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April 29, 2012. |
2011, 2012
Monthly Letters from George
Auto-Free NY was founded in February 1989. Since January, 2002, Auto-Free NY's website has presented a monthly letter from its chairman and founder, George Haikalis, introducing each monthly meeting's theme. Because these themes are critically important, and NYC is so backward in addressing its chronic car-caused traffic problems, we archive George's letters here, most recent first, for your information and reading pleasure.
Above, George (in white sport coat) attends an MTA Lower Manhattan Access public hearing, circa 2002.
April 2012
Roads to Rails: The Queensboro Bridge: Putting People on Top
Joint Meeting of AFNY and vision42
Discussion of IRUM's plan to restore light rail service on the Queensboro Bridge's lower deck outer roadways and remaking the upper deck into a promenade for pedestrians and a bike route for cyclists.
March 2012
Roads to Rails: Second Avenue in Manhattan
Joint Meeting of AFNY and vision42
For our March 20 meeting, AFNY and the vision42 working group continue their monthly dialogue on practical ways to reduce our crowded city's overindulgence in motor-vehicular surface transportation. While an auto-free light rail boulevard on 42nd Street, river-to-river, remains our top priority, we hope to broaden our constituency by highlighting the many opportunities for re-purposing NYC's public thoroughfares from an emphasis on moving motor vehicles to a location for surface light rail transit and pedestrian amenities.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Manhattan's renowned grid of crowded streets hosted the world's most extensive network of street railways (or "trams" as they are affectionately called in Europe). Barely fifty years later, this extraordinarily rider-friendly means of urban transport -- and considerable public investment -- had been dismantled by a coalition of ill-advised "progressives," misled and prodded on by powerful auto industry interests. Tracks were removed and surfaces were repaved to satisfy the auto's insatiable appetite for more road space.
The so-called 'solution' became the problem as streets, bridges and tunnels quickly filled with private cars, traffic slowed to a crawl, pedestrians found it more difficult than ever to cross streets and travel by bus became the mode of last resort.
But this sorry situation is reversible. No bus route in the entire US is busier than the MTA's M15 First and Second Avenue line. While MTA and NYC's Department of Transportation have made a noble first step in remaking the buses running in "limited" service on this line into a "Select Bus Service," there is a long way to go to transform Manhattan's East Side into a livable urban place.
At our March meeting we will revisit a plan for light rail on the East Side developed by Philipp Rode, a graduate student from Berlin Technical University who did an internship at the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility, Inc. (IRUM) over a decade ago. [Mr. Rode's thesis is posted on IRUM's website: www.irum.org.] We will also review the current performance of the M15 Select Bus Service and the ongoing construction nightmare of the 2nd Avenue Subway. Please plan to attend. Note that our meetings now return to the TA conference room, 127 West 26th Street, NYC.
February 2012
Latest Developments in Streetcars: Kinkisharyo Trams
Joint Meeting of AFNY and vision42
Special Guest: Representative from Kinkishariyo
After more than eight years in office, Mayor Mike Bloomberg has recently made some modest first steps in "de-vehicularizing" the city, such as installing pedestrianized spaces in Herald Square and Times Square, and adding miles of physically separated new bike lanes, for example Eighth Avenue from Greenwich Village to 23rd Street. But the Mayor still apparently considers even the thought of LRT in his city radioactive, preferring to fiddle with painted bus lanes in a few streets.
While Bloomberg dithers, dozens of more sophisticated and democratically run cities around the world have been rushing to complete new installations of this city-friendly urban transport mode. Not only that, but they have been quick to adopt the latest innovations in light rail vehicles and equipment, meaning that NYC is falling even further behind in investing in its surface transit.
Cars still rule supreme in Mayor Bloomberg's worldview, even though the majority of citizens of his city do not own cars, yet suffer lower quality of life because of them. This so-called "windshield perspective" also rules in the city's mainstream media, which maintains a cloak of economic censorship over transit advances in more sophisticated cities throughout the world.
To help clarify New Yorkers' vision of the latest thinking in new design streetcars, Auto-Free NY last fall invited representatives of three of the world's largest railcar manufacturers to each make presentations on their latest tramcar product lines, particularly those that would be suitable for the long proposed 42nd Street light rail line. New Yorkers should have the right to know about the remarkable innovations worldwide that are taking place in new LRT equipment.
For our February meeting, it will be Kinkishariyo International's turn to talk about their latest equipment, in particular "wireless" streetcars - electric vehicles that do not require overhead catenary wire. Please come by the TA office to see these fascinating new developments. Also, cross the Hudson River and take a ride on the Hudson-Bergen LRT line (which uses Kinkishariyo cars, by the way!), to see for yourself what modern trolleys are really like.
