 |
||
 Jan. 25, 2007 | Vol 6 No. 2 |
||
|
|
||
|
In This Issue: – Navigating the tricky details of public-private partnerships – Remembering a pioneering environmentalist – MTA gets it right at Fulton Center – Calendar Putting Business In Charge Doesn’t Always Make Things Go Faster For the first year or so, I cursed New York City Transit, which I presumed had responsibility for keeping the escalators next to the Food Emporium in working order. I even wrote down the name and number of the station manager and tried, unsuccessfully, to contact him a few times. Then workmen tinkering in the guts of escalators set me right. It seems that the escalators are owned and maintained by Zeckendorf Towers, the mega brick condominium complex with the four pyramid-capped towers that opened at One Irving Place in 1987. And Zeckendorf, the workmen said, had installed a cheaper, less heavy-duty set of escalators than are standard in the subway system. These escalators were meant for the inside of a department store, not a subway station exposed to air, rain and 24 hour foot traffic. The deficient escalators have garnered the wrath of the community. This escalator “is the orphan child of the Zeckendorf people, who received tax breaks in compensation for building and maintaining the escalator,” said Wally Dobelis in his blog about community news around Union Square, Looking Ahead. “If they knew the curses weary homebound workers heap on their heads, expecting an easy ascent, and instead having to trudge up the filthy contraption, they'd repent.” Ann Marie, assistant property manager for Maxwell Kates Inc., which manages the Zeckendorf Towers, said the company had considered ripping the current escalators out and installing better ones. But that had been ruled out because it “would cost millions.” Instead, the company has teams constantly working on the escalators. “It’s a losing battle,” Marie said from her office within the towers. “They are good for about a week or two, and then they are out.” This story is illustrative of the dangers of poorly designed deals to farm out public responsibilities to private companies. In this instance, Zeckendorf has few incentives to provide a quality service. Most of the people who would use the escalator will never be its customers, and few people even know that Zeckendorf is responsible. Privatization can be beneficial when public interests can be aligned with the profit motive. But if we are to adopt more of them, we have to realize that to work well they involve as much close supervision, particularly in the contractual stages, as direct public management itself. If the contract with Zeckendorf had included a clause specifying a level of service for the escalators, for example, with financial penalties if these levels of service weren’t met, then it’s unlikely that twenty years later I would be walking up those frozen mechanical staircases. Careful attention must be paid to the details of the contracts and resources dedicated to monitoring public-private partnerships if these increasingly common deals are to succeed. Many of the systems contemplated for private management, such as turnpikes and airports, involve transportation. On a tiny scale, that’s what an escalator is. This week, the Port Authority announced it was acquiring the lease of Stewart Airport in Orange County, N.Y., for $78 million, and intends to make it the region’s fourth hub. The lease was acquired from a British group, National Express, which had bought the 99-year-lease in 2000 for $35 million in a deal championed by the Pataki administration. But the company did not exploit the airport’s potential as well as expected, and in a few years decided to get out of the airport management business and put the lease up for sale. Whatever the merits of that company, there seems to be a common conflict between the long-term public interest, which requires sustained commitment of capital and focus, and the desires of private companies for short-term gain at the lowest cost. In general, the more a service requires long-term investments to advance larger public goals, the more difficult it is to have private firms do an adequate job. As the above examples show, private management of public services is not a panacea. That is not to say we shouldn’t proceed, however. But if we do, we should carefully mind both the potential for benefits and the potential for abuse and missed opportunities. In Memoriam: Helen Fenske Long known as the woman who preserved the Great Swamp, Mrs. Fenske came to the conservation movement from the kitchen of her Green Village home in suburban Morris County, New Jersey in the early 1960’s. In an era when bigger was better, engineers argued that a fourth jetport was necessary in the tri-state region, and that the swamps of Jersey were the perfect site for filling wetlands and building runways. The Port Authority had it all planned, and many thought the battle was lost. But Helen would have no part of that. Her tireless efforts included community organizing, fundraising, and a lot of political jawboning. Without a formal college pedigree, but with a spirit that could fuel the space shuttle, Helen lived her life without taking “no” for an answer. While Regional Plan Association took a position against the jetport, even RPA’s influence paled in comparison to the indefatigable Mrs. Fenske. My first encounter with Helen was in 1981 as a college intern, helping Governor Tom Kean’s DEP Transition Team draft a report for the new Commissioner to use. As a member of the Team, Helen was informed and persistent, but always polite and respectful – qualities that seem to be missing in today’s environmental discourse. I since learned that Helen had sent audiotapes to then-candidate Kean about various environmental issues. These tapes were Helen’s way of getting around political handlers who kept her at arms-length distance. And those tapes and her intense concentration resulted in her appointment by Governor Kean to serve as Assistant Commissioner for Natural Resources. As DEP Assistant Commissioner, Helen was always looking out for the Green Acres program, and long advocated splitting DEP into two Cabinet departments to ensure that the “green” side received sufficient attention in the State House. Retirement was a word that Helen did not recognize, as she was involved after these years in critical issues such as the State Plan, the Highlands, and a sustainable finance program for open space preservation. Despite moving to Vermont, she kept her Jersey roots and contacts, and often engaged in discourse about policies, such as suburban sprawl, which threaten our quality of life. It is ironic that my final memory of Helen is a conversation we had at Tony Cicatiello’s office in Newark last December. Tony headed up the DEP Transition Team in 1981 and hired me as the intern to help compile the report. Tony and I have remained friends ever since, as did Tony and Helen. Tony has at-times represented development interests, but often sought the counsel of Helen Fenske, for he knew that she’d be involved one way or another. I had stopped by to say hello, and Tony was on the phone with Helen. She bragged about her family, and asked all sorts of questions about the environment in New Jersey. Tony’s comment on Helen’s passing is worth noting. “She was the best!” he said. For those writing the history of the modern environmental movement, a special chapter must be reserved for Helen Fenske. While she would have been embarrassed by the attention, she probably would have reviewed the work to make sure the writer got it right. - Thomas G. Dallessio, Vice President and NJ Director Form versus Function at Fulton Center: A False Choice Avoided We argued that both were important. The passageway links two important downtown subway lines and makes it possible to transfer between them without climbing in and out of the subway. The skylight is not a frill; it cuts through the Styxian gloom of the underground to bring light into the station, and orients the riders in this particularly complex station. Neither should be sacrificed, we argued. The good news is that the MTA agreed with us and appears to have found the money to do both, possibly through savings from design changes. The issue highlights the problem our transit systems continually face – making hard choices among worthwhile projects because money is tight. As we continue to face these choices we must find the funds for both form and function; both will be needed if our transit system is to do the job of fueling our growth and economy in a sustainable way. Questions or comments on what’s in this issue? Send them to the editor of Spotlight On The Region, Alex Marshall at alex@rpa.org |
|
|
January 31, 1 p.m. February 2, Noon – 1:30 p.m. February 17, 9:30 a.m. February 21, 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. May 4
|
|
|
||
|
Spotlight on The Region A publication of Regional Plan Association, Robert Yaro, President, Alex Marshall, Senior Editor 212-253-2727, x360 alex@rpa.org www.rpa.org |
|
