by Jeffrey M. Zupan, Senior Fellow for Transportation, RPA
A Crisis of Will - As this edition of Spotlight goes to press, New York's transportation system is at a critical juncture. The MTA is $16 billion short in funding for its vital $27 billion, 5-year capital plan. With no support forthcoming from Albany or City Hall, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow bravely put forward his own financing proposal, which was either ignored or rejected by the state's elected officials. As a result, he's been forced to publicly state the reality that without adequate funding the MTA may have to abandon expansion projects such as the 2nd Avenue subway and access to Grand Central for the Long Island Rail Road.
Instead of responding with anger and resolve to the prospect of losing billions of dollars in federal support for these projects, elected officials and the media have collectively shrugged their shoulders. While Gov. Pataki's State of the State address on Wednesday managed to lend support to the ill-conceived West Side stadium, there was not one mention of the MTA capital plan or the transportation system that supports and drives our economy. That the region might be prepared to abandon or postpone projects so vital to its economy, after decades of work and hundreds of millions of dollars already spent, shows just how difficult it is to go forward with long-range plans.
This week's Spotlight on the Region features an essay by RPA's Senior Fellow for Transportation, Jeffrey Zupan, which comments on this dynamic in detail by looking back at the transportation recommendations in RPA's Third Regional Plan and assessing the region's successes and failure.
A former mayor of New York City used to say, "How am I doing?" At RPA we decided to ask ourselves that question by taking a look back at the transportation-related recommendations we made in our Third Regional Plan, issued in February, 1996. By examining which of our proposals have been advanced and which have not we hope to reveal what it takes to move our ideas (and the ideas of others) forward.
We chose to look at the transportation sector because RPA has always considered it deeply important, and because the head of our transportation program (see byline) agreed to write this article. We do cheat a little and include here some projects that we proposed before 1996 and some since. We trust the reader will give us these latitudes.
This article is not being written to gloat over those things that we have achieved, bemoan things we haven't, or to advocate here anew. Rather, it is to discuss why some projects and advanced and others faltered, so that we can learn from them.
We also evaluate progress with a mixture of pride and humility. All of these projects required the combined efforts of numerous organizations and individuals, and in many cases RPA was neither the first nor the loudest in advocating their implementation. However, in every case RPA has been a significant contributor, and the initiator for several. The Third Plan was also the most comprehensive vision for a regional system that synthesized these individual initiatives.
When our Third Plan was being formulated the Region was in an even deeper transportation funk than it is now. In the early 1990s, the fruits of the investments in the repairs of long-neglected transit infrastructure - some $50 billion by recent count - were not yet in full evidence. Any serious move toward expansion of the rail system had not yet taken place, stopped in its tracks (literally) during the fiscal crisis of the 1970s and by the priority given to the necessary investments to overcome years of deferred maintenance. The MTA was just beginning to come out of its shell with regard to such long-needed projects as the connection of the LIRR to Grand Central Terminal and the Second Avenue Subway. The debate over how to bring rail into Kennedy Airport was not resolved.
Things weren't as bad in New Jersey. The Garden State had developed a set of priority projects, and was able to secure funding for long-sought projects such as the Kearny Connection, the Secaucus Transfer, the Montclair Connection and a waterfront light rail line, the latter first proposed by RPA in the 1980s. On the highway side, Interstate 287's last 20 miles from Boonton, NJ, to Suffern, NY, was just completed (December 1993), closing the circumferential loop around the Region (except for the never built Rye-Oyster Bay Bridge). But there was little prospect for any more limited access highways in the Region, and E-ZPass and MetroCard were brand new and had more doubters than adherents.
During this time, the land use/transit connection, long understood by planners but not by local officials, remained a planners' conceit, despite RPA's ground-breaking research on the relationship between density and transit feasibility.
The Third Plan
It was in this setting that RPA issued its Third Plan, A Region at Risk. We proposed a new transit system dubbed "Rx", patterned after Paris' RER, to parlay the use of abandoned or underused rights of way and judicious new construction to form a new network that integrated the subway and commuter rail systems. This proposal comprised a Second Avenue Subway extended into the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn; East Side Access (the LIRR link to Grand Central); a higher and better use of the Atlantic Branch of the LIRR which would give access to Kennedy Airport, building upon AirTrain, through commuter rail service between suburban sectors; an RER-like extension to Secaucus in the Meadowlands to increase capacity between New Jersey and New York; and a Tri-Boro line using the Bay Ridge freight line and the Hell Gate Bridge to serve Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. We also proposed a light rail in Nassau County's Hub area and a light rail loop in Midtown Manhattan, and reaffirmed our long-time support of the Kearny Connection (already under construction) and the longer-time (since 1929) support of the Montclair Connection, a project then still languishing.
