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| RPA: The Fourth Regional Plan: Create a fully integrated, regional transit system (1456700) | |||
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RPA: The Fourth Regional Plan: Create a fully integrated, regional transit system |
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Posted by GojiMet86 on Fri Dec 1 10:23:22 2017 Gateway: http://fourthplan.org/action/gatewayGateway Build new rail tunnels under the Hudson and East Rivers The region is in dire need of a new train tunnel under the Hudson River. Planning and engineering for Amtrak’s Gateway project are underway, but must be accelerated. It must also be modified to include an extension to Queens. As currently planned, Gateway service dead-ends at Penn Station. Extending the tracks to Sunnyside Yards in Queens would provide tremendous benefit to the region by providing travelers with direct crosstown service between New Jersey and Long Island, and greatly increase the efficiency of train movements—increasing capacity across the Hudson River by 38 percent and across the East River by 68 percent. Getting shovels in the ground is of critical urgency to the region’s economic vitality and quality of life. The design and approvals process for Gateway is both moving too slowly and failing to promote a much more efficient project for New Jersey commuters and the region Despite existing train tunnels being at capacity for a long time, and flooding from Superstorm Sandy accelerating the need to conduct extensive repairs to them, the Gateway project continues to move forward at a snail’s pace, with its earliest projected completion date being 2026. Considering the daily delays NJ Transit commuters and Amtrak travelers suffer every day, this is simply unacceptable. What’s more, the Gateway project as planned—with service terminating at Penn Station—is short-sighted in its ability to create a true regional rail system for the tri-state area. A far more efficient scheme would give trains the ability to run straight through Penn, instead of dead-ending there and turning back. Trains traveling through Penn Station could run much closer together, increasing the capacity of the station by 30 percent or more. Instead of terminating at Penn Station, Gateway should be extended to Sunnyside Yards in western Queens to provide Crosstown Service As critical as it is to get the Gateway tunnels under construction as soon as possible, the project should be modified to extend through Manhattan and into Sunnyside Yards in Queens. By providing crosstown service, passengers could travel directly between New Jersey and Long Island, thus increasing regional connectivity while also drastically increasing the capacity of the investment. A through-running configuration, with fewer and wider platforms at Penn Station, would allow for an additional six to nine trains per hour under the Hudson River on top of the additional 24 trains the new Gateway tunnels would allow. These 30-33 trains represent up to a 68 percent increase of what can run under the East River today. This additional capacity could be used to provide new rail service in parts of New Jersey that are currently reliant on commuter buses (Bergen Loop). Old rail lines in Middlesex, Ocean, and Monmouth counties could be reactivated and connected into the NJ Transit system and Manhattan—greatly improving commuting times and reducing vehicular traffic in New Jersey and across the river. Building crosstown tracks would also provide additional redundancy across the East River in the event service in the existing tunnels were disrupted. Build a station at Third Avenue A new rail station should be built at 31st Street and Third Avenue to provide New Jersey commuters better access to the region’s greatest concentration of jobs, in East Midtown. This station could also ultimately serve as a major hub station linking crosstown into the larger regional rail system proposed in this plan. Use the new through-running tracks for freight during off-hours Gateway East could become an important intra-regional freight rail line by connecting New Jersey’s rail freight network and the Ports Newark and Elizabeth with the Lower Montauk freight line in Queens. This would allow goods currently carried by trucks from New Jersey to Queens and Brooklyn to be shipped overnight via rail, thus reducing the number of noisy and polluting trucks crossing the two rivers and traveling through New York City. At least one tunnel should be constructed to accommodate rail cars with a height clearance of up to 21 feet to enable the operation of freight during off-hours. Outcomes By increasing the passenger capacity of the proposed rail tunnels across the Hudson River, Gateway East would support additional employment growth in Manhattan and distribute benefits to New Jersey and other parts of the region. By providing more rail service, it also supports a region with more sustainable land use and energy use, and jobs in locations that can be accessed by a larger number of neighborhoods and residents. Specifically, the project