During his campaign for governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer repeatedly and infamously declared that “on day one, everything changes.” On transportation, Spitzer talked about the need for the state to push smart growth and transit-oriented development, leaving many advocates hopeful that state agencies would finally figure out how to connect transportation and land use. As anyone who’s followed New York politics knows, year one has not proven so transformative. The Spitzer transportation team has made some progress, but many policy reforms are either in their infancy or are stalled.

On the positive side, Governor Spitzer announced three “Smart Growth Initiatives” involving grants for land-use planning in the Central Catskills, Adirondack Park, and the Lower Hudson Valley. However, total funding for the initiative is just $2 million, with $500,000 for the Lower Hudson Valley program, and comes from the Environmental Protection Fund, rather than an overall policy change evident in NYS DOT’s spending decisions and projects. But that may change with Governor Spitzer’s recently announced “Smart Growth Cabinet,” which promises to bring together different state agencies to “review state agency spending and policies to determine how best to discourage sprawl and promote smart land use practices.” The Cabinet, which will be chaired jointly by the Governor’s Deputy Secretary for the Environment Judith Enck and the Deputy Secretary for Economic Development and Infrastructure (and former NYS DOT Chief of Transportation Strategy) Timothy Gilchrist, will have its first meeting this month.

NYS DOT

NYS DOT began the year in a leadership void. Commissioner Astrid Glynn was not appointed until February, and served as acting commissioner until the State Senate approved her in May. Glynn, who is well-respected for implementing smart growth reforms in Massachusetts, has publicly discussed the need to coordinate land use planning and transportation, but implementation on the ground has been slow.

Glynn, who is a member of Governor Spitzer’s aforementioned Smart Growth Cabinet, should be applauded for hiring and reassigning staff members for a “land use-planning initiative” designed to educate local communities and NYS DOT staff about the importance of joint land use-transportation planning. Presently, 6 staff members are dedicated to the effort, including 3 staff in NYS DOT’s headquarters. According to agency officials, some training has already taken place at NYS DOT’s Region 8 (Hudson Valley) and Region 1 (Albany region) offices. However, the effort is still largely in its fledgling stages and hasn’t produced significant changes to any projects.

For example, little has changed at the NYS DOT’s project to replace the Tappan Zee Bridge and add transit to the I-287 corridor. The study team did hold open houses in February and created “stakeholder advisory working groups,” one focused on land use, that have met with the study team monthly. Spitzer gave NYS DOT full control of the project in May and the study team moved into dedicated office space with an expanded staff in November. Besides these administrative shuffles, the study team has done little to show the public that the project will include consideration of local land-use visions, nor do stakeholders involved in the working groups understand how discussions in the meetings will be incorporated into the project alternatives. Governor Spitzer’s Lower Hudson Valley Smart Growth Initiative is definitely a step in the right direction for coordinating transportation and land use in the corridor, but it’s unclear how this initiative will be coordinated with the multi-billion dollar, multi-year Tappan Zee Bridge project.

For NYS DOT’s Region 10 (Long Island) office, 2007 might as well have been 1955. The department is still fixated on old fashioned projects like widening Route 347 and is in dire need of a makeover. Region 10 staff are still largely hostile to community input and still proclaim “they don’t do land use,” despite interest in smart growth throughout the Island. Examples are clear in the Nassau-Suffolk portion of the state’s Transportation Improvement Program in which over $350 million is slated over five years to add lanes to Route 347. Region 10 has failed to incorporate surrounding land use decisions into the project even though those decisions are causing the congestion in the first place.

NYS DOT’s Overall Trend in 2007: Slowly Upward (except for Region 10)

MTA

Unlike Glynn, MTA CEO Lee Sander, a daily LIRR commuter, took office at the beginning of the year. While the mammoth bureaucracy has made some improvements in its everyday operations and in dealing with the public, reform at the policy level has been sluggish.

