The DOT plan for 181st Street leaves much to desired.
For three years, the New York City Department of Transportation has been working with the Washington Heights community to address 181st St. Spanning from one bridge to another, the upper Manhattan thoroughfare plays host to two subway stations, five bus routes and a Hudson River Greenway entrance. A few blocks north of the cross-Bronx, this street would be ripe for a transit- and pedestrian-focused overhaul, and yet it’s not getting one.
When DOT unveiled its designs for the street less week, it presented what Streetsblog called a plan “far less ambitious than what could have been.” What was a road once under consideration for a fully protected bus lane has turned into yet another compromise in which a loud but vocal minority with trumped up concerns over access have triumphed over the safety and mobility of pedestrians and transit riders.
Noah Kazis has more:
For bus riders, the curbside parking on the south side of 181st Street would be replaced with a dedicated eastbound bus lane from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., improving reliability by clearing the way for Bronx-bound buses at the very beginning of their routes. On the block between Audobon and Amsterdam Avenues, which a DOT spokesperson said was where buses suffered the biggest delays from congestion, the bus lane would be in effect from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
The entire project is part of DOT’s Congested Corridors program, and the plan includes left-turn bays to help traffic move more smoothly. Curb parking will be replaced with loading zones during designated times, intended to minimize the rampant double parking along 181st. By keeping the through lanes clear, said the DOT spokesperson, these features will also keep buses moving smoothly…
That’s a fair number of changes to a stretch barely over half a mile long, but it’s much less than what was on the table in October. One option, for example, would have built New York City’s first physically separated bus lanes on 181st. With one in each direction and a raised bus stop mid-street, that plan would have provided one fewer traffic lane and one fewer parking lane than the current plan, but done much more for transit riders.
Another option was an approach that would have made 181st a real multi-modal street. With large sidewalk extensions on the whole corridor, a buffered bike lane and a bus lane, this discarded option would have redistributed space from drivers to every other user of the street.
A glimpse at what should have been.
So why did DOT compromise at the expense of the many? According to Kazis, Denny Farrell, an Assembly representative known for his personal collection of convertibles and corresponding windshield perspective, but the heat on the Department of Transportation. He claims some locals expressed concerns over a one-way street while others wondered how buses would turn into a protected lane — a concern that doesn’t exist in the myriad locations around the world with dedicated and physically separated bus lanes.
To make an omelet, one must break eggs, but unfortunately, NYC DOT has pulled back from that approach. Instead of angering small but powerful people who don’t represent the demographics and needs of the community, DOT has decided to build slowly on the status quo. There’s no harm in incremental improvements, but at some point, those incremental improvements need to take the next step. The 34th Street plan, more ambitious than this one, fell to NIMBYs, and the 181st St. plan has seemingly fallen to those who live to drive around Upper Manhattan in their cars.
For New York City to become a more mobile area, buses will need to become a priority. Someone will be inconvenienced; someone else won’t like the buses. But more commuters and more New Yorkers will benefit from faster surface transit and travel. After all, cities are about people, not their cars, and while cars do have a place in an urban environment, road space should be prioritized appropriately. Right now, the people are losing the fight.
9 comments
This plan is destined to fail. With only one lane of traffic in each direction (with the exception of the PM Rush Hours for Bronx-bound buses), the buses and fire trucks will suffer the most thanks to all of the car traffic.
However, the ones that accepted this plan are the Washington Heights politicians, such as Guillermo Linares and Ydanis Rodriguez, who happen to be ex-cabbies. It’s the clout of the cabbies in Upper Manhattan, along with the classic immigrant mentality of “public transit is low-class” will result in the car being the predominant form of transportation in Upper Manhattan (and parts of the Bronx).
If you look at the new census figures, it looks like it is only a matter of time (perhaps 15 years) until Washington Heights is overrun with college-educated white people. From looking at other neighborhoods that have gentrified, it seems like the newcomers will, ironically, own more cars, but be slightly more in favor of pedestrian-oriented policy.
The bulk of the gentrification is occurring west of Broadway, where most would be less likely to travel to the Bronx, instead going Downtown or even Riverdale.
Is this really gentrification? When I looked for apartments in Inwood a few years ago, what I understood from the broker is that the area near the park has richer long-term residents rather than hipsters.
I don’t think cars will ever be the predominant form of transportation in those areas. Cars may be favored, but over 65% of the households in that area don’t own cars.
Not that I am a fan of SBS, but these crosstown routes are probably good candidates for it because heaven-forbid we havereal BRT or LRT, and building a xtown subway up there is never gonna happen and probably doesn’t even make sense. But instead we’ll have a plan that will only increase traffic on the block.
Maybe 1 of these days in the not too distant future, we’ll be able to have 1 commercial strip with greatly lessened motor vehicle traffic, wider sidewalks, and with only buses during the day and off hours deliveries other times.
Actually, how is Fulton St (Bklyn) so successful at this whilst others won’t or refuse?
The Fulton Mall was a project of the Lindsey administration that succeeded after a similar idea for Madison Ave was quashed by neighborhood/politico protest. I’d say a big issue is that there was almost no residential population in the area of the Fulton Mall at a time.
Serious question: why cling to pedestrian-hostile left-turn bays, instead of having one car lane and one bus lane per direction? Bus lanes are a good thing, but I don’t wish on Washington Heights the same crap we have to deal with in Morningside Heights at Amsterdam/110th; Broadway/110th, with its simple stoplight phasing, is much easier to cross.
Unfortunately, you have to thank the car-oriented Manhattan CB 12 and their livery cab-favoring politicians for not doing the right thing and maintaining their car-oriented neighborhood at the expense of us bus riders (I usually travel by bus or train to the Heights).