We advocated variable time of day pricing on the toll roads of the Region and tolls on the free East River bridges, the elimination of thorny highway bottlenecks with highway projects only where no transit solutions were likely, and opposed "can-opener" highways because they would promote sprawl. At a smaller scale we advocated the closing of the Central Park loop drive to motor vehicles to return the park to its original purpose and to reduce excessive traffic into the Manhattan core.
Judging the Plan
Well, was anyone listening? We define here progress by placing projects in three rough categories - significant progress, some progress, and little or no progress. We don't define progress as a completed project, only that there is clear progress toward it. After all, in the transportation field progress usually takes decades. Conversely, "no progress" does not necessarily mean that we have given up on a proposal forever, only that there is no discernible progress to date. We then ask ourselves why some proposals have advanced and why others haven't, with a view for applying what we learn to the future.
Significant Progress
Transit
New Jersey Commuter Rail
Commuter rail success was achieved with the opening of the Kearny Connection (renamed MidtownDIRECT) in 1996. The project has become a poster child for how a one-seat ride can boost ridership and property values. The Montclair Connection opened in 2002 - first proposed by RPA in 1929 - with similar success. The Secaucus Transfer opened in 2003, uniting the entire northern New Jersey rail network for the first time.
A New Hudson River Passenger Rail Tunnel
The successes of these commuter rail projects and the resulting growth in trans-Hudson travel has led to the movement to build a new passenger rail tunnel, which RPA strongly supports. Here, we have been highly successful in encouraging NJ TRANSIT to keep alive the concept of bringing the tunnel to the east side, where more riders want to go. They have now embraced the station location in our concept for a commuter rail loop, described in our web-posted report on the subject, The Case for a New Hudson River Passenger Rail Tunnel.
New Jersey Waterfront Light Rail
In New Jersey, the waterfront light rail now completed between Bayonne and Hoboken and soon to be extended northward was a brainchild of RPA, proposed in its "River City" report in the early 1980s. NJ TRANSIT advanced the project in the 1990s, largely along the route we proposed (except in Hoboken) and it has both led and followed the development of the "gold coast" in Hudson County. Its logic was unassailable - it connects the development in the riverfront communities and it connects to the trans-Hudson PATH, ferry and bus networks. Senator Frank Lautenberg and Congressman Robert Roe secured the funding as part of the "Urban Core" package, a successful invention of NJ TRANSIT to package and sell all northern New Jersey transit projects as one.
Kennedy Airport Access
In New York, the availability of construction funds through the passenger facility charge (PFC) in large part explains how the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey managed to build the Kennedy Airport AirTrain. Were it not for these funds, all the parties could never have overcome their decades of disagreement over the proper route. RPA successfully advocated that the project be compatible with off-airport transit, either rapid transit or commuter rail. This feature opens up the possibility for an eventual one-seat ride to Lower Manhattan. The agreement on AirTrain also came after RPA pointed out its synergy with East Side Access to Governor Pataki - each project will make the other more valuable to many more travelers.
East Side Access
The MTA and Governor Pataki have firmly committed to completing the Long Island Connection to Grand Central Terminal. More than $1.5 billion is in place and over $800 million already spent on design and construction.
Second Avenue Subway
When RPA began its campaign to revive the Second Avenue subway the typical response was a Pavlovian giggle, followed by "that will never happen." Today over $1 billion is in place for its construction. After initially insisting that only a segment from 63rd Street to 125th Street should be built, the MTA, with analytical support from RPA and political support from New York State Speaker Sheldon Silver, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller and Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, is now committed to a "full length" line to the Battery and constructing the line in a way that it will be possible to extend it later into Brooklyn and the Bronx, as RPA proposed.
But despite this significant progress, the project is now threatened by the MTA's most recent budget crisis, something that has been looming for years and that leaders have been studiously avoiding addressing. MTA Chairman Kalikow has threatened to abandon these two expansion projects if he can find no other source of funds for the "state of good repair" and "normal replacement" programs. It is unthinkable that after all these years of progress, and with federal funds to support much of this investment, that we would waste the funds spent and turn our back on these critical investments in the Region's economic future.