This year the MTA will probably be remembered primarily for choosing to enact a fare and toll increase that will hit most transit riders harder than most drivers, a decision which was made despite unprecedented promises from state legislators to find additional state funding for the agency. The MTA made no movement toward high speed or variable tolling, and is still using barrier-arm toll facilities more than 12 years after introducing EZ Pass on its bridges and tunnels.

The MTA has failed to announce a formal transit-oriented development program, despite a year-old promise to do. Unsettlingly, the MTA staff told press outlets this fall that TOD was still in its “embryonic stage,” yet interest in the idea is mounting throughout Long Island and the Hudson Valley. The agency did take the smallest of steps towards coordinated transit-land use planning in October, when Metro-North issued a “request for expressions of interest” from developers seeking to build transit-oriented development around the Beacon train station.

Another long-term goal of the MTA is increased integration between regional transit agencies, and progress was made in 2007 toward this goal. In July, the MTA satisfied a long-standing desire of Staten Islanders by instituting bus service between the Island and NJ Transit’s 34th Street light rail station in Bayonne (see MTR # 562). Sander also told the NYU Rudin Center’s New York Transportation Journal that the MTA was “beginning to operate MTA Bus, NYCT Bus, and Long Island Bus in a coordinated manner,” consolidating management. It remains to be seen whether this is a minor administrative reform or groundwork for something more ambitious, like a regional bus agency that could better coordinate routes and take the guesswork out of Long Island Bus’s annual budget process.

Construction on the Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access continued in 2007, while the LIRR Third Track and NYC’s bus rapid transit program appear to have stalled. Both of those projects have slowed for good reason, however. The Third Track plan is changing due to community concerns, while the bus rapid transit program is being updated to increase its effectiveness. The No. 7 line extension (which is being funded by NYC) continues to progress, but there is controversy over whether a shell station will be built at 41st St and 10th Ave and who will fund it.

The MTA’s most tangible improvements in 2007 were in more everyday areas like customer service, transparency, and the public process. The agency brought in outside investigators after the August flood which crippled regional transit systems, a marked difference from 2006’s report on a Sept. 2004 flood, which was conducted in-house and blasted as a “whitewash” by Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign. It issued rider report cards, put a list of broken escalators and elevators online and will spend $1.3 million to computerize that system, and went beyond the traditional public hearing approach during the runup to the most recent fare and toll hikes with public listening sessions.

MTA’s Overall Trend in 2007: Steady

In Year Two, Everything Changes?

New York State’s 2007 is notable mostly for a lack of big accomplishments. Yet there is reason to be hopeful. The small initiatives announced by the MTA and NYS DOT are logical precursors to more comprehensive programs, and – given strong leadership – could eventually evolve into systemic reforms. From a certain angle, New York’s transportation outlook looks very promising. But then, it looked promising on day one.

Looking forward, Commissioner Astrid Glynn and CEO Elliot Sander are already building support for the next five year capital program. Glynn has said New York must invest $175 billion in its transportation infrastructure over the next two decades, more than double the state’s current level of investment. The MTA is awash in funding problems, with its operating deficit reaching $1.8 billion by 2010 and a new $28 billion five-year capital program, the most expensive in its history, under development. NYS DOT and the MTA will submit 2009-2014 capital programs for review by March 31, 2008.

The MTA could impress observers this year by starting a transit village program, fixing Long Island Bus’s funding problems, or by working with NYC DOT to extend bus rapid transit elements throughout NYC’s bus network.

NYS DOT plans to expand its land use program and is developing training manuals on such topics as “Comprehensive Planning and Transportation” and “Smart Growth and Transportation in New York.” It will distribute these materials to all its regional offices and continue to build a land-use staff in 2008. The agency has a golden opportunity as it prepares to select a preferred alternative in the Sheridan Expressway environmental review. Choosing the community’s alternative – a teardown of the expressway allowing for the construction of parks and affordable housing – would show that livability has become an agency priority (the same sort of philosophical shift which garnered NYCDOT so much applause in 2007).