Ben Kabak is reporting that the Manhattan-bound Smith/9th Street platform will finally be closed, from January 10 through Spring 2012, and the Coney Island-bound platform will be closed from May through Fall 2012. There will be other assorted service outages at Fourth Avenue, Fifteenth Street and Fort Hamilton Parkway on the F and G lines. There's a lot of irrational anger at the MTA.
When Smith-9th is closed completely, there will be a shuttle bus to nearby F stations, and possibly to Jay Street, but the bus will not run through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to Lower Manhattan, as I suggested back in 2007. Although some politicians supported the idea as a permanent improvement, it got lost in the congestion pricing battle.
The people who are currently kvetching about the various closures should put that energy to work pushing for a tunnel bus. If they live in the South Slope/Gowanus/Red Hook area, they should push for one going down Ninth Street. If they live in the Windsor Terrace area, they should push for one going right down the Prospect Expressway. Google Maps say that either of these routes are ten minutes from the endpoint to the World Trade Center site, thirty minutes in traffic.
People who are upset about losing their F train service should get the state legislators representing this area - Assemblymembers Millman, Brennan and Ortiz, and Senators Montgomery and Squadron - to sign on to a request for a tunnel bus. It couldn't hurt to get support from the city council too. And if the MTA doesn't want to run it, get David Yassky to give permission for Suleiman Haqq to run his vans through there.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Beyond thick and thin markets for transit
In their extremely useful paper on private bus transit (PDF), Daniel Klein, Adrian Moore and Binyam Reja give us the concepts of "thick" and "thin" markets for transit: "Another distinction of fundamental importance is whether ridership on the transit route is potentially heavy enough to sustain the cascade of jitneys in the absence of scheduled service," they write on Page 39.
The Flushing-Chinatown van run is an example of a thick market. You could say that the subway provides an anchor, but it's a very inconvenient one: if you give up on the van you have to walk three blocks north to the subway, and then take that to another subway that might not go exactly where you want to go. These vans really function without any anchor.
The vans from Bergenline Avenue to the Port Authority are an example of a thin market. The New Jersey Transit 156 and 159 buses provide scheduled service in case the vans don't come; I've used them myself. They are run by NJ Transit, but they could probably be run at a profit by a private company.
This doesn't capture other possibilities, though. What about a line in some far-flung sprawl suburb where car ownership is very high and roads are wide? For example, Dutchess County Loop A. A line like that is never going to make a profit as long as those conditions persist. To exist, it must remain subsidized until gas prices rise above eight dollars a gallon. Let's call it "No market."
There's also a scenario in between Loop A and the Bergenline Avenue buses, where jitneys can run with an anchor, but the ridership doesn't provide a profit for the anchor, so it has to be subsidized. The Bergenline Avenue buses that go across the George Washington Bridge may be an example of that. Let's call it a "Wafer-thin market."
I would argue that most of the routes chosen by the TLC for their pilot program are wafer-thin markets. Due to competition from parallel routes and private cars, they cannot support profitable transit by themselves, but they may be able to support a jitney cascade if they have a subsidized anchor.
The B39 route across the Williamsburg Bridge had potential to be a thin market. If it were better marketed, it might have worked. The only one that had the potential to be a truly thick market was the B71, if it had been extended through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. It could have provided Red Hook and Carroll Gardens residents with a one-seat ride to Financial District job sites, possibly being time-competitive against the subway. I guess we'll have to wait to see that one tried.
Here's our new table:
Notice that I've still put the Q79 up as a wafer-thin market. The TLC has put that route out for bid, but I really don't think there's enough ridership to support it without some kind of subsidized anchor. It's great that Bob Friedrich is still fighting for service on Little Neck Parkway, but his best bet is to try to find some funding to subsidize the service. It's just not going to work without subsidies unless there are other drastic changes in the neighborhood.
The Flushing-Chinatown van run is an example of a thick market. You could say that the subway provides an anchor, but it's a very inconvenient one: if you give up on the van you have to walk three blocks north to the subway, and then take that to another subway that might not go exactly where you want to go. These vans really function without any anchor.
The vans from Bergenline Avenue to the Port Authority are an example of a thin market. The New Jersey Transit 156 and 159 buses provide scheduled service in case the vans don't come; I've used them myself. They are run by NJ Transit, but they could probably be run at a profit by a private company.
| Thick market | Ridership can sustain a jitney cascade without an anchor | Flushing-Chinatown |
| Thin market | Ridership can sustain a jitney cascade with an anchor | Bergenline-Port Authority |
This doesn't capture other possibilities, though. What about a line in some far-flung sprawl suburb where car ownership is very high and roads are wide? For example, Dutchess County Loop A. A line like that is never going to make a profit as long as those conditions persist. To exist, it must remain subsidized until gas prices rise above eight dollars a gallon. Let's call it "No market."