The Nassau Hub transit
RPA proposed a new light rail line with accompanying land-use changes to maximize its use. County Executive Tom Suozzi has embraced the Hub concept and is expected to unveil the results of a county study soon and push for its implementation.
Highways
To Build or Not to Build
The Third Plan cited two New Jersey highway projects that are representative of projects that fix bottlenecks otherwise unsolvable by other means - the Routes 4 and 17 interchange and the extension of Route 21 in Essex County up to Route 46. Both have since been built, solving longstanding traffic problems. The "can-opener" roads we opposed, citing Route 92 as the prime example, remain off the books or stymied by environmental review and local opposition.
Central Park Drives
One longstanding RPA proposal, to close the Central Park loop drive to motor vehicles, has just received a boost with the permanent closing of some entrances to the drive, restrictions on hours of vehicle operation, and the requirement for multiple occupants in the vehicles. Hurray for NYCDOT and the Department of Parks and the persistence of the Transportation Alternatives, a pro-bike advocacy group. An 800-person rally they organized recently didn't hurt.
Pricing
In the Third Plan RPA proposed what is commonly called "congestion pricing." It meant pricing for roadways would vary by the time of day to discourage peak use when roads were most crowded and transit was most available. New technology has made this a reality. E-ZPass is now the payment method of choice for 70 percent of toll payers in the Region, speeding traffic and reducing delays. Three of the four major toll agencies in the Region have adopted some form of variable time of day pricing - the Port Authority at its three Hudson River crossings, the New Jersey Turnpike for all its facilities, and New York State Thruway at the Tappan Zee Bridge for trucks. And these three and the Garden State Parkway have speeded up toll payment further with high-speed drive through lanes. There is only one recalcitrant toll agency, the MTA.
Some Progress
Some of our proposals can best be put firmly in the "maybe" column, having neither advanced significantly nor been rejected outright.
The West Shore rail line restoration. This project languishes with control of the right-of-way in the hands of CSX, the freight line, and with a lack of interest in the project by the MTA. NJ TRANSIT is continuing to examine the possibility, which is very much tied to the construction of a new rail tunnel into Midtown discussed earlier.
MetroLink: New Transit for New York. This is RPA's concept of the Second Avenue Subway extended to serve Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. The Brooklyn portion of this project has now received traction because of the interest in bringing LIRR riders and Kennedy Airport passengers more directly to Lower Manhattan, a direct reaction to interest in post 9/11 Lower Manhattan's transportation needs. In 1999 RPA conceived of this Lower Manhattan link as a value to Lower Manhattan best served with a connection to the Second Avenue Subway.
Little or No Progress
Triboro Rx. This concept - a rail line using the Bay Ridge line and Hell Gate Bridge to connect Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, while intersecting most of the subway lines in the City - has not taken hold. With no obvious partners it became a victim of priority setting.
Midtown Light Rail Loop. Our midtown light rail loop must also be put in the minus column. Our proposal built on the concept of a 42nd Street light rail line. But even this more modest idea has gotten nowhere, as the Giuliani Administration decided against pursuing it because of traffic impact concerns (which we don't share) and construction complexities (which we think can be worked out). More significantly, the idea became a victim of the much more ambitious proposal to extend the #7 Flushing Line to support the Far West Side development and the Jets Stadium.
Pricing. As hinted above, one toll agency has yet to adopt either variable time of day pricing or high speed lanes - the MTA's Bridge and Tunnel Division. They are concerned that a very high toll during the peak will leak away revenue to the parallel free bridges across the East River, and until the free bridges are tolled they are not inclined to raise peak prices relative to the off-peak. The failure to move toward tolling at the currently free East River bridges may be the single greatest failure to date.
Why Good Things Happen To Good Projects
So what has this recitation of success and failure taught us?
First, when a dedicated revenue source is available for a project it happens. The airport PFC charge that made the AirTrains at both Kennedy and Newark airports possible is a case in point. The success of these dedicated taxes in building air travel infrastructure points to the obvious need for something similar for Amtrak, which is constantly begging Congress for more funds. In this region, a dedicated tax toward inter-regional rail service could help pay for a new tunnel under the Hudson and even a new Penn Station.
Second, some ideas are so obviously good that they are destined to happen. Few opposed either the Kearny Connection or the waterfront light rail line for that reason. Similarly, other ideas eventually prevail because of their range and level of benefits, despite their high costs. The Second Avenue Subway and the LIRR East Side Access projects are two examples, despite new concerns about funding (see next section).
