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Benjamin Kabak

Coming Soon: New restaurant spaces for GCT

by Benjamin Kabak May 25, 2012

written by Benjamin Kabak on May 25, 2012

A new restaurant in Grand Central could overlook the Terminal's busy market.

As the MTA looks to better utilize its real estate holdings, the authority announced this week plans to solicit proposals for two new restaurants in Grand Central. The two areas could add nearly 17,000 square feet of dining space in the Terminal and would open next year, in time for the building’s centennial celebration. If all goes well, the MTA could realize up to $20 million annually from these spaces.

“Grand Central will always be the greatest train station in the United States and the crown jewel of the MTA’s transportation network,” MTA Chairman Joseph J. Lhota said in a statement. “It’s a focal point for the economic and social life of the region and a superb setting for the daily business of moving people. At the same time, over the past 15 years, it’s also been transformed into one of the world’s most well-known destinations for shopping and dining. These latest additions will only heighten its reputation.”

With a new Apple Store attracting crowds and a Shake Shack on tap, Grand Central has become a major attraction in midtown. These two spaces could further cement its reputation as a foodie destination. The larger of the two consists of up to 12,300 square feet and includes the west side of Vanderbilt Hall, the former waiting area and current home of the GCT Holiday Market. The other space contains 4700 square feet above the Grand Central Market with views of Lexington Ave. According to some reports, the authority hopes to attract a farm-to-table restaurant for the smaller space.

A Crain’s New York article delved further into the MTA’s thinking behind these new space offerings:

Adding the restaurants is part of the MTA’s plan to wring more money out of its assets. The agency is also hoping to lease or sell several of its buildings. Additionally, the MTA is seeking private companies to manage Fulton Center downtown—formerly called the Fulton Street Transit Center—to make it a shopping destination. Private firms may also manage the future retail spaces in the Long Island Rail Road station being built underneath Grand Central, Crain’s reported last week.

The gross revenue from Grand Central retail leasing and special events hit $27.4 million in 2011. That’s a mere 0.22% of the MTA’s operating expenses of $12.5 billion. Still, every little bit helps at the cash-challenged agency. The MTA isn’t requesting a minimum rent for the new venues, leaving the restaurateurs to make a proposal. However, based on assumptions that the restaurants would each generate between $8 million and $10 million a year in sales, a rent of $80 a square foot to $100 a square foot seems reasonable, sources said. The agency typically takes a portion of the sales above an unspecified amount. Currently, the existing restaurants average sales of $750 a square foot.

Restaurateurs interested in the Vanderbilt Hall space will have to devise a plan for coexisting with the events held there, especially the holiday market, which takes up the entire venue. The MTA isn’t offering advice on that, but it is asking the winning bidder to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. “We want to see what kind of ideas they come up with,” said Ms. Marshall, adding she could see a spot like SoHo brasserie Balthazar working well.

According to the report, the authority will require the restaurants stay open seven days a week, and chains will be excluded. The MTA is hoping to draw in New York-based restauranteurs for a train depot that is an icon of the city. This is the type of commercial development the MTA should be encouraging in its properties.

May 25, 2012 13 comments

Asides Transit Labor

A hefty reward to better protect transit employees

by Benjamin Kabak May 25, 2012

written by Benjamin Kabak on May 25, 2012

Over the past few years, some high-profile incidents aboard city buses has led to an increased attention on Transit worker safety. Oftentimes, these rank-and-file employees bear the brunt of rider frustrations, and assaults have remained a problem and concern. In fact, assaults are up by nearly 20 percent this year, and earlier this week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Transit Watch, an MTA-funded program that will reward anyone with information of such an assault with $2000.

“Thousands of men and women work on the front lines of the MTA system every day to make sure millions of people can get to work safely,” Governor Cuomo said. “We need to ensure they stay safe as well. Transit Watch puts criminals on notice that if they assault a bus, subway or train employee, everyone who sees it happen is going to help put them in jail.”

