Twenty NYC Bus Routes are Candidates for Light Rail

  About two weeks ago, a meeting was held at Auto-Free New York where a speaker suggested that twenty bus routes in NYC are candidates for conversion to light rail or streetcar.  I did not attend the meeting but I got the list and I posted it.  Using some old shape files on bus routes in NYC (c. 2009),  I constructed a map of those twenty bus routes.  If light rail or streetcar service is provided for each route, it is possible that the route taken would not be exactly the same as the present day bus route.  Perhaps private rights of way may be utilized and the issue of one way streets has to be dealt with.  Part of the B-44 route in Brooklyn is one-way on two different streets.  Would light rail follow the same pattern?  Notice that some of the proposals involves using one of the bridges between Queens and the Bronx.  Would the NYC Department of Transportation take space from car lines to provide a right of way for light rail?  At any rate, this is very interesting and this discussion will be continued.  Many years ago, I saw an article in ERA Headlights (NY Division Bulletin) that stated that many of the bus routes in Manhattan meet the criteria for light rail, that being, a certain number of passengers carried per hour.  In bringing Light Rail or streetcars to New York City, particularly Brooklyn, I would not emphasize future development but I would stress the comfort of riding a railed vehicle and the environmental benefits.  The plan above looks beautiful, but I know that it will not be easy to bring light rail over existing bridges due to the powerful auto lobby.  It is interesting to note, that the heavy bus routes in Brooklyn, namely the Church, Utica, Nostrand and Flatbush Avenue lines were the last to be converted from streeetcar during the period of 1950 to 1956.  Notice that Staten Island is not included.  I am not sure if this is an oversight in the list but I do know there are some light rail plans for Staten Island, I believe on the western part of the island.  Some people think that the New Jersey Transit Bergen-Hudson Light Rail line should be extended to western Staten Island.

In the map below, I brought in a recent subway shape file.  Notice how some of the proposed light rail lines go directly to the terminals of some of the present day subway lines.

New Proposals for Light Rail in Long Island City Queens and Red Hook

Hi Folks: I just looked at Bob Diamond's website and there is new information regarding proposed light rail for Long Island City Queens, New York City along 21st Street to Queens Plaza and to Red Hook later in the future. Just heard about this a half hour ago.

http://brooklynrail.net/News_Aug_2013.html

The picture below comes from one of the publications listed in Bob's posting on the subject.  I believe it is a rendition of a proposed light rail line in Queens.
Looks kind of cool?    But,  I do not see any wires.

Deputy Mayor Doctoroff & Other Prominent Urban Planners / Developers Enthusiastically Endorse BHRA's Brooklyn Streetcar Project Former First Deputy Mayor and Current Chairman of Bloomberg LP Daniel Doctoroff, the Chair of Brookfield Associates (and former NYC Planning Commission Chairman) John Zuccotti, and Former NYC Planning Commissioner Alexander Garvin (currently Garvin & Associates), have now whole heartedly embraced and validated our streetcar project. Adopting BHRA streetcar project's route selection, our construction cost estimate of $20 million per route mile, as well as the types of project financing, which we incorporated into the "New Streetcar Possibilities for Brooklyn" (BHRA' PowerPoint presentation on our Red Hook streetcar project), which we gave several months ago at several venues, and which has been publicly available ever since then. The full version of the "Next NYC" forum sponsored by the Regional Plan Association, introducing the streetcar line now being championed by Doctoroff, Zuccotti and Garvin is available here as a PDF or here is the web address. Doctoroff, Zuccotti, and Garvin, are extensively cited in the article above, and Doctoroff even stated that out of the 40 projects featured in their urban planning booklet, The Next New York, that OUR PROJECT (the streetcar project) IS THE BEST ONE - and I quote: "New York has never been a light-rail kind of town—“toy trains,” said a Koch deputy mayor dismissively in the 80s. Yet the time has surely come." "This is the book’s single best idea, said Doctoroff. It would knit together the emerging communities along the 7 and L lines, and would trigger all sorts of incremental growth on the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront, where the greatest potential for growth actually is. What’s more, light rail is cheap—some $20 million [per mile], he guesses." Compare this to the $/per mile figures we cited in Our Presentation. "Zuccotti agreed about light rail, and emphasized that new transportation projects should be in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, because that’s where housing can be built at reasonable cost in areas that are still zoned industrial. He cited the brilliant precedent of David Walentas, who showed definitively in Dumbo, Brooklyn, how to convert empty industrial space into a thriving mixed-used community. Can the same be done in the Bronx and Queens?" According to Garvin: "The capital cost of the new light rail line could be financed from the tax increment generated by new and renovated housing created on underutilized properties within walking distance of the new light rail line." Doctoroff, Zuccotti and Garvin even seem keen on some of the alternative funding mechanisms we presented. Please read the wording of both documents very carefully, especially the part about financing construction/operation via future real estate tax generated along the route (see slides 12 & 32 of Our Presentation) BTW, their entire booklet, The Next New York, can be downloaded here as a PDF. The streetcar project is on pages 12- 13. Note, the map on PDF page 13 of The Next New York, and compare with the maps page of our website. The light rail plan described in The Next New York even utilizes the exact route we've long advocated - passing through the Borough Hall mass transit nexus, then proceeds through the historic Atlantic Avenue Tunnel, and then down along Columbia Street into Red Hook, ending at a streetcar barn at Gowanus Bay Terminal :-) There's an old saying: no man is an island unto himself. In the spirit of this Election Day season, BHRA stands ready and eager to form new partnerships and coalitions with like- minded groups and individuals who share our common goal: to bring about the return of the streetcar as a key transportation mode in the City Of New York. Crain's New York Business article on "Visions for 'Next NYC'" featuring Red Hook Streetcar as idea #1 -Aug 2013 3.7mb PDF Untapped Next NY - 40 ideas that Could transform NY, from the forum of Urban Design. Aug 2013 Crain's New York Business Article on Red Hook Streetcar -July 7 2013 Red Hook Star-Revue "Bob Diamond is One Persistent Fellow" -July 2013


