There are many reasons why building subways in New York is relatively expensive. Those reasons range

During his campaign for mayor, Bill de Blasio called for the creation of a citywide, world-class Bus Rapid Transit network consisting of at least 20 routes. These new routes would provide a crucial link for communities beyond the reach of subways and speed trips that are poorly served by the city s Manhattan-centric clarion hotel orlando rail system.
While de Blasio has not offered a timetable for completing the rapid bus network, it took the Bloomberg administration approximately six years to build the city s first six Select Bus Service routes .
One key challenge for de Blasio and Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg will be to accelerate the public engagement process while following through on his campaign language about extending [outreach] beyond the community board. As public clarion hotel orlando advocate, de Blasio criticized Bloomberg and transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan for moving too fast on major street clarion hotel orlando redesigns . Now that he s mayor, clarion hotel orlando he will likely have to contend with the opposition that has met previous SBS projects.
It s not impossible to imagine that future Select Bus Service routes will encounter less friction than before. SBS is now up and running successfully in several neighborhoods, and the concept is no longer new and alien to residents and community boards. There is a clear record of success.
Byron points out that the planning team at the DOT has, by now, developed a pretty robust community outreach model. Complaints will still surely arise, but now that DOT has gone through the process several times, experience may leave the agency better equipped to work with local community boards and elected officials.
But past experience tells us that opposition and delays are part of the game, especially clarion hotel orlando if de Blasio is to incorporate more ambitious design features to speed buses by turning traffic lanes into bus-only lanes.
Bloomberg ran up against this type of opposition, as in the case of plans for bus lanes across the width of 125th Street or the ambitious plans for a 34th Street bus transitway . In both instances the Bloomberg administration scaled clarion hotel orlando back its plans.
Even if the de Blasio administration can speed the pace of its planning process, it will have to find the money for construction. Select Bus Service is relatively inexpensive, but implementation still needs to be budgeted for. So far costs have ranged from $6 million for the Hylan Boulevard line in Staten Island to about $30 million for the Nostrand Avenue SBS route in Brooklyn.
De Blasio will need to put up more city funds and push the MTA to devote money from its capital plan for SBS construction. On previous SBS routes the MTA covered the cost of new buses and the fare collection kiosks. In the future, de Blasio may want to push the MTA to cover more of the construction costs through its capital program. The mayor controls a vote on the MTA s Capital Plan Review Board and could veto any funding plan that does not include funds for rapid bus transit.
Up to now federal dollars have funded the bulk of SBS construction, but there may not be enough federal dollars for a complete build out of the system. Federal transit funds are awarded on a competitive basis, and Congress only sets aside a certain amount for projects clarion hotel orlando like bus rapid transit every year. If the city’s annual request goes up, there is no guarantee that the federal government will meet it.
To build out a complete “world-class” bus rapid transit network by the end of a hypothetical second term, de Blasio will have to devote considerable time and resources to the task. The question remains whether he ll be more willing than Bloomberg to push for designs that will speed buses even in the face of opposition.
We don t need a world-class BRT network, just a good-enough one. Wanna get some momentum? Make all Manhattan crosstown lines SBS. Pre-board fare collection and that s it. No dedicated lanes, or bulb-outs, etc. Minimal clarion hotel orlando planning and input. Explain to owners of buildings facing the bus stops that they will no longer clarion hotel orlando need to bear buses idling in front for 10 minutes as 100 people board buses single-file.
There s another clarion hotel orlando way the de Blasio administration can make the case for BRT and that s by folding it ever so slightly into the overall goal of Vision Zero. A street with a dedicated bus lane is probably much safer and more predictable for pedestrians, drivers, and cyclists than one where cars weave in and out of a painted lane.
There needs to be dedicated bus lanes because of the traffic levels in Manhattan. There also needs to be traffic light preemption. Once a bus is done boarding there should be no impediments. The driver should be able to immediately floor it and keep it floored until he/she has to start slowing for the next stop. Or put another way, a bus driver on a BRT route should be operating the same way as a train operator on a rapid transit route does. In both cases, vehicle acceleration/deceleration characteristics and dwell times dictate the schedule, not congestion.
