
The Triboro: Transit plan for the NYC Boroughs - jseliger
http://library.rpa.org/interactive/the-triboro/
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ktamura
>Providing a reliable connection between the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn by
rail will provide more direct trips within and between these boroughs than
either the subway or bus networks can do today. Buses make up 43% of transit
ridership in these three boroughs, but buses operate at an average speed of 8
mph as they fight the city’s heavy traffic.

It's amazing to see New York City suffer almost half a century after Robert
Moses's decline.

One of the worst consequences of Moses's 600 (or was it 700?) miles of highway
is how residential areas outside of Manhattan developed: Because he built the
city around highways and hence commuting by car, residential areas outside of
Manhattan developed into thinly spread suburbs, making it near impossible to
create an efficient network of trains. To New York City's credit, they've made
a laudable comeback with subways: After all, it's _the_ city you can live
without owning cars in the United States. Yet, our generation continues to pay
the price of Moses's ego and lack of foresight.

RM is a humbling reminder that getting wrong stuff done so effectively has
grave and lasting consequences.

~~~
CPLX
The story of Robert Moses is a fascinating one and hugely relevant to the
shape of NYC, but I'm not sure he really had much to do with the specific
issue under discussion. With some relatively small exceptions the city was
highly developed and dense before Moses and the car came along, and while he
did ram highways through it, he didn't have the effect of making it less
dense.

This proposal discusses connecting well populated inner city areas laterally,
where are these thinly spread suburbs you mention?

The issue described here is that the rail transit system is highly Manhattan
centric, which well predates Moses.

~~~
tashoecraft
While the issue started and was establish before Moses, it was his control
over nearly all the transportation budget that prevented any new growth. If he
had been friendly to mass transit, nyc would have far more subways options.

~~~
Spooky23
You can argue that both ways.

As public sector unions appears and pay & conditions improved, the _only_ way
that NYC mass transit has been remotely sustainable has been by consolidating
the Moses empire into the MTA. The tolls provide the cash flow to sustain the
system.

It's impossible to self-sustain the current subways, and the perpetual near-
bankruptcy of NYC throughout most of the 20th century wouldn't have allowed
for subway construction at all.

Moses's genius was getting the state government to give a shit about NYC and
create the authorities to bond his projects.

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chris_va
I'll believe it when I see it. The original IRT network was built in 2 years
(!). They've been working on the 2nd avenue line since 1972 and it still isn't
open.

~~~
hueving
Modern public transit projects in the US are an embarrassment. It takes 20
years now to do something that used to be 1 year. :(

~~~
techsupporter
I suspect it has a lot to do with building in urbanized areas and using
construction and siting methods that care about things like public input and
how the environment is affected. (Note: I do not deny that the process can be
twisted to suit a particular goal of a small minority--see also Sound
Transit's East Link planning through Bellevue, WA.)

Instead of the days of the "city fathers" coming in and declaring that a thing
will be built in a place and that which exists can either get out of the way
or get flattened--and the thing being built in a way that benefits those who
greased the right palms with the public coming in a distant second or third--
we study, plan, and consider a lot more.

As a secondary bit, we also don't have the financial capacity, either by
accident or intent of the legislature and voters. Many projects are built with
bonding authority backed by voter-approved taxes. The legislature of an area
restricts what authority and taxes can be used and in what quantities. Dallas
Area Rapid Transit's light rail system was built with a 1% sales tax in member
cities...and it still doesn't extend to every city that was a charter member.
Sound Transit's light rail and express bus system was built with a combination
of taxes, mostly on vehicle registrations and sales, that are under periodic
assault from statewide initiatives. Many countries have a "land bank" where
the national or provincial/state government "front" the money for the local
bonds. (Like Canada and British Columbia did in Vancouver.) Most U.S. states
do not.

We "did this" to ourselves. It's not the construction, it's the mechanics of
getting there.

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Kinnard
This was so well written that it makes me want to hop on a plane to New York
and give it a ride.

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StanislavPetrov
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. -Mike Tyson

As a New Yorker, I'll be stunned if anything comes of this "plan" except
hundreds of billions of dollars wasted and endless hours of sitting in traffic
while I pass construction areas filled with equipment and completely devoid of
workers or activity.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
An amusing thing about this proposal is that it comes only a few weeks after
De Blasio’s plan to put a light rail along the Brooklyn/Queens waterfront.

Though it would personally benefit me greatly, I must confess that it would
mostly be a convenience for yuppies who can afford to live along the water.
This Triboro would benefit people who _need_ better transportation.

~~~
Nav_Panel
> An amusing thing about this proposal is that it comes only a few weeks after
> De Blasio’s plan to put a light rail along the Brooklyn/Queens waterfront.

The Triboro RX proposal has been around for a much longer time than De
Blasio's light rail thing. Here's an article about it from 2013:
[http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/07/transit-project-
new-y...](http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/07/transit-project-new-york-
mayoral-candidates-should-be-talking-about/6271/)

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bryanwb
Does it seem odd to anyone else that this plan seems to pretend northern NJ
doesn't exist? It would make much more sense to me to make the "triboro" a
full-circle rather than a half-circle. If you look at underground map of
London you don't see any half-circles.

~~~
aninhumer
This and the rest of the subway system. It kind of hilarious looking at that
map and seeing a dense web of subway lines with none of them going to New
Jersey.

I'm guessing this is because the administrative boundary means there's no
incentive for New York governance to do anything to benefit New Jersey?

