(image: BQX rendering via NYC EDC)
Near daily failures in New York City’s transit system this summer have accomplished the seemingly impossible: they’ve sparked a wide-ranging conversation among New Yorkers of all stripes about overdue investments in our existing transit infrastructure, while also highlighting the limited alternatives to our century old subway system.
So how can we improve both with a limited budget? The proposed Brooklyn Queens Connector (BQX) provides a good example of how we can fix today’s transportation problems while planning for the future. A vibrant, sustainable and equitable city must do both.
The Manhattan-centric pattern of our subways was laid over 100 years ago when economic development was largely concentrated in the city’s core. This hub and spoke system is no longer reflective of how New Yorkers live, work, and play in 2017. The Brooklyn-Queens waterfront is one of the fastest growing corridors in New York City, yet there has been no significant investment in its transportation infrastructure, leaving some neighborhoods behind and limiting access to jobs and opportunity.
The proposed BQX is an emissions-free light rail system that will unify the currently fragmented transportation corridor along 14 miles between Astoria and Sunset Park, connecting to various subway lines, bus routes, ferry landings, and Citi Bike stations. It will be able to serve at least 50,000 riders a day, greatly easing the burden on existing transportation infrastructure in the area. The demand for more transportation options along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront is clear, evidenced by the large crowds lining up to take the newly launched ferry system.
People living on the waterfront who have long faced limited transportation – including over 40,000 residents of the New York City Housing Authority – will have more employment opportunities and easier access to schools and healthcare facilities with the BQX. Local small businesses in these neighborhoods that are currently isolated from the rest of the city will be more accessible, and a new transit line will help attract even more businesses and employers to the waterfront.
But the direct benefits of the BQX to New Yorkers is just one aspect of this smart infrastructure investment. It also provides a model for how we can both fix today’s problems and plan for the future.
First, because of an innovative financing tool known as “value capture,” the BQX isn’t in competition with laudable transit initiatives like Fair Fares or Bus Rapid Transit. Value capture works like this: based on the fact that access to transportation typically increases property value, funding for the BQX would be derived from the additional value it generates in properties surrounding the transit line over 30 or 40 years. While details of how this value capture mechanism would work are still being studied by city government, the concept is that the largest commercial and residential landlords who will see the greatest increase in their property value as a result of increased access to mass transit would pay additional property taxes on new value that is attributable to the BQX — a more progressive form of taxation than a sales tax, which many other cities have used to finance public transit. This expectation of new value could be bonded and sold to investors, similar to how the city funded the extension of the 7 train to Hudson Yards.
This is why calls for BQX funding to be used elsewhere are misguided – money used for this project are not being drawn from already existing dollars in the city’s general fund or its critical annual contribution to the MTA because the money does not yet exist and will never exist unless the BQX is built and operates effectively.
Second, much like recent ferry and bikeshare expansion efforts, the BQX is a city-led, owned and controlled transportation project, providing an alternative to the confounding structure of the MTA that has led to quarrels over who is legally responsible for paying for upgrades and repairs of our transit system. And if the BQX is successful, the model could be expanded to other parts of the city.
The positive impact this project will have on transportation in New York City – as well as its creative funding mechanism – is why the BQX has received strong support from some of our city’s most experienced transit leaders, along with local business leaders and community groups. MTA Chair Joe Lhota sits on the board of directors of the group that I run, Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector, as does Jay Walder, who has held roles as CEO of the MTA and Managing Director of Finance and Planning at Transport for London.
Leaders of the Resident Associations from five different NYCHA developments that will benefit from the BQX also sit on our board, and our coalition includes the Regional Plan Association, tech advocacy group Tech:NYC, the Transport Workers Union, and a long list of local small businesses and community groups.
When it comes to transit investment in New York City we need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We can and should find ways to fix our current system while also expanding transit options where they are needed most. The BQX and its proposed funding model does just that.
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Ya-Ting Liu is the Executive Director of the advocacy group Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector. On Twitter @yating_liu and @BQXNYC.
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The original Penn Station was an architectural masterpiece. The most ironic part about removing it in a “monumental act of vandalism,” though, is that as a transit facility the original Penn Station had serious flaws. In fact, the platforms and tracks haven’t been significantly altered in more than a century.
Unfortunately, those flaws are growing more obvious by the day. Narrow, crowded platforms and grossly inadequate stairs and escalators are a constant source of delays, dangerous overcrowding and frustration for commuters. But most importantly, Penn Station is not actually a station for most passengers – it’s a terminal. The difference is not merely semantic; in a terminal, trains must cross each other as they enter and leave, making it far less efficient than a through-running station. Even when this doesn’t cause delays, it severely limits capacity and ensures every train has to travel more slowly in Penn.
Twenty-five years ago, we could tolerate these inefficiencies, but passenger counts from Long Island and New Jersey have skyrocketed. Any major investment plan for Penn Station must be focused on solving the cause of commuters’ misery. Amtrak’s Gateway Program and the new Moynihan Station, if optimized, could do so.
