit. The Kearny Connection allowed Morris and Essex Line trains to enter Penn Station, the Montclair Connection allowed Boonton Line trains to use the Kearny tracks and the Secaucus Transfer allowed passengers from the ex-Erie and Pascack Valley lines to transfer to Penn Station-bound trains. The Weehawken tunnel was converted to light rail use, allowing residents of that area to reach jobs, trains and ferries along the waterfront. In addition, there are plans to extend the Long Island Rail Road Flatbush branch to Lower Manhattan, and to revive service on Staten Island's North Shore and West Shore lines, probably with light rail.
More exciting was a grand vision for connecting job sites in Midtown Manhattan. The #7 subway tunnel would be extended west to the planned Hudson Yards development and the Javits Center. The Long Island Rail Road would use the 63rd Street Tunnel to connect to Grand Central, freeing up space for Metro-North trains to terminate in Penn Station via the Empire Connection and Hell Gate Bridge. In the "Acces to the Region's Core" plan, a new tunnel under the Hudson would allow more New Jersey trains to reach Midtown; a 2002 bulletin from the Regional Plan Association shows them making a loop through Penn Station, Grand Central, Rockefeller Center and the planned Hudson Yards development. Finally, to the symbolic wound from the destruction of Penn Station, the old Farley Post Office one block to the west would be converted to a new Moynihan Station.
This grand plan had its faults, but it would have been a big improvement. Now, ten years later, it's in tatters. The MTA has forsaken any attempt to connect Long Island Railroad trains with the actual Grand Central structure, preferring to dig a tiny terminal deep underground, with a single exit to 42nd Street and difficult subway transfers. New Jersey Transit's loop has shrunk to a single six-track station under 34th Street, which is also deep below the ground and unconnected to any other tracks. Worse, both of these plans leave no opportunity for expansion: the NJ Transit station terminates in front of Water Tunnel #1. The #7 train extension will only be a single stop, possibly even without the shell of an intermediate station. The Moynihan Station will not allow rail passengers to connect to any new subways, and it is unclear what use it will be, except as a waiting area and a symbol.
Even these plans, though, did not allow for through-running of trains between the three major commuter rail systems. They did nothing to unify the three incompatible electrification systems currently in use, create connections between the various lines, or revive dormant lines like the Bergen Arches, the Bushwick Branch and the Putnam Line. The light rail line proposed for Staten Island's North Shore Branch would not connect take advantage of the recently rebuilt Arthur Kill bridge to connect the island with the mainland.
The New Jersey Association of Rail Passengers has been a persistent critic of the awfully-named "THE Tunnel" project. The Regional Rail Working Group has been a critic of the LIRR East Side Access project and a big supporter of through-running.
Every year the components of this plan become less useful and more symbolic. I think it's time to pause and reconsider. With the money we have, do we really want to wind up with three "tunnels to nowhere" and a glorious station structure that adds no functionality whatsoever? If we're spending the money to dig deep, why not dig tunnels that could eventually connect to each other, or to existing tunnels? Let's see what we have and what we can afford. Let's try to overcome the archaic territorial divisions between the various counties of New York and New Jersey, and the Byzantine boundaries between New Jersey Transit, the Port Authority and the various MTA fiefdoms. Let's stop worrying about offending Senator Moynihan's friends and family, who probably don't take the train anyway. Let's do something real.
The 1965 infrastructure master plan laid forth a grand vision for access to the city, which has gradually been put into practice. Four new tunnels were bored deep below the surface, connecting the stub stations with the commuter rail networks of four of the major stations. Two gigantic new stations (Châtelet-Les Halles and Saint-Michel-Notre-Dame) were created in the center of the city to allow transfers between the lines, and a series of stations were created along the lines allowing transfers to the metro. A zone payment system was implemented, allowing people to use the new Regional Express Network (RER) for intra-city trips at the same price as the metro, and with the same tickets. The result is that people from the suburbs can now be almost anywhere in the city in a short period of time, and people can cross the city quickly.
In New York in 1955, there was a similar situation. There were two major stations in Midtown Manhattan, four major terminals just across the river (Weehawken, Hoboken, Exchange Place, Communipaw Terminal and Long Island City) and two stub terminals (Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn and Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx). Four other stub terminals (Bay Ridge and Bushwick Terminals in Brooklyn, 180th Street in the Bronx and Saint George in Staten Island) had lost passenger service earlier in the century, but still had the tracks in place. Two subway lines, the Flushing and Canarsie Lines, also stub-ended under 41st and 14th Streets.
Instead of a visionary plan like in Paris, New York's leaders chose to retrofit the city for the automobile. Between 1955 and 1965 they opened the Tappan Zee Bridge, the Newark Bay Bridge, a third tube for the Lincoln Tunnel, a lower level for the George Washington Bridge, the Throgs Neck Bridge and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Long Island Expressway, the Garden State Parkway, the New England Thruway and Interstate routes 78, 80 and 84 and a section of the FDR Drive were built during this time.