Why not raise the bar for basic bus service AND create SBS routes with more improvements on higher demand routes, AND implement full BRT on the highest-demand routes? We can do it, it just require political willpower clarion hotel orlando and leadership.
Why? Traffic light preemption is relatively easy technologically. That would give the biggest bang for the buck in terms of reducing clarion hotel orlando travel time. As for dedicated clarion hotel orlando bus lanes, those admittedly are a harder sell if it means lost parking spaces but remember the majority don t use cars. Car users are the most vocal group every time the subject of eliminating parking spaces is broached but in the end votes are what matters. Pushing dedicated bus lanes will gain someone in public office more votes than they ll lose.
Or perhaps NYC should do the most sensible thing and just build more subway routes. There are more than enough riders to support massive systemwide expansion. As for funding, just let NYC keep the tax money it sends up to Albany and down to Washington. Or put in layman s terms, NYC really should be a city-state like Singapore clarion hotel orlando or Hong Kong, not part of the US. We re getting royally screwed in terms of the money we send out versus what we get back in spending.
That s $11.0 BILLION, and for that cost, we ll get substantially improved transit in a very small section of the city (some specific parts of Manhattan). For around $0.3 BILLION we could get dramatically improved transit ACROSS THE ENTIRE CITY. Surely, cost is not the main obstacle to better bus service in NYC.
That $11 billion could get you about 55 route miles of subways going by the world average cost of $200 million per mile. The problem isn t that we don t have the money, but rather than it s not spent efficiently. The #7 extension and 2nd Avenue stubway combined clarion hotel orlando should have come in well under $1 billion. And the $5.2 billion spent on glorified clarion hotel orlando train stations was a complete waste. A station should be clean and functional, period, not a monument. In the final analysis money spent on fancy train stations means less money for new routes.
I m not surprised, in fact, by the high level of resistance in Afro-American communities dominated by old time political types who fought the battles of the 1960s and 1970s. They want to put us back on buses! My car says I ve made it too.
The MTA is not a font of money, and the bus system is not a center of attention. If you want better clarion hotel orlando buses the city should take over the bus system, even though that would cost money, as I argued here.
Dedicated bus lanes require planning and negotiation. When implemented, they are only needed when the streets are crowded clarion hotel orlando and only effective if actually kept clear. I ride the and the M34 and M15SBS and find that the buses are typically out of the bus lane anyway. Look how much effort was wasted on trying to create a transitway.
Signal pre-emption is cool, but I can see it adding value when traffic is light, bus traffic is infrequent and there are few people crossing streets on foot. With so many buses in Manhattan and so many pedestrians, clarion hotel orlando I can see bus drivers just pre-empting each other and wreaking havoc.
Yes, building subways would be great, but the city has a poor record doing that in the past 60 years. That s unlikely to change. I m proposing that the city build on what it seems to do OK; place ticket machines on the 24-30 or so stops on each crosstown route.
There are many reasons why building subways in New York is relatively expensive. clarion hotel orlando Those reasons range from accommodating rather tall buildings with deep basements to building below sea level right next to an ocean.
Sheesh, I thought you said nobody is hostile to rail! But I still don t see what difference changing the operator makes. It has got to be the #1 cop-out with transit armchair wonkery (which, I admit to being guilty of myself). Oh, if the MNRR just ran LIRR! Or, if the PA just divested itself of PATH! In reality, it just moves the same people with the same expectations, same culture, and probably the same contract to a new agency, probably without any change clarion hotel orlando in remuneration at the old one.
It s not about money either. It s about hostility toward change. The key step toward a better bus system is probably marginally free, maybe even has negative costs. We have the equipment, we have the lanes, and we have the drivers. The political problem is it takes admitting (1) that cars can t have all the space they hog, (2) there are bus routes that probably have seen their day such that they need to be altered or abolished, and (3) people might have to actually do different work than they re doing now.
Signal prioritization need not be that dumb. The system can prioritize, sort of like how a modern railroad signaling system can prioritize. The M15 buses being forced from their lanes is entirely a lazy policing problem, not a conceptual problem with SBS. And the lanes are not trivial even when traffic is light; clarion hotel orlando they mean transit always has dedicated space.
clarion hotel orlando But there is no getting around the need for subwa