would bring about the following benefits to the region’s residents: - Direct access to the east side of Manhattan for New Jersey residents - New direct rail service from Bergen, Passaic, Rockland, and Orange counties - Expansion of rail service in Middlesex, Monmouth, and Ocean counties - Substantial reduction in both the number of cars and commuter buses traversing the Hudson River, and congestion and pollution in New Jersey and Manhattan - Redundancy in the event of a catastrophic event (flooding, terrorism, etc.) - The opportunity to create an intra-regional freight rail service that would reduce the number of trucks traversing major vehicular water crossings and New York City Paying for It The Gateway Project as currently conceived is expected to cost $24-29 billion, including $17 billion for the tunnels alone. Turning it into a real crosstown service by extending tracks to Sunnyside Yards would add $4 billion in construction costs, plus indirect costs that can be as high as the construction costs. Like other major capital investments, a key to financing crosstown is to reduce the cost of building big rail projects. Some of the revenue needed could come from new real estate development near the new Third Avenue station on the east side of Manhattan or a ticket surcharge, but most would require a new revenue source, such as carbon pricing or new tolling.  Penn Station: http://fourthplan.org/action/penn-station Penn Station Expand, overhaul, and unify the Penn Station Complex New York’s Penn Station, the busiest station in the Americas, is a congested, uninviting, and dangerous underground complex. It needs to be transformed into an expansive and gracious hub for an expanding rail network. Current plans to expand the station complex with a new Moynihan Station across Eighth Avenue and Penn South—a terminus for the proposed Gateway tunnels—should be enlarged to create a unified complex with room for more people and trains, through-running service for both commuter and intercity rail service, and an inspiring design that brings in light and air and pedestrian spaces. Madison Square Garden will need to be relocated to improve security and bring light and air into the terminal. Penn Station is overcrowded, confusing and substandard Long reviled for its cramped conditions and uninspiring design, Penn Station has become increasingly dysfunctional, as ridership into the station has nearly tripled in the last 25 years—a level of use never contemplated by the station’s architects. Concourses and platforms are narrow, and vertical circulation to the platforms is inadequate. The station lacks basic amenities like clear signage and comfortable waiting areas. With no natural daylight or other obvious visual markers, it’s easy to get lost. The station also has little to no presence from the street, and pedestrian conditions surrounding Penn are poor. These problems will be further compounded in the future, as travel across the river increases in the coming decades. Work trips alone are projected to increase by 24 percent or more by 2040, depending on growth in all trans-Hudson travel and the amount of new rail service that connects to the station. Unify the Penn Station complex into an inspiring gateway to New York New York’s Penn Station is already a vast complex that extends over two square blocks and three underground levels. In 2020, a new train hall in the Farley Post Office building will be added to this complex, a project known as Moynihan Station. And the Gateway project, currently in the planning stages, will further extend Penn Station southward. These investments will expand the station’s footprint, relieving congestion and finally providing the opportunity to gut-renovate Penn Station. Create inviting new entrances at Seventh Avenue Penn Station deserves to have a great presence in Midtown Manhattan. Today’s main entrance at 32nd Street is cramped and unwelcoming; it should be widened and expanded. A new great entrance to the station should also be built on the corner of Seventh Avenue and 33rd Street by turning part of 33rd street into a civic plaza. With new architectural elements running from 31st to 34th Street, Penn Station could also have an improved, uniform presence at the street level along three city blocks. Underground, there are also great opportunities to improve pedestrian conditions, even without removing Two Penn Plaza and its myriad vertical columns through the station. The Long Island Rail Road concourse, which runs under 33rd Street, should be widened and shifted north. Ceilings should be elevated for better light and air. The Hilton Corridor under 32nd Street should also be widened and extended eastward to connect Penn Station with the subways at Broadway and Sixth Avenue. Finally, the central concourse should also be widened and extended southward to connect to Track One (and later to Penn South), removing the B-level (Amtrak waiting room level) under Two Penn Plaza and lining up the NJT concourse with elevation at the A-level (the same level as the LIRR concourse). Complete Moynihan Station A new train