The two final proposed replacements for the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Because the Tappan Zee, Bridge wasn’t built to accomodate rail access, Metro-North routes must pass through New Jersey to feed areas of west of the Hudson River, and this quirk of planning represents one of the greatest impediments to transit-oriented development in this potentially exurban area. The state along with the MTA, though, has a plan — for $16 billion — to outfit the aging bridge’s replacement with a new structure replete with transit. The plans are out there, but the money isn’t.

Inevitably, this story begins in 1990 when Metro-North requested $5 million to study connections that would span the Hudson River. Part of that plan included a new crossing south of the Tappan Zeen with a connection to Stewart Airport as well. In 1999, then-MTA Chair E. Virgil Conway chaired a task force charged with examining solutions to Tappan Zee congestion. The group, he said, planned to explore “the replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge as well as solutions that combine a new bridge with various rail alternatives.”

More recently, though, the state has tried to move the Tappan Zee project along quicker. The bridge is 55 years old and suffering from overuse, and two years ago, the MTA unveiled a $16-billion replacement project complete with plans to make room for rail access on the bridge and to build a new Metro-North spur from Suffern to the Hudson Line. Instead of trying to repair the bridge, the state would simply build a new one.

On Friday, this ambitious project took another step forward as the state whittled down its six replacement options to two. With these proposals on the table, the MTA, New York State Department of Transportation and the State Thruway Authority will publish a Draft Environmental Impact Statement in early 2011. “Refining the options to be further analyzed in the environmental study now underway is a crucial step in progressing this project,” Metro-North Railroad President Howard Permut said. “We are closer than ever to a consensus and I’m pleased with the progress made so far on this very complex project, which will affect the region for the next 150 years.”

The plans for the bridge are ambitious. In both versions, the Tappan Zee replacement would include eight lanes for private auto travel, two dedicated bus rapid transit lanes, a pedestrian and bike lane and a two-track rail line. Plan 5, above on the right, would allow for the expansion of up to four rail lines. That plan, reported The Journal-News, would have just 66 supports instead of 118 and would thus take less time to build. (It’s worth noting that the rail aspects of the project would not happen at the same time as the road. Both designs allow for the road to open first and the rail to be added later.)

Ideally, construction on this project would start in 2015, but therein lies the rub. No one knows how this project will be funded. The current price tag for this project is $16 billion, and state officials claim this cost hasn’t risen in two years. It would add 30 miles of BRT to I-287 and the rail line, but the costs for each piece are high. The bridge by itself costs $6.4 billion with another $1 billion ticketed for BRT and $6.7 billion for the rail. Officials say they are looking at “traditional and innovative” funding sources.

“There will need to be multiple funding resources,” Phil Ferguson, one of the project’s financial gurus, said. “There’s no single source that can pay for the whole thing. It’s unrealistic to think we can get 100 percent federal funding for project.” Cautioning that starting construction sooner rather than later will keep costs down, he later added, “We would have only been able to bond $2 billion — far less than than the $8.3 billion needed to just build the bridge.”

This Tappan Zee replacement will right some of the wrongs of the 1950s. It will improve mobility and access to parts of the state that aren’t far from Manhattan but seem it. It will be one of the best transit-oriented developments outside of the core of New York City in years. But who will fund it?

MNR trains currently running out of Yankee Stadium stop

An aerial shot of the fire on the bridge spanning the Harlem River at 138th St. (Photo via WTNH)

(Update 2:16 p.m.): All Metro-North service to and from Grand Central is currently suspended due to a fire on the pier underneath the 138th St. Lift Bridge that spans the Harlem River. Although the fire has been nearly extinguished, MTA officials say service across the bridge will not run “any time soon.” Instead, Metro-North service will run north from Yankee Stadium, and southbound service, operating hourly, will terminate at the stadium stop.

Nearly 250,000 commuters will find their commutes significantly slowed tonight. For service out of the city, Metro-North officials are urging commuters to take the 4, B or D trains to Yankee Stadium from which the Hudson, Harlem and New Haven lines will all operate. For access to Grand Central and points south, Harlem and New Haven line customers should board the 2 or 5 at Woodlawn while Hudson line customers can catch the 4, B or D at Yankee Stadium or the 1 at Marble Hill-225th Street.

“All northbound Metro-North service this afternoon and probably this evening will be staged out of Metro-North’s new Yankees – E 153rd Street station,” Metro-North said this afternoon in a statement. “Customers should take the #4 or D subway to 161st Street and walk west to the new MNR station. Transit is cross-honoring MNR tickets and passes for southbound travel. Northbound customers will have to buy a MetroCard.”

The fire started at approximately 11:45 a.m. when a transformer on the bridge exploded, the city’s Office of Emergency Management said. A train passing over the span was able to pass through unharmed. Officials say that the bridge has suffered heat damage to the concrete underpinnings, the track tracks and electrical equipment. The MTA does not know when Metro-North service to and from Grand Central will be restored.

New York firefighters and Coast Guard boats work to extinguish the fire across the 138th St. bridge. (Photo via FDNY)

I’ll continue to update this post as more information becomes available.

Changes to the bar car layout have commuters up in arms. Click the image to enlarge.