  http://brooklynrail.net/News_Aug_2013.html

Sorry for the bad format at this machine. To be upgraded in the future

Rhone Express in France

A friend of mine gave me this link to some photography work and comments written by a St. Petersburg (Russia) engineer on a visit to a recent LRT system in Lyon, France.  The Rhone Express goes to the airport and shares tracks with a streetcar in some sections.  Although I cannot read Russian, the pictures are informative.  If you do read Russian, I am told the analysis is very interesting covering architecture and the physical structure of the line.  Also, please see the Youtube videos from another source.  I like the pictures of the grass growing between the rails.  Wish we had this in New York City!
Tramway Null(0)


http://spb-projects.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3020 Reference Page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcrKMyzzxhs RhX Tunnel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SYKJOCUnTc RhX City

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpyOaK8sQ6w same

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLc6QV_PLfo RhX Airport

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TFsIArj-4U Airport Overview

What Could Have Been - Part II

In the early 1980's, the Regional Plan Association studied transit use in 29 American Cities and came to the conclusion that new rapid transit lines could be supported from a passenger use basis in such cities as Los Angeles, Seattle, Honolulu and Houston.  Light rail could also be supported in such cities such as Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Denver, Kansas City and so on.  Looking back over 30 years, new systems were built and old systems were expanded.  It was also reported that if as many as thirteen buses are needed in each direction, light rail begins to have an economic advantage over buses.  Many of the bus lines in Manhattan and the following bus routes in Brooklyn could have operated more economically in Brooklyn:

1. B2- Avenue R
2. B6 -Avenue J
3. B35 - Church Avenue
4. B38 - De Kalb Avenue
5. B41 - Flatbush Avenue
6. B42 - Rockaway Parkway
7. B44 - Nostrand Avenue
8. B46 - Utica Reid
9. B54 - Myrtle Avenue
10. B55 - Richmond Hill

This listing comes from the New York Division Bulletin, Electric Railway Association's August 1982 edition (Vol. 25, Number 8).

In what will follow, you will see that according to the New York Division Bulletin, that the Board of Transportation studied the surface system and looked at operating statistics ending June 30, 1944.  Their recommendations were listed in the Bulletin but what is surprising, as shown in a previous post, I have the link to what appears to be the original maps from the Board of Transportation dated 1945 and that many of the busy routes in 1944 were still the busy ones in 1982, even though they were bus lines.  Many of the routes listed above which were then streetcar were selected for an upgrade to PCC operation at the end of 1945, but it never happened.

To be continued:
Tramway Null(0)