The latest DOT plans for the 34th St. Select Bus Service call for physically separated lanes. (Click to enlarge. Courtesy of NYC DOT)
The Bloomberg Administration, reports The Times, is moving forward with a radical redesign of 34th St. that focuses on buses and pedestrians at the expense of cars. Non-bus traffic will be barred from the block between 5th and 6th Aves. and will be one way only in the direction of the respective rivers east and west of the shuttered block. Bus traffic will be two ways, and buses will run in dedicated bus lanes physically separated from the auto lanes. Pedestrian plazas and walkways will be greatly expanded.
DOT is going to act quickly on implementing this $30-million project. The city is currently conducting an environmental and design review with final changes ready for the fall of 2011. The street will be ready for its overhaul by the end of 2012.
I’ve covered these plans before (March 2, 2010 and April 17, 2008, and it’s great to see the city moving forward with it. Streetsblog belives it to be a more democratic use of space. The busy thoroughfare does not enjoy crosstown subways and stands to benefit greatly from these plans.
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Meanwhile, the weekend is here, and that means only one thing: service changes. Travel to and from Brooklyn on the IRT lines are disrupted for the next few days due to work in Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn. Leave extra travel time if you rely on those routes. As always, these come to me via Transit and are subject to change without notice. Listen for announcements and check the signs in your local station. Subway Weekender has the map.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, 2 trains run between Wakefield-241st Street and Chambers Street, then are rerouted to the 1 line to South Ferry due to a chip out at Borough Hall, dig outs at Wall and Fulton Streets and a cable pull south of Nevins Street. For service between Manhattan and Brooklyn, customers should take the 2 to South Ferry station and use the free out-of-system transfer to the 5 at Bowling Green. Note: During the daytime hours, 5 trains make 2 stops to Flatbush Avenue. During the late night hours, all Manhattan-bound trains skip Eastern Parkway, Grand Army Plaza and Bergen Street.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, 2 trains run local between 96th Street and South Ferry due to concrete pours at 50th and 79th Streets and reconstruction work on the track bridge underpass at 96th Street. Note: From 11 p.m. to midnight Friday, April 23, 2 trains run local between 96th Street and Chambers Street.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, there are no 3 trains between 14th Street and New Lots Avenue due to a chip out at Borough Hall, dig outs at Wall and Fulton Streets and a cable pull south of Nevins Street. For service between Manhattan and Brooklyn, customers should transfer between the 3 and 2 at 14th Street, take the 2 to the South Ferry station, then use the free out-of-system transfer to the 4 at Bowling Green making 3 stops to New Lots Avenue.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, 3 trains run local between 96th Street and Times Square, then express to 14th Street due to concrete pours at 50th and 79th Streets and reconstruction work on the track bridge underpass at 96th Street. Note: From 11 p.m. to midnight Friday, April 23, 3 trains run local between 96th Street and Chambers Street.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, 4 train service is extended to/from New Lots Avenue to replace the 3 in Brooklyn due to a chip out at Borough Hall, dig outs at Wall and Fulton Streets and a cable pull south of Nevins Street. Note: Manhattan-bound trains skip Eastern Parkway, Grand Army Plaza and Bergen Street.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, during the daytime hours, 5 train service is extended to/from Flatbush Avenue to replace the 2 in Brooklyn. During the late night hours, shuttle trains run between Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue due to a chip out at Borough Hall, a dig out at Wall and Fulton Streets and a cable pull south of Nevins Street. Note: All Manhattan-bound trains skip Eastern Parkway, Grand Army Plaza and Bergen Street.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, the last stop for some 6 trains is 3rd Avenue-138th Street due to station rehabilitation and structural repair at Whitlock Avenue, Morrison-Sound View Aves., and Parkchester.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, Pelham Bay Park-bound 6 trains run express from Hunts Point Avenue to Parkchester due to track panel installation between Morrison-Sound View Avenues and St. Lawrence Avenue.
