NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal

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NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal
Posted by Gold_12TH on Fri May 11 19:19:58 2012 edf40wrjww2msgDetailB:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Each morning, Karl Zielaznicki boards a bus in Matawan and joins the commuter cavalcade in a 61-minute procession along America’s most-congested state, through the nation’s busiest tunnel and into the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. That’s the easy part. Next, there’s the cattle-crossing to make it out of America’s busiest bus terminal, and the mile-long walk through the obstacle course of Manhattan to get to his East Side office in the Chrysler Building. Certainly, Zielaznicki must be cheering an idea by New Jersey Transportation Commissioner Jim Simpson to have some NJ Transit buses pick up passengers on the East Side and bypass the dreaded terminal, right? "I don’t see how this would work," Zielaznicki said. "In Midtown, it takes forever to get crosstown. At one time, the MTA estimated that the average operating speed of the 34th Street crosstown buses was only 4.5 mph." Perhaps this will be a harder sell, afterall. Thinking aloud at NJ Transit’s monthly board meeting this week, Simpson floated the idea of giving some bus riders the option of taking the Port Authority Bus Terminal out of their commuting equation. "You start the bus service on the East Side of Manhattan at 42nd Street and you make some series of stops," he said. "Rather than having all these people go to the cramped Port Authority building, you pick them up along the way. Then you get right into the (Lincoln) tunnel, rather than having everybody charge to this terminal that’s functionally obsolescent — particularly now that (bus service) demand is growing." When Stan Wrobel, NJ Transit’s deputy general manager of bus operations, noted interstate buses could be restricted by New York traffic and pedestrian patterns, Simpson responded that New York transit agencies have express bus service that travels to the city’s outer reaches. "To me, it’s a better mousetrap," Simpson said. "We can’t do much more with the existing building that we have at the Port Authority. And if you think about it, all the people that have walked to the Port Authority building, many are starting on the East Side." He asked NJ Transit officials to look into the East Side bus idea as a pilot program. NJ Transit pays the Port Authority $1.78 million a year to use the bus terminal. Simpson acknowledged there were a lot of "moving parts," between the planning and traffic and jurisdictions, but NJ Transit Executive Director Jim Weinstein said the agency would take a serious look at the idea. "We have to look at all that — but it’s worth looking at," he said. Commuter Zielaznicki said that on the rare occasions he takes the bus crosstown in the evening, it takes more than 20 minutes to travel along 42nd Street from Lexington Avenue, where his office is located, to Eighth Avenue, where the bus terminal is located. "Plus, when these new Fifth Avenue buses would get to the tunnel, they would not have direct access to the tunnel like the Port Authority Bus Terminal buses," he said. "They would have to snake around to get to the tunnel. I see no time saved and millions wasted in planning for something that won’t work." ---http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/05/commuters_skeptical_about_port.html
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Re: NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal
Posted by NJT Oradell on Sat May 12 12:39:49 2012, in response to NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal, posted by Gold_12TH on Fri May 11 19:19:58 2012. edf40wrjww2msgDetailB:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d They can't solve this with buses, you need more rail, and cancelling the rail tunnel was a monumental error. Yes, it would've cost a lot, but it will cost more in the long run now that it has been cancelled. Eventually it will have to be built, and it will only cost more to build the longer it's delayed. A regional transit pass is also necessary. Nickel and dimeing people as they transfer from system to system is not only unfair and more expensive, but it discourages people from even trying mass transit. Refusing to regulate vehicle traffic to the lower part of Manhattan is another major flaw. While confusing and annoying at start up, once people knew they couldn't take their vehicles into southern Manhattan during week days without a permit, the program would work. A permit, displayed in the window would be required to pass the check point that would be manned by police or traffic agents. Such permits could be permanent or short term depending on the vehicle's need to travel in southern Manhattan during the week. New York state, who has refused to allow NYC to implement such a ban, would make money on the sale of permits, so why they refuse to act is beyond me.