Union leaders immediately praised the move. “This is a big win for transit workers, who face physical assaults, verbal abuse and threats every day on the job, and who have long felt that transit assaults are given a low priority,” TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen said in a statement. “We very much appreciate Governor Cuomo’s immediate action to turn a good idea into reality virtually overnight.” The MTA, which is working on a plan to install safety partitions and security cameras in buses across the city, will begin promoting the new reward program soon.

May 25, 2012 1 comment

Asides Second Avenue Subway

Lhota reaffirms Second Ave. Subway timeline

by Benjamin Kabak May 24, 2012

written by Benjamin Kabak on May 24, 2012

With word that the East Side Access would likely be delayed until mid-2019 and cost a billion more than last announced, New Yorkers expecting part of a new subway line on the East Side were growing skittish. Would Phase 1 of the Second Ave. subway truly wrap on time or would the MTA have to, once again, delay this project?

Yesterday, MTA head Joseph Lhota addressed the issue head-on. “Things are proceeding in the Second Avenue subway as we projected it a year or so ago,” he said to reporters. “I’m very comfortable that we will be proceeding as planned.” In other words, revenue service is still projected for December 2016, and the project is currently tracking on this pace.

Of course, long-time watchers now that even with this new on-time date, SAS is still years behind schedule, and today on City Room, Clyde Haberman penned a sadly hilarious (or hilariously sad) look at how all NYC transit projects are delayed. From bridge replacements to new tunnels, from subway lines to transit centers and depots, nothing follows the original schedule. The MTA has once again vowed to improve their on-time delivery rate, but history is not on the agency’s side.

May 24, 2012 25 comments

MTA Absurdity

Dumb ideas, but no more money, from the City Council

by Benjamin Kabak May 24, 2012

written by Benjamin Kabak on May 24, 2012

When it comes to transit oversight, New York’s illustrious City Council is all bluster with little bite. The Mayor has the option to name appointees to the MTA Board, and New York City Transit operates under the auspicies of the MTA — a state agency. So when it comes to oversight, City Council members can haul MTA officials before them for a tongue-lashing, but they can’t actually do anything. On Wednesday, this impotence was in full display in all of its sheer absurdity.

This tale of woe begins on Wednesday morning with some truthful comments from MTA Chairman Joe Lhota or, alternatively, in the mid-1950s when the city punted on transit issues and funding. Council members, responsible only for statutory and contractually obligated parts of the MTA budget, receive myriad constituent complaints, but as Lhota noted to reporters during the monthly board member, they can’t really do anything about it. And if it’s one thing New York City politicians hate to hear, it’s how they can’t do something about what their voters consider to be a problem.

With trash in the news and New Yorkers complaining about the condition of their subway stations, Council Member Peter Koo told the MTA that he wanted to institute a letter grading system for subway stations based on cleanliness. Now, New Yorkers are quite familiar with letter grades. Even though the Department of Health’s restaurant inspection system doesn’t understand the subtlety of food preparation, the letter grades are everywhere. Some people won’t eat in restaurants with B’s or C’s; others figure that if the place is open, it passed an inspection.

Koo wants to bring that exact system to the subway, and his co-Council members love it. “Do you guys have a budget to clean the stations?” Koo asked “Or we haven’t delivered our message?”

James Vacca, the Transportation Committee chair who apparently cannot understand the differences between a restaurant and the subway, embraced the idea immediately. “I would like every station rated,” he said. “We rate the restaurants and every takeout place. Why can’t we rate stations on cleanliness, rats, water, garbage, graffiti?”

Why can’t we, indeed? Perhaps, it doesn’t make sense because food preparation and consumption are not the same as travel. Perhaps it doesn’t make sense because we’re beholden to one subway stop. We’re not going to walk a half a mile to find a slightly cleaner subway station. Perhaps it doesn’t make sense because what you see is what you get in the subway. I can see grime, trash and rats. I don’t need to be told that they exist. As one straphanger said to The Wall Street Journal: “They are relatively clean. Who needs a rating? If it has a ‘D’ grade, a failing grade, are you going to not stop there?” Other riders professed to care about service frequency above all else.

