The Tappan Zee Bridge/I-287 Corridor project hit a major milestone this morning, when NYSDOT publicly recommended that the Tappan Zee Bridge be replaced, that a bus rapid transit (BRT) system run through the I-287 corridor between Suffern and Port Chester, and that a new commuter rail line be built from Suffern to the Tappan Zee Bridge, where it would connect with existing tracks and run to Grand Central Terminal in NYC.
The announcement, which came at a press conference at the study team’s Tarrytown office, received praise from TSTC and other advocates. The full corridor BRT/Rockland-NYC commuter rail combination is projected to attract more new and total transit riders than any other combination the team considered: 79,900 average weekday riders, with 31,200 of those being new riders not diverted from other transit systems. These and other updated transit ridership projections are listed in two studies, released today, which detail the study team’s justifications for recommending a replacement bridge with BRT/commuter rail and a bicycle/pedestrian path.
The estimated cost of the project is $16 billion — $6.4 billion to replace the bridge, $2.9 billion for bus rapid transit, and $6.7 billion for the commuter rail line. The BRT service would begin operation on “day one” of the bridge’s opening, according to NYSDOT Commissioner Astrid Glynn, but the commuter rail line might not, depending on the construction schedule and whether sufficient funding was available. Glynn said that project design could begin in 2010 with construction starting in 2012, if the team stuck to an “aggressive schedule.” Needless to say, the study team does not have a good track record when it comes to timeliness.
There are still a number of questions about the project, funding paramount among them. Commissioner Glynn told reporters that the Tappan Zee study team would release the results of a three-year-old financial study in mid-October, but she said the study would only describe a “menu of approaches” to financing and that the state was working to find a “financial advisor” who could help the state develop a funding plan potentially including private investment. According to the Journal News, NYSDOT had picked Merrill Lynch as this “financial advisor,” but the firm became a casualty of the national economic crisis and was sold earlier this month. The study team also has not identified who would operate BRT in the I-287 corridor.
Public information sessions on the plan will take place at the end of October in Westchester, Rockland, and Orange Counties. Ideally, the team won’t disappear from public view afterwards. The Tappan Zee project is too important and has too many stakeholders to be designed in the dark. Though the team’s selection of a transit alternative was wise, and appears to be the result of a comprehensive process which took stakeholder contributions into account, it was announced four months behind schedule with virtually no explanation of the delay.
Public Meetings
Each session will run from 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm.
- Westchester County, October 28: White Plains High School, 550 North St, White Plains.
- Rockland County, October 29: Rockland Community College, 145 College Rd, Suffern.
- Orange County, October 30: Central Valley Elementary School, 45 Route 32, Central Valley.
[…] her remarks around the future Tappan Zee Bridge project, Glynn saying that building transit across the I-287 corridor would serve as a focal point for […]
[…] year, TSTC advocacy has helped drive reform at the Connecticut Dept. of Transportation, shape the Tappan Zee Bridge/I-287 corridor project, and shrink planned road widenings in New Jersey. TSTC fact sheets and analysis have contributed to […]
Howard Permit will have to be President of Metro-North for quite a long time to be able to cut the ribbon for the commuter rail line. BRT is the way to go. It’s appropriate for the suburban character of Rockland and Orange counties and the dispersed employment centers in Westchester.
I would hope the rail portion can be built in tandem with the rest of the project. Also, some sort of guarantee that the bike and pedestrian path portion will not be dropped under any circumstances. Right now crossing the river by any other means than private automobile is impossible and to continue such car-centric planning policies is outrageous.
[…] the Tappan Zee Bridge/I-287 Corridor study team announced the selection of a transit alternative — “full corridor” bus rapid transit between Suffern and Port Chester and commuter […]
[…] here for the complete […]
The bridge already has 4 lanes in peak direction at rush hour, so I don’t think adding an 8th lane will induce much traffic. It will, however, eliminate the annoyance of moving the barrier every morning and evening.
Adding any lanes, period, can and most certainly will induce more traffic.
I do applaud the choice of commuter rail and BRT, though I would have preferred CRT/LRT and wonder how in the world the state will float enough bonds to pay for this. However, the first thing the Study Team needs to do is to quit with the disappearing act. They were to have originally released the study recommendations back in May but disappeared for 4 months without a single word out of them. This is totally unacceptable and cannot be allowed to happen again.