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Re: NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal
Posted by JAzumah on Sat May 12 12:48:06 2012, in response to Re: NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal, posted by NJT Oradell on Sat May 12 12:39:49 2012. edf40wrjww2msgDetailB:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Simple. The regional infrastructure does not exist to support such a program. Do you think the Staten Island Expressway and Cross Bronx Expressway are sufficient to deal with all the regional traffic crossing Manhattan? Until the regional powers provide all the mass transit that is needed, the car is still a viable and necessary component of the system.
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Re: NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal
Posted by NJT Oradell on Sat May 12 13:11:28 2012, in response to Re: NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal, posted by JAzumah on Sat May 12 12:48:06 2012. edf40wrjww2msgDetailB:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Nonsense. By prohibiting certain vehicles from the area you open up traffic lanes that were previously used by people traveling to the now prohibited area. Those now traveling through the prohibited area as a means of getting from one side of the prohibited area to another would now have the space on the roads outside the prohibited area. Permits allowing people who, for example live in southern Brooklyn and travel to jobs in Jersey City via Canal St in Manhattan could also be available to those who can demonstrate a need for travel through the prohibited area. After 9/11 they prohibited certain vehicles from certain places, but it wasn't done efficiently nor was it meant to be a permanent plan, so it worked poorly. The issuance of permits doesn't have to be that restrictive either. The parking garage owners would use all of their influence, and they have MUCH influence, to squash any plan that puts them out of business. And over time, as the infrastructure is better built for the purpose, and people become more accustomed to it, you tighten the requirements to obtain a permit. What's being done now is nothing, and it's not working. A graduated plan of permits, started sooner rather than later, would, in time, benefit all.
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Re: NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal
Posted by WayneJay on Sat May 12 18:50:55 2012, in response to Re: NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal, posted by NJT Oradell on Sat May 12 12:39:49 2012. edf40wrjww2msgDetailB:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Agreed! I think it was very short-sighted to not build the additional rail tunnel.
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Re: NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal
Posted by JAzumah on Sat May 12 20:27:51 2012, in response to Re: NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal, posted by NJT Oradell on Sat May 12 13:11:28 2012. edf40wrjww2msgDetailB:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d I don't think you understand how this works. People do not want to travel through Manhattan. They are forced to because the other options aren't so great. The vehicles that you force out of the core are not typically using the peripheral roads to get there. There aren't that many cars trying to get to Manhattan during rush hours in relation to the number of jobs there. The purpose of congestion pricing was to monetize the people passing through because they are deemed to be wealthy people driving to Manhattan. This is congestion mythology. The Cross Bronx Expressway is an irregular roadway primarily because it bypasses Manhattan. The Brooklyn Queens Expressway is irregular for the same reason. The Staten Island Expressway is somewhat more reliable, but it is practically impassible at certain points during rush hours and on the weekends. The Belt Parkway has similar traffic patterns to the SIE. Notice a pattern? Your idea would bring our region to a halt by making most of the non-Manhattan arteries impassible with an overload of bypass traffic. The idea that any of this money would be used on transit is laughable at best. This was the problem with the original plan. It gave the MTA the East River bridges, but would have pulled all of its funding from MTA Bus as well all of its various contributions. The expected profit off those bridges was up to $600M. MTA Bus costs $422M this year. The typical capital program contribution is $105M. That is $527M already spoken for and the balance would have been used to buy off the suburbs (remember the big scramble to add Suffolk to MTA Bus). I am not interested in implementing a toll program unless the infrastructure can support it. We don't build new transit, we don't want to rebuilt deteriorating assets and there are no plans to add road capacity to do this. I don't play the "screw the driver" game.
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Re: NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal
Posted by NIMBYkiller on Sat May 12 22:55:56 2012, in response to Re: NJ Commuters skeptical about idea to bypass Port Authority's bus terminal, posted by JAzumah on Sat May 12 20:27:51 2012. edf40wrjww2msgDetailB:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d What if you leave major crossing arteries open to all? Canal st, 34th-36th sts, delancy, broome, etc
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