Brooklyn

The bollards at Atlantic Ave. have finally been replaced by less intrusive security measures. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

When the Atlantic Ave. Long Island Rail Road terminal opened two and a half years ago, the security measures in front drew immediate criticism. Giant granite slabs — some shaped to serve as benches — blocked entrances and walkways. They formed a ring around the front as impenetrable to people as they were to potential terrorists, and over the past few years, the granite slabs were used more as garbage dumps than anything else. Memorably, No Land Grab called them tombs, and Streetsblog explored how they went above and beyond NYPD-endorsed security guidelines.

After facing constant criticism for 18 months, the MTA announced last August that the bollards would be replaced by more standard security measures. At the time, the authority had no renderings, but reports indicated that the new measures would be standard cylinders that, for better or worse, ring around buildings in Midtown and Lower Manhattan.

When I walked by the terminal a few weeks ago, work had finally begun on the bollard replacement project, and last week, Transportation Nation secured some definitive details. Per the MTA’s statement:

“The MTA and the Long Island Rail Road listened to concerns from local elected officials and community leaders who felt the stone bollards were intrusive and out-of-scale at their current size. As part of the original design, there were 15 granite bollards surrounding the new $108 million Atlantic Terminal Pavillion when it opened in January 2010. In consultation with the MTA Police and NYPD, we decided to replace the granite bollards with 60 smaller steel bollards that still meet the security requirements spelled out by the NYPD for public buildings of this kind. The new bollards will be 36 inches in height and approximately 12 inches wide. They will be placed around the perimeter of Atlantic Terminal approximately 4 feet apart.

The removal of the old bollards and the installation of the new bollards is part of [a] comprehensive perimeter security project being undertaken by MTA Capital Construction through a grant from the federal government. On April 12, a contract for the project was awarded to Adtec Enterprises of Mt. Vernon, N.Y., after the company submitted the winning low bid of $3.486 million. The overall project will take one year to complete, but most of the bollards have already been removed and installation of the steel replacements is expected to get underway soon.”

The granite blocks, which weighed around eight tons, have been removed. Yesterday, another reporter tried to venture over to the space to take some photos, and the workers objected. They refused to allow the reporter to take photos of the work in progress, and even after gaining authorization from the MTA press officer, Andrea Bernstein still had some troubles with workers. She snapped her photos, but the objections claiming a homeland security project rang a bit false. The bollards will be in view for all to see soon enough.

Ultimately, the bollards cost $1.2 million to build and another $150,000 to remove. The feds — and taxpayers — are footing the bill for another $3.5 million replacement project. So now a wrong has been righted, and the sidewalks at the intersection of Flatbush Ave. and Ashland and Hanson Places will now be pedestrian-friendly and safe. With a little foresight, this whole thing could have been avoided.

An unrelated reminder: I’m going to be on TV at 7:15 a.m. this morning. Check out Fox 5 for a segment on the Straphangers’ subway report cards.

Miss Wit Tees is selling these for $14 a pop. That’s one way to fight a Bruce Ratner-inspired naming-rights deal. The protest language:

You can tear the buildings down, and run folks out of town, and spin your tales of heroism. Billionaires come, and billionaires go. Names change, streets are bulldozed, neighborhoods divided, but these coordinates remain the same. Change is great, destruction ain’t. When the name becomes Atlantic/Housing Way we might sing a sweeter tune. You can call it the Barclay’s whatever, but I’m Still Calling it Atlantic Avenue Pacific Street!

This ain’t the first time I’ve heard these sentiments. Based on the city’s collective experiences with the Triborough Bridge renaming, I have a feeling the discarded Pacific St. moniker will live on well beyond its elimination from the subway map.

The MTA buried its good news on a summer Friday last week as word got out that the L train would enjoy a massive frequency upgrade. Shortly after the initial amNew York story made the rounds, Transit issued a press release touting the service improvements, but since I was out of town for the weekend, I had a chance only to write up the bare bones of the story. So let’s delve in. There’s much to see here.

As we know, the MTA has been working on a communications-based train control system on the L line for years. As the L, at the time the test was first proposed, was not a particularly crowded subway and had the added benefit of sharing no sets of tracks with any other train line, Transit thought it had found an ideal testing ground. Over the past decade though, L ridership has gone through the roof, and the need for greater capacity along the BMT Canarsie line has gone from a luxury to an imperative.

Transit announced the official details on Friday. Beginning this past Saturday, the MTA started adding 98 weekly round trips on the L train: 16 each weekday, 11 on Saturday and seven on Sunday. In terms of wait times, the L trains will now operate every three minutes during the a.m. rush and every six minutes at midday, down from 3.5 and 7.5 minutes, respectively. Saturday evening riders will enjoy service every six minutes, and Sunday evening straphangers will find the same level of frequency, down from one train every 8.5 minutes.

“This is a perfect example of how our commitment of capital dollars to improve our signal system directly impacts the safety and quality of our service,” MTA NYCT President Thomas F. Prendergast said in a statement. “As a result of fully integrating Communications-Based Train Control on the L line, customers will have the added benefit of more trains that will help to ease overcrowding on a line that serves continuously growing populations in Brooklyn.”

