Second Avenue Subway

Station distances along Second Ave. doesn't bring the subway closer to certain areas. (Click to enlarge the map)

One of the key considerations in planning a subway — or bus — line focuses around distances between two stations. Planners want to space stations far enough apart to allow trains to build up considerable speed underground, but they also want to place stations close enough together to provide comprehensive coverage to previously underserved neighborhoods. As the city builds out the Second Ave. Subway, the MTA has a chance to improve subway coverage through station spacing.

Along Second Ave., a few key cross streets are missing their subway stops, but much of the empty space is covered through proper station construction. For instance, 79th St., a major crosstown street, won’t enjoy a subway station, but the exits and entrances at East 86th and 72nd Streets should make up for it. The south end of 86th St. will deposit people between 83rd and 84th Sts. while the north end of 72nd St. will leave them near 73rd St.

The problems arise elsewhere down the line. After 72nd St., the next stop on the theoretical T train would be at 55th St. and 2nd Ave. while the Q will stop at 63rd St. and Lexington. The seventeen blocks between local stations would be a system-wide high. Along the Q, Transit plans to construct a station entrace at 3rd Ave. and 63rd St., but those trying to reach the East River area with its numerous hospitals will have considerable walks.

On the Lower East Side, the same problem arises. After 14th St. and 2nd Ave., the T won’t stop again until Houston St. and 2nd Ave., a span of 14 blocks. Along other lines that stop at Houston St., the 6 next stops at Astor Place and then Union Square while the 1 stops at Christopher St. and then 14th St. The 14-block gap makes the T a semi-express along 2nd Ave.

Here, the real losers are those who live in Alphabet City. Currently, for someone who lives at, say, Ave. C and East 7th St., the nearest subway is the 6 at Astor Place, a walk of around 0.8 miles. The subway stop at 2nd Ave. and 14th St. will be a 0.9-mile walk from Ave. C and East 7th St. It won’t be any more or less convenient to have the Second Ave. Subway. In fact, for an area that once would have enjoyed a cup-handle extension of the Second Ave. Subway, the SAS will have profoundly little impact on a transit-starved area.

An idealized street grid leads to a diamond-shaped coverage area. (Via Human Transit)

What then is the proper distance for station spacing? Jarrett Walker at Human Transit tackled this topic back in November. Playing off of the news that San Francisco’s Muni is looking to improve both bus and subway travel times, Walker proposed an ideal solution for station spacing. The object, he says, is to minimize the overlap area while maximizing the coverage area.

For rapid transit stops, Walker proposes a distance of 1000 m between stops — or approximately 0.6 miles. That would correspond nicely to the 14-block distance between stations in the East Village, but it doesn’t solve the problem of Alphabet City. They are far away from the subway and will still be far away from the subway even when a new subway line opens. That doesn’t quite solve the city’s transit problems.

Ultimately, station spacing is less important for subway stations than for bus stops, and Walker is rightly critical of the American approach to bus stops. In Brooklyn where I live, the local routes stop every two blocks or around 500 feet. Buses are slowed by the need to stop constantly, and most healthy riders would choose to walk instead of ride.

For now though, we can see transit spacing in action along Second Ave. By and large, the distances are appropriate, but Walker ends on an intriguing question: “If you had two parallel transit lines, how might the stop locations on one of them affect the logical locations of stops on the other? And what’s the furthest apart that the lines can be (in terms of multiples of the maximum walking distance) for this consideration to matter?”

These proposed entrances for the Second Ave. Subway on 86th St. are the subject of a federal lawsuit.

Tenants and owners of an Upper East Side building that will one day have two entrances to the Second Ave. Subway in front of it have filed suit against the Federal Transit Authority and the MTA over what it claims are deficient responses to Freedom of Information requests. The suit stems from a two-year dispute over the MTA’s updated plan to build entrances along 86th St. instead of alone Second Ave., and while the legal issue itself — a FOIL appeal — is fairly straightforward, the underlying complaints are not.

The story begins in front of Yorkshire Towers, the building that spans the northeast side of Second Ave. between East 86th and 87th Streets. The building’s main entrances are on 86th St., and it features a U-shaped driveway as well as two other automobile access points to a subterranean parking garage. Originally, the 86th St. entrance would have been within the Food Emporium at the northeast corner.

