My apologies for the silence this week. It’s tough to get back in the swing of regular posting while combating jetlag. There’s certainly a lot to talk about — most notably the AECOM discussion piece regarding the 1 train for Red Hook. I saw Chris Ward’s presentation at NYU earlier this week, and we’ll get to that soon enough. It’s not quite a fully-baked or even half-baked proposal, but it’s certainly sent Red Hook into a tizzy (and likely rightly so).
Meanwhile, we have some slight movement on the plan to turn 14th Street into a car-free Peopleway for buses, bikes and pedestrians during the L train shutdown. As the Daily News reported earlier this week, MTA officials say they will study a car-free 14th Street as part of its overall effort to model the traffic and transit impact of the L train’s looming outage. Results of the study will be released in the spring, Dan Rivoli reported.
This is all well and good, and looking at ways to prioritize transit over private automobiles, especially during the L train shutdown, should be part of the MTA’s general planning approach. But there’s a rub: The ultimate decision to shut 14th St. to cars will rest with NYC DOT, and this agency has not been particularly forthcoming with its plans or aggressive in its actions of late. Of course, we still have 27 months before the L train shutdown begins, but DOT, and not the MTA, will hold the keys to the future of the 14th St. Peopleway. Whether the DOT head is Polly Trottenberg (also currently an MTA Board member) or someone else, that person will be integral in the MTA’s plans to alleviate the impact of the lack of L train.