Local politicians were excited by the improvements. Daniel Squadron, who has long fought for increased L service, led the charge. “Anyone tired of crushing crowds and overflowing trains will now have an L trip less likely to feel like hell,” Squadron said. “This is a big step toward a subway system that works for its riders every day of the week.”

One quote from Squadron though struck a chord. As he noted that some rush hour trains will likely be below the MTA’s load guidelines, he let slip a key line. “This is not going to be the silver bullet, but this is real good news for L train riders,” he said. “Anyone tired of the crushing crowds and overflowing trains will now have an L train trip less likely to feel like hell.”

On Friday, I noted the strange use of the silver bullet phrase, and as I thought about it this weekend, the stranger it became. What exactly does Squadron expect? What kind of silver bullet does he want? The MTA isn’t about to build a parallel line through Williamsburg or third-track the L train, and running trains every 180 seconds should be at least sufficient to ease some of the crowding concerns.

In a way, the CBTC implementation and the increased capacity shows what happens when the MTA has the money to invest in a systemwide upgrade. If the Queens Boulevard line can be converted to CBTC, if the Lexington Ave. IRT trains were CBTC-ready, the MTA could add significantly more trains to some very crowded areas. Of course, this all costs money and a lot of it. Even as the MTA says the increased service will result in only a $1.7 million jump in operating costs, the capital upgrades are in the hundreds of millions, and that money doesn’t grow on trees. Furthermore, the Canarsie CBTC implementation was, shockingly, years later and way over budget.

Daniel Squadron, one of the more ardent transit supports on the local political scene, knows all this, but he still wants a silver bullet. So what’s that silver bullet? A better run, well capitalized MTA? For the foreseeable future, that’s not a particularly feasible goal.

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.

An astute straphanger noticed some new signage at Atlantic Avenue this week. (Photo by flickr user OverclockedBravo)

It sure does seem like ages ago that the MTA announced its first — and, so far, only — subway station naming rights deal, but after three years, the Barclays Center is coming to the subway system. As we learned back in June of 2009, the MTA is earning $200,000 annually for 20 years for the right to append the name of the new arena to the subway station name, and the new moniker is now showing up on maps and at the station.

Pacific Street, we hardly knew ye.

As the photo above shows, the Barclays Center name is slowly taking over some column posts even though the arena won’t open for another four months or so. Meanwhile, it has made its first appearance on the online subway map but not the PDF available for download. According to one report, maps and system signage will not bear the new name until later this summer.

With this glimpse at the subway naming future, we see that, apparently, the MTA will be dropping the Pacific St. half of the station name entirely. In a way, that’s no big loss as Pacific St. was a relic of the old BMT system. As Pacific St. is a tiny one-way street with nothing much of note on it, passengers bound for that station are more interested in the fact that the stop lies at the intersections of Flatbush, 4th and Atlantic Aves. Only some of the entrances were on Pacific St., and the Atlantic Ave./Barclays Center name better captures why subway riders are heading there in the first place.

This shiny future for 370 Jay Street is one step closer to reality. (Rendering via NYU and The Real Deal)

The MTA’s headquarters at 370 Jay Street will be a blight no more upon Downtown Brooklyn. After a decade of wrangling, political proclamations and unfunded plans to renovate the building, the MTA has agreed to surrender its lease on the building to the city, and in return, the city will provide NYU with the opportunity to turn the building into an applied sciences center in the heart of a rapidly growing neighborhood.

“Over the next five years, 370 Jay Street will be transformed into a cutting-edge center for research and science that will give another huge boost to our city’s economy,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday. “Our Administration has long seen the promise of Downtown Brooklyn, and we’ve made the investments needed to transform it into a thriving center for business. With the addition of this new campus, Brooklyn will be one of the most dynamic environments for entrepreneurs anywhere in the country.”

According to the Mayor’s Office, NYU will pay the MTA $50 million relocation expenses. The NYPD, another tenant, will receive $10 million. The university will then pay $1 per year in rent while receiving a series of tax breaks as well. That’s quite the deal for the city.

For the MTA, though, this announcements ends a long-term stalemate over 370 Jay St. The authority had been renting the building from the city, also for $1 a year, but the MTA estimated that renovations on the property would have cost a few hundred million dollars. They didn’t have the money to conduct such work, and even as the Jay St. subway station underneath the building underwent a comprehensive rehab, the building aboveground sat wrapped in a permanent scaffolding. Politicians hated it, and the building seemingly arose as a symbol of MTA inefficiency.

When NYU first announced its plans to open a science center in Brooklyn, the university originally offered the MTA $20 million to vacate its premises. The authority, no longer willing to roll over and die as it did with the Atlantic Yards air rights, dug in and asked for $50 million. With prodding from the Mayor, NYU gave in, and the MTA will begin to move out later this year. “For many years, 370 Jay Street served as the headquarters of the NYC Transit Authority,” MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota said. “Everyone at the MTA is proud that the building will be repurposed as New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress – a new business and science incubator in downtown Brooklyn.”

Of course, there’s a bit of a wrinkle. The NYU has six months to conduct due diligence on 370 Jay St. It will assess how much the renovations to the building will cost and whether or not they can be completed in time for usage in September 2017. If the due diligence finds that the building work will cost more, they can back out of this deal, and we’ll be back at square one. Considering how badly NYU wants this space, though, something would have go to horribly wrong for this deal to fall through. With the MTA though, anything is possible.