A few concerns drove the MTA’s design changes. First, the authority scaled back the SAS from three tracks to two, thus necessitating a new technical examination of the station layouts. Second, the authority had determined that a combination of temporary construction easements and physical plant demands would have resulted in the shuttering of the supermarket and extensive structural work on the building. (For more, check out my 2007 coverage.)

After conducting a Supplemental Environmental Assessment, the authority determined that the proposed changes would have no adverse impact, and the feds signed off on the study. Despite community opposition to the plan, the MTA put forth the design seen above at the top of this post.

For the last few years, the Yorkshire Towers Tenants Association has tried to FOIL the documents that underlie the assumptions in the SEA study, and the MTA has, they allege, not obliged. Alleging that they’ve been “stonewalled,” the plaintiffs are requesting the documents because they believe the findings are fault.

Therein lies the rub. While the MTA is required to respond to the FOIL request, the tenants’ association is searching for a bigger fish to fry. “The RMA” — the Residential Midblock Alternative — says the filing, “would create unprecedented and substantial impacts to an area with a completely different residential character than the normal commercial intersections where most subway entrances are located.” Furthermore, the RMA would impact “four active driveways,” the Yorkshire plaintiffs allege.

Claiming that the MTA’s decision to eschew an RMA at 72nd St. is inconsistent with their proposal to go forward with one on 86th St., the Yorkshire plaintiffs believe the MTA’s FOIL responses to be inadequate. The Yorkshire requests are lengthy. You can read their full correspondence right here (PDF). They supplied only the MTA’s table of contents as evidence of a deficient FOIL response (PDF).

It seems to me though that the residents are by and large concerned about the sidewalks in front of their buildings and the driveway access. As the schematics show, the entrances will point away from the building entrances but will block the driveway’s sightlines, something the plaintiffs say will have a “serious[] impact[]” on “parents with children, older people and safety concerns.” It strikes me though as NIMBYism. They don’t want the subway access points in front of the building even if people won’t be walking past the building’s entrance.

I’ve included the lawsuit after the jump. Legitimate gripes or a typical “not on my sidewalk-and-driveway” complaint? You decide.

The MTA's before-and-after highlight improvements proposed for Second Ave.

Throughout the long and torturous history of the current Second Ave. Subway project, the MTA’s community relations or lack thereof have come under fire. Residents, subject to the whims of negligent landlords, complain of building vibrations, noise, dust and constant construction while business owners bemoan the lost sidewalk space and street access. As the MTA responds to some of these complaints a few years too late, the business owners are getting ready to fight back.

The story as we know it tends to crop up every few months. In August, merchants claimed a 40-percent reduction in business, and earlier this month, The Times ran a sob story on businesses going under as the impact of construction ate away at the bottom line. A few weeks ago, I was less than sympathetic to those business owners who, knowing full well that the MTA was about to dig up the avenue, opened restaurants six months before Second Ave. Subway construction began.

Yet, despite my decidedly Spockian view on the transit needs of the many, the MTA has clearly not gone out of its way to help businesses. On the one hand, neither it nor the state has the money to make direct payments to suffering merchants, but on the other, construction crews work with little regard for the area around the site. This weekend, the authority announced a series of improvements designed to bolster business along Second Ave. These are, said MTA Capital Construction, part of a “good neighbor” initiative and include:

• Implementing way-finding signage for stores that is uniform, legible and clean
• Ensuring sidewalks are in good condition without holes, cracks, and trip hazards
• Replace bent/worn fencing
• Painting all barriers
• Maintaining sidewalks, crosswalks, and safe sight lines for pedestrians/vehicles
• Maintaining full access to businesses/residences

The Post noted that Capital Construction vowed to keep construction areas free of garbage and that the authority will continue to maintain a website explaining where construction will be at its worst. “These are simple things that will make people happy, so people can actually be in that area and not hate every day they live there,” Michael Horodniceanu, head of MTACC, said to Tom Namako.

