Jehosaphat

thanks for the clarification, Tal. I only was at Staten island at the ferry terminal.

TalB

Bus Rapid Transit program may roll out in nine locations in Queens
Bus Rapid Transit program may roll out in nine locations in Queens

BY John Lauinger
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, June 7th 2009, 4:00 AM


Giancarli for News

BRT was established in New York for the first time last year as a pilot program on the BX12 line along Fordham Road in the Bronx.

Bus Rapid Transit - a system that allows buses to function more like a subway - is key to expanding the city's mass transit, some advocates and transportation officials argue.

BRT was established in New York for the first time last year as a pilot program on the BX12 line along Fordham Road in the Bronx. By providing a separate right-of-way for buses and allowing for curbside fare payment, among other features, travel time dropped by 11 minutes - or 19% - from one end of the line to the other, city records show.

"This is the brave new frontier of public transportation in New York City," said Wiley Norvell of the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives.

The city is now pushing BRT plans in Manhattan, Brooklyn and on Staten Island, but not in Queens, where local merchants previously opposed a Merrick Blvd. pilot, fearing it would remove on-street parking and hurt business.

But the city is proposing a second wave of BRT lines over the next decade. Whether this transit frontier will run through Queens - and if so, where - will depend on various factors, including input received at two public meetings in Jackson Heights and Jamaica last week, officials said.

The city Transportation Department has identified 31 potential BRT corridors, focusing largely on areas underserved by mass transit or targeted for growth.

Nine of those are in Queens, including southeastern Queens; Utopia/Fresh Meadows; Middle Village; the Long Island Expressway; the Long Island City waterfront and the Queens-Manhattan connections, where subways are jam-packed.

Joe Barr, director of transit development for the DOT, said eight to 12 corridors across the city will be selected this summer for further study. Projects that are ultimately selected will be built over the next decade.

The Bronx pilot was built in about a year, Barr noted. "If people are looking for short-term improvements to their transit service," he said, "this is really a good way to deliver that."

Norvell said BRT projects should be prioritized when lawmakers carve out the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's five-year capital plan this fall.

BRT is a much more effective way to add mass transit capacity than building new subways, he noted. BRT costs about $10 million per mile. The Second Ave. subway, by contrast, is projected to cost $1 billion to $2 billion per mile.

Ted Orosz, director of long-range bus planning for New York City Transit, said areas that lack subways, such as southeastern Queens, should get first dibs.

"You want to expand the reach of the transit system," he said, noting that areas where the subways are overcrowded should also be high on the list.

City Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing), who chairs the Council's transportation committee, thinks BRT can provide a quicker link between the borough's major transit hubs.

"It's really ridiculous and maddening that you could travel by mass transit faster between Flushing and Manhattan as opposed to Flushing and Forest Hills," he said.

Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) pointed to BRT as a way to handle the growth in Long Island City.

All told, about 100 people attended last week's meetings in Queens. In Jamaica on Wednesday, it seemed as if city officials outnumbered the public.

"There should be a lot more people out here," said Bruce Pulling, a truck driver and regular bus rider from Oakland Gardens.

He wants to see a BRT line running along the Horace Harding Expressway, from the Queens-Nassau border to Jamaica.

"Anything to get more buses out there," he said.

jlauinger@nydailynews.com

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2ND AVENUE SUBWAY CONSTRUCTION CAUSES EVACUATION OF 1772 SECOND AVE. - New York Post
DIGS AT 2ND AVE. SUBWAY

FURY OVER EVACUATION

By TOM NAMAKO Transit Reporter

Last updated: 11:33 am
June 10, 2009
Posted: 2:14 am
June 10, 2009

Second Avenue Subway construction is being blamed for the sudden evacuation of residents at an already teetering Upper East Side building last weekend.

About 18 people at 1772 Second Ave., near East 93rd Street, had to be relocated when Department of Buildings inspectors discovered cracks in the façade they feared could lead to collapse, officials said.

It is unknown when residents will be allowed back in the six-story walkup.

"Saturday we were on site to escort tenants, between 9 a.m. and noon, in and out of the building so they could get personal belongings because they'd be out of their apartments for a while," said Seth Donlin, spokesman for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

"It was their last chance to grab their stuff until they're able to come back."

Business owners and neighbors say vibrations from the never-ending construction on the MTA Second Avenue project played a role the evacuation.

"Absolutely, without a doubt, it was the construction," said Eddie Crowe, who owns Crowe's Nest bar down the block from the apartment building.

"Just last week they had to install sheds over some buildings on my block because debris was falling off the façade."

Marcelo Ronchini, who owns nearby Nina's Argentinian Pizzeria, said, "There's no coincidence here. Buildings have been suffering all along the construction route."

The MTA is "cooperating with the Department of Buildings and continues to closely monitor vibrations, which remain at acceptable levels," said spokesman Jeremy Soffin.

Building records show a long list of complaints about the walk-up, including one from 1989 that says the structure is leaning eight inches to the north -- a serious structural problem that was never rectified.

A January 2008 complaint said the building was shaking and vibrating, which affected its stability, the records show.

Inspectors are still looking into the cause of cracks in the building's façade, said DOB spokeswoman Carly Sullivan.

Additional reporting by Perry Chiaramonte

tom.namako@nypost.com

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TalB

Second Ave. on snail rail
Second Ave. on snail rail

Shaky bldgs. a drag on dig

By JESSICA SIMEONE and TOM NAMAKO

Last Updated: 3:12 AM, September 26, 2009

Posted: 3:12 AM, September 26, 2009

The $4.5 billion MTA mega-project has suffered yet another setback, this time due to shaky apartment buildings.

MTA crews can't carry out permits for blasting underground rock near the two unstable structures near East 92nd Street until both are shored up, the MTA and city Department of Buildings said yesterday. Both had to be evacuated in June.

While the delay won't push back the subway's overall July 2017 completion date -- which was recently changed from 2015 and originally slated for 2012 -- workers since July have resorted to digging with machinery instead of using faster blasting methods, officials said.

One of the buildings -- 1772 Second Ave. -- has already been stabilized, the MTA said. Tenants returned there several weeks ago.

"It was pretty awful living in a welfare hotel," said one of the tenants, Jane Foss, who recently returned after living in a hotel. "We still don't have gas for our stoves and ovens."

She said she was told the building had been equipped with angled metal supports to act as a "shock-absorbing system."

Work on shoring up the second building, 1768 Second Ave., is scheduled to begin next week, the MTA said.

The MTA hopes to begin blasting rock for the subway tunnel in mid-November.

MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin called the building conditions "pre-existing."

"We do not expect the delay to impact the overall project schedule," he said.

The buildings were evacuated in a frenzied rush in June.

Tenants scrambled back from vacations and work to grab personal items before they moved in with friends or checked into hotels.

City documents show that the two buildings had structural issues for years. By 2006, one was leaning north by 10 inches, and another had a crumbling facade, records show.

But residents and business owners say vibrations from the construction have only worsened the problems.

The MTA denies that charge, and says all of the vibrations meet building standards.

tom.namako@nypost.com

__________________
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