~~~
akgerber
There are subway lines going to New Jersey— they are just operated by the Port
Authority as the PATH.

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Spooky23
Good luck convincing CSX to share rails. It took Amtrak decades to get a deal
in place for the Hudson River line.

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b34r
Why not just extend the G? It already is Queens<->Brooklyn.

~~~
acjohnson55
That would require a whole bunch of grade-separated right-of-way & track that
doesn't currently exist. The brilliance of the Triboro is that it's all
already pretty much there.

Note also that there's a long history of truncating the G train [1].

I personally would love to see the Franklin Ave Shuttle extended to make a
loop out of Brooklyn portion of the current G train route along Church Ave,
connecting north-central Brooklyn to Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Long Island
City. That's probably a pipe dream.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_(New_York_City_Subway_servic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_\(New_York_City_Subway_service\))

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bydo
Why call it the Triboro? Even leaving behind the negative associations (one
assumes advocates of rail would not want to call to mind thoughts of Robert
Moses), there are, err, _four_ boroughs it proposes to connect.

~~~
untog
The Staten Island connection is shown as a possible future extension, not part
of this plan.

~~~
elliottcarlson
As a Staten Island resident, this sucks as usual. I lived here for 10 years,
moved to Manhattan and recently moved back because I just can't get the same
amount of space for the price in the other boroughs. The work on the Verrazano
and SI Expressway has slowed down traffic to worse delays than before, and
this island really needs some better transportation options.

Currently, I take the express bus every day to my office in the Flatiron
district - this takes me on average an hour and 10 minutes door to door, but
can easily hit 2 hours due to something happening on either the Verrazano or
the FDR. Alternatively, I live close enough to the (there is only one) train
on Staten Island that can take me to the Ferry - from there I would get off
with everyone else and fight with the crowds taking the various subways up
town. This commute is about an hour and 20 minutes, and is broken up in 3
parts that are mildly frustrating during each leg of the commute.

Obviously a direct subway connection to the island would be amazing, either to
Brooklyn or Manhattan directly, but that plan was scrapped in the 20's and
isn't likely to come back any time soon. Some transportation proposals include
commuter connections to the NJ light rail via Bayonne; and there is a 20 year
project ahead to improve and widen the Verrazano - I don't know how much of
that time will cause more delays than there already are.

As the North Shore gets gentrified with the new luxury residential buildings
like URL (Urban Ready Life - _sigh_ \- though it looks like it has now been
renamed URBY...), the Wheel (the future world's tallest ferris wheel), Empire
Outlets, etc - the area will become a hot new destination for those looking to
escape the ever rising prices of the coveted Brooklyn and New Jersey areas
like Williamsburg, Crown Heights, Jersey City, etc. Hopefully they have a lot
more in store for transportation options when it comes to the island when
these projects open to the public over the course of 2017.

Sorry for the rant...

~~~
IIAOPSW
It isn't a coincidence that commuting time and price of a sq-ft of space are
negatively correlated. I guarantee you if someone built a 5 min connection
from downtown to Staten Island, the real-estate on SI would very quickly be
developed to the exact same state as all the other places that are 5 min from
downtown. The thing you want (affordable, spacious, fast transit) simply can't
exist.

~~~
dgant
They can if the supply greatly increases. That's among the reasons why a
project longer the Triboro brings so much opportunity. Decentralizing New York
real estate would drastically improve affordability.

~~~
IIAOPSW
Then more people will see that New York provides better bang for the buck
(economic opportunities per rent dollar), which will cause population to
increase by migration, which will increase demand, which will eventually get
us back to where we started.

I'm not saying this proposal is bad. I quite like it. But let's not get the
causation backwards. Urban poor aren't poor because of bad access to transit.
Urban poor have bad access to transit because they are poor. Building transit
ultimately changes the real estate value along the line, temporarily makes
everyone's rent cheaper, and permanently increases the population of the city.

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pimlottc
The top image is the new splash screen. Why not lead with a map of the
proposed line above the fold, instead of a pretty but non-informative title
page that leads into a page full of text?

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opticalflow
This proposal sounds great, but seems to wave its hands furiously about right-
of-way and eminent domain. I used to live in Astoria on Ditmars Blvd, and the
proposed line would most certainly be going on/over thousands of private
residences. I presume their placement is to try and connect this to the end
stop of the N subway line, but It's not like Astoria is a junkyard or
railyard, it's a dense residential neighborhood with single family and multi-
family housing.

~~~
kneisley
The plan here is to use the existing above-ground rail line that runs parallel
to Ditmars from the park, then along the BQE and into Brooklyn. It is the line
that literally has a bridge over the Astoria-Ditmars stop with all the Greek
murals.

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aj7
WITHIN BOROUGH, just try to get from LGA to the Ronkonkoma LIRR line. Not an
unreasonable request. The line shows sort of helps. But at the least, it
should have a station at LGA.

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chx
In a dream world this would go underground at Jackson Heights and connect LGA
to the subway system.

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ChrisArgyle
As a Bronx resident this sounds very exciting.

As a jaded consumer of modern media this sounds suspiciously one-sided. What
are the downsides? It doesn't seem to generate revenue or lower costs for the
city. Why would a politician back this plan?