At all times until September 2010, the Whitlock Avenue and Morrison-Sound View Avenue 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, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, Brooklyn-bound A trains run local from 59th Street to West 4th Street, then are rerouted on the F line to Jay Street due to the Chambers Street Signal Modernization project.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, A trains run local between Hoyt-Schermerhorn Sts. and Euclid Avenue due to the Chambers Street Signal Modernization project.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, there are no C trains between Canal Street and Euclid Avenue due to the Chambers Street Signal Modernization project. Customers should take the A instead.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, Coney Island-bound D trains run on the N line from 36th Street to Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue due to structural repair and station rehabilitations, track panel installation at 20th Avenue and fence replacement between Bay 50th Street and Stillwell Avenue.
From 11 p.m. Friday, April 23 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, Manhattan-bound D trains skip 174th-175th Sts. and 170th Street due to a track chip out north of 170th Street.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, D trains run local between 34th Street-Herald Square and West 4th Street due to the 5th Avenue Interlocking Signal System Modernization.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, E trains run local between Forest Hills-71st Avenue and Roosevelt Avenue due to a substation rehabilitation north of Roosevelt Avenue.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, E trains are rerouted on the F in Manhattan and Queens: 1.) No E service between 34th Street and World Trade Center. 2.) After leaving 5th Avenue, Manhattan-bound E trains run on the F line from 47th -50th Sts. to 34th Street-6th Avenue. 3.) Jamaica-bound E trains run on the F line from 34th Street-6th Avenue to 21st Street-Queensbridge; trains resume service on the E line to Jamaica Center. These changes are due to the 5th Avenue Interlocking Signal System Modernization.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, the Jamaica-bound platforms at 5th Avenue, Lexington Avenue-53rd Street and 23rd Street-Ely Avenue are closed due to the 5th Avenue Interlocking Signal System Modernization. Customers should take the 6FR or shuttle bus instead. Note: Free shuttle buses connect Court Square/23rd Street-Ely Avenue, Queens Plaza, and 21st Street-Queensbridge stations.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, Manhattan-bound F trains run on the A line from Jay Street to West 4th Street due to work on tunnel lighting.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, F trains run local between Forest Hills-71st Avenue and Roosevelt Avenue due to a substation rehabilitation north of Roosevelt Avenue.
From 3:30 a.m. Saturday, April 24 to 10 p.m. Sunday, April 25, there are no J trains between Crescent Street and Jamaica Center due to track panel installation north of Woodhaven Boulevard.
E trains and free shuttle buses provide alternate service.
From 11 p.m. Friday, April 23 to 7 a.m. Saturday, April 24, from 11 p.m. Saturday, April 24 to 8 a.m. Sunday, April 25, and from 11 p.m. Sunday, April 25 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, uptown Q trains run local from Times Square-42nd Street to 57th Street-7th Avenue due to a track dig out at Times Square.
From 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, April 24 and Sunday, April 25, Q trains run in two sections due to rail repairs:
- Between 57th Street-7th Avenue and Brighton Beach and
- Between Brighton Beach and Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue.
From 10:30 p.m. Friday, April 23 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 26, shuttle buses replace the Rockaway Park Shuttle S train between Rockaway Park and Beach 67th Street due to station rehabilitations at Beach 36th and Beach 60th Streets.
15 comments
at the expense of cars.
while continuing to keep bikes off 34th as well.
I live on 35th st and this will only congest out block even more (its already getting bad as all the downtown Broadway traffic must make a right onto 35th st. Its a nightmare waiting to happen.
A good idea? Hey, I’m for trying it. I applaud Sadiq-Khan’s questioning the heretofore unquestioned paramount status of the car.
Spin, Bobby Moses…spin!
If I were Moses, I’d cheer the notion of a transport planner building things overnight without any local consultation and continuing the tradition of neglect of minority neighborhoods.
There was/is enormous local consultation on the 34th street corridor. DOT/MTA have been holding neighborhood meetings for over a year, posting signs on the M34 bus stations and the 6 trains at 33rd (the other subway stations, I’m not sure). Sadik-Khan isn’t going to start her/Bloomberg’s mission by creating a pedestrian plaza in Washington Heights…not because the residents are black, but because the visibility/impact of the Times Sq/Herald Sq./34th St. corridor are MUCH MUCH higher. I think a thinly-veiled accusation of racism directly at Sadik-Khan is just preposterous.