hall in the Farley Post Office is under construction and should be completed by 2020. Moynihan Station, as the train hall will be called, will accommodate Amtrak’s main waiting room, its Acela lounge, and many of its back-office functions, freeing up valuable space at the existing Penn Station. The project’s completion should proceed without delay, including a new mid-block passageway to Ninth Avenue. Move Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden’s 10-year special permit is up for renewal in 2023. It should not be renewed. By removing the sports arena and theater, Penn Station’s underground complex will gain much-needed natural light and air, and significantly improve pedestrian circulation and safety. Previous schemes have suggested replacing Madison Square Garden with a new head house with retail and office space. A recent proposal instead envisioned removing the floors of the arena and its exterior curtain wall, but keeping its structural skeleton and cladding it in glass. Combined with removing one of Penn Station’s underground concourses (on the B-level), this would eliminate over 200 columns from the platforms—freeing up significant space for pedestrian circulation, including stairs and escalators. Amtrak should move forward with this scheme. The building’s glass curtain wall should be open at street level to provide 360-degree access to the station, and the 33rd Street plaza described above should be extended to Eighth Avenue. Only the station’s three north/south concourses and two or three east/west corridors should remain to better distribute passengers, facilitate orientation, and better integrate the station with the future Penn South. Build Penn South for running service between New Jersey and Queens As part of its Gateway proposal to build two new rail tunnels under the Hudson River, Amtrak has been studying extending Penn Station southward, down to 30th Street. The most recent proposal is for a new station, named Penn South, with five platforms and eight tracks, four of which could be extended to Queens in the future. A far better scheme would be to build the station for through-running trains from the get-go. Because running trains straight through the station is so much more efficient than having trains terminate at Penn and turn around, fewer tracks and wider platforms could be built, while still accommodating up to 33 trains per hour. In fact, Penn South as is currently proposed—with four stub-end tracks and five platforms of varying widths—would make it much more difficult to retrofit the station into through-running in the future. Instead, the Gateway tunnels to New Jersey should be extended to Sunnyside Yards, with two new tunnels and an intermediary station at Third Avenue. To facilitate pedestrian circulation in Penn South, a new underground east-west concourse should be built, roughly between 30th and 31st Street, bookending the improved LIRR east-west concourse at the northern edge of the station. Improve pedestrian conditions at the platform and track level While a wholesale reconfiguration of platforms and tracks isn’t feasible in such a high-traffic station, some improvements should be made to increase station capacity, reduce congestion on the platforms, and enable through-running regional rail. These include: Widen select platforms in the center and southern end of Penn Station. This would result in the removal of a number of tracks. Replace escalators with stairs and elevators on the more narrow platforms to allow for greater vertical capacity. Simplify the station and improve vertical circulation by removing one of Penn Station’s underground levels and creating a more straightforward circulation scheme for the other level across the entire station complex. Remove as many old columns (from the original Penn Station) and other non-essential platform elements as possible to increase existing platform capacity. Install high-density signaling system in East River tunnels to increase their capacity and improve the reliability of the service. Outcomes The result of these investments and reconstruction would be a unified Penn Station complex with modern amenities and the capacity to serve a growing region. New York City and the region would finally have a station that reflects its status as a global economic hub and gateway to the metropolitan region. Commuters, intercity passengers, and visitors would enjoy the conveniences of a modern transportation hub, arriving in a station that is no longer a dreary and unpleasant experience but a place to linger and enjoy. Paying for It Much, if not all, of the costs for a new Penn Station should be paid for from the value of real estate development that will be created either directly, from air rights that are released, or indirectly, from increases in the value of existing buildings near the site that would benefit from proximity to a redesigned hub that attracts more travelers and becomes a destination itself. For example, moving Madison Square Garden could create more than two million square feet of additional development rights that could be used near the station.  