January 2012
Planning for a Design Charette for 42nd Street LRT - First to Second Avenue Block
Joint Meeting of AFNY and vision42
Special Guest: Ed Walters, photographer
Our January meeting was held jointly with vision42 at the spacious offices of the Open Space Institute, just north of Herald Square. The meeting was a workshop to briefly sketch design elements for an auto-free light boulevard on 42nd Street, focused on a single block - between 1st and 2nd avenues. The idea is that a design charette involving planners, residents, building owners and the public would gather to hash out what kind of street they would like it to become, presuming an LRT crosstown line is installed. Ed Walters presented a fine and comprehensive set of photos of the block as it looks now, including views of the UN, Tudor City and the Ford Foundation.
October, November, December 2011
Presentations by Manufacturers of Advances in Modern Light Rail Vehicles
Back on September 8, in a televised speech, President Obama laid out a strong vision of a credible national jobs program, calling for immediate federal investments that included numerous key infrastructure projects. [In case you missed this speech, we urge you to visit whitehouse.gov for the unadulterated version.] At seven minutes into the 32-minute speech, as the President discusses how infrastructure projects, in particular transit and light rail, can relieve chronic traffic congestion, a remarkable image appears on a sidepanel, of the Houston Metrorail light rail system (LRT).
In today's cars-only corporate media climate, it's not often that the President of the US appears with an image of a modern light rail vehicle, and certainly not in prime time. But that's even less so with NYC's Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who apparently considers even the thought of LRT in his city radioactive. While Bloomberg dithers, dozens of more sophisticated and democratically run cities around the world have been rushing to complete new installations of this city-friendly urban transport mode. Should our billionaire Mayor ever take his private jet to Zurich some weekend, perhaps taking a sample ride on one of Zurich's new fleet of modern tram cars that are the pride and joy of this eco-friendly Swiss city could help him overcome his distaste for LRT.
Modern streetcars in today's advanced cities provide a double incentive -- the proverbial "carrot and stick" -- for motorists to get out of their cars. The "carrot" consists of quiet, clean and people-friendly surface transport, while the "stick" is the taking away of some roadspace that would otherwise be pre-empted by automobiles, most of which each carry only one person, the driver.
To help clarify New Yorkers' vision of the latest thinking in new design streetcars, Auto-Free NY has this fall invited representatives of three of the world's largest railcar manufacturers to each make presentations on their latest tramcar product lines, particularly those that would be suitable for the long proposed 42nd Street light rail line. New Yorkers should have the right to know about the remarkable innovations worldwide that are taking place in new LRT equipment. You are cordiallly invited to attend these free presentations, to be held at the Van Alen Institute, at 30 West 22nd St., 6th Floor:
Tuesday, Oct 25, 2011 6-8pm -- Bombardier
Tuesday, Nov 15, 2011 6-8pm -- Siemens
Tuesday, Dec 20, 2011 6-8pm -- Alstom.
September 2011
Finessing the 34th-42nd Street LRT Loop Proposal
[The September Auto-Free NY meeting was run jointly with the vision42 working group.] The discussion of design options for the 34th Street segment of the 34th Street/42nd Street light rail loop will continue. New input from our two summer walking tours, held in July and August, will be considered. Both tours were well attended and a number of ideas came up.
Also, plans for relocation of the blacktop portion of Robert Moses Park at 42nd Street and First Avenue, now being advanced by East Side elected officials, will be discussed. The vision42 plan for an auto-free light boulevard on 42nd Street could be an important element of this discussion.
As a special treat, Olympia Kazi, Executive Director of the Van Alen Institute, will describe the Institute's 2010 competition, "Life at the Speed of Rail", as well as the components and complexities of putting together a design competition. This could be useful for vision42. [Time permitting, an updated version of "a light rail grid for Manhattan", first shown at the Dec 14, 2010 meeting, will be presented.]
July and August 2011
Summer Walking Tours - Miracle [Light Rail] on 34th Street
At every major bridge and tunnel in NYC, you can see the many motorists driving private cars solo into Manhattan who haven't gotten the message that the bike lane program has solved all of our city's traffic problems. For the summer of 2011, with NYC once again mired in the worst smog on the East Coast, thanks mostly to too many cars, Auto-Free NY is going to revisit 34th Street in midtown -- the city's crossroads of commerce and transit -- in order to take a close look at light rail for this key corridor.
Early in 2011, the NYC Dept of Transportation's modest plan to close part of 34th Street to private cars was run over and crushed by defenders of car privileges in midtown. Lost in this latest battle over street space, which involved a "nominal" bus lane, was the bigger picture about the imbalance of motor vehicles on our streets. If we examine the 45 crosstown streets between 14th Street and Central Park in midtown Manhattan, only 42nd Street hosts more pedestrians per square foot than 34th Street. Yet the timid city DOT could only muster enough courage to suggest closing a single block of 34th Street to vehicular traffic -- between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue.