There's also a scenario in between Loop A and the Bergenline Avenue buses, where jitneys can run with an anchor, but the ridership doesn't provide a profit for the anchor, so it has to be subsidized. The Bergenline Avenue buses that go across the George Washington Bridge may be an example of that. Let's call it a "Wafer-thin market."
I would argue that most of the routes chosen by the TLC for their pilot program are wafer-thin markets. Due to competition from parallel routes and private cars, they cannot support profitable transit by themselves, but they may be able to support a jitney cascade if they have a subsidized anchor.
The B39 route across the Williamsburg Bridge had potential to be a thin market. If it were better marketed, it might have worked. The only one that had the potential to be a truly thick market was the B71, if it had been extended through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. It could have provided Red Hook and Carroll Gardens residents with a one-seat ride to Financial District job sites, possibly being time-competitive against the subway. I guess we'll have to wait to see that one tried.
Here's our new table:
| Market type | Description | Existing example | Potential TLC route |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thick market | Ridership can sustain a jitney cascade without an anchor | Flushing-Chinatown | B71 through Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel |
| Thin market | Ridership can sustain a jitney cascade with a profitable anchor | Bergenline-Port Authority | B39 |
| Wafer-thin market | Ridership can sustain a jitney cascade with a subsidized anchor | Bergenline-GWB | B23, B71, Q74, Q79 |
| No market | Ridership cannot sustain jitney service, even with a subsidized anchor | Dutchess Loop A |
Notice that I've still put the Q79 up as a wafer-thin market. The TLC has put that route out for bid, but I really don't think there's enough ridership to support it without some kind of subsidized anchor. It's great that Bob Friedrich is still fighting for service on Little Neck Parkway, but his best bet is to try to find some funding to subsidize the service. It's just not going to work without subsidies unless there are other drastic changes in the neighborhood.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Quote of the Day: Jan Morris on Motorcades
From Coast to Coat: A Journey Across 1950s America by Jan Morris, originally known as As I Saw the U.S.A. by James Morris, about motorcades in Manhattan:
And there in the recesses of the grandest car can be seen the distinguished visitor, opera singer, or diplomat or bronzed explorer, shamefully delighted at being able to ignore the traffic rules. I rode in one such a cavalcade, and found that the psychological effect can be disturbing. A mild little man sharing my car was soon hurling vicious abuse at the less agile of the pedestrians, and the wife of the distinguished visitor fainted.It makes me wonder: when almost all drivers are able to ignore the laws against killing pedestrians and cyclists, and dismiss all enforcement efforts as "revenue generation," what are the psychological effects?
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Westchester-Rockland Pick-a-Mix
In browsing the Tappan Zee study documents, I occasionally come across a really useful nugget, and the latest one is on Page 7-3 of Chapter 7 of the Transit Mode Selection Report (PDF). It's a cute little pair of tables supporting a pair of charts. Don't look at the charts, they're just there to argue that commuter rail on the full corridor is too expensive.
The value of these charts is that they provide a breakdown of the cost estimates of individual components of the bridge, and taken with the figures on Page 3 of the Preliminary Financial Assessment (PDF), we get a fairly complete picture. This information is hard to come by, either as a deliberate plan to favor road construction, or out of general obtuseness, depending on how much you want to use Hanlon's razor.
The $16 billion figure (estimated to be $23 billion after inflation and debt service) you often hear bandied about comes from the current Alternative 4D: in Tier 1, BHB1 + RWH1 = $6,980,000; in Tier 2, RB1 + RR1 + WB1 + WR1 = $8,383,000. However, as I've written before, the organization into tiers was completely arbitrary and decided behind closed doors, subject to none of the rigorous and intensive public participation requirements of the rest of the project.
You can kinda sorta see why they would want to build the bridge before putting in the "BRT" lanes (they're actually High Occupancy/Toll lanes and don't qualify for federal transit funding), but there's absolutely no reason why the $1.9 billion in "Highway Improvements" (reconstructing the Thruway interchange with the Westchester Expressway at Exit 8 and widening the Thruway from the bridge west to Exit 12) need to be done before anything else. So I'm going to do my own Pick-A-Mix, and I suggest you try yours.