Phase 1 of Gateway would add two new critically-needed tracks between Newark and Penn Station. Phase 2 of Gateway, though, includes a new terminal station—Penn Station South. This would require the demolition of an entire city block at a price tag of $8 billion to build another inefficient terminal, and do nothing to alleviate conditions in the existing station. Those funds are better spent on improving Penn and regional connectivity.
This alternate plan would remove the need for Penn Station South, provide additional economic opportunity for the entire region and the opportunity to invest in projects that create smoother and smarter commutes. Through-running is the key to unlocking the ReThinkNYC vision. Highlights of that vision include:
New Yorkers once dreamed of, and then built, big projects. Now, in this post-Robert Moses, post-urban renewal era, planners are taught to think “politically” smaller. This approach has prevented us from addressing transportation systemically and holistically. It’s time to think big…again.
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Jim Venturi is Principal and Founder of ReThink Studio. On Twitter @jimventuri and @RethinkNYCplan.
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(via @MoskowitzEva)
There's a reason why New Yorkers reject Eva Moskowitz's "bipartisan" defense for her photo ops and meetings with the governing Republican Party in Washington, D.C.. While Ms. Moskowitz touts her registration as a Democrat, her actions are inconsistent with the Democratic Party's position on civil rights and political reform. And, as Democrats across the country resist the Trump administration's disconcerting policies damaging to working and middle class families, Ms. Moskowitz participates in friendly meetings with her allies across the aisle.
It takes a lot of privilege for Ms. Moskowitz to somehow believe that the policies that Democrats and the Resistance across the country represent somehow do not apply to her students. Individuals across the country, including some of the families of Success Academy students, are at marches, town halls, and community rallies challenging Republicans' refusal to support transgender children in court, a deadly American Health Care Act, reduced funding for the U.S. Education Department, including cuts to student loan programs that are undoubtedly resources used by the families of children at Ms. Moskowitz's charter schools.
Ms. Moskowitz fails to disclose that the reason families chide her outreach with Republicans across the aisle is because she and other charter school leaders have a record of working behind the scenes with wealthy donors to directly and continually mislead the public. It was only a couple of years ago that billionaire donor Eli Broad, who just awarded Ms. Moskowitz’s network a $250,000 prize, was exposed as the money behind a secret campaign to charterize half of Los Angeles Unified School District's schools. Meanwhile charter leaders, like Ms. Moskowitz's colleagues in Los Angeles, repeatedly publicly denied those accusations. Similarly, a short distance away from New York City, in Newark, N.J., the public's pessimistic relationship with charter school leaders was justified after they had witnessed state officials and charter school operators move forward with plans to expand the presence of charter schools, despite public opposition.
Ms. Moskowitz has a habit of attacking New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in her demand for more funding and autonomy for her charter schools. However, it seems strange that Ms. Moskowitz repeatedly attacks the mayor, a fellow Democrat, for budgetary reasons yet she doesn't criticize the federal secretary of education, a Republican, who is proposing cuts worth more than $9 billion to national education programs and resources.
While congressional Republicans consider slashing funds to community meal programs and even debate changing how kids get free or reduced lunch, Ms. Moskowitz remains silent. Yet, the charter school CEO has no problem inviting them to her schools for photo ops while bashing Mayor de Blasio, who has challenged charter schools in court for greater transparency and public accountability.
Black organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the N.A.A.C.P.), afters years of internal debate, in October called for a moratorium on charter schools, like the charter network Ms. Moskowitz runs in New York City. In response to the N.A.A.C.P. moratorium and report, Ms. Moskowitz attacked the N.A.A.C.P.’s credibility and authority to speak on education for black children. Despite the fact that Ms. Moskowitz's schools have come under scrutiny for controversial admissions policies and disciplinary practices, which Ms. Moskowitz usually leaves to be resolved by her private consultants and lobbyists.
While Ms. Moskowitz hides behind the cloak of "bipartisanship" to advance her own personal agenda, millions of Democrats across across the country are fighting for our middle class and our children's welfare. And, while Ms. Moskowitz's Success Academy schools serve less than 2% of New York City's 1.1 million students, New York's families would expect her to stand up and speak out for the students she represents. Her students and their families depend on it.
We need bipartisanship in our city halls, state capitals, and in Washington, D.C. now more than ever. Bipartisanship doesn't mean sitting silently and idly as our national leaders fuel bigotry in classrooms, take children’s access to free or reduced school lunch, and strip health care benefits away from kids and their families. It means speaking out and participating in a respectful civil debate that empowers us to resolve the issues. It also means listening when some of our nation’s oldest civil rights organizations call for a public dialogue and a national pause on schools that present a threat to communities’ civil rights.
Ms. Moskowitz can’t hide behind a self-serving and privileged version of bipartisanship.
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Kenneth Campbell is a public affairs consultant and a former Hope Fellow at the Democratic National Committee. On Twitter @KennCampbell.
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Note: this article has been corrected after misidentifying Eli Broad as a Republican. Mr. Broad is a Democrat, according to his office.