After the hearing, some transit watchdogs pretty much scoffed at the idea while the Straphangers issued a half-hearted call that “maybe the council should fund” such an idea. Maybe indeed. The MTA refused to issue much more than a collective sigh while William Henderson of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee shrugged it off. “I’m not sure it provides a whole lot of additional information that riders don’t already have by being there,” he said. “In an environment where resources are strained, I’m not sure that’s exactly the path to take.”

One City Council member who seemed to grasp the absurdity of it all offered up an actual use for such a grading system. While still requiring the MTA to foot half the bill for this misguided and useless idea, Domenic M. Recchia, head of the Finance Committee, suggested that such a system would allow council members to better determine if discretionary funds should go toward subway station cleanliness. Think of it as a halfway house toward an adopt-a-station program I’ve mentioned on and off over the years.

But let’s pause for a second and figure out what’s really going on here. Why would the Council even be in such a position to bloviate? It wants “accountability” from the agency on why it needs a fare hike next year — something the authority has provided in droves — and the MTA wants more funding from the city. As the latter won’t happen, the Council decided to do all it could do to mock the authority in public. Hence, letter grades for the subway system.

The City Council will never embrace taking responsibility for New York City Transit. It doesn’t want the financial or political headaches that come with such control. And so we are left with a situation where the Council will not provide proper oversight or the money the MTA needs to clean their obviously dirty stations. We just get bad — and silly — ideas.

May 24, 2012 15 comments

MTA Construction

A glimpse at the FASTRACK future

by Benjamin Kabak May 23, 2012

written by Benjamin Kabak on May 23, 2012

During Monday’s MTA Board committee meetings, the Transit Committee received an update on the Orwellianly named FASTRACK program. The MTA’s overnight shutdowns have helped speed up maintenance on key subway trunk lines while saving the authority money, and after a series of treatments in the heavily-trafficked and heavily-redundant parts of Manhattan this year, the treatment will spread out of the so-called Central Business District.

The key slide from the presentation [pdf] for travelers wondering what the MTA’s future plans will be is this one:

As we see, when FASTRACK moves out of the areas of the city well covered by trains, shuttle buses enter the equation. There me be lines parallel to 8th Ave. one block east, but for some areas, service grows a bit more scarce. Notably, the MTA will have to provide some shuttle bus service in the Bronx and Northern Manhattan as well as along the Queens Boulevard route.

FASTRACK for the Lexington Ave. line through the Upper East Side is intriguing as well. The double-decked tunnels allow for some interesting service patterns in which express trains will run while locals do not and vice versa. That’s good for people heading to 86th St. and not so great for those trying to reach the stops in between. The MTA has yet to announce any 2013 dates for theses shutdowns, but they’re on the way.

Meanwhile, the 10-page document offered up some other numbers. During the first quarter of 2012, FASTRACK allowed the MTA to realize savings of over $5 million while addressing backlogged maintenance requests. Ridership drops through the CBD have been around three percent while buses have picked up some of the slack. Finally, the fourth quarter work later this year will involve removing all debris from the rights-of-way and cleaning the Joralemon, Clark, Cranberry and Rutgers tubes.

One way or another, it sounds as though we’re stuck with FASTRACK for the foreseeable future. It may mean less convenient overnight subway service now and then, but if all goes well, it should mean more reliable service overall. Fair trade?

May 23, 2012 42 comments

Brooklyn

A Brooklyn arena rises and so do transportation worries

by Benjamin Kabak May 23, 2012

written by Benjamin Kabak on May 23, 2012

Planned improvements to the Atlantic Avenue subway station will bring arena visitors to the Barclays Center stoop. (Click to enlarge)

Although I haven’t written much about it over the past few years, I have a personal interest in the Barclays Center/Atlantic Yards project. I can walk to the new arean in around 10-15 minutes from my apartment, and the project’s potential impact looms large over my current corner of New York City. From the subway crowds evening events will bring to the folks trawling the neighborhood looking for that elusive free parking spot, this project has the ability to disrupt life in Brownstone Brooklyn if it’s not handled correctly.