Third, it helps to have a champion in high places - Governor Pataki for ESA and AirTrain, Speaker Silver for the Second Avenue Subway, Senator Lautenberg and Congressman Roe for all of the New Jersey projects.
Fourth, it helps it the project doesn't go through anyone's front yard. ESA, the Kearny Connection and the Secaucus Transfer are good examples here. In the case of the Montclair Connection the project not only took out front yards but whole houses, explaining its 70-plus year history to implementation.
Fifth, it helps if the opposition to a project can be persuaded by giving them something in return. This is what made Montclair possible, where the diesel service was electrified to make the pill go down easier.
Sixth, technology can be used to create a win-win for the user and the operator. E-ZPass and MetroCard fall in that category.
Why Nothing Happens to Good Projects
Aside from the obvious negative to the positives listed above - no champion, no money, no obvious and clear benefits - many good projects lie fallow because they require funding over a long period of time, extending beyond governments' budgetary cycles. These projects suffer from not being able to have their ribbons cut within an elected official's projected term of office, require them to exert more leadership, with less emphasis on political expediency. The high costs of these projects may require new revenue sources raised by government, and with the current anti-tax, anti-invest environment that prevails in many quarters, projects face an uphill battle. This may yet be the fate of East Side Access and the Second Avenue subway. Finding a way around this common hurdle is one of the greatest challenges for RPA and the region.
Other projects rely on overcoming objections of transit operating departments, who are often reluctant to change their time honored way of doing business. Planners seldom have the knowledge to rebut these concerns, and instead reluctantly accept the objections.
Some projects have real differences among competing interests, as is the case of the West Shore restoration, where CSX, NJ TRANSIT and the MTA each have different objectives.
* * * *
RPA is an organization devoted to planning for the long haul, and we believe that good sense can prevail as long as we keep projects alive that can prove their worth. What we must do, however, is spend more effort to make the case for stable, long-term funding for transportation, work with those who raise objections to particular ideas so we can better respond to them (or be persuaded that they are right and we are wrong), do enough research to make our case stronger, and build consensus among a broad range of constituencies.
A Crisis of Will - As this edition of Spotlight goes to press, New York's transportation system is at a critical juncture. The MTA is $16 billion short in funding for its vital $27 billion, 5-year capital plan. With no support forthcoming from Albany or City Hall, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow bravely put forward his own financing proposal, which was either ignored or rejected by the state's elected officials. As a result, he's been forced to publicly state the reality that without adequate funding the MTA may have to abandon expansion projects such as the 2nd Avenue subway and access to Grand Central for the Long Island Rail Road.
Instead of responding with anger and resolve to the prospect of losing billions of dollars in federal support for these projects, elected officials and the media have collectively shrugged their shoulders. While Gov. Pataki's State of the State address on Wednesday managed to lend support to the ill-conceived West Side stadium, there was not one mention of the MTA capital plan or the transportation system that supports and drives our economy. That the region might be prepared to abandon or postpone projects so vital to its economy, after decades of work and hundreds of millions of dollars already spent, shows just how difficult it is to go forward with long-range plans.
This week's Spotlight on the Region features an essay by RPA's Senior Fellow for Transportation, Jeffrey Zupan, which comments on this dynamic in detail by looking back at the transportation recommendations in RPA's Third Regional Plan and assessing the region's successes and failure.
A former mayor of New York City used to say, "How am I doing?" At RPA we decided to ask ourselves that question by taking a look back at the transportation-related recommendations we made in our Third Regional Plan, issued in February, 1996. By examining which of our proposals have been advanced and which have not we hope to reveal what it takes to move our ideas (and the ideas of others) forward.
We chose to look at the transportation sector because RPA has always considered it deeply important, and because the head of our transportation program (see byline) agreed to write this article. We do cheat a little and include here some projects that we proposed before 1996 and some since. We trust the reader will give us these latitudes.
This article is not being written to gloat over those things that we have achieved, bemoan things we haven't, or to advocate here anew. Rather, it is to discuss why some projects and advanced and others faltered, so that we can learn from them.
We also evaluate progress with a mixture of pride and humility. All of these projects required the combined efforts of numerous organizations and individuals, and in many cases RPA was neither the first nor the loudest in advocating their implementation. However, in every case RPA has been a significant contributor, and the initiator for several. The Third Plan was also the most comprehensive vision for a regional system that synthesized these individual initiatives.
