On Staten Island, traffic congestion is both a way of life and a perennial complaint. Six of the 15 editorials in the Staten Island Advance this month have been about transportation, and the paper — and Island citizens and elected officials — regularly call for both better transit and better roads.
But lately, transportation policy on Staten Island has been moving in a counterproductive direction, and the borough’s elected officials are to blame.
After meeting with borough officials, NYSDOT Acting Commissioner Stan Gee said this week that the agency will widen a 1.2-mile section of the Staten Island Expressway. But a project to extend the SIE bus lane to the Goethals Bridge has fallen out of the NYSDOT capital program; the lane will be extended only to Richmond Ave. The agency has already opened the bus lane to cars with at least two occupants during peak periods, and hasn’t publicly documented how the change is affecting bus commuters.
The city has gotten its share of pressure as well. This week Borough President James Molinaro held a rally calling for wider roads (some residents used the opportunity to call for more sidewalks). Meanwhile, many of the borough’s city, state, and federal elected officials are opposing a potentially transformative NYCDOT plan for a median busway on Hylan Blvd. City Councilman James Oddo recently called bike lanes on Staten Island an example of “misguided priorities.”
These are poor decisions that will worsen transit service and make it harder to get around on foot and by bicycle, driving borough transit riders back into their cars. As such, they probably won’t help traffic in the short run and certainly won’t fix congestion in the long run, especially with more traffic projected to come to Staten Island with the opening of a wider replacement Goethals Bridge. The Goethals replacement study shows that the most effective traffic-busting measures are transit improvements, like an SIE bus lane (or bus/carpool lane that requires at least 3 occupants in a vehicle) stretching from the Goethals to the Verrazano and beyond.
Might Hylan Boulevard be better suited to a streetcar line? It would be faster than the bus and attract more people.
Ignoring transit, bicycle and pedestrian access is a great way to convince people to stay the heck out of Staten Island. Keep up the good work.
Staten Island’s lack of a street grid makes an extensive bus network a physical impossibility. Staten Island will always be the most auto-dependent borough for intra-borough travel.
The median busway on Hylan would have required passengers to board in the middle of the 4 to 6 lane roadway. In addition the busway was to be used for the S79 local route only. It would have taken two lanes from Hylan, which only would have the undesired effect of slowing down the express buses that far more Staten Islanders depend on.
That’s the worst news all week! How come nobody pointed this out in January?
Oh, and Nick, get a clue. Staten Island has an extensive bus network. All people have to do is use it when they’re not commuting to work.
[…] Bowing to Pols, State DOT to Widen 1.2 Miles of SI Expressway (SI Advance, MTR) […]
[…] measures planned for Hylan Boulevard on Staten Island have met with opposition from local politicians in the past. But there’s a clear need for bus improvements; the avenue is among the busiest […]
[…] A new reversible lane — the first of its kind on any MTA bridge or tunnel — will connect existing High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes on the Staten Island Expressway with those on the Gowanus Expressway in Brooklyn beginning in 2017. The MTA has not disclosed, however, what type of HOV lane it will be. Currently, the HOV lane on the Gowanus Expressway is designated for buses and vehicles with three or more passengers (Bus/HOV 3+). The existing HOV configuration on the SIE is Bus/HOV 2+, but is projected to be operating as Bus/HOV 3+ in 2013 – something that TSTC has been calling for since 2009. […]