Last night, the major stakeholders in the project gathered in Brooklyn to discuss the infrastructure impact the project will have. Led by Sam Schwartz, the traffic and transportation consultant for the project, Forest City Ratner officials and local politicians led a meeting and discussion on transportation demand. While transit use remains the focus for arena-bound patrons, it’s unclear if the plan goes far enough to avoid an influx of congestion in the area, and a call for a residential parking permit program has stalled in Albany.

The simple truth about the Barclays Center arena is that it is not a car-friendly spot. Unlike Yankee Stadium or Citi Field, the Meadowlands, the abomination in Nassau County or even MSG, the Nets’ future home isn’t neighboring a highway (or, in the case of MGS, the Lincoln Tunnel). The BQE is a distance away down an oft-congested Flatbush Ave., and the nearest river crossings feed from local streets. Instead, it is atop one of the system’s great subway and LIRR focal points with the IND Crosstown and Fulton St. lines nearby. Transit use should be encouraged.

During last night’s presentation, that’s exactly how the project engineers framed it. For starters, the Barclays Center on its website and promotional materials will not discuss parking. It instead urges everyone to take transit, and people are responding. According to Schwartz’s presentation, mode share is now expected to be weighted toward transit trips with 40 percent of attendees across all events opting for the subway. But around 30 percent are still expected to drive — at least at first and until they see how inconvenient it will be to drive there.

To compensate for post-game crowds, the MTA will add extra Q and 4 trains into Manhattan. The authority runs a similar service along the 7 for Mets games and D and 4 for Yankee games. Extra buses will service the area, and the LIRR will add post-event trains as well. Pre-game peak hour crowds heading to the arena will cause crowding, but with a great number of lines passing through the area, the MTA seems to expect a diffuse impact.

What to do with the cars though remains an issue. Schwartz said the number of spaces near the arena has been chopped from 1100 to 541, and those who will drive are being encouraged to park in remote lots. Free shuttle buses will ferry patrons from those lots to the arena as unloading areas around the arena on Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues will be extremely limited. Still, though, parking rates will not be raised to discourage driving, and more importantly, a residential parking plan has stalled in Albany.

The latter point, as Council Member Letitia James noted, is a problem. Even if the bill were to move forward tomorrow, it would likely be another year — and a full basketball season — until the parking passes become a reality, and residents will have to contend with game-bound drivers seeking out a free space. Even with a public outreach effort discouraging drivers, enough temporary arena visitors will cruise Prospect Heights, Park Slope and Fort Greene to cause problems. “I just don’t think there’s enough disincentives,” James said. “I believe cars will flood our residential streets.”

Finally, pedestrian safety is a problem too. While the new subway entrances will siphon arena patrons to the building’s front plaza, crossing Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues in that area isn’t fun on a good day. The city hasn’t been willing to institute many traffic-calming measures around the arena during construction, and there are none on the table for after. It remains, according to Schwartz, a work in progress that will be reassessed periodically.

So I am left wondering how flexible these plans will be. We do not know who will foot the bill for added post-event transit service, and a plan floated in 2009 that would have provided free MetroCards to Barclays Center guests has died a death due to unknown causes. Has Forest City Ratner done enough to discourage parking? Will the conditions on the street disincentivize driving after a few weeks? The Barclays Center arena is one of the most accessible around, and it’s in a neighborhood will little room for additional parking. Transit will be a part of the equation, and how patrons embrace that element will impact how residents come to view the return of professional sports to Brooklyn.

For more detailed coverage of the meeting, check out the Park Slope Patch liveblog and Norman Oder’s comprehensive coverage on Atlantic Yards Report.

