
Firms envision ways for New York to absorb 9M residents - wallflower
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20161030/REAL_ESTATE/161029841/12-firms-envision-ways-for-new-york-to-absorb-9-million-residents
======
dashundchen
Why not better connect NYC with Upstate, Central and Western New York, and
shed some of the development pressure there?

If there were a true high speed rail connection to smaller, much lower cost
metros it might make them more attractive as branch office/commuter cities.

Amtrak as it is now frequently takes 8-9+ hours to get to across the state to
Buffalo. Much slower than driving the Thruway. Intercity Amtrak service is
poor due to:

* Ancient rails

* Large stretches of single track

* Passenger rail deferring to freight

* Reduced speeds due to degraded bridges and track beds, and outdated signaling

A modern, dedicated track for passenger rail could be fit mostly in the
existing right of way. This alone would greatly improve service.

In the past few years New York State investigated several options for
statewide rail improvements, and unfortunately ruled out any true high speed
options. But even the most expensive improvements under consideration at $15
billion are cheaper than projects in NYC such as the Second Avenue subway
(estimated completion at $17 billion for 8.5 miles!)

[https://www.dot.ny.gov/content/delivery/Main-
Projects/S93751...](https://www.dot.ny.gov/content/delivery/Main-
Projects/S93751-Home/S93751--Repository/ECHSR_Public_Hearing_Brochure.pdf)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_high-
speed_rail#Proje...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_high-
speed_rail#Projects)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway)

~~~
Nav_Panel
As a former upstate NY resident, I'm all in favor of improved rail throughout
the state, but as a current NYC resident I'm skeptical. My major question is:
will adding better rail service to Western NY actually result in reduced
development pressure in NYC?

The estimates in the first link you provided pegs travel time at 6 hours from
NYC to Niagara Falls. Albany is already less than 3 hours on the Amtrak from
NYC, but is still failing to "shed development pressure" from NYC. It's a
chicken-and-egg problem: how do you convince jobs to move upstate without
people, and how do you convince people to move upstate without jobs? Adding a
train isn't enough unless it's quick enough to be a daily commute. There are
other ways to entice residents but, at least in Albany's case, restrictive
zoning and land use laws get in the way.

In the 1950s, the US federal government decided to go all-in on highways for
medium and long distance travel. It would be costly to attempt to switch back
to long distance rail now and would have a deep impact on American life. The
reasons rail is so desirable in an urban context doesn't often translate to a
medium or long distance route.

> even the most expensive improvements under consideration at $15 billion are
> cheaper than projects in NYC such as the Second Avenue subway (estimated
> completion at $17 billion for 8.5 miles!)

Sure, but in terms of how many people would be served by the 2nd Ave subway vs
a long distance cross-state route (200k/day on the 2nd Ave subway vs 4m/year
on the train line), it seems less absurd to invest that magnitude of funding
on the subway.

~~~
subpixel
Forget Western NY - there's no passenger rail service whatsoever on the entire
West side of the Hudson River from NYC to Albany.

Newburgh, Kingston, and New Paltz are all ghosts of their former selves (there
used to be a train, Newburgh was the first city in the US with electric
lights, etc.) instead of thriving. And they really could thrive - not in a
farmers-market-and-smorgasburg way, but in a Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill way.
Except better, b/c they would have public transport between each other and a
major metropolis.

~~~
krschultz
Even closer than that, aside from Jersey City and Hoboken nothing on the west
side of the Hudson has a direct rail connection. Extending the 7 line to
Weehawken would help.

------
Animats
Wimpy proposals. In 1924, there was a proposal to fill in the East River,
diverting the water to the Hudson. Now that was thinking big.

The article has one of those conceptual drawings of super-lightweight monorail
structures. There's nothing wrong with monorails; lots of cities in Asia have
them. But the rail is far more bulky than that drawing. Here's a real
suspended monorail, in Chiba.[1]

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR0QXyYG3Yo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR0QXyYG3Yo)

------
Retric
Is it just me or do these all seem terrible? New transit + zoning can lead
development to new areas. Add subways from queens to Manhattan and things will
change dramatically, without focusing on mostly cosmetic changes.

Want real changes? Extend that all the way to Manhasset.

~~~
Nav_Panel
This is what multiple items on the list already suggest.

Relating to the first proposal, from Gensler, there already exists a proposal
called the Triboro RX[0] to add transit along existing freight rail lines that
run from the Bronx through Maspeth and Bushwick, ending up in Bay Ridge.

This sort of project, if implemented well, would bring people and development
to these areas. Unfortunately, it's difficult to obtain money for a
prospective project such as the RX that wouldn't immediately benefit existing
NYC residents. One could make a case that residents of transit-starved Maspeth
would appreciate the new train line, but they also might be politically
opposed, as it would bring upheaval and development to the neighborhood.

Aecom's proposal also suggests new transit: that 1 train extension could make
a big difference. Red Hook has always been transit-starved, but, as with
Maspeth, I can see grassroots opposition to the community upheaval that would
result from a 1 train extension.

Perkins + Will's proposal to rezone the Newtown Creek industrial zone would
meet more of the residential need in the Bushwick area, but the transit in
that region is not yet sufficient to meet a huge influx of new residents: the
L and the M are already heavily loaded. The bus network would prove less
useful than expected for interesting historical reasons: NYC's bus network
exists along legacy streetcar routes that abruptly terminate along borough
borders (for what I imagine were political regions prior to borough
unification in 1898), and this section of Bushwick lies along the
Brooklyn/Queens border. So, the bus lines in the area don't always make sense
or take you where you need to go.

Some of the other ideas don't really relate to handling an influx of 9M
residents, but are in the Robert Moses vein of improvements (i.e. leveraging
existing yet overlooked details creatively to benefit the public),
particularly the "under highway" public space and the "subway stations as
public plazas" ideas.