When our Third Plan was being formulated the Region was in an even deeper transportation funk than it is now. In the early 1990s, the fruits of the investments in the repairs of long-neglected transit infrastructure - some $50 billion by recent count - were not yet in full evidence. Any serious move toward expansion of the rail system had not yet taken place, stopped in its tracks (literally) during the fiscal crisis of the 1970s and by the priority given to the necessary investments to overcome years of deferred maintenance. The MTA was just beginning to come out of its shell with regard to such long-needed projects as the connection of the LIRR to Grand Central Terminal and the Second Avenue Subway. The debate over how to bring rail into Kennedy Airport was not resolved.
Things weren't as bad in New Jersey. The Garden State had developed a set of priority projects, and was able to secure funding for long-sought projects such as the Kearny Connection, the Secaucus Transfer, the Montclair Connection and a waterfront light rail line, the latter first proposed by RPA in the 1980s. On the highway side, Interstate 287's last 20 miles from Boonton, NJ, to Suffern, NY, was just completed (December 1993), closing the circumferential loop around the Region (except for the never built Rye-Oyster Bay Bridge). But there was little prospect for any more limited access highways in the Region, and E-ZPass and MetroCard were brand new and had more doubters than adherents.
During this time, the land use/transit connection, long understood by planners but not by local officials, remained a planners' conceit, despite RPA's ground-breaking research on the relationship between density and transit feasibility.
The Third Plan
It was in this setting that RPA issued its Third Plan, A Region at Risk. We proposed a new transit system dubbed "Rx", patterned after Paris' RER, to parlay the use of abandoned or underused rights of way and judicious new construction to form a new network that integrated the subway and commuter rail systems. This proposal comprised a Second Avenue Subway extended into the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn; East Side Access (the LIRR link to Grand Central); a higher and better use of the Atlantic Branch of the LIRR which would give access to Kennedy Airport, building upon AirTrain, through commuter rail service between suburban sectors; an RER-like extension to Secaucus in the Meadowlands to increase capacity between New Jersey and New York; and a Tri-Boro line using the Bay Ridge freight line and the Hell Gate Bridge to serve Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. We also proposed a light rail in Nassau County's Hub area and a light rail loop in Midtown Manhattan, and reaffirmed our long-time support of the Kearny Connection (already under construction) and the longer-time (since 1929) support of the Montclair Connection, a project then still languishing.
We advocated variable time of day pricing on the toll roads of the Region and tolls on the free East River bridges, the elimination of thorny highway bottlenecks with highway projects only where no transit solutions were likely, and opposed "can-opener" highways because they would promote sprawl. At a smaller scale we advocated the closing of the Central Park loop drive to motor vehicles to return the park to its original purpose and to reduce excessive traffic into the Manhattan core.
Judging the Plan
Well, was anyone listening? We define here progress by placing projects in three rough categories - significant progress, some progress, and little or no progress. We don't define progress as a completed project, only that there is clear progress toward it. After all, in the transportation field progress usually takes decades. Conversely, "no progress" does not necessarily mean that we have given up on a proposal forever, only that there is no discernible progress to date. We then ask ourselves why some proposals have advanced and why others haven't, with a view for applying what we learn to the future.
Significant Progress
Transit
New Jersey Commuter Rail
Commuter rail success was achieved with the opening of the Kearny Connection (renamed MidtownDIRECT) in 1996. The project has become a poster child for how a one-seat ride can boost ridership and property values. The Montclair Connection opened in 2002 - first proposed by RPA in 1929 - with similar success. The Secaucus Transfer opened in 2003, uniting the entire northern New Jersey rail network for the first time.
A New Hudson River Passenger Rail Tunnel
The successes of these commuter rail projects and the resulting growth in trans-Hudson travel has led to the movement to build a new passenger rail tunnel, which RPA strongly supports. Here, we have been highly successful in encouraging NJ TRANSIT to keep alive the concept of bringing the tunnel to the east side, where more riders want to go. They have now embraced the station location in our concept for a commuter rail loop, described in our web-posted report on the subject, The Case for a New Hudson River Passenger Rail Tunnel.