May 23, 2012 57 comments

Asides Taxis

For the summer, an impending cab fare hike

by Benjamin Kabak May 22, 2012

written by Benjamin Kabak on May 22, 2012

New Yorkers could be in for a fare hike of another kind later this summer as the Taxi & Limousine Commission is gearing up to boost cab fares by around 20 percent, according to reports. The price jump would be the taxi industry’s first since 2006, and the Commission is considering the hike at the request of workers who are feeling the pinch of ever-rising gas prices and other associated costs. “The fare hasn’t changed since 2006, so it is reasonable for taxi drivers and fleet owners to put this on the table,” David Yassky, T&LC chairman, said. “We will consider their petitions over the next couple of months.”

The taxi rate increases, likely to hit this summer, a few months ahead of the next MTA fare hike, would boost the average ride from $11.82 to just over $14, and the rate to Manhattan from JFK could climb above $50. Drivers and owners, though, are at odds over one aspect of the hike. Car owners have asked for a similar 20 percent jump in the lease cap for taxis, but the drivers do not support such a hike as it would negate any increase in their take-home pay.

As an infrequent taxi rider, I’m not in love with the idea of paying more for these rides, but at the same time, cab drivers need to earn their living as well. The Taxi and Limousine Commission will host a hearing on the rate hike at the end of the month before moving forward, and it’s unclear what impact this will have on the Outer Borough street hail plan.

May 22, 2012 5 comments

East Side Access Project

East Side Access officially projected for August ’19

by Benjamin Kabak May 22, 2012

written by Benjamin Kabak on May 22, 2012

The MTA now projects August 2019 as the East Side Access revenue date.

A few weeks ago while speaking to a group of Long Island Business owners, MTA Chairman Joe Lhota previewed what had long been rumored concerning the East Side Access Project. The MTA did not anticipate finishing the project until mid-2019. For an agency long accused of mismanaging large-scale construction projects, this news was not surprising, and on Monday, when the authority confirmed its projections in a presentation to its Capital Project Oversight Committee, we learned just how deep the delays and cost overruns ran.

On the surface, the bad news is, well, bad. According to the most recent MTA projections, the project will not wrap until August 2019 and costs could run as high as $8.24 billion. That price tag is up nearly $1 billion since the last official estimate was released in 2009, and the expected date for revenue service has been pushed back by nearly three years. Those are the 80-percent probability projetions, and the news is bad all around.

As this news broke on Monday, MTA Board members, reporters and train riders all wanted to know the same thing: How did we get here? Six years ago, the MTA had hoped to wrap the project by 2013; three years ago, that date had shifted three years forward. Now, we’re still seven years away from seeing this massive project realized, and skepticism over this newly revised schedule is entirely warranted.

Still, much as they did with the similarly troubled Fulton Street Transit Center a few years ago, MTA officials pledged to stick with the current schedule. “The era of underestimating the cost of big projects is over,” Lhota said. “We’re going to be realistic about the cost and we’re going to budget accordingly.”

Ascertaining how the MTA has botched this project requires two separate arguments, First, the MTA ran into internal problems three years ago when they last assessed their own timeline. In 2009, the MTA put forward their 2016 estimate with no official risk analysis and no determination of the completion percentage. In 2010, when they finally conducted the analysis, the authority determined that their estimate was wildly optimistic. They had a 20 percent chance of hitting the cost and timeline goals. The 80 percent figures were closer to 2017 and $8.01 billion, but the authority never pushed that in public.

In 2011, the authority opted to change its risk analysis figures. Instead of providing a 50/50 figure, they would offer up an 80/20 figure and conduct a risk analysis on every project. So this new figure is a more concrete one. The MTA says there is an 80 percent chance the project wraps at $8.24 billion and by August 2019. There’s also a 20 percent chance the project comes in at $7.81 billion and is ready by September 2018, but that’s clearly an optimistic estimate. The current 80 percentile projection does, for what it’s worth, contain a 12-month contingency period and a cushion of around $0.36 billion should things go wrong.