The Javits Center and schoolyards ideas are kind-of silly, and the suspended
tram line, while a cool idea, wouldn't be worth the money.

[0]: [http://library.rpa.org/interactive/the-
triboro/](http://library.rpa.org/interactive/the-triboro/)

------
pj_mukh
San Francisco needs to re-orient its processes to include this sort of
urbanization desperately.

------
pdog
_> The city has not completed projects on the scale of Robert Moses since his
tenure._

Good. I think we all learned our lesson from Robert Moses the first time
around...

 _> It's time for New York to think big again._

No! Think small, local, and build from a bottom-up design.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Think small, local, and build from a bottom-up design_

What does this mean, practically?

~~~
potatolicious
Can't speak for OP, but I take it to mean what Jane Jacobs was a proponent of,
and what has been the opposite of modern American urban planning until now.

The general trend in American urban planning has been highly prescriptivist
and precise. Suburbs often have bylaws that prevent "too many" businesses of a
particular sort in an area. It's based on a very centrally-planned vision for
cities where you get your groceries from _there_ , your haircuts _there_ , and
entertain yourself at _that_ entertainment complex.

Using a place against its original planner's precisely envisioned purpose is
verboten. No, you can't have another supermarket in the neighborhood. No,
there is already another coffee shop too close to this proposed one. No, you
can't repurpose this land for a playground, because the children are
_supposed_ to play over there.

Urban areas experience it too - if you've worked in a modern American downtown
you've no doubt walked by the countless plazas that are deserted. Benches and
tables that looked real good on the architectural renderings but are severely
disused. Big office buildings fronted by "public space" that not even its own
tenants use regularly.

This has been especially severe in public housing projects - they were
designed with idyllic parkland and courtyards, which their designers
envisioned as isolated utopias, but ultimately ended up being deserted,
dangerous, and hotbeds of crime, because they were never where people wanted
to be, and was just void space.

The opposite of this is something that resembles more of the free market -
mixed use, relaxed zoning, so that the community can decide the amenities and
businesses it needs. Maybe there _should_ be a second supermarket, maybe that
empty lot _could_ be a playground.

The struggle between top-down prescriptivist and bottom-up market-like urban
planning is a huge one. In many ways Americans crave the efficiency,
character, and benefits of living in the bottom-up neighborhood, but also
crave the precise, reliable, and ordered nature of top-down cities.

~~~
emodendroket
I mean if you want no zoning you can live in Houston or something.

~~~
potatolicious
Ahah, that's why I said "market-like" \- the bottom-up urban planning approach
has properties that are _like_ free markets, but isn't an actual free market.
Zoning still needs to be a thing.

An actual "free market" \- i.e., little to no zoning whatsoever - would likely
be rather unpleasant. Sorry Houston.

In this school of thought the ideal urban planner sketches out the broad
strokes while allowing natural forces to fill in the spaces, but of course,
there is considerable disagreement over what exactly the broad strokes entail.

~~~
msandford
The only real problem in Houston is that it's taken too long to get mass
transit going. The lack of zoning isn't really a problem. It's that it takes
_forever_ to do anything to ease traffic. I wish we'd do like Brazil and get
BRT systems so that they could be built progressively and start reaping
benefits immediately.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit)

~~~
ska
The lack of zoning is a _massive_ problem. That combined with the cheap
surrounding land is why there are essentially no livable neighborhoods in
Houston in the sense that Jacobs was talking about.

Houston is a great example of what you get with unbridled suburban sprawl.
Much of the city isn't dense enough to justify real mass transit, which is
part of the problem you are seeing. It's a great example of how to keep land
prices low and automobile miles high, but not much else from a city planning
point of view.

~~~
potatolicious
I think sprawl and zoning are orthogonal issues honestly - the problem with
terrible suburban neighborhoods are largely caused by the same things as
terrible urban neighborhoods: the top-down master-plan philosophy of urban
planning.

If anything onerous suburban zoning tends to be far more painful than onerous
urban zoning.

The lack of livability is the result of overly restrictive zoning. Instead of
putting supermarkets and movie theaters where people _want_ them, they go
where planners have deemed The Proper Place. Most suburbs are characterized
but this, and it turns out top-down planners aren't actually very good at
foreseeing what residents want, and what will create the greatest quality of
life for them.

Agree with all the points about sprawl and toxic car-centric lifestyles, but
_even in its own context_ , these neighborhoods are still failures.

I've personally never lived in Houston, but there's almost no major city in
America where you can find actually _lax_ zoning. In almost all places it's
all incredibly restrictive - if anything urban areas tend to be a bit more lax
(they at least _entertain_ the idea of mixed-use development). Overplanning is
the disease, and both urban and suburban places can manifest it.

~~~
emodendroket
If people wanted to live right next to a movie theater they probably wouldn't
move to the suburbs.

------
hasbroslasher
Yeah, let's invest a bunch of money in this city that's going to be underwater
in ~50 years.

I imagine it'd work to just build upstate a ways instead of focus so much
energy on the parts of the city directly facing the water.

~~~
krschultz
No matter what you think will happen with global warming, there is a 0% chance
we're going to let NYC go underwater.

------
gremlinsinc
Never been to NY, but I think they should focus more on stemming the impact
from global warming than anything else... New York is estimated to be
completely underwater in less than 80 years. If that happens they might want
to look to Vienna for ideas on transportation, as boats will be the only mode
available.

~~~
Retric
Huge stretches of the Netherlands are below sea level, for some of the most
expensive real estate in the world it's not going to be an issue. Further NYC
is higher than you might think: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/17/new-
york-city-sea-l...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/17/new-york-city-
sea-level-rise_n_6700320.html)