It seems city officials, peering thru the windshields of their company cars, or past the lapels of taxi industry lobbyists, didn't notice the huge crowds trying to get to Macy's (the self-proclaimed world's largest store) or to Penn Station -- the nation's busiest railway station. Nor did they acknowledge all the pedestrians [and potential shoppers] who stay away because of the unpleasantly crowded sidewalks and traffic noise and smog. Rather than boldly calling for all three blocks between 5th and 8th avenues to become auto-free, instead the NYC DOT retreated and now is half-heartedly struggling to splash on some terracotta-colored pavement in a feeble attempt to speed crosstown bus travel. [Memo to real New Yorkers: it's still quicker to walk!]
Perhaps it is time for our jetsetting billionaire Mayor Bloomberg - who travels to one of his estates in Bermuda almost every weekend, to invite some of his NYC DOT officials to climb aboard his personal jet and junket them to Vienna or Budapest and see how real grown-up cities treat their urban cores -- with auto-free streets and modern light rail lines.
Find out how 34th Street can be miraculously remade - and not just for the benefit of merchants! Vision42 has a remarkable plan for a midtown surface light rail loop that would utilize 34th Street. Join us for our next two AFNY walking tours on Tuesday, July 26, and Tuesday, August 23 -- both days from 6-8pm. Both tours will begin in the center of the pedestrianized plaza at the front door of Macy's on Broadway, between 34th Street and 35th Street, promptly at 6pm - rain or shine. The JULY tour went east to the East River; the AUGUST tour headed west to the Hudson River. Both tours are FREE, take place rain or shine, and there is no need to RSVP. See you there!
June 2011
Threading Light Rail Thru Midtown East
Several years ago NYC rezoned a key segment of the East River waterfront just south of the UN's headquarters, from 35th to 41st streets. This bonanza from our government allowed the developers to quickly demolish the sturdy and historically relevant 1906 Waterside electric generating plant in 2008, creating the current fenced-off and barb-wired riverfront prairie along First Avenue, from 38th to 41st streets, pictured at right (shown: June 2011 view looking north from 38th Street, with UN building in the background, and Tudor City at left). In this space, the unstoppable developers, the Solow company, will soon shoehorn in a massive wall of luxury residential and office towers. Some 5,000 new high-rise housing units will be added to an area that is at least a half mile walk from the nearest (and already severely overcrowded) subway line, at Lexington Avenue.
As for the long-promised Second Avenue subway line, it will not reach this part of midtown for at least 20 to 30 years! It is currently being built from 63rd to 96th St., and many years from now, when that's done, the next segment to be funded -- IF funding can be found -- will be from 96th to 125th Street - add another decade or so. That leaves buses.
But get this - no new bus service is planned! In fact, against strong community opposition, the MTA recently discontinued the M104 crosstown 42nd Street bus. Not to worry -- Mayor Bloomberg has thoughtfully allowed developers to add a whopping 1,200 new parking spaces so that the tower's luxury apartment dwellers can store their luxury 4-WD racing vehicles - and continue avoiding public transportation.
Our billionaire Mayor, ever busy networking with global environmental leaders, and also hoodwinking the environmental community with his 2030 sustainability plan, has unfortunately been busy inking deals (or at least looking the other way) as a wave of cars-preferred big-box stores and developments such as this new East midtown plan, with huge parking garages above or below ground, engulf the City. Bloomberg's environmental legacy, other than a lot of new trees, will be ever more car chaos, as the common on-the-ground experience for East Midtown residents, workers and visitors.
It doesn't have to be this way. Come to our next AFNY meeting this June 28. Our guest speaker John West, a board member of IRUM, and a member of Community Board 6, will describe how a more sophisticated city would create a genuine urban fabric in Midtown East, and invest in significant public transportation, in particular a modern light rail line, that could be threaded through this area. Please take note that this June meeting will be held at the Van Alen Institute, at 30 W 22nd Street, not at the TA office. It will be a joint meeting with vision42. Hope to see you there!
May 2011
New Book: "Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road
to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay"
Special Guests: Yves Engler, author and Montreal political activist; and Bianca Mugyenyi, Concordia University
Our May AFNY meeting will feature two special guests from Montreal: Yves Engler, author and political activist, and Bianca Mugyenyi, campaign coordinator at Concordia University's Centre for Gender Advocacy. They will be unveiling and discussing their newly published book "Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay."
Please plan to attend our meeting this month as we learn their perspective on the automobile crisis. The meeting, to be held at the TA office on West 26th Street, is free and there is no need to RSVP.
April 2011
The Mayor's Updated Sustainability Plan: Would PlaNYC 2.0 Reduce Car Use?