While the MTA decided to act on years of complaints, the Second Ave. Business Association, supported by attorney and failed Public Advocate candidate Norman Siegel, hosted a rally on Sunday. Now claiming that business is down by 70 percent, the businesses want action of any kind from the state. Ben Heckscher from The Launch Box was on hand, and he offered up a few photos of the rally. Take a look:

Reporters seemingly outnumbered protesters at this weekend's SABA rally. (Photo by Ben Heckscher/The Launch Box)

Despite the small crowds, the speakers were passionate, and the rally has garnered significant press coverage — CBS News, The Post, DNA Info, NY1. The story too makes for a good David vs. Goliath narrative. These business owners have indeed been jerked around by the MTA, and they’re right to note that the authority originally said in 2007 that Phase 1 would wrap by 2013. Today, we’ll be lucky if the MTA finishes up this four-station extension of the Q by the end of 2016.

“It’s been three and a half years of the construction pretty much destroying our neighborhood, destroying our way of life doing business and destroying the quality of life for people living here and we’ve basically had enough, it’s just too hard,” Marcelo Ronchini, owner of Nina’s Pizzeria, said.

Time and again, these business owners have asked the city for tax breaks, and when those did not materialize, they’ve asked the MTA and state for direct financial contributions. This weekend, Siegel even threatened to sue — a proceeding bound to cause even more slowdowns along Second Ave. “Some of these businesses have put all their life savings into the mom and pop stores. So what we want is for legislation to provide for financial assistance for the businesses on Second Avenue. If that doesn’t happen we’ll have to give serious consideration to going to court,” said Civil Rights Attorney Norman Siegel.

As construction drags on, it’s clear that something has to happen. The MTA has mired Second Ave. in fences, dust, noise and reduced sidewalk space for nearly 42 months now, and the project won’t finish for at least another 72. While the empty store fronts along Second Ave. will quickly fill up once the subway reaches 96th St., for now, the work is stealing vitality from a neighborhood. Still, the MTA can’t just stop work, and the business owners can’t simply be bought out. I want to say what I’ve said all along — the needs of the many do outweigh the needs of the few — but someone should figure out a way to protect the needs of the few as well.

As the Second Ave. Subway planning has evolved over the last half a decade, the MTA has had to balance community input with NIMBYism as they’ve designed a subway that meets 21st Century security standards and 20th Century neighborhood designs. No where has this conflict been more obvious than in the handling of the various ancillary structures that come with a subway. From complaints to lawsuits, East Side residents have thrown the book at MTA planners. The authority is now trying to work with these groups to ensure designs that fit the neighborhood, but will it be enough?

This story I tell today starts with the image above. The neighbors had wanted the MTA to work with developers to find a way to include retail or mixed-use development in the structure, but when the authority determined that it would involve more real estate acquisition and higher costs, they scraped that plan. Still, the residents complained that the structure didn’t fit with the neighborhood. It’s monolithic and unwelcoming in a popular mixed-use neighborhood.

The MTA heard these cries and offered up three new renderings. The authority presented these at its October 12 meeting on the progress of the Second Ave. Subway, and I offer them up below.

So what do we see? First, the MTA has realized that buildings look better surrounded by trees. The original rendering atop this post laid bare the building for all to see. The new versions, presented with the goal of portraying the way the buildings could fit worse, now have trees, and doesn’t that look nice?

But snark over the design choices aside, the MTA is showing what these buildings would look like if different materials are used. The first one — my favorite choice — incorporates the same brick as its neighbor on 72nd St. The tan one in the middle tries, but fails, to replicate the building next to it. The bottom grey one is too utilitarian for the Upper East Side. It’s not a realistic alternative as much as a warning of what could be.

The real problem isn’t with these structures themselves. Rather, it’s the requirement that the MTA build eight of these along a short stretch of Second Ave. Unfortunately, because the Second Ave. Subway is around 70-90 feet deep and because security and ventilation standards require it, these buildings are a necessary evil. No matter how they’re presented, unless the authority and its partners are willing to spend a significant amount of money to redesign them for retail, they won’t be nice.

I’ve maintained that we’ll forget about these structures ten years after they open. They’ll just become a part of the Second Ave. landscape for better or worse. But I won’t have to see them on a daily basis or live with their towering presence. The MTA’s current substations and ancillary buildings were better incorporated into the city landscape, and we sometimes pass them without noticing. The Greenwich St. substation is a stately building while the Joralemon St. access point is just a gutted townhouse that blends with its Borough Heights neighbors.

At least the authority is going through the motions of trying to present alternatives. The neighbors probably won’t like them, but that’s the balance between community planing and NIMBYism. You can’t win all of the battles all of the time when it comes to graphing today’s urban requirements onto yesterday’s planning.