Phase 1: WB2 + RB1 = only $823 million, but I would make the Rockland "BRT" a real exclusive bus lane connecting to a reversible bus lane in the middle of the existing bridge. The total cost would be well below $4 billion dollars, and it might just take enough cars off the bridge so that there would no longer be any justification for replacing the bridge.
If the demand is there, Phase 2 would be BBH1 + BR1 + RR1 + WR1, for a total of $12,310,000. The total is slightly more than the current DOT proposal, but you could probably shave a few million off that by only building six general-traffic lanes on the bridge instead of eight. What's your mix?
The value of these charts is that they provide a breakdown of the cost estimates of individual components of the bridge, and taken with the figures on Page 3 of the Preliminary Financial Assessment (PDF), we get a fairly complete picture. This information is hard to come by, either as a deliberate plan to favor road construction, or out of general obtuseness, depending on how much you want to use Hanlon's razor.
| Code | Component | Cost in millions |
|---|---|---|
| BHB1 | Bridge with HO/T lanes | $ 5,180 |
| BR1 | Commuter rail capacity on bridge | 1,220 |
| RWH1 | Highway "improvements" (widening) | 1,800 |
| RB1 | Rockland HO/T lanes | 263 |
| RB1 | Rockland busway | 800 |
| WB1 | Westchester bus lanes | 560 |
| WB2 | Westchester busway | 2,210 |
| RR1 | Rockland commuter rail | 4,410 |
| WR1 | Rail connection to Hudson Line | 1,500 |
| WR2 | Westchester light rail | 2,295 |
| WR3 | Westchester commuter rail | 7,080 |
| WR3 | Westchester commuter rail | 7,080 |
The $16 billion figure (estimated to be $23 billion after inflation and debt service) you often hear bandied about comes from the current Alternative 4D: in Tier 1, BHB1 + RWH1 = $6,980,000; in Tier 2, RB1 + RR1 + WB1 + WR1 = $8,383,000. However, as I've written before, the organization into tiers was completely arbitrary and decided behind closed doors, subject to none of the rigorous and intensive public participation requirements of the rest of the project.
You can kinda sorta see why they would want to build the bridge before putting in the "BRT" lanes (they're actually High Occupancy/Toll lanes and don't qualify for federal transit funding), but there's absolutely no reason why the $1.9 billion in "Highway Improvements" (reconstructing the Thruway interchange with the Westchester Expressway at Exit 8 and widening the Thruway from the bridge west to Exit 12) need to be done before anything else. So I'm going to do my own Pick-A-Mix, and I suggest you try yours.
Phase 1: WB2 + RB1 = only $823 million, but I would make the Rockland "BRT" a real exclusive bus lane connecting to a reversible bus lane in the middle of the existing bridge. The total cost would be well below $4 billion dollars, and it might just take enough cars off the bridge so that there would no longer be any justification for replacing the bridge.
If the demand is there, Phase 2 would be BBH1 + BR1 + RR1 + WR1, for a total of $12,310,000. The total is slightly more than the current DOT proposal, but you could probably shave a few million off that by only building six general-traffic lanes on the bridge instead of eight. What's your mix?
Monday, December 13, 2010
The Helix and the XBL
My post last Wednesday on Chris Christie's plans to use the Port Authority's $3 billion ARC tunnel contribution on a bus garage, reconstructing the Lincoln Tunnel helix, and replacing the cables on the George Washington Bridge got some interesting comments, both here and when Angie Schmitt featured it on the Streetsblog Network. Some of the comments pointed out that since buses use roads, this doesn't have to be all for cars. Sean, Kate and Alon on Streetsblog, and Busplanner here, all argued that the helix reconstruction could help speed buses.
For those of you just tuning in, the Lincoln Tunnel exclusive bus lane is a counterflow lane. One of the lanes that is normally reserved for outbound traffic is allocated for inbound buses during the weekday morning rush, but then it's over, and there is no outbound XBL. It carries thousands of people every morning, in an impressive feat of bus service, and is quite likely possible for the continued viability of most of the country's private bus lines. Several transit advocates have argued for making the XBL two-way round-the-clock, and for doubling it in the morning rush. The Port Authority has studied this, but there hasn't been much movement on it. One of the items in the Strategic Plan was $800 million to expand the XBL, but the helix reconstruction and the GWB cables seem to have jumped ahead of this.