In the meantime, rail infrastructure in the New York area languished. The Independent Subway Second System plans collected dust on the shelves. The New York, Westchester and Boston Railroad had already been cut back to the city line and turned into a branch of the IRT. The Putnam Line, which terminated at Sedgwick Avenue, was torn up and is now a recreational trail. Bushwick Terminal was closed and the tracks removed. The Central Railroad of New Jersey bridge across Newark Bay was torn down, and the Communipaw Terminal at Jersey City turned into a museum. The Pennsylvania Railroad's Exchange Place terminal and the West Shore Line's Weehawken Terminal were abandoned along with their tunnels through the Palisades. Staten Island's North Shore Line and the Arthur Kill Lift Bridge were also taken out of use. Traffic to Hoboken and Long Island City was gradually reduced. In a symbolic attack on the rail system, Penn Station's celebrated above-ground structure was demolished and replaced with a new Madison Square Garden arena.
While Paris built several expressways as well, during the economic crisis of the 1970s they chose to abandon their expressway plans and focus on the RER, while New York abandoned its subway plans and focused on roads. The single major rail project that was completed during that time was the 63rd Street tunnel, but its lower-level tubes, intended for commuter rail use, have still not been connected to anything, and have been called "the tunnel to nowhere." A few minor connections made slight improvements in the system, but there were still obvious deficiencies. Most of the trains terminated at Penn Station, but a large number of jobs are in East Midtown or Downtown, requiring a subway transfer. Travelling between Queens and New Jersey, or Brooklyn and Westchester County, requires a series of complicated transfers.
In the 1990s transportation planners, perhaps motivated by the success of Paris's RER, proposed a series of upgrades to connect portions of the transit system. A few of these have been put in place, mostly by New Jersey Transit. The Kearny Connection allowed Morris and Essex Line trains to enter Penn Station, the Montclair Connection allowed Boonton Line trains to use the Kearny tracks and the Secaucus Transfer allowed passengers from the ex-Erie and Pascack Valley lines to transfer to Penn Station-bound trains. The Weehawken tunnel was converted to light rail use, allowing residents of that area to reach jobs, trains and ferries along the waterfront. In addition, there are plans to extend the Long Island Rail Road Flatbush branch to Lower Manhattan, and to revive service on Staten Island's North Shore and West Shore lines, probably with light rail.
More exciting was a grand vision for connecting job sites in Midtown Manhattan. The #7 subway tunnel would be extended west to the planned Hudson Yards development and the Javits Center. The Long Island Rail Road would use the 63rd Street Tunnel to connect to Grand Central, freeing up space for Metro-North trains to terminate in Penn Station via the Empire Connection and Hell Gate Bridge. In the "Acces to the Region's Core" plan, a new tunnel under the Hudson would allow more New Jersey trains to reach Midtown; a 2002 bulletin from the Regional Plan Association shows them making a loop through Penn Station, Grand Central, Rockefeller Center and the planned Hudson Yards development. Finally, to the symbolic wound from the destruction of Penn Station, the old Farley Post Office one block to the west would be converted to a new Moynihan Station.
This grand plan had its faults, but it would have been a big improvement. Now, ten years later, it's in tatters. The MTA has forsaken any attempt to connect Long Island Railroad trains with the actual Grand Central structure, preferring to dig a tiny terminal deep underground, with a single exit to 42nd Street and difficult subway transfers. New Jersey Transit's loop has shrunk to a single six-track station under 34th Street, which is also deep below the ground and unconnected to any other tracks. Worse, both of these plans leave no opportunity for expansion: the NJ Transit station terminates in front of Water Tunnel #1. The #7 train extension will only be a single stop, possibly even without the shell of an intermediate station. The Moynihan Station will not allow rail passengers to connect to any new subways, and it is unclear what use it will be, except as a waiting area and a symbol.
Even these plans, though, did not allow for through-running of trains between the three major commuter rail systems. They did nothing to unify the three incompatible electrification systems currently in use, create connections between the various lines, or revive dormant lines like the Bergen Arches, the Bushwick Branch and the Putnam Line. The light rail line proposed for Staten Island's North Shore Branch would not connect take advantage of the recently rebuilt Arthur Kill bridge to connect the island with the mainland.
The New Jersey Association of Rail Passengers has been a persistent critic of the awfully-named "THE Tunnel" project. The Regional Rail Working Group has been a critic of the LIRR East Side Access project and a big supporter of through-running.
Every year the components of this plan become less useful and more symbolic. I think it's time to pause and reconsider. With the money we have, do we really want to wind up with three "tunnels to nowhere" and a glorious station structure that adds no functionality whatsoever? If we're spending the money to dig deep, why not dig tunnels that could eventually connect to each other, or to existing tunnels? Let's see what we have and what we can afford. Let's try to overcome the archaic territorial divisions between the various counties of New York and New Jersey, and the Byzantine boundaries between New Jersey Transit, the Port Authority and the various MTA fiefdoms. Let's stop worrying about offending Senator Moynihan's friends and family, who probably don't take the train anyway. Let's do something real.
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