As the Second Ave. Subway construction has dragged on throughout the past three and a half years, life along the avenue has been something less than pleasant. Construction lights and noise fill the air at all hours of the day, and fenced off sidewalks and roads have become the norm. Under the aegis of lazy landlords, poorly-maintained residential buildings have suffered structural damage while businesses have suffered tremendously.

Time and again, the media coverage has returned to the price businesses have paid as subway construction has enveloped the neighborhood. Early on, merchants along the avenue complained of reduced foot traffic and the inconveniences from and concession to construction had on their bottom lines. For instance, 13 restaurants lost significant revenue when they could not install outdoor cafes over the summer months, and as recently as August, real estate trade The Real Deal noted how business at some stores was down by as much as 40 percent. It’s not a good time to be a store-owner above the future subway route.

In today’s Times, Joseph Berger covers the tried-and-true economic ground along Second Ave. He spoke with over 20 merchants, and they all said the same thing: It’s worse than they expected. By Berger’s count, over 30 businesses have closed since 2007, and those that are still open say construction has led to drop-offs in business by 25-50 percent. “Second Avenue has become a place that shoppers avoid,” Manhattan Chamber of Commerce Chairman Jeffrey Bernstein said. “People don’t want to come. It’s difficult to maneuver.”

Berger’s piece is largely anecdotal, but he hits upon the concerns that neighborhood business owners have. Some of them are more founded than others. For instance, restaurants and other service-based stores that rely on foot traffic have suffered legitimate declines in business during the construction. Some, though, complain that construction has limited the ability of their suburban costumers to drive into the city — and illegally double park — while picking up speciality items such as bratwurst or non-speciality items such as a quick lunch.

Therein lies the rub. The city is building the Second Ave. subway to improve transit access to the eastern parts of the East Side. I find hard to be too sympathetic to those businesses bemoaning a lack of on-street space for customers who owners willing admit double-park while shopping.

Berger too focuses on the he said/she said aspect of the fight between business, the MTA and city and state politicians. Says The Times scribe:

Many say they were misled at meetings about the damage construction would wreak. “I think they painted a picture at these meetings, and then they delivered something else,” said Joe Pecora, an owner of Delizia 92 pizzeria and restaurant at 92nd Street, who formed the Second Avenue Business Association two years ago because of the construction’s impact.

Officials say they have honored commitments they made to minimize disruption and mitigate noise and dust. Lois Tendler, a vice president for government and community relations at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said the agency had met regularly with merchants and had signs on its Web site and at Lexington Avenue subway stations urging people to “Shop Second Avenue.”

Shopkeepers say they need financial help and compensation. But an effort to provide tax relief and grants was vetoed last year by Gov. David A. Paterson. “We have been incredibly responsive to every feasible request,” Ms. Tendler said. “Where we part company with shop owners is that we do not have the ability to pay them for the lost income. We use public money, and we do not know of any government entity that pays for lost business.”

The kicker to Berger’s story reveals another dichotomy along Second Ave. He tells the story of Young Yoo, a then-60-year-old widow who opened up a small restaurant right near the Launch Box at Second Ave. She invested heavily in this space ” a few months before ground was broken for the subway in front of her store” and today is nearly broke. She’s trying to wait out a year before her Social Security benefits kick in, and her son sounds defeated. “Instead of being a prosperous restaurateur, she’ll end up being a penniless person waiting for a check,” Peter Yoo said. “That’s what Second Avenue did to her. It created a pauper.”

I feel for Mrs. Yoo. She wanted to open a business personal to her before retiring, but the subway construction interfered. Yet, at the same time, I have to wonder why Mrs. Yoo chose that spot a few months before ground-breaking. By late 2006, it was clear that the MTA would soon begin work on the Second Ave. subway, but after decades of false starts and canceled projects, business owners and Second Ave. residents refused to believe work would happen. Should the city be forced to foot the bill for these risky decisions? Some might even call it folly.

In six years, business owners will be clamoring for Second Ave. space, and property values will climb precipitously. The construction will fade like a bad dream, and merchants will enjoy renewed prosperity along Second Ave. For now, though, they’ll suffer. Even as the state and city try to help, even as the MTA tries to minimize the disruption, these businesses are paying the costs of progress.