Don’t mess with Metro-North rider’ bar car. That’s the message they’re trying to send to the commuter railroad as it gears up for a new rolling stock purchase. It might be a message that fails on deaf ears though as the agency is planning to introduce a newly designed bar car as well as double-decker trains on some of its more popular routes.

The seven new bar cars will be put in place along the New Haven Line and are part of a $226-million, 300-car order of new rolling stock. The design, though, has raised some eyebrows among the bar car regulars as Andrew Grossman reports in the Wall Street Journal:

They’re worried, though, about the proposed design. It includes three rows of seats, four banquette-style tables and three round tables in the middle of the car. That will leave far less standing space than on the current set of cars. “We want to stand around and talk, and not be sitting in tiny little groups of four,” said Terri Cronin, the vice chair of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, which has been surveying passengers about the new designs…

Bar cars—or cafe cars in the language of the railroad—are one of the few parts of the railroad that actually make money. They generated over $500,000 in profits last year. “It’s like a big group party,” Ms. Cronin said. “You end up talking to all these people you never would have talked to if you were sitting in all these little social pods everywhere.” Ms. Cronin and other passengers say they don’t want to get stuck in small groups at tables. They’d rather mingle. Ms. Cronin said that’s how she’s met business contacts and made good friends in the bar car.

Officials from Metro-North and the Connecticut Department of Transportation, which pays for the cars, say they’ve shown the designs to focus groups, where some riders had complaints similar to Ms. Cronin’s. But the railroad is trying to squeeze as many seats as it can out of the bar cars, since the new passenger cars each have nine fewer seats than the ones they’re replacing. “It’s an ongoing balancing act,” said Judd Everhart, a spokesman for the Connecticut transportation agency. “We’re trying to maximize seating wherever we can, while at the same time providing the convenience of the cafe cars.”

The new bar cars won’t hit the rails until 2012 at the earliest, so Ms. Cronin and her drinking buddies have a few more years of socializing before the small groups take over their hallowed drinking grounds. The beer will always be cold.

Meanwhile, in an effort to combat overcrowding on the Harlem and Hudson Lines, Metro-North is looking into double-decker train cars, Michael Grynbaum of The Times reported today. The two-level cars, he says, cost the same as the standard ones and can fit 33 percent more passengers. These cars, which would enter service in 2015, would be designed to fit the clearance at Grand Central.

Metro-North says these two lines are “nearing capacity” out of Grand Central Terminal, and a bi-level car would allow for expansion without increasing train frequency. The city’s other commuter rail lines — the Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit — have been running double-decker cars since 1998 and 2005 respectively, and commuters love them for the space and the upper-level views. “Customers love them for a number of reasons,” New Jersey Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said to Grynbaum. “They are quieter, and you have more leg room. It’s been overwhelmingly positive.”

Even when empty, the middle seat on the MTA’s commuter rail cars looks unappealing. (Photo via flickr user roboppy)

Metro-North this week announced new schedules that go into effect on Monday. By and large, the service changes are minor with a few peak-hour trains eliminated and a few late-night trains combined into local routes. The MTA is also threatening to run shorter cars in order to save on money, and as such, the agency put out an amusingly-worded statement yesterday.

“With this schedule change, the number of cars on select trains will be reduced wherever possible to save money on propulsion costs,” it read. “These changes will be made to meet our standard occupancy rate for our trains, which we monitor carefully. Initial reductions will occur on the Hudson and Harlem lines. This means there may be fewer seats available on your train, but there will be adequate seating. You may have to move to another a car for a seat, or you may want to consider sitting in that middle seat.”

That middle seat. The phrase itself is so full of contempt, and the MTA finds it necessary to urge riders they might want to consider that unappealing and unwanted piece of property. Please, take the reject seat; it’s your only hope for a sit during a crowded commute.

The hate for that middle seat is obvious. Particularly on Metro-North and LIRR trains, the middle seat is a cramped nothingness in between two seats with arm rests and an aisle or window, the sheer sign of luxury. Just as no one wants to sit in the middle of a three-seater on an airplane, so too do few want to sit on that slippery third seat on a commuter train. Our sense of personal space is violated, and our sense of societal proprietary suffers. People just should not be thrust into such awkward interactions with strangers.

This straphanger has solved the subway's middle-seat problem by taking up those surrounding it.

That middle seat problem though isn’t one unique to the commuter rail cars. In the subway — particularly those trains running R46s and R68s — the middle seat rears its ugly head. In those cars, the three seats flush with the train wall nearest the doors are highly problematic. Designed for people with rear ends significantly smaller than your average New Yorker’s, the bucket seats dictate that three people should fit with no problem, but in reality, three people can fit only if the one in the middle doesn’t mind getting shoved in the ribs or sat upon by those sitting in the outside seats. There ain’t no such thing as personal space for the unlucky SOB stuck with that middle seat.

So we’re stuck with middle seats, and an agency that must remind its riders that, when train cars are crowded, instead of standing, it’s acceptable to “consider sitting in that middle seat.” Just be wary of what happens when you sit down; the people next to you might not appreciate being the bread of that commuter sandwich.

Photo at right via flickr user moriza.