Last night, NYC DOT and the MTA gave its most recent Select Bus Service presentation to Manhattan’s Community Board 8. Since I was on an airplane, I couldn’t attend, but Michael Auerbach from Upper Green Side filed a report for me from the event. I’ll have more about the DOT presentation next week. In the meantime, check out Michael’s take on how Select Bus Service will coexist with the Second Ave. Subway construction along the Upper East Side. The weekend service alerts follow.

After a rather tame affair downtown at Community Board 3 on Wednesday night, the DOT and MTA headed north to present details of the City’s highly anticipated (albeit watered down) version of Bus Rapid Transit, or as it is known, Select Bus Service, to Community Board 8’s Transportation Public Forum. The start of the forum was actually delayed because City officials themselves were held up due to the tragic accident on the 6 train last night where a woman was killed at the 77th Street station as she tried to retrieve her bag from the tracks.

Seasoned from weeks of practice in front of boards across the City, the DOT came to CB8 with their SBS schpiel ready to go. The presentation began with DOT identifying station locations and describing exactly where each design choice will be implemented along the corridor and why. In areas of “intense traffic,” particularly around the 59th Street Bridge entrances and exits, Design C (curbside bus lane, shared bike lane) would be used. whereas in areas of lighter traffic further up 1st and 2nd Avenues, Design A (offset bus lane and protected bike lane) would be utilized. For the most part, no real bombshells were dropped last night save for the small shocker that when M15 SBS service is up and running, all M15 buses (including locals) will terminate at South Ferry. That means no more M15’s making they’re last stop at City Hall. However, DOT did mention that customers wishing to travel to City Hall will still be able to take the M103.

Of particular interest (and long a burning question to the readership of this blog) has been exactly how SBS will co-exist with the ongoing construction for the Second Avenue Subway. Last night we finally got some answers: As per DOT officials, the City does not intend to paint the bus lanes or install any physical infrastructure in the roadway on 2nd Avenue from 100th to around 67th Street until SAS construction is complete. DOT does plan however to install two temporary SBS stations on 2nd avenue at 88-89th streets and 67-68th streets, respectively. Both stations will have fare collection machines installed so people can pay the SBS fare before they board, enabling DOT to realize some of the promised SBS time-saving goals in the short-term.

Once construction of the SAS is complete (or better yet, when conditions on the roadway allow) the DOT will then implement full SBS on 2nd avenue, which includes painting the bus lane, installing a physically separated bike way on segments of the avenue, relocating the temporary stations, and adding additional ones. According to last night’s presentation, it still appears that SBS will be somewhat hampered in the SAS zone due to construction crews that take up lanes of traffic on the avenue. DOT regulations require the MTA to maintain 4 lanes of moving traffic through the SAS zone at all times. A DOT official even went as far as to say that the current curb side lane (once a fully functional bus lane back in the day) is now NOT in fact a bus lane, but simply a lane for buses. Which also means it’s a lane for cars, and a lane for trucks…The statement makes one really wonder whether or not SBS will be able to truly achieve its stated goal of speeding bus trips along the corridor.

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I’d like to thank Michael for this report. Definitely check out Upper Green Side for more livable streets analysis about the areas impacted by the Second Ave. Subway. In the meantime, below are your weekly service advisories. Subway Weekender has the map, and it’s worth repeating that work on the 7 line has wrapped three weeks early. As always, these comes to me via the MTA and are subject to change without notice. Listen to announcements and check signs in your local station.

Please note: From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, there are no transfers between A, 23, and 45 trains at Fulton Street-Broadway-Nassau. Manhattan-bound A trains are running on the F line from Jay Street to West 4th Street. Queens-bound A trains run local from West 4th to Jay Streets, bypassing Fulton Street-Broadway Nassau. In Manhattan, free transfers are available between 45 trains at Fulton Street and AE23 trains at the World Trade Center/Chambers Street/Park Place station. Customers must exit and re-enter the system when making this free connection. In Brooklyn, customers may transfer at Nevins Street between 23 and 4 trains.

From 11 p.m. Friday, March 12 to 7 a.m. Saturday, March 13, from 11 p.m. Saturday, March 13 to 8 a.m. Sunday, March 14 and from 11 p.m. Sunday, March 14 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, 2 and 3 trains run local between 96th Street and Times Square-42nd Street due to a track dig-out near 50th Street.

From 12:01 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. Saturday, March 13 and Sunday, March 14 and from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, 3 train service is extended to/from 34th Street-Penn Station due to a track dig-out near 50th Street.

From 11 p.m. Friday, March 12 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, Manhattan-bound 4 trains run express from Burnside Avenue to 125th Street due to a concrete pour at 149th Street-Grand Concourse.

At all times until September 2010, the Whitlock Avenue and Morrison-Sound View Avs. stations are closed for rehabilitation. Customers should use the Elder Avenue 6 station or the Simpson Street 25 station instead. The Bx4 bus provides alternate connecting service between stations.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, A trains run local between 168th Street and 145th Street, between 59th Street and West 4th Street, and between Jay Street and Euclid Avenue due to the Chambers Street Signal Modernization project and station rehabilitation at 59th Street-Columbus Circle.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, Manhattan-bound A trains run on the F line from Jay Street to West 4th Street due to the Chambers Street Signal Modernization project.
At West 4th Street, customers may transfer to a:

• Brooklyn-bound A to reach Canal, Chambers or High Streets or
• World Trade Center-bound E to reach Spring Street.

Note: A trains do not stop at Broadway-Nassau Street in either direction.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, there is no C train service due to the Chambers Street Signal Modernization project. Customers may take the A or D instead. Note: D trains run local between 145th Street and 59th Street. A trains run local with exceptions.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, D trains run local between 145th Street and 59th Street due to station rehabilitation at 59th Street-Columbus Circle.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, there are no D trains between Pacific and 34th Streets due to the Broadway-Lafayette to Bleecker Street transfer construction. The N and free shuttle buses provide alternate service.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, E trains run local between Forest Hills-71st Avenue and Queens Plaza due to track maintenance.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, F trains run local between Forest Hills-71st Avenue and 21st St-Queensbridge due to track maintenance.

From 8:30 p.m. Friday, March 12 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, there are no G trains between Forest Hills-71st Avenue and Court Square due to track maintenance. Customers may take the E or R instead.

From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, March 13, Manhattan-bound J trains skip Flushing Avenue, Lorimer Street and Hewes Street due to track repairs.

From 12:01 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. Saturday, March 13 and Sunday, March 14, and from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m., Monday, March 15, N trains are rerouted over the Manhattan Bridge between DeKalb Avenue and Canal Street due to Jay Street station rehabilitation and construction of the underground connector to Lawrence Street.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, N trains run local between Pacific Street and 59th Street in Brooklyn due to Broadway-Lafayette to Bleecker Street transfer construction.

From 11 p.m. Friday, March 12 to 7 a.m. Saturday, March 13, from 11 p.m. Saturday, March 13 to 8 a.m. Sunday, March 14 and from 11 p.m. Sunday, March 14 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, uptown Q trains run local from Times Square-42nd Street to 57th Street/7th Avenue due to a track dig-out north of 42nd Street-Times Square.

From 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Saturday, March 13, downtown Q trains run local from 57th Street/7th Avenue to Times Square-42nd Street due to track cleaning.

From 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Sunday, March 14, downtown Q trains run local from 34th Street-Herald Square to Canal Street due to track cleaning.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, Q train service is extended to/from Ditmars Blvd.

From 12:01 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. Saturday, March 13 and Sunday, March 14 and from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, there are no R shuttle trains between 36th Street and 59th Street in Brooklyn due to Broadway-Lafayette to Bleecker Street transfer construction. Customers may take the N instead.

From 6:30 a.m. to midnight Saturday, March 13 and Sunday, March 14, R trains are rerouted over the Manhattan Bridge between DeKalb Avenue and Canal Street due to Jay Street Station Rehabilitation and Construction of Underground Connector to Lawrence Street.

From 10:30 p.m. Friday, March 12 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, free shuttle buses replace S trains between Rockaway Park and Beach 67th Street due to station rehabilitations at Beach 98th and Beach 90th Streets.

©2010 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

©2010 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

©2010 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

For the authority, this admission is a positive step forward. The Second Ave. Subway represents a unique challenge for the MTA because it is the first subway line built through a densely populated neighborhood marked by very old residential buildings. This city and others around the world simply haven’t witnessed the construction of a subway of this magnitude through built-up neighborhoods in generations. That the MTA is so keen to learn from the mistakes makes me believe that, if Phases II-IV of the SAS ever see the funding they need, the construction efforts will grow markedly smoother after Phase I opens in late 2016.

©2010 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

The BRT grant is an interesting one because the Nostrand Ave. corridor has been subject to some car-based politicking. Local business owners who will lose their personal parking spots are not too happy about the project, and the vocal minority voices often tend to trump the silent majority who stand to benefit from faster surface transportation and a less congestion business area. While 19 elected officials have support the 1st and 2nd Ave. Select Bus Service plan without federal funding, politicians who represent the Nostrand Ave. neighborhoods have yet to speak out in favor of the Brooklyn-based plan despite the obvious need to speed up the painfully slow B44. Noah Kazis hopes that federal funds will change that anti-transit attitude. Either way, these grants are good news for some of the city’s cash-strapped projects.

©2010 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

The planned ventilation structure at 69th St.is now the subject of a federal suit. (Image courtesy of MTA Capital Construction)

After months of wrangling with the MTA over changes to the planned Second Ave. Subway ventilation structures along the Upper East Side, a group of residents has filed suit against the authority in an effort to overturn allegedly illegal modifications to the design.

As Sarah Ryley of The Real Deal reported earlier today, the coop at 233 East. 69th St. has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the MTA did not follow proper environmental review procedures in changing the design for a ventilation structure on the neighboring lot. The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction against work on this structure and ask for the court to order a proper environmental review, a process that could take up to a year. (For your reading pleasure, the full complaint is available here as a PDF and embedded below.)

Ryley has more on the lawsuit:

The co-op tower filing the lawsuit, 233 East 69th Street, would neighbor the largest planned structure, slated to cover the entire footprint of two lots currently occupied by five-story brick apartment buildings built around the turn of last century. Once the structure is built, eight co-ops would have their easterly facing windows entirely bricked up.

When the MTA presented its renderings of the utility structures at a community board meeting last November, it was difficult to restore order, said Mark Legere, a resident of the 69th Street co-op. “There was just a complete, like a cacophony, of ‘Oh my God, not that!’ sounds.”

The lawsuit hinges on the subway’s Final Environmental Impact Statement approved in 2004, which stated that the structures “would typically be approximately the same size as a typical row house — 25 feet wide, 75 feet deep, and four- to five-stories high, although some may be wider.” Referring to a four-story brick building with faux windows, the document says the structures “could be designed to appear like a neighborhood row house in height, scale, materials and colors.” …

The residents are telling the MTA to redesign the utility structures so they mimic typical row houses, as outlined in the original plan. “Otherwise, if the MTA insists on moving forward with this design change, then it must conduct an additional public environmental review, including a full analysis of the facility’s impacts on the buildings at 233 East 69th Street, and an evaluation of suitable mitigation measures or alternatives to avoid or minimize the facility’s impacts to the greatest extent practicable,” said the residents’ attorney, Michael D. Zarin of Zarin & Steinmetz.

The plaintiffs have asked the court to block the MTA’s planned modifications under federal environmental impact review laws. If successful, this challenge would result in more studies for the Second Ave. Subway. The MTA would have to prepare another Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement to “study and mitigate the new significant environmental impacts of the modified 69th St. facility.” This study could take six months to a year to complete.

Despite this suit, construction shouldn’t be delayed along Second Ave. Based on its current schedule, the MTA will not begin soliciting work for the 72nd St. station and its ancillary structures until April 2012, and construction is not slated to begin there until December of the same year. Pending the outcome of the suit, there will be plenty of time to conduct further review.

As of press time, the MTA has yet to comment. I’ll update this post when I hear from them. In the meantime, the full complaint is available after the jump.

Second Ave Subway 69th st complaint –

©2010 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

©2010 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve tried to ascertain just why this subway costs so much. While New York is a very developed city and the MTA is digging through some very old neighborhoods, Paris and London have both been around for centuries longer than the Upper East Side. Labor costs are higher in the U.S. than they are in Europe but not by that much. Could it be utilities work? Design and engineering? A combination of everything?

I was at a loss until a few weeks when the MTA published a quarterly report about the Second Ave. Subway work with the most comprehensive budget presentations to date. The report is available here as a PDF, and the budget chart is on page 15. I’ll summarize the Current Budget here. Clicking the thumbnail at right opens a larger version.

First, the MTA tackles component design costs. The Environmental Impact Statement cost $11.6 million; PE & FP Engineering costs are projected to be $228.9 million; and the final design costs will be $192 million. The next few lines concern construction. So far, the agency has awarded $734 million in construction contracts with $2.7 billion in contracts still be awarded. Those figures constitute the bulk of the project costs but aren’t broken out further.

After that line item, the chart delves into some detail. The agency is keeping $122.7 million on hand for contingency awards and will pay $96 million for control center modernization. In-house Transit labor will cost $33 million, and $70 million will go for an engineering force account. Phase I has a $6 million artwork budget and a $292 million real estate acquisition fund. Insurance policies will cost $172 million, and the agency has a reserve of $160 million. The total project cost checks in at $4.451 billion, but the agency has also added another $816 million in estimated financing costs. The final price tag: $5.267 billion.

So now we have the numbers, but we still don’t have the “why” of it all. We don’t know what costs so much and how the MTA could realize savings that would put the budget for the Second Ave. Subway in line with similar projects around the world. The ambiguous construction costs — $3.4 billion — are clearly an issue, but where does those construction costs go?

If I had to guess, I’d say the bulk of the costly work involves installing the tunnel boring machine launch box and relocating numerous utilities. Real estate acquisition amounts to nearly five percent of the project, and in the end, everything just adds up. That doesn’t mean that the MTA can’t save costs.

When New York built its first subway route, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company bid a cool $35 million in 1900. That amounts to less than $1 billion in today’s money, and that route stretched from City Hall to 145th St. and Broadway. Then, the subways reached through some emptier neighborhoods and employed cut-and-cover just below surface level. Yet, the connection into Brooklyn through some populous neighborhoods cost just $8 million, insanely cheap by today’s standards.

The Second Ave. Subway is deeper than the IRT and is being built in an era of high costs. As unsatisfying an answer that is, it simply might be the reason for the costs: It just costs more. But can the city really sustain three more phases of multi-billion-dollar construction or will we be left with just a portion of the Second Ave. subway? Time, obviously, will tell.

©2010 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

The current schematics for the 96th St. station along Second Ave. do not feature an entrance on the north side of the street. (Click to enlarge. Image via the 2008 CB8 presentation.)

Few streets offer up as a stark a dividing line between two neighborhoods as 96th St. does on the Upper East Side. Although gentrification has stretched the boundaries of the two areas, south of 96th St. along Second Ave. has been the Upper East Side while north has been Harlem. The two neighborhoods have tolerated each other over the last few decades, but they are quite different.

As the MTA has planned the station stops for the Second Ave. subway, we’ve seen neighborhood groups object to just about everything. Some groups complained about the station entrances; others targeted the auxiliary ventilation structures.

At 96th St., the complaints are similar. The current MTA schematics call for a northern station entrance on the south side of 96th St. Residents in Harlem, Dan Rivoli reported last month, are crying foul:

The proposed station will only have entrances and exits on the south side of the street, where the traditional boundary for the Upper East Side begins. East Harlemites will have to cross a busy intersection to access the new subway line.

Critics have also pointed out that Metropolitan Hospital Center, which occupies the area bordered by East 97th and 99th street between First and Second avenues, will be underserved. The hospital has 341 beds and saw more than 400,000 visits last year. “It’s a highly congestion intersection. There are safety considerations to crossing 96th Street or Second Avenue or both,” said Hunter Armstrong, executive director of Civitas.

The group, a civic organization focused on the Upper East Side and East Harlem, has called for added subway entrances. In June, Civitas published a study suggesting that a northern subway entrance is necessary to accommodate the 35 percent of station users who are expected to come from north of 96th Street. “It would be not only beneficial but prudent for the neighborhood to have an entrance on the north side of 96th Street,” Armstrong said.

For its part, the MTA says it can’t dig north of 96th St. due to preexisting tunnel infrastructure. A segment of the Second Ave. tunnel, dug out decades ago and planned for the northern Phase II of the project, is in the way. “The 96th Street Station will connect to an existing tunnel which prohibits the station from being moved further north,” agency spokesperson Kevin Ortiz told Our Town.

The community groups may have a point; in an ideal world, the 96th St. station would allow passengers to enter and exit on both sides of a busy two-way street. It is, however, hardly alone in limiting entrances to one side of the street due to station plans. The 96th St. stop on Broadway has entrances on only the south side of the street, and many riders have no problems crossing the street to head to and from the subway.

There are, of course, safety concerns whenever people have to cross the street, but here, the limits of engineering handicap the MTA’s ability to alter the designs. Harlem is the next area to enjoy Second Ave. subway access if and when Phase II is built, and for now — or in 2017 — straphangers will just have to cross 96th St.

©2010 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

Work continues below ground along Second Ave., but is the SAS a true megaproject? (Source: MTA Presentation to CB8, Nov. 30, 2009)

The Second Ave. Subway is not a megaproject. Phase I, the current line under construction, is a 30-block extension of a preexisting subway line that will cost nearly $4.5 billion and take nearly a decade of continual construction to complete. Then, the MTA will have to go back to the drawing board to fund and build Phases II, III and IV. Maybe by the mid-2020s, a subway line will span the entire north-south reach of Second Ave.

For the residents of Second Ave., local subway construction is a nuisance. Station entrances and unsightly ventilation structures make this project seem larger than it is, and a walk along Second Ave. does nothing to dispel the notion that building even part of a subway line is a major undertaking. Yet, the initial investment is small compared to true megaprojects, and the piecemeal approach makes for a project of good size in New York City. That, though, is because the city no longer builds much on a grand scale. Do we actually miss Robert Moses? Do we need someone to wield Moses-like power? Or are we doomed to a century of big-but-mega projects that run over budget and take to long to complete?

In The Times this weekend, Louis Uchitelle explored the end of the megaproject in the United States. With the Big Dig finished, no one is building a truly massive public work. As rapid transit goes, streetcars are the wave of the future. Elsewhere, the Metro in Washington, D.C., finished up earlier this decade, and the last major BART expansion in the Bay Area wrapped in 1997. Uchitelle — who notes that construction along Second Ave. “proceeds unhurriedly” — views this dearth of megaprojects through the prism of the economy:

So what are we missing, exactly? Huge public works — or more precisely, their historic absence — didn’t cause the recession any more than their renewal would quickly draw the country out of it. But their effect on the economy is almost always noticeable if not easily measured. Some economists argue that the continual construction of new megaprojects adds a quarter of a percentage point or more, on average, to the gross domestic product over the long term. Again, cause and effect aren’t clear, but the strongest periods of economic growth in America have generally coincided with big outlays for new public works and the transformations they bring once completed.

If their absence creates a void, particularly in a recession, what can fill it?

His answer is a stimulus focused around megaprojects. He sees a country with high-speed rail stretching from coast to coast and with cities building again. Jebediah Reed at the Infrastructurist is pondered this very question. Why hasn’t America, without a Moses to dictate and bulldoze, to unnecessarily plow over homes, parks and neighborhoods, learned to build megaprojects? New York, in particular, is afraid of putting too much development power in the hands of one person. As the response to the Empire State Development Corporation shows, nearly fifty years after Moses’ reign of terror ended, we as a city still do not trust those who seek to build unilaterally.

But on the Upper East Side, though, we see the extreme response to decades of Moses’ centralized power. We see a project that might suffer from too much community involvement and definitely suffers from a lack of political leadership. Even Phase I, a rather meek northward extension of the Q line, still needs $1.5 billion in funding, and most New Yorkers think that it will open when it opens whenever that might be.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but the original IRT line opened in just four and a half years. The city might have been far emptier and less built up than it is today, but things got done. What has happened to those great megaprojects and the drive and political will to build them?

©2010 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.