Some relief for pedestrian overcrowding near Penn Station may be in sight.  The reopening of the Gimbels passageway, and a host of [...]]]>

Vornado's proposal for 15 Penn Plaza includes widening and reopening the Gimbels passageway, an underground tunnel, shown in yellow above, that would connect Penn Station and the Herald Square subway station.

Some relief for pedestrian overcrowding near Penn Station may be in sight.  The reopening of the Gimbels passageway, and a host of other transit and streetscape improvements, crept closer to seeing the light of day after Vornado Realty Trust’s presented its development proposal for 15 Penn Plaza at a public hearing before the New York City Planning Commission yesterday.

Vornado would replace the Hotel Pennsylvania at 15 Penn Plaza (7th Ave and 33rd St.) with what would be the city’s third-tallest building. The proposal requires approval of both the Planning Commission and the City Council.  Testifying at the commission hearing, Tri-State’s Kate Slevin said that “the proposed office tower’s proximity to Penn Station makes it an excellent location choice. There is no better place to encourage development than above transit facilities that provide easy access to Amtrak, NJ Transit, LIRR, PATH, and fourteen subway lines.”

The Campaign is particularly excited about the prospect of reopening the Gimbels Passageway which connects the commuter rail lines and subways at Penn Station with subway and PATH service at Herald Square.  The streets in the area are very congested with pedestrian and vehicle traffic, and transit riders will welcome a safer and less congested route between these two busy hubs.  According to Vornado’s Kate Ascher, a projected 10,000 to 20,000 people would use the passageway at peak hour each day. That should help reduce the crush of crowds near Penn Station; during the busiest times more than 69,000 people per hour used the station entrance at 32nd Street and 7th Avenue, the 34th Street Partnership said last year.

Foot traffic around Penn Station is extreme.

Describing Penn Station as having “been left in the dark ages,” Ascher enumerated additional proposed features. For the 34th Street 1-2-3 and 34th Street-Herald Square stations, Vornado would pay for new subway entrances, better lighting and signage – including real-time train information displays, and wider station platforms. Above ground, the developer would pay for wider sidewalks and street tree plantings.

The proposal represents the best of potential benefits to be had from well-planned public/private partnerships.  Ongoing contributions to the transit improvements by the developer allow the MTA to make these customer service enhancements even as the agency faces record budget deficits.  Underscoring the importance of these features to the project as a whole, Commission members noted that some developers have had difficulties keeping their end of the bargain in the past, forcing Vornado to reiterate its commitment.

Commission members was generally receptive to the project, but did question whether enough was planned to ensure the vibrancy of the Gimbels passageway, which was closed in 1980 due to worries about crime. Vornado promised to address the concern by designing an attractive space more akin to the retail-lined passageways underneath Rockefeller Center. One commissioner suggested that the city needs to make broader above-ground pedestrian improvements going beyond the project area; TSTC has previously suggested that 32nd Street between 7th and 6th Avenues be closed to traffic.

Also commenting in favor were Juliette Michaelson from Regional Plan Association, Dan Biederman of the 34th Street Partnership, and representatives from the Permanent Citizens’ Advisory Committee to the MTA and the Service Employees International Union.  No one spoke in opposition.

Images: Top – From 15 Penn Plaza DEIS. Right – Photo by TSTC.

Mayor Bloomberg and NYCDOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced this morning that the makeover of Broadway, with pedestrian plazas replacing traffic lanes for seven blocks in Midtown, will become permanent. Backing up the decision is data showing [...]]]>

New Yorkers approve of the new Broadway, and the plazas have improved both safety and travel speeds.

Mayor Bloomberg and NYCDOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced this morning that the makeover of Broadway, with pedestrian plazas replacing traffic lanes for seven blocks in Midtown, will become permanent. Backing up the decision is data showing that the change has improved pedestrian and driver safety and sped up car and bus traffic — and that New Yorkers who spend time in the area like the changes.

Injuries for pedestrians and motorists have dropped significantly in Times and Herald Squares. (Data is via NYPD.)

The extensive data that went into the decision is available in a report on NYCDOT’s website. In brief:

• Safety dramatically improved, with pedestrian injuries declining by 35% and motorist and passenger injuries dropping 63%.
• Travel speeds improved by 7% in West Midtown. Northbound car speeds jumped by 17%, while southbound speeds fell by 2%. Buses on Sixth Avenue were 13% faster, and 2% slower on Seventh Ave. However, wait time for Seventh Ave. bus passengers was cut in half, since many buses that had previously used Broadway were rerouted to Seventh Ave.
• Pedestrian traffic increased by 11% in Times Square and 6% in Herald Square.
• According to surveys done by the Times Square Alliance, majorities of NYC residents, area employees, retailers, and theatergoers said that the pedestrian plazas had improved the neighborhood.