I agree that since the Lincoln Tunnel exclusive bus lane goes on the helix, it would be negatively impacted if the helix were to fall down. But rebuilding the helix by itself would not actually increase capacity. The current helix is three lanes inbound and four outbound, and we could conceivably press to increase that to four inbound and five outbound, with one in each direction reserved for buses.
The problem is that the helix still connects to a six-lane road cut through the bedrock of the Palisades, and we can't add any lanes to that without some serious blasting. Increasing the capacity of the helix would just move the backups a mile further out of the city, to the point where the lanes merge down to three in each direction again. This is the reason why most of the serious plans to increase the XBL capacity involve taking another car lane.
However, we've got some pretty clear indications that Christie understands that this is about subsidies for drivers versus subsidies for transit, and we know where he comes down on that issue. I wouldn't expect him to say, "Okay guys, sure, let's take a general traffic lane and give it to bus riders!" Unless it's some vicious sarcasm like his mom dished out with her bit about the money tree.
That's not to say that savvy politicians couldn't get an expansion of the XBL folded into the helix reconstruction. Maybe if everyone plays their cards right, Cuomo could threaten to block the helix reconstruction as a car project unless XBL expansion is included in it. But that's not going to happen if everyone says, "Well, the helix benefits buses too!"
For those of you just tuning in, the Lincoln Tunnel exclusive bus lane is a counterflow lane. One of the lanes that is normally reserved for outbound traffic is allocated for inbound buses during the weekday morning rush, but then it's over, and there is no outbound XBL. It carries thousands of people every morning, in an impressive feat of bus service, and is quite likely possible for the continued viability of most of the country's private bus lines. Several transit advocates have argued for making the XBL two-way round-the-clock, and for doubling it in the morning rush. The Port Authority has studied this, but there hasn't been much movement on it. One of the items in the Strategic Plan was $800 million to expand the XBL, but the helix reconstruction and the GWB cables seem to have jumped ahead of this.
I agree that since the Lincoln Tunnel exclusive bus lane goes on the helix, it would be negatively impacted if the helix were to fall down. But rebuilding the helix by itself would not actually increase capacity. The current helix is three lanes inbound and four outbound, and we could conceivably press to increase that to four inbound and five outbound, with one in each direction reserved for buses.
The problem is that the helix still connects to a six-lane road cut through the bedrock of the Palisades, and we can't add any lanes to that without some serious blasting. Increasing the capacity of the helix would just move the backups a mile further out of the city, to the point where the lanes merge down to three in each direction again. This is the reason why most of the serious plans to increase the XBL capacity involve taking another car lane.
However, we've got some pretty clear indications that Christie understands that this is about subsidies for drivers versus subsidies for transit, and we know where he comes down on that issue. I wouldn't expect him to say, "Okay guys, sure, let's take a general traffic lane and give it to bus riders!" Unless it's some vicious sarcasm like his mom dished out with her bit about the money tree.
That's not to say that savvy politicians couldn't get an expansion of the XBL folded into the helix reconstruction. Maybe if everyone plays their cards right, Cuomo could threaten to block the helix reconstruction as a car project unless XBL expansion is included in it. But that's not going to happen if everyone says, "Well, the helix benefits buses too!"
Friday, December 10, 2010
The 2009 farebox numbers
The 2009 National Transit Database is out. As usual, everything from 74% up is inclined planes and the ferries and buses of northern New Jersey; 39-71% is college towns and urban rail; 30-39% is big city bus and light rail systems, and below 30% is small and medium-size towns and assorted boondoggles.
The top farebox earner, as last year, is the Chattanooga inclined plane, and it earned even more this year, almost a million dollars, for a farebox recovery ratio of 214.9%. This is a silly thing to count as a transit system, since it costs $14 per person, and the directions webpage only gives driving directions. The Pittsburgh inclines, which are well-connected to the bus and light rail networks, earned $110,000 for a ratio of 119.1%.
The two largest New Jersey ferry systems, Port Imperial and BillyBey, which both do business as New York Waterway, earned six million and almost a million dollars last year, respectively, for recovery ratios of 130% and 114%. One newcomer to the 70%-plus club was the University of Georgia, but that's just because the University pays for 98% of operating costs. I'm kind of baffled by the Pee Dee Regional Transportation Authority (PDF), serving the area around Florence, South Carolina. They claim to get 71% of their funding from fares, yet operating expenses were $16 per unlinked passenger trip, but fares were only $1.50. It seems like they must have gotten some big contract, but I don't see what it is. It's not a university town like Athens.