Combined Commuter Network: http://fourthplan.org/action/combined-commuter-network Combined Commuter Network Combine three commuter rail systems into one network The region’s aging commuter rail network leaves many parts of the region poorly served or without rail service at all. It wasn’t designed for today’s travel patterns and has little capacity for future growth. A series of new projects, phased over the next few decades, should combine the three commuter railroads into a unified system that vastly improves mobility throughout the region. The resulting Trans-Regional Express (T-REX) would provide frequent, consistent service, directly connect New Jersey, Long Island, the Mid-Hudson and Connecticut, and allow the region’s economy to continue growing. The region has outgrown its commuter rail network The region’s three commuter railroads—Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad and New Jersey Transit—are an amalgamation of rail lines built largely by private railroads more than 100 years ago. This aging system was designed to get people in and out of Manhattan when the metropolitan area was less than half the size it is today. It poorly serves job centers outside of Manhattan, leaves many places without any rail service at all, isn’t configured to serve today’s 24-hour, multi-directional travel patterns, and is straining to serve the number of riders it has today, much less tomorrow. More specifically: - Many assets—from stations and signals to tracks and interlockings—are well past their useful life or don’t meet modern standards. - All service ends in Manhattan, preventing trains from traveling through from one part of the region to the other, and reducing the capacity of the system overall. - While ridership is growing the fastest outside of morning and afternoon rush hours, service continues to be much worse on most lines at those times than during their peak. - Reverse service into many job centers with strong growth potential, such as Bridgeport or Hicksville, is poor—and limits the ability of those downtowns to grow into major economic hubs. - - Some large downtowns such as Paterson have no direct service at all. - Many residential areas with densities to support commuter rail service don’t have it, including much of Bergen, Passaic, and Monmouth counties. - Service is too infrequent or too expensive for many residents in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Hudson, and Essex counties. - Many parts of the system are already operating well past their capacity, including the rail tunnels under the Hudson River used by all New Jersey Transit trains, Penn Station, and Metro-North’s New Haven line. Over the next 25 years, the number of people commuting from the suburbs into Manhattan could grow by as much as 34 percent, much more than the current system can handle. - Fragmented control of the system among the different railroads makes it difficult to plan for upgrades and repairs or provide holistic, integrated service. Many of New York City’s peers, such as Paris and London, have transformed their traditional commuter rail systems to run more like urban metro systems. With more frequent and convenient service to, in, and through the city centers, those systems have increased businesses’ access to a large and varied labor pool. They have also given residents access to more jobs and more housing choices. New York’s disjointed system is holding us back from becoming a truly integrated and economically powerful region. Convert the region’s three commuter lines into a unified system to increase capacity, expand options, and reduce travel times The region must modernize, integrate, and expand its commuter rail network to keep up with a growing region, as well as changing technology and service demands. Unifying the network into a Trans-Regional Express service that vastly improves mobility throughout the region will require major infrastructure upgrades to integrate its different components and then expand it. Some actions, like building additional tunnels under the Hudson and creating a more functional Penn Station, address urgent needs and should begin immediately. Others will take a decade or more to be planned and approved. But all improvements should be designed to allow future projects to rationalize and synchronize service as they expand capacity. Based on an analysis of existing deficiencies, future demand, and project feasibility, a fully integrated regional rail system could be built in three phases. Phase one: The Crosstown Line creates through-running service from New Jersey to Long Island The Crosstown line builds on Amtrak’s Gateway plans to build new rail tunnels under the Hudson River and expand Penn Station. The fourth plan proposes those tunnels and tracks be extended to build new tunnels under the East River to provide a new through-running Crosstown service between New Jersey and Long Island. Instead of a terminal, RPA’s proposed Penn South would become a through-running station with two tubes extending east to Queens. A new station on 31st Street and