New Jersey Waterfront Light Rail
In New Jersey, the waterfront light rail now completed between Bayonne and Hoboken and soon to be extended northward was a brainchild of RPA, proposed in its "River City" report in the early 1980s. NJ TRANSIT advanced the project in the 1990s, largely along the route we proposed (except in Hoboken) and it has both led and followed the development of the "gold coast" in Hudson County. Its logic was unassailable - it connects the development in the riverfront communities and it connects to the trans-Hudson PATH, ferry and bus networks. Senator Frank Lautenberg and Congressman Robert Roe secured the funding as part of the "Urban Core" package, a successful invention of NJ TRANSIT to package and sell all northern New Jersey transit projects as one.
Kennedy Airport Access
In New York, the availability of construction funds through the passenger facility charge (PFC) in large part explains how the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey managed to build the Kennedy Airport AirTrain. Were it not for these funds, all the parties could never have overcome their decades of disagreement over the proper route. RPA successfully advocated that the project be compatible with off-airport transit, either rapid transit or commuter rail. This feature opens up the possibility for an eventual one-seat ride to Lower Manhattan. The agreement on AirTrain also came after RPA pointed out its synergy with East Side Access to Governor Pataki - each project will make the other more valuable to many more travelers.
East Side Access
The MTA and Governor Pataki have firmly committed to completing the Long Island Connection to Grand Central Terminal. More than $1.5 billion is in place and over $800 million already spent on design and construction.
Second Avenue Subway
When RPA began its campaign to revive the Second Avenue subway the typical response was a Pavlovian giggle, followed by "that will never happen." Today over $1 billion is in place for its construction. After initially insisting that only a segment from 63rd Street to 125th Street should be built, the MTA, with analytical support from RPA and political support from New York State Speaker Sheldon Silver, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller and Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, is now committed to a "full length" line to the Battery and constructing the line in a way that it will be possible to extend it later into Brooklyn and the Bronx, as RPA proposed.
But despite this significant progress, the project is now threatened by the MTA's most recent budget crisis, something that has been looming for years and that leaders have been studiously avoiding addressing. MTA Chairman Kalikow has threatened to abandon these two expansion projects if he can find no other source of funds for the "state of good repair" and "normal replacement" programs. It is unthinkable that after all these years of progress, and with federal funds to support much of this investment, that we would waste the funds spent and turn our back on these critical investments in the Region's economic future.
The Nassau Hub transit
RPA proposed a new light rail line with accompanying land-use changes to maximize its use. County Executive Tom Suozzi has embraced the Hub concept and is expected to unveil the results of a county study soon and push for its implementation.
Highways
To Build or Not to Build
The Third Plan cited two New Jersey highway projects that are representative of projects that fix bottlenecks otherwise unsolvable by other means - the Routes 4 and 17 interchange and the extension of Route 21 in Essex County up to Route 46. Both have since been built, solving longstanding traffic problems. The "can-opener" roads we opposed, citing Route 92 as the prime example, remain off the books or stymied by environmental review and local opposition.
Central Park Drives
One longstanding RPA proposal, to close the Central Park loop drive to motor vehicles, has just received a boost with the permanent closing of some entrances to the drive, restrictions on hours of vehicle operation, and the requirement for multiple occupants in the vehicles. Hurray for NYCDOT and the Department of Parks and the persistence of the Transportation Alternatives, a pro-bike advocacy group. An 800-person rally they organized recently didn't hurt.
Pricing
In the Third Plan RPA proposed what is commonly called "congestion pricing." It meant pricing for roadways would vary by the time of day to discourage peak use when roads were most crowded and transit was most available. New technology has made this a reality. E-ZPass is now the payment method of choice for 70 percent of toll payers in the Region, speeding traffic and reducing delays. Three of the four major toll agencies in the Region have adopted some form of variable time of day pricing - the Port Authority at its three Hudson River crossings, the New Jersey Turnpike for all its facilities, and New York State Thruway at the Tappan Zee Bridge for trucks. And these three and the Garden State Parkway have speeded up toll payment further with high-speed drive through lanes. There is only one recalcitrant toll agency, the MTA.
Some Progress
Some of our proposals can best be put firmly in the "maybe" column, having neither advanced significantly nor been rejected outright.
The West Shore rail line restoration. This project languishes with control of the right-of-way in the hands of CSX, the freight line, and with a lack of interest in the project by the MTA. NJ TRANSIT is continuing to examine the possibility, which is very much tied to the construction of a new rail tunnel into Midtown discussed earlier.
