Manhattan

Some new staircases and an enlarged mezzanine area won’t cut it.

As Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure rushes to an end, his effort to rezone Midtown East is coming to a head as well. Bloomberg wants to see this project through before he leaves office, and while many stakeholders are objecting to the relative breakneck pace of a project that has to go through a mandated review process, the rezoning is moving forward. Last week, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer gave the Midtown East his OK, conditioned on promises from the Bloomberg Administration to fund transit improvements. It’s a start, but is it enough?

“In order to make East Midtown’s plan a success, greater density in East Midtown should follow significant investments in its infrastructure,” Stringer said in his report. Expanding density before preparing the transit infrastructure, he says, “will have undesirable consequences for the City as a whole, [and] the ramifications of adding density to the already overloaded capacity of the local transit infrastructure raises serious questions about a development-first approach.”

Stringer’s ULURP review and the subsequent report focused largely on the impact the rezoning would have on the transit infrastructure currently in place. As regular riders of the Lexington Ave. IRT know, the Grand Central station is ill-equipped to handle more passengers. The trains themselves are packed, and the station — without much platform space or a large mezzanine area — can feel dangerously cramped at times. East Side Access will bring more riders into the area, and the rezoning would boost ridership on the line by well over 100 percent.

So what do you do with 15,000 new workers who will fill up 3.8 million square feet of office space and a few hundred thousand more square feet devoted to retail and hotels? In February, the MTA presented their mitigation plans, and Stringer grants his approval for the project as long as these plans are implemented first. These plans include new stairways — which eliminate some platform space — an enlarged mezzanine, new exits and an additional train per hour for the Lexington Ave. line. The 7 line would enjoy a few new staircases and high-speed escalators as well, and additional mitigation plans are being developed.

To fund all of this, Stringer calls upon the city to move towards what he calls comprehensive planning. “The City should advance proactive funding mechanisms, which could include, but are not limited to, direct capital investment, bond financing, or a special tax assessment district,” his report says. “Such funding mechanisms can provide capital dollars today that could be paid back by the proposed source (i.e. the DIB) over time.”

Now, this is all well and good, and Stringer is right to worry about the impact on transit such a rezoning would have. The system at Grand Central cannot handle many more people without some serious expansion efforts, but I worry that the proposed mitigation efforts aren’t enough. Incremental improvement is fine, but sweeping change may be in order. Plus, the rezoning isn’t the only project that will impact the area as two new East River high rises are going up in the East 30s.

The solution should be an increased focus on Phases 3 and 4 of the Second Ave. Subway. Now, I realize the MTA has only just started thinking about Phase 2, but as these Midtown East rezoning efforts move forward, Phases 3 and 4 are becoming even more important. This southern extension can siphon riders off of the Lexington Ave. line and to the new office space that will be developed. Additionally, bringing the subway south into an area with new office space could gain the approval of the Dan Doctoroffs of the city who would no longer view the subway line as a “silly spur that doesn’t generate anything.” It would generate relief for the Lexington Ave. line and could be a key selling point for new development in a rezoned area.

Ultimately, the rezoning will move forward, and without a champion, these phases of the Second Ave. Subway won’t for now. But they could be the key to the entire project, and Stringer’s report, while omitting reference to these phases, nearly says as much. “While the proposed rezoning targets development, any additional density onto a system that is over capacity will inevitably lead to potentially dangerous conditions,” he said. “It is therefore critical that the City mitigate the existing overcrowding conditions and create a real plan for investment in the East Side’s transportation infrastructure, including improving conditions at Grand Central.”

Whenever I think of the Lexington Avenue line and Midtown on Manhattan’s East Side, I am reminded of a Yogi Berra quote. “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded,” the famed Yankee catcher once said. On its surface, it’s a silly line, but when you think about, it’s makes a lot of sense. No one new will go somewhere that’s too crowded.

Midtown East and the Lexington Ave. line fulfill Yogi’s Yogism perfectly. Both are so crowded that no one wants to go there anymore. Riding the 4, 5 or 6 trains at peak hour is a singularly unpleasant experience, and walking around Midtown during the work day isn’t any better. As far as the eye can see, there are people, and no one moves as fast or as efficiently as anyone walking through this mess of humanity would hope.

Furthermore, because of these crowds, many new businesses look elsewhere for office space. They look to the Flatiron District, Silicon Alley or Chelsea. They look for places with diverse transit alternatives that are more accessible to other parts of the city. They look for places where people go because they aren’t too crowded.