Third Avenue would provide suburban commuters access to southeast Midtown. The Crosstown line will address the immediate crisis of declining service across the Hudson while creating a range of new benefits: - It would provide capacity for six to nine more trains per hour from New Jersey than the Gateway project as it is currently planned, and result in a total of 30 to 33 more trains from both New Jersey and Long Island into Penn Station. - NJ Transit riders would have direct service to Manhattan’s East Side, and Long Island Rail Road riders would have a second east side destination, in addition to the Grand Central LIRR station currently under construction. - The additional capacity would allow old rail lines to be reactivated, and large parts of Monmouth, Ocean, and Middlesex counties could gain direct rail access into Manhattan. - New Jersey commuters would be able to go directly to Jamaica to board the JFK AirTrain, and LIRR riders could travel directly to the rail stop for Newark Airport. - The additional East River tunnels would provide greater resiliency in case of flooding, terrorism, or other disruptions. Phase two: Additional trans-Hudson and east side service, and restored passenger service in northeastern New Jersey Before 2040, it is expected that the Gateway/Crosstown tunnels will also be at capacity. And even though 2040 sounds like a long way off, planning and building infrastructure of this scale can take decades, so it really shouldn’t be too long before we begin to plan for the next set of trans-Hudson tunnels. Additional rail tunnels from Union City, NJ, to 57th Street in Midtown would provide the next trans-Hudson capacity expansion after Crosstown reaches full capacity. New tunnels at 57th Street would also allow for the restoration of passenger service on the West Shore line, a portion of the Northern Branch line, and the Susquehanna lines in Bergen, Passaic, and Rockland counties. These areas are almost exclusively served by express buses today. The completion of this portion of the system would likely reduce the demand for express buses significantly enough to enable the Port Authority to replace its current bus terminal with either a smaller Manhattan facility or bus intercept facilities in New Jersey. Beyond providing new rail service to many New Jersey communities, this second phase of the proposed regional rail network would provide a new north-south transit service on the East Side of Manhattan from 57th Street, running south under Third Avenue, and making four to five stops to Lower Manhattan, a corridor that currently is only served by the Lexington Avenue subway. This service could obviate the need to construct the lower portions of the Second Avenue Subway. This “Manhattan Spine” would be connected to the Crosstown line via a new hub station located at 31st St and Third Ave, allowing a seamless transfer between the Crosstown and the new service that would run along 57th Street and down Third Avenue. The Manhattan Spine would continue to run downtown, stopping at Fulton and Water Street, and then into Downtown Brooklyn, where it would connect with the Long Island Rail Road at Atlantic Terminal. This portion of the line would provide robust and speedy rail transit service to parts of outer Brooklyn and southeastern Queens, which currently have limited transit options. A short extension to JFK Airport would also be made using part of the existing Rockaway Beach Branch line, south of the Atlantic Branch, along with the construction of a short new segment with two new stations at the airport. These investments would provide the following benefits: - Transit capacity to support the continued expansion of the region’s economy - Vastly improved service and much shorter travel times for residents of Bergen, Passaic, and Rockland counties - Reduced crowding at Penn Station - Elimination of the need to build a large bus terminal - Possible elimination of the need for building the lower portions of the Second Avenue Subway - Direct service connecting New Jersey, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and JFK Airport Phase Three: Completing a fully interconnected regional rail network The final phase of constructing the regional rail system entails completing the uptown portion of the Manhattan Spine to connect to the Bronx, Westchester, the Hudson Valley, and Connecticut, and the lower trans-Hudson tunnels that would complete a “Jersey Loop” that connects to service in the north to Hudson County. The Uptown portion of the Spine would provide relief for Metro-North’s Park Ave Tunnel, which currently runs at capacity. The completion of Penn Access, a project to add tracks and station on the Hell Gate line so that Metro-North Railroad’s New Haven line trains can directly access Penn Station, should reduce stress on the Park Avenue Tunnel, buying some time for Metro-North. But the project will not ultimately divert any riders bound for the East Side. The Uptown portion of the Manhattan Spine, however, would provide relief, paralleling the Park Ave Tunnel along Third Avenue, providing a new express