MetroLink: New Transit for New York. This is RPA's concept of the Second Avenue Subway extended to serve Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. The Brooklyn portion of this project has now received traction because of the interest in bringing LIRR riders and Kennedy Airport passengers more directly to Lower Manhattan, a direct reaction to interest in post 9/11 Lower Manhattan's transportation needs. In 1999 RPA conceived of this Lower Manhattan link as a value to Lower Manhattan best served with a connection to the Second Avenue Subway.
Little or No Progress
Triboro Rx. This concept - a rail line using the Bay Ridge line and Hell Gate Bridge to connect Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, while intersecting most of the subway lines in the City - has not taken hold. With no obvious partners it became a victim of priority setting.
Midtown Light Rail Loop. Our midtown light rail loop must also be put in the minus column. Our proposal built on the concept of a 42nd Street light rail line. But even this more modest idea has gotten nowhere, as the Giuliani Administration decided against pursuing it because of traffic impact concerns (which we don't share) and construction complexities (which we think can be worked out). More significantly, the idea became a victim of the much more ambitious proposal to extend the #7 Flushing Line to support the Far West Side development and the Jets Stadium.
Pricing. As hinted above, one toll agency has yet to adopt either variable time of day pricing or high speed lanes - the MTA's Bridge and Tunnel Division. They are concerned that a very high toll during the peak will leak away revenue to the parallel free bridges across the East River, and until the free bridges are tolled they are not inclined to raise peak prices relative to the off-peak. The failure to move toward tolling at the currently free East River bridges may be the single greatest failure to date.
Why Good Things Happen To Good Projects
So what has this recitation of success and failure taught us?
First, when a dedicated revenue source is available for a project it happens. The airport PFC charge that made the AirTrains at both Kennedy and Newark airports possible is a case in point. The success of these dedicated taxes in building air travel infrastructure points to the obvious need for something similar for Amtrak, which is constantly begging Congress for more funds. In this region, a dedicated tax toward inter-regional rail service could help pay for a new tunnel under the Hudson and even a new Penn Station.
Second, some ideas are so obviously good that they are destined to happen. Few opposed either the Kearny Connection or the waterfront light rail line for that reason. Similarly, other ideas eventually prevail because of their range and level of benefits, despite their high costs. The Second Avenue Subway and the LIRR East Side Access projects are two examples, despite new concerns about funding (see next section).
Third, it helps to have a champion in high places - Governor Pataki for ESA and AirTrain, Speaker Silver for the Second Avenue Subway, Senator Lautenberg and Congressman Roe for all of the New Jersey projects.
Fourth, it helps it the project doesn't go through anyone's front yard. ESA, the Kearny Connection and the Secaucus Transfer are good examples here. In the case of the Montclair Connection the project not only took out front yards but whole houses, explaining its 70-plus year history to implementation.
Fifth, it helps if the opposition to a project can be persuaded by giving them something in return. This is what made Montclair possible, where the diesel service was electrified to make the pill go down easier.
Sixth, technology can be used to create a win-win for the user and the operator. E-ZPass and MetroCard fall in that category.
Why Nothing Happens to Good Projects
Aside from the obvious negative to the positives listed above - no champion, no money, no obvious and clear benefits - many good projects lie fallow because they require funding over a long period of time, extending beyond governments' budgetary cycles. These projects suffer from not being able to have their ribbons cut within an elected official's projected term of office, require them to exert more leadership, with less emphasis on political expediency. The high costs of these projects may require new revenue sources raised by government, and with the current anti-tax, anti-invest environment that prevails in many quarters, projects face an uphill battle. This may yet be the fate of East Side Access and the Second Avenue subway. Finding a way around this common hurdle is one of the greatest challenges for RPA and the region.
Other projects rely on overcoming objections of transit operating departments, who are often reluctant to change their time honored way of doing business. Planners seldom have the knowledge to rebut these concerns, and instead reluctantly accept the objections.
Some projects have real differences among competing interests, as is the case of the West Shore restoration, where CSX, NJ TRANSIT and the MTA each have different objectives.
* * * *
RPA is an organization devoted to planning for the long haul, and we believe that good sense can prevail as long as we keep projects alive that can prove their worth. What we must do, however, is spend more effort to make the case for stable, long-term funding for transportation, work with those who raise objections to particular ideas so we can better respond to them (or be persuaded that they are right and we are wrong), do enough research to make our case stronger, and build consensus among a broad range of constituencies.
@RegionalPlan