With cheap oil now history, as the past winter well illustrated, there is a desperate need to develop better options to the car. In order to do that we must reorder priorities as to how public money is spent.
Transit projects that merely shorten the ride by a few minutes should not be at the top of the priority list. Projects that actually link regions should be given priority. Such a project is the east-west commuter rail line, one of six alternatives in the state study on the Tappan Zee corridor.
Only the full-length BRT (bus rapid transit) and the full-length CRT (commuter rail transit) had any real future in this study and now the BRT has been shown, as of the recent open houses displaying more detail in the plan, to be just a nicer bus for Westchester with little pretense of “rapid” in its makeup. It takes lanes from existing crowded roads, requires two expensive and ugly overhead ramps, a couple of tunnels and, to date, no plans as to how to route the BRT through White Plains. In no way can it be called a real BRT. That has not stopped Mike Anderson, the spokesperson for the study, from claiming it, deluding the public at every event. In Rockland County there would be a genuine BRT, just not in Westchester.
That leaves the full length CRT as the only serious contender and the only rational choice. However, one we are told we cannot afford. Why is this project so outrageously expensive? Because it is gold-plated. Similar cost estimates of projects described in Engineering News appear to be a third of the price of this project.
There are two parts of the project that potentially add billions to the cost, but actually just fulfill the dreams of the agencies involved. Residents on both sides of the Hudson are fearful of a monster bridge. Nonetheless, the Thruway Authority seems determined to fulfill their worst fears by adding two extra lanes on the projected eight lane bridge ”“ two HOT (high-occupancy toll) lanes to serve carpoolers, buses and those single-occupant drivers willing to pay extra to get across the bridge more rapidly. A HOT lane is actually a good idea but it should be carved out of the projected eight lanes, not require two extra lanes which require lane merges at some point and jack up the cost of a new Tappan Zee Bridge by billions, further arousing an already anxious public.
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Metro-North has its dream plan too, equally ill-considered. The public has continually been assured that without the rail connection to Manhattan at the Hudson River there is simply not enough ridership to warrant the construction of a full-length east-west commuter line, connecting five rail lines and four states. Where these figures come from is quite a mystery as origin/destination figures, made public before the study began, showed that the main destination for Rockland commuters was Westchester and the Bronx, better served by the Harlem line.
Furthermore, aside from the highly questionable numbers for a Hudson line connection, the consultants have not taken into consideration potential ridership from White Plains to Stewart Airport, connecting to the Port Jervis line, the growing “reverse commute” and the potential for increased ridership from a connection to Stamford. Only Metro-North”™s claims for a supposedly growing Manhattan-bound ridership appear to get the attention of the consultants.
The Hudson line connection is a contorted proposal ”“ dropping down to the Talleyrand Swamp in a tunnel, then surfacing miraculously just north of the Lyndhurst estate. It is a mystery as to how a commuter train, which can only negotiate a grade of about 1.2 degrees per mile, can drop 100 feet into the tunnel and then somehow get back to grade in the relatively short distance from the bridge to the Hudson line. Boston”™s leaking Big Dig should be a cautionary tale to the consultants. Consider what a little sea level rise might do to this project. The cost of this link to Manhattan has to be several billion dollars, not counting the lawsuits and delays this plan will stir up.
There are a lot of mysteries in this study as to what these huge sums are actually paying for and they need to be cleared up so we can move forward with a plan that costs well under $14 billion.
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Maureen Morgan, a transit advocate, is on the board of Federated Conservationists of Westchester. Reach her at mmmorgan10@optonline.net.
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