track through the Bronx from Mott Haven to Woodlawn, and seamlessly connecting the Mid-Hudson and Connecticut into the new regional rail system. The lower leg of the Jersey Loop will provide a third new set of trans-Hudson tunnels, reducing future congestion, improving access to Hudson County, creating opportunities for more direct travel within the region, and providing additional redundancy. The construction of this new tunnel could also serve as a replacement for the Uptown PATH, which has tunnels over a century old, small stations, an inefficient junction, and a terminal at Hoboken that limits capacity and performance and is costly to maintain. On the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, the tunnels will lead to a station at Hoboken/Newport and a new stations in Jersey City Heights via the Bergen Arches, eventually connecting into the existing NJ Transit system. This expansion would allow for the complete unification of the regional rail network with the following improvements: - Less crowding, improved reliability, and more service for Metro-North riders - Direct access through Manhattan from Westchester, the Mid-Hudson, and Connecticut, to New Jersey and Long Island - Transit service for Bronx residents in the Third Avenue corridor, which today has very poor transit access - Direct access to JFK Airport from the Bronx, Westchester, Mid-Hudson, and Connecticut - Expanded service for residents of Hudson County and reduced crowding for New Jersey Transit riders at Penn Station - Elimination of the need to replace the PATH Uptown line Provide frequent service in all directions The physical connections described above would allow for transformative improvements to rail service. Instead of long wait times, passengers in the Bronx, Queens, Hudson, Westchester, and Nassau counties would have access to more subway-like frequencies—in both directions. Passengers in Bergen, Passaic, Monmouth, Hudson and Essex counties would have access to the rail network with consistent service. Finally, an intercity express service would offer faster speeds, lower fares and more direct service between major hubs—from New Haven to Trenton, and from Poughkeepsie to Ronkonkoma. All of these services would be overlaid in a Trans-Regional Express (T-REX) system that combines the territories of all three commuter railroads, and complements and connects to the New York City subways and PATH. In much of the region, the service would provide a consistent level of service: every 15 minutes throughout the day and every 10 minutes during the traditional peak periods. Such a schedule would reduce the physical stress placed on the system and allow it to be used throughout the day as a viable transit option. The system could be managed either by combining the existing railroads into one operating agency, or by creating a regional coordinating entity that would be responsible for coordinating schedules, fares, and operations among the three railroads. The service could be operated by the existing public authorities or by private concessions, such as the London Overground. Outcomes The regional rail proposal would dramatically increase rail capacity across the Hudson River, provide additional layers of redundancy for the region’s transit system, and bring rail service to currently unserved areas of New Jersey. It would improve the region’s rail service by standardizing fares, headways, service routings, rolling stock, and transfer arrangements to create a coherent and integrated system. Travel times would be reduced from well over an hour to less than half an hour for many commuters, and traveling would be far more predictable. The system as a whole would be significantly more resilient with multiple options for rerouting service or taking alternative routes. As a result, the region would be able to attract and sustainably accommodate far more economic growth. Many residents who can’t reach or afford rail service today would be able to use it on a regular basis. Paying for It The system would be built out over several decades. The cost of the tunnel is likely to be in line with costs for other rail projects in the New York City region, although these costs are likely to change over the different phases of the project. Without reforms to bring down project costs, it will be nearly impossible to afford these improvements. However, implementing this regional rail program does provide opportunities for savings from economies of scale and standardized construction practices, and by obviating the need for other projects. For example, the regional rail system would result in a smaller bus terminal than currently planned, and could obviate the need for the southern portion of the Second Avenue Subway, saving tens of billions of dollars. The sources of revenue would need to include substantial federal revenue, as well as dedicated revenue from new sources, such as mileage-based fees for automobile and truck travel or carbon pricing that could provide revenue for a range of transportation projects. 
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