The other big story is the Stagecoach Group. This multinational transit firm from Perth, Scotland controls Coachusa, the company that owns the seven Lincoln Tunnel bus lines highlighted in blue in the table below. Some of their lines are profitable: Trans-Hudson Express, better known as Red and Tan in Hudson County, cost only $1.42 per trip to operate on average, and charges $1.45 for local routes and $4 for the New York-bound Route 99S. Orange-Newark-Elizabeth and Community Transit have also run an operating surplus for the past three years. The others bring them down, though, particularly Suburban Transit and Short Line. In 2007 their operations required a $7 million subsidy, in 2008 it was $11 million, and in 2009 it was back down to $5.6 million. I don't know how they keep those afloat, or if there will be some changes in the future.
The top farebox earner, as last year, is the Chattanooga inclined plane, and it earned even more this year, almost a million dollars, for a farebox recovery ratio of 214.9%. This is a silly thing to count as a transit system, since it costs $14 per person, and the directions webpage only gives driving directions. The Pittsburgh inclines, which are well-connected to the bus and light rail networks, earned $110,000 for a ratio of 119.1%.
The two largest New Jersey ferry systems, Port Imperial and BillyBey, which both do business as New York Waterway, earned six million and almost a million dollars last year, respectively, for recovery ratios of 130% and 114%. One newcomer to the 70%-plus club was the University of Georgia, but that's just because the University pays for 98% of operating costs. I'm kind of baffled by the Pee Dee Regional Transportation Authority (PDF), serving the area around Florence, South Carolina. They claim to get 71% of their funding from fares, yet operating expenses were $16 per unlinked passenger trip, but fares were only $1.50. It seems like they must have gotten some big contract, but I don't see what it is. It's not a university town like Athens.
The other big story is the Stagecoach Group. This multinational transit firm from Perth, Scotland controls Coachusa, the company that owns the seven Lincoln Tunnel bus lines highlighted in blue in the table below. Some of their lines are profitable: Trans-Hudson Express, better known as Red and Tan in Hudson County, cost only $1.42 per trip to operate on average, and charges $1.45 for local routes and $4 for the New York-bound Route 99S. Orange-Newark-Elizabeth and Community Transit have also run an operating surplus for the past three years. The others bring them down, though, particularly Suburban Transit and Short Line. In 2007 their operations required a $7 million subsidy, in 2008 it was $11 million, and in 2009 it was back down to $5.6 million. I don't know how they keep those afloat, or if there will be some changes in the future.
| Name | Fare Revenues per Total Operating Expense (Recovery Ratio) |
| Trans-Hudson Express | 177.0 |
| Trans-Bridge Lines, Inc. | 128.8 |
| Orange-Newark-Elizabeth, Inc. (Coach USA) | 125.8 |
| Bonanza (BZ) | 119.3 |
| Community Transit, Inc. (Community Transit) | 101.3 |
| New Jersey Transit Corporation-45 (NJTC-45) | 101.3 |
| Hudson Transit Lines, Inc. (Short Line) | 96.0 |
| Martz Group, National Coach Works of Virginia (NCW) | 88.5 |
| Rockland Coaches, Inc. | 84.0 |
| Academy Lines, Inc. | 83.6 |
| Monroe Bus Corporation | 80.5 |
| DeCamp Bus Lines | 79.2 |
| Suburban Transit Corporation (Coach USA) | 79.2 |
| Lakeland Bus Lines, Inc. | 77.5 |
| Monsey New Square Trails Corporation | 77.3 |
| Adirondack Transit Lines, Inc. (Adirondack Trailways) | 77.1 |
| Olympia Trails Bus Company, Inc. (Coach USA) | 74.4 |
| Pee Dee Regional Transportation Authority (PDRTA) | 71.8 |
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Sucked down the helix
The sad fate of the money that was to be dedicated to the ARC tunnel is a clear illustration of how easy it is for governments to spend money on car travel, and how hard it is for them to spend it on transit. The money was going to come from the Federal government, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and the Port Authority. The Federal money will probably go to some transit project, assuming the President doesn't cave into some Republican "cancel the stimulus" nastiness. The Turnpike Authority will widen the two toll roads it controls, and Christie wants it to turn some of the money over to the State Transportation Trust Fund.