Panelists: IRUM board members Jeff Gold, Jill Greenberg and George Haikalis
Almost four years after Mayor Bloomberg's Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability released the first plaNYC, it has now produced an updated plan - plaNYC 2.0. The original 2007 plan floated a raft of suggestions that would take take hold no later than 2030 - even while the City continued incentivizing private car commuting, and was in the midst of an aggressive parking garage/shopping mall construction spree, that would serve to lock in more private car usage.
Almost all of the press attention on the first plan focused on one strategy -- congestion pricing. We know what happened to that strategy. On the other hand, the plan called for the creation of a handful of midtown pedestrian plazas, mostly along Broadway, and there is no doubt that the Times Square and Herald Square plazas are very popular, particularly with tourists, shoppers and the merchants that line these plazas.
Join us at our next Auto-Free New York meeting to learn what's contained in the new plan, and see how its transportation strategies compare with those contained in Auto-Free New York's longstanding, comprehensive
Livable City Transport Plan - which itself has gone through several upgrades already.
March 2011
Rail Access to the Region's Airports:
Where We've Been, Where We're Headed
Special Guest: Anthony Callendar, transportation planner; former senior staff analyst, Aviation Dept., Port Authority
Most airports in the US are heavily dependent on parking revenues for operating and capital costs. As a result, airport authorities have, over the decades, for the most part, fought against extension of rail systems to serve growing travel demand. Nowhere has this been more pronounced than here in the NY metropolitan area - the nation's most rail transit-oriented city!
Eventually forced to respond to growing public pressure, worldwide ridicule, enlightened politicians, and just plain common sense, NYC eventually built rail connections at JFK and Newark Liberty Airports, but these require inconvenient transfers, and fares have been set very high. No rail link is available to LaGuardia Airport, although it is less than two miles from the last stop of the N and W train in Astoria.
The result, not surprisingly, is ongoing endless automobile traffic and taxi dominance for travel to airports, with resulting congestion and pollution, as well as disincentives for tourists.
Plan to attend our next Auto-Free NY meeting, where we will hear from Anthony Callendar, a transportation planner formerly at the Port Authority, on how we got into this situation and how we can do better.
February 2011
The Case for Light Rail in NYC
Joint meeting, AFNY and Vision 42
Special Guest: Paul Gawkowski, Transportation Planner; former director, NYC Transit Operations Planning, Bklyn & Queens Surface Transit
For our February 2011 meeting, we continue our series of advocating for the return of streetcars and modern light rail to NYC. We are lucky to have as guest recently retired transit professional Paul Gawkowski, who has been in the trenches for many years trying to make surface transit work better in Brooklyn and Queens.
Mr. Gawkowski, sharing with us his years of hands-on experience in transit, will treat us to a special audio-visual presentation offering his ideas on reintroducing street railways in NYC, once a world capital for this mode of urban travel.
Our February meeting will be held in conjunction with the regular monthly meeting of vision42 -- an initiative to advance an auto-free light rail boulevard on 42nd Street.
January 2011
Light Rail for Stamford and New Haven: Why not in NYC?
Joint meeting, AFNY and Vision 42
Special Guest: Stephen Gazillo, director of transportation planning, URS Corporation
Some three dozen American cities, and countless other cities throughout the world, have added new light rail/streetcar lines to provide attractive alternatives to motor vehicular travel. Replacing pavement on urban
streets with modern, low-floor streetcar and light rail tracks is a surefire way to combine the 'carrot' of better transit with the 'stick' of disincentives to drive in dense urban places.
Even Los Angeles - "car central" - will be adding over the next ten years about 41 miles of new LRT and subway tracks to its existing 79-mile system. But NYC remains mired in traffic chaos, transit bureaucracy paralysis and cost overruns. Look at New Jersey! New light rail lines have been operating less than a mile away from Manhattan, directly across the river in Jersey City and Hoboken. In fact, the Hudson-Bergen light rail line on the waterfront can easily be seen in operation from New York, including from the windows of the editorial offices of the NY Times' skyscraper on Eighth Avenue! Now two nearby cities in Connecticut - Stamford, and New Haven - are planning new lines.
For our January AFNY meeting, which will be combined with Vision 42, our special guest will be Stephen A. Gazillo, who is director of transportation planning at the URS Corporation. Gazillo will present an overview of planning efforts for new light rail/streetcar lines for Stamford and New Haven, CT and extensions to the existing line in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In addition, progress reports on the vision42 plan for an auto-free light rail boulevard on 42nd Street, and NYCDOT's planning study for a trolley linking Red Hook with Downtown Brooklyn, will also be made. Time permitting, other AFNY initiatives, including transit and motor vehicular pricing strategies, will also be reviewed.
© Copyright 2011, 2012. All rights reserved. Auto-Free New York.
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