Now, don’t get me wrong; Midtown is still an exceedingly popular place to work. Few firms are jumping ship, and the convenience of Grand Central as a hub for subway riders from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Westchester and points north remains unparalleled throughout the city. But this is my roundabout way of asking if we need more office space in the area without addressing transit capacity concerns. It’s a vital question as the mayor’s last great plan to reimagine Manhattan — a rezoning plan, at that — moves forward.

The Midtown rezoning effort seems like a fait accompli. Nearly everyone seems to recognize the major issues with the plan, but no one is willing to stop it. Bloomberg has reshaped as many parts of the city as he can, and in the last five months of his reign, he wants to upzone Midtown as well. It sounds good, but do we need it? On one the hand, with the Hudson Yards and 1 World Trade Central on the way, New York will have a glut of office space hitting the market over the next decade. On the other, we could always have more. The costs though aren’t commensurate with the increase in square footage, and another major issue remains: The plan does not increase transit access.

In a meandering piece that takes a stand against Bloomberg’s plan, Michael Kimmelman of The Times touches briefly upon the transit issue. The following three paragraphs should be the centerpiece of any argument against the Midtown rezoning and a hint toward the right path:

New York can surely never win a skyscraper race with Shanghai or Singapore. Its future, including the future of Midtown real estate values, depends on strengthening and expanding what already makes the city a global magnet and model. This means mass transit, pedestrian-friendly streets, social diversity, neighborhoods that don’t shut down after 5 p.m., parks and landmarks like Grand Central Terminal and the Chrysler Building.

If New York wants to learn from London, Tokyo and Shanghai, the lessons aren’t about erecting new skyscrapers. Big cities making gains on New York are investing in rail stations, airports and high-speed trains, while New York rests on the laurels of Grand Central and suffers the 4, 5 and 6 trains, which serve East Midtown. They carry more passengers daily than the entire Washington Metro system.

Improving the lives of the 1.3 million people riding those trains would instantly make the city more competitive. Adding thousands of commuters who work in giant new office buildings without upgrading the surrounding streets and subways — the Second Avenue subway won’t do it — will only set the city back.

There’s no doubt in my midn that Kimmelman is correct. Without paying attention to the transit needs, the Midtown rezoning plan will overburden and already overtaxed transit line. The 4, 5 and 6 cannot fit more people, and the inbound 7 trains to Grand Central are nearing crush loads as well. East Side Access will help deliver more suburban commuters to the area, but the subways cannot handle the load.

Yet, instead of sacrificing the Midtown rezoning to the transit gods, what if we turned the plan into a transit savior? Through the proper combination of tax-increment financing and assessments on developers, the city can rezone Midtown while collecting money to ensure that the Second Ave. Subway can move forward — and through the upzoned area. Such a plan would be a win-win for a neighborhood that needs new building stock but also needs better transit access.

We shouldn’t be afraid of Bloomberg’s plan to upzone Midtown, and we shouldn’t be afraid of more density. We should be concerned with a plan to increase office space without a corresponding bump in transit capacity though. A creative solution isn’t far away, and a true leader would bring the two to the public in tandem. It’s not too late, but Bloomberg’s lame-duck clock just keeps on ticking.

With the reopening of South Ferry set for tomorrow morning at 5 a.m., the MTA has released a seven-minute video of B-roll footage from the loop station. Take a trip through the tunnels, watch gap-fillers in action and enjoy the pan through the gussied-up station. Meanwhile, for a trip down memory lane, the last time we had video from South Ferry, it looked like a bunch of scenes out of a disaster movie.

Gap fillers, tight curve and a narrow platform mark the recommissioned South Ferry station. (Photo Courtesy: NYC Transit/ Marc A. Hermann)

The 1 train’s old South Ferry loop station will reopen at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning, the MTA announced this afternoon. The loop will operate for the foreseeable future while the newer two-track South Ferry terminal undergoes extensive repairs following its destruction at the floodwaters from Sandy’s storm surge. Those repairs should take a few years and will cost around $600 million according to estimates.

The reopening of the old loop marks the first time the MTA has closed a station only to reopen it later, but the agency did make a few key improvements. By removing a wall and building out an additional passageway, the connection between the R at Whitehall St. and the 1 at South Ferry remains in place. (I’m not sure, however, how useful such a transfer truly is.) However, only the first five cars at South Ferry will open at the curved station, and station egress points are limited. Still, just over five months after Sandy washed away the nearest subway station to the Staten Island Ferry, a temporary, imperfect solution is better than no service at all.