The other problem, though, highlights what happens when various agencies — city, state, federal — who need to share resources have to work together. The short of it is that the MTA and Amtrak seem to be unable to properly coordinate train schedules and work on the Harold Interlocking, thus leading to massive delays and other assorted headaches. Ted Mann went in depth on this issue in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, and I strongly urge you to read that article if you haven’t already.

As Mann relates, the interaction between the MTA and Amtrak reached inept proportions when the federal agency decided to move workers at the last minute to Grand Central for National Train Day, leaving the MTA out in the cold. In official documents on Monday, the authority stopped short of pointing fingers, but it’s clear the MTA is fed up with working with Amtrak. It is, Michael Horodniceanu said of the East Side Access problems, “like riding a bicycle while trying to change the tire.”

So as the feds gear up to audit the project, we are essentially left where we were when things began. The project is optimistically seven years away from revenue service and another billion dollars in the hole. The money has to come from somewhere, and the faith in the MTA does too. At some point, funding partners will dry up, and large-scale projects will never materialize right at the time the city needs them the most. So now we wait seven more years. It’s always seven more years.

May 22, 2012 61 comments

View from Underground

Disappearing Soon: Even more trash cans

by Benjamin Kabak May 21, 2012

written by Benjamin Kabak on May 21, 2012

Earlier this past fall, the MTA announced an experiment in counter-intuitive thinking. To combat trash, the authority announced a two-month, two-station removal of trash cans. A few months into the pilot, the MTA found less trash and no increase of litter at the targeted stations, but the authority isn’t yet to ready to draw concrete conclusions. Instead, as amNew York reported this morning, Transit will expand this program to include more stations and a better public outreach campaign.

According to Transit president Tom Prendergast, the isolated stations do not provide the MTA with enough information on how people are adjusting their trash-related habits. “Two doesn’t give you enough for a sample,” he said. “We’re going to expand it.”

Various stakeholders, though, clearly do not have particularly high hopes for New Yorkers’ abilities to keep things clean. Marc Beja had more:

MTA board member Andrew Albert said he hasn’t been briefed on the new plan, but thinks it might work in lesser-traveled stations. “If it’s really scant usage in the trash cans and apparently no litter around, then that may be a good candidate at the pilot,” Albert said, though he is doubtful straphangers will hold onto their garbage instead of tossing it on the floor.

“That means taking newspapers and used coffee cups and taking them out of the station and searching for another trash can,” Albert said. “I don’t see people doing that.”

An MTA spokesman wouldn’t discuss details of the plan last week, saying they haven’t been finalized…One tweak being made for the MTA program’s expansion — expected as early as this summer — is notifying riders. When the pilot started in October, the MTA quietly removed the bins without telling straphangers. “We need to explain to people what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” Prendergast said.

Meanwhile, predictably enough, union officials called upon the MTA to spend more money on their employees who half-heartedly clean stations instead of combating the root of the letter problem. “We’re spending money to change people’s ways?” Derrick Echevarria, the head of the TWU’s Stations Division, said. “Let’s spend money to clean the stations.” Why not both? Or neither? I’ve yet to hear a compelling argument for why the MTA should be in the garbage-removal business as much as they currently are.

As amNY noted, the PATH system, Transit’s counterpart, has no garbage cans and barely any litter. The Port Authority removed trash receptacles under the guise of security, but an initial period of aggressively combating litter has led to a much cleaner system. If Transit is serious about combating litter, rats and the costs associated with keeping the system free from garbage, enforcement will at some point become a necessity.

May 21, 2012 33 comments

Public Transit Policy

Will CitiBikes integrate or compete with NYC’s transit network?

by Benjamin Kabak May 21, 2012

written by Benjamin Kabak on May 21, 2012

Whether we recognize it overtly or not, competition is a key to New York City’s transit success. The MTA doesn’t necessarily care too much if bus ridership is down if the subways are capturing those trips, but if, for example, the combined New York City Transit ridership declines while some other mode share increases, Transit loses out on revenue. If auto trips increase, the New York City society on the whole loses as well due to the impact of increased congestion and decreasing environmental conditions. The equation grows a bit more complicated when bike trips enter the picture.