Will the new bridge have a bicycle path? Currently, there are no viable options to cross the river as a cyclist.
@ Cyclist:
The new bridge will have pedestrian and bicycle crossings, no matter which design is ultimately chosen.
Add ing lanes will allow more human activity within the given footprint.
Not adding more lanes means more people moving entirely away from the area.
Build the highway as a 4/2/2/4 configuration with the BRT lanes usable for long distance trucks.
Be sure that any rail line be close enough to development along Route 119.
Is there enough detail in the BRT plan so we can see if it has a chance of working as opposed to being the white elephant that the Harbor Freeway Busway in Los Angeles turned out to be (or the West Busway in Pittsburgh)? I would prefer having electrified commuter rail that connects Suffern to Westchester and an appropriate location on the New Haven line serving downtown White Plains. Part of the line or branches could even run in the street with short enough trains. The voltage currently in use by the New Haven line (12.5 KV AC) is close enough to the 11 KV AC used by the Rhaetian Railway in Switzerland to not set a precedent. Currently NICTD (the former Chicago, South Shore and South Bend is running virtually all of its commuter trains in the street in Michigan City, Indiana (a few start or terminate west of there). Using rail for the spine with bus feeders has successful precedents both in North America and Europe. For some purposes a 2 or 3 car set can be very effective. This line also could provide good transit access from Westchester and beyond to Stewart Airport.
[…] Tri-State Transportation Campaign addressed the transit aspect of the new bridge: .The full corridor BRT/Rockland-NYC commuter rail combination is projected to […]
Adding lanes will allow more human activity within the given footprint.
Not adding more lanes means more people moving entirely away from the area.
Build the highway as a 4/2/2/4 configuration with the BRT lanes usable for long distance trucks”
Care to explain what you mean by “human activity”? Because if we’re talking about maximizing the number of humans that can make use of a future crossing, any additional road space that will be primarily used by single-occupancy vehicles would work against this objective.
IMO, the notion that BRT lanes should be usable by anything but BRT is a big mistake. Long-haul trucks and a public transit system have different needs and forcing these together would be disastrous. Even when you do have dedicated lanes, if they are not enforced they simply become just another lane in the traffic free-for-all we call the NYC metro area. Just look at the Select Bus in the Bronx. Without enforcement, the BRT lanes end up used for everything except buses.
Don’t be dazzled by the promise of rail someday. The rail should be ready to go when the highway part of the bridge opens, or else it’ll probably fall victim to budget cuts.
The “BRT” is lame and tepid: a single HO/T lane in each direction. Meanwhile EVERY alternative except Rehabilitation 1 assumes expanding the roadway from seven to eight general-purpose lanes in addition to the private car capacity offered by the HO/T lanes. Glynne is no Jaime Lerner.
Whether the bridge is rehabilitated or replaced, the number of general-purpose lanes should be REDUCED to six to take into account the increase in private auto capacity represented by the HO/T lanes.
Any plan that increases the number of car lanes will promote sprawl, pollution, wasted resources and carnage. A couple of HO/T lanes and some vague promises of rail will not make up for it. Every alternative that is still under consideration by the State DOT would be a major net negative for the environment.
Human activity means more human to human social and economic activity within a given area, facilitated by all means of transport, particularly grade separated highway and transit.
Placing trucks with buses would be safer then either with smaller vehicles.
I strongly favor the option with the CRT via 119, except that it diverts to I-287 at Taxter. Instead it should continue along 119 westward towards Tarrytown to give that area better transit accessibility.
[…] of the unresolved questions about the Tappan Zee Bridge/I-287 corridor project is who will run the bus rapid transit and commuter rail systems planned for the corridor. Another big question, which MTR looked at earlier today, is who […]
[…] training for communities in the corridor. In September, the team announced that it had made its transit selection, a combination of cross-corridor bus rapid transit and Rockland-Manhattan commuter rail (an option […]
[…] bringing transit to the 30-mile I-287 corridor between Suffern and Port Chester. Last year, Glynn announced that NYSDOT would replace the bridge and construct a full-corridor bus rapid transit system and commuter rail […]