The latest news is what will probably happen to the three billion dollars the Port Authority was going to contribute to the project, $595 million of which was going to be spent next year. Andrew Grossman at the Wall Street Journal lists three projects that are at the top of the Authority's wish list: reconstruction of the Helix ramps leading to the Lincoln Tunnel, replacement of the cables holding up the George Washington Bridge, and a new bus garage at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. In case you suffer from transportation myopia, Ben at Second Avenue Sagas points out that only one of these projects is exclusively transit-related. As you may remember, most of the goals we have for transit (cleaner air, reducing carnage, less waste of energy) depend on getting people to shift from cars to transit. For that, in general, shifting money from transit to cars is bad.
I can't find an estimate anywhere for the cost of the Lincoln Tunnel helix or the George Washington Bridge cables, but on Page 16 of the Authority's 2008-2015 Strategic Plan, it says that the total cost for the new bus garage would be $500 million, of which $400 million was expected to come from the Port Authority. If that price hasn't gone up, that leaves $2.6 billion for the other two projects, and I can imagine that they'd be pretty expensive.
But what if the Port Authority were committed to using this money for transit? It turns out that in this Strategic Plan there are a number of other things on the wish list. Some are expansions of the transit system, some are equipment maintenance, and some are subsidies for transit-oriented development.
How about that? It comes out to a little over $2.6 billion. And according to DNAinfo's Julie Shapiro, the PATH signal replacement is funded from other revenue streams, which brings us under $3 billion total.
So here we have $3 billion in transit funds that is currently unallocated, and $3 billion in transit-related needs listed in the Strategic Plan. And yet, Executive Director Chris Ward completely disregards the Strategic Plan and picks two road-related projects that aren't even listed in it. What could that be about? Ward hints at it in the DNAinfo article: "Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo will work with Christie to decide what those projects will be, but Christie 'will take the lead,' Ward said." And there you have it: Christie overriding the Strategic Plan and diverting more than half the ARC Tunnel money to roads. I never thought I'd miss the days of Jon Corzine.
The latest news is what will probably happen to the three billion dollars the Port Authority was going to contribute to the project, $595 million of which was going to be spent next year. Andrew Grossman at the Wall Street Journal lists three projects that are at the top of the Authority's wish list: reconstruction of the Helix ramps leading to the Lincoln Tunnel, replacement of the cables holding up the George Washington Bridge, and a new bus garage at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. In case you suffer from transportation myopia, Ben at Second Avenue Sagas points out that only one of these projects is exclusively transit-related. As you may remember, most of the goals we have for transit (cleaner air, reducing carnage, less waste of energy) depend on getting people to shift from cars to transit. For that, in general, shifting money from transit to cars is bad.
I can't find an estimate anywhere for the cost of the Lincoln Tunnel helix or the George Washington Bridge cables, but on Page 16 of the Authority's 2008-2015 Strategic Plan, it says that the total cost for the new bus garage would be $500 million, of which $400 million was expected to come from the Port Authority. If that price hasn't gone up, that leaves $2.6 billion for the other two projects, and I can imagine that they'd be pretty expensive.
But what if the Port Authority were committed to using this money for transit? It turns out that in this Strategic Plan there are a number of other things on the wish list. Some are expansions of the transit system, some are equipment maintenance, and some are subsidies for transit-oriented development.
| Project | Estimated cost in millions of dollars |
|---|---|
| Expansion of the Lincoln Tunnel exclusive bus lane | 800 |
| Lengthen the Grove Street and Harrison stations on the PATH to ten cars | 230 |
| Signal replacement on the PATH | 253 |
| Transit-oriented development: Newark Airport station on Northeast Corridor line | 155 |
| Transit-oriented development: George Washington Bridge bus station | 150 |
| Transit-oriented development: Jamaica AirTrain Station | 425 |
| Transit-oriented development: Lower Manhattan-Kennedy Airport link right of way | 350 |
| Total | $2,863 million |
How about that? It comes out to a little over $2.6 billion. And according to DNAinfo's Julie Shapiro, the PATH signal replacement is funded from other revenue streams, which brings us under $3 billion total.
So here we have $3 billion in transit funds that is currently unallocated, and $3 billion in transit-related needs listed in the Strategic Plan. And yet, Executive Director Chris Ward completely disregards the Strategic Plan and picks two road-related projects that aren't even listed in it. What could that be about? Ward hints at it in the DNAinfo article: "Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo will work with Christie to decide what those projects will be, but Christie 'will take the lead,' Ward said." And there you have it: Christie overriding the Strategic Plan and diverting more than half the ARC Tunnel money to roads. I never thought I'd miss the days of Jon Corzine.
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