Over the past few years of the Bloomberg Administration, biking in New York City has taken center stage. Reimagining street space for pedestrians and cyclists is something the city can do without interference from Albany. We may need a “home rule” message to institute a congestion pricing scheme or enforce bus lanes with cameras, but city planners do not need such approval to reapportion space as they see fit. So where biking was once a rather terrifying proposition in the city, an ambitious expansion of dedicated bike lanes and traffic-calming measures had made cycling safer and saner.

For transit both with a capital T and without, the rise of biking is a mixed bag. Most folks cycling to work are doing so not at the expense of a car but at the expense of a MetroCard swipe. I’ve heard many stories of riders switching to pedal power who are fed up with slower and less frequent subway service, more crowded trains and more expensive fares. Now that the city has unveiled its initial plans for the ambitious bike-share network, we have an even better sense of what the future will hold in New York City.

The details have been covered extensively elsewhere, but I can summarize: In late July, the first bike-share stations will hit the streets, and by the end of the year, the city will have 420 docking stations in the southern half of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and Queens. The initial map — available here — clearly shows how the Citi Bank-sponsored initiative will, at first, compete with transit. By targeting Manhattan south of 59th Street and the readily-accessible areas in Queens and Brooklyn, the bike-share network readily imitates the subway system.

Over at his Spaciality blog, Steven Romalewski charted bike-share docking stations against distance from subway entrances and came up with the map below.

Click to enlarge.

He also offered up the following commentary:

Here are the stats:

89 locations (22%) between 14 and 250 feet (length of a typical Manhattan block);

117 kiosks (28%) between 250 and 750 feet (the average distance between Manhattan avenues);

97 kiosks (24%) between 750 and 1,320 ft (a quarter mile);

89 kiosks (22%) between 1,320 and 2,640 ft (a half mile); and

21 kiosks (5%) further than 2,640 feet.

(The percentages do not equal 100% due to rounding.)

Closest/furthest:

The proposed kiosk closest to a subway entrance is in lower Manhattan, on the west side of Greenwich St near Rector St (ID 12364), 14 feet from the Rector St entrance to the 1 train.

The kiosk furthest from a subway entrance is on Manhattan’s west side, in the Hudson River Greenway near West 40th Street (at the West Midtown Ferry Terminal; ID 12092), almost three-quarters of a mile (3,742 feet) from the 40th St entrance to the 42nd St/Port Authority Bus Terminal station.

In other words, half of the proposed kiosks are within an avenue of a subway entrance, one-quarter are within two avenues, and the rest are further away.

As Romalewski notes, a bike-share system is well designed if it works within the existing ideological framework of “first and last mile.” The bike-share isn’t supposed to be a replacement for transit; rather, it’s supposed to deliver people too and from transit in an cost-effective, efficient and quick manner. At some places, the early kiosks will do that; in other places, the first docking stations may make it easier for riders to eschew transit all together.

Eventually, as docking stations spread out to the areas of the city not so conveniently located to the Manhattan Central Business District, the “first and last mile” concept will become more important. Can bike share convince travelers in the areas of the city with poor transit connections to eschew their cars? Will potential drivers in Sheepshead Bay and beyond be willing to use bike-share to reach the B or Q instead of their cars to reach Manhattan? When we know the answer to those questions and can ascertain usage patterns, we’ll have a better sense of how bike share meshes with the transit network and how it competes as well.

At first, it will be tough to gauge the impact CitiBikes has on New York City Transit and mode share. It may, in fact, shift potential straphangers out of the subway. After all, it’s cheaper to join bike share than it is to buy monthly MetroCards, and many riders don’t often take particularly long trips. But eventually, bike share should increase transit usage as it brings people from isolated areas to the subway. If all goes well, bike share won’t compete with the subway system as much as it will enhance it. That last mile may wind up shorter yet.

May 21, 2012 26 comments

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