Commissioner Sadik-Khan said that the city would hold a design competition to decide the plazas’ final form.  The plazas would be refurbished in the short term and construction on the permanent design will begin in 2012.  She also said that many city residents had expressed interest in expanding the plazas south. For his part, Mayor Bloomberg said that streets needed to be designed for all users.

In a statement, the Campaign said that “Mayor Bloomberg and NYCDOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan’s bold experiment has been an unqualified success,” and suggested that the mayor “consider a similar approach on streets like 32nd Street near Penn Station, where pedestrians are routinely forced into the roadway.”

Images: Top – Clarence Eckerson via Streetsblog. Table – from NYCDOT “Green Light for Midtown” report, comparing June-November NYPD data from 2006-08 (before car-free Broadway plan) to 2009 (after).

The walk from Penn Station could be less crowded in a few years. As part of the redevelopment of Hotel Pennsylvania and the Manhattan Mall, the [...]]]>

A private developer has offered to renovate and reopen the Gimbels passageway, in yellow above, which would provide an underground connection between Penn Station and Herald Square.

The walk from Penn Station could be less crowded in a few years. As part of the redevelopment of Hotel Pennsylvania and the Manhattan Mall, the developer, a subsidiary of Vornado, has proposed opening the long abandoned “Gimbels passageway” that provided an underground pedestrian link between Penn Station and the Herald Square subway and PATH stations.

The passageway runs under the south side of 33rd Street, but has been closed for almost 20 years (its namesake, the once-iconic Gimbels department store, closed a few years earlier in 1987).  Given the enormous amount of foot traffic along the sidewalks in the area, and with more pedestrians on the way due to the ARC Tunnel and Midtown development projects like this one, the resurrection of the Gimbels passageway is perfectly timed.  The project would also widen the cramped tunnel to accommodate bigger crowds.

The Gimbels passageway as it exists today.

The passageway would provide a substantial public benefit, and the influx of private money should make it difficult for the city to refuse.  Ideally, the passageway would be truly public, rather than behind MTA turnstiles.  This would allow the greatest number of Penn Station commuters to use the tunnel and provide the maximum benefit for the crowded sidewalks above.

The environmental review will also include study of pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks surrounding the block.  We are sure that the results will confirm what other studies have shown: that the sidewalks and crosswalks are dangerously overburdened.  The opening of the Gimbels passageway will go a long way to help alleviate that burden – we hope to see it in use after a generation of languishing.

Images: Top – 15 Penn Plaza draft scope of work. Bottom right – Railroad.net forum via Gothamist.

As press reports detail NYC DOT’s plan to create a public esplanade along Broadway from 42nd to Herald Square, the 34th Street Partnership released the results of its annual spring pedestrian counts, which were taken May 13-14 (a Tuesday and Wednesday). Tens of thousands of people each hour cross the area’s busy intersections, [...]]]>

As press reports detail NYC DOT’s plan to create a public esplanade along Broadway from 42nd to Herald Square, the 34th Street Partnership released the results of its annual spring pedestrian counts, which were taken May 13-14 (a Tuesday and Wednesday). Tens of thousands of people each hour cross the area’s busy intersections, making it clear how critical foot traffic is to the area.

The Partnership’s district stretches from 10th Avenue to Park Avenue and is bounded by 30th and 36th Streets, but its busiest three locations were all around Penn Station. They were the northwest corner of 34th and 7th, which 14,340 pedestrians passed through during its peak hour; the northwest corner of 34th and Broadway with 16,776 pedestrians; and the Penn Station entrance at 32nd and 7th, whose busiest hour saw 69,240 people enter and leave the station.

Tri-State launched its Penn For Peds campaign not only because of existing congestion and safety issues, but also because planned public and private developments will further increase foot traffic in the area. Not least of these is the ARC Tunnel project that will double NJ Transit capacity to Midtown Manhattan and expand Penn Station below 34th Street. According to project environmental documents, both the 34th St./7th Ave. and 34th St./Broadway intersections will be hit by unacceptable pedestrian crowding.

In addition to the 34th Street Partnership’s pedestrian count, the MTA’s 2007 subway and bus ridership report found that three of the six most-used subway stations in the city (in terms of ridership) are in the area: the Herald Square station and both the 7th Ave and 8th Ave Penn Station stops.

Image: The 32nd St./7th Ave. entrance of Penn Station.

NJ Transit has released a Supplemental Draft EIS (SDEIS) for Access to the Region’s Core, a project whose main component is a new cross-Hudson tunnel which will [...]]]>

Absent mitigation, Access to the Region’s Core will bring overwhelming crowds to the NYC crosswalks and sidewalks highlighted in black. [Image from ARC SDEIS.]

NJ Transit has released a Supplemental Draft EIS (SDEIS) for Access to the Region’s Core, a project whose main component is a new