I’m not sure why you’re mentioning Washington Heights. 125th Street is in Harlem. Washington Heights has two high-performing bus corridors – Fordham-207th and Broadway – but one has a subway and the other already has BRT. Harlem has a few more, but 125th is the one that has the highest ridership, the highest commercial importance, and the slowest buses.
As for “high-impact,” it depends on how you define the term. Following light rail and BRT successes around the world, I define it as “high-ridership.” New York planners define it as “used by big business executives and visible to tourists.”
I’m using the Heights as an example. Of course, 125th could use improvement, without question. But to accuse someone of neglecting minority neighborhoods (code for racism) because she focused ground-breaking transit improvements on the 34th Street corridor, which has 3 of the top 6 subway stations in the system, the busiest train station in America, and the City’s Convention Center/MSG seems absurd to me. That’s all I was getting at. Agree with your call for 125th improvements, though one challenge on 125th compared to 34th is that the lack of major business reduces the private capital available to pull off public-private parternships for things like upkeep/cleaning, as will be the case on the pedestrian plaza on 34th.
PPP is code for “let’s double the cost of this project to subsidize friendly companies.” It’s telling that the two countries that use PPPs the most, the UK and US, also have the highest construction costs in the world.
And who’s to say that black-owned businesses wouldn’t want to chip in for 125th Street improvement? Has JSK even asked?
I know 34th has some busy destinations. But it’s not a big bus corridor, because east-west traffic uses the subway on 42nd, or the diagonal Broadway Line. The bus routes running on 125th have about 6 times as much traffic among them as the routes running on 34th.
The bus routes running on 125th only run on 125th for a fraction of their routes – and only carry a fraction of their riders along 125th. Of the four routes on 125th, I doubt that more than one of them carries most of its riders along some section of 125th. But all M34 riders, and virtually all M16 riders, ride along 34th. In fact, it is quite a big bus corridor, with a number of very substantial traffic generators (a convention center, a railroad station, several major commercial establishments and a huge number of smaller ones, a hospital complex, etc.).
Adding up the total number of riders on each route is pointless. If you’re only making improvements to a route segment, you need to determine the number of riders along that segment. That can be done through modeling or by taking manual counts.
And as I’ve pointed out to you elsewhere, off-board fare payment can’t be implemented on a route segment, since people who board elsewhere won’t have receipts to show the inspectors. Perhaps off-board fare payment should be implemented on the entire Bx15, M60, M100, and M101 – but then it becomes a much bigger (and much more costly) project.
DOT’s official excuse for doing 34th is the opposite of what you claim. It’s that there are express buses using 34th Street that could use the corridor. Apparently, DOT doesn’t think it’s a big deal that a route is SBS for only part of the way.
Don’t forget that the original SBS plan called for a combined 125th-1st/2nd route. That would be a single route, with the other buses on 125th presumably run as local buses.
The actual cost of implementing off-board fare collection on part of a route: handheld card readers for fare inspectors, which can read when a MetroCard was swiped. In other words, about zero. Actually negative, if this means inspectors will actually ride the bus instead of make it stand while they check everyone’s tickets.
There’s nothing wrong with a bunch of routes using a single bus lane; it happens on Fordham Road already. But only the Bx12 gets the SBS appellation, since only the Bx12 has off-board fare collection and traffic signal priority.
I’m not aware of that original SBS plan. It could, of course, be implemented in the future.
There you go again with your claim that the cost of a nonexistent piece of equipment that would have to be custom designed and manufactured (and then thrown out in a few years when smartcards show up) is zero.
Who will keep all of this extra sidewalk clean? Especially the mid-street BRT stations. Are we building another Fulton Mall here?
MTA/34th St. Partnership. The 34th Street Partnership already keeps expanded sidewalks cleaned/does City beautification work on the corridor, and they are on board with DOT’s plan, so I’m sure they see a net economic benefit.
34 St. already has a bus lane that’s always empty therefore works quite well, no reason for this ridiculous change, for the sake of change. I’m sick of Sadik Khan and Bloomberg dictating everything in this city just to be different from how its been for the past 200+ years.
Wait. You mean there were cars clogging up space that should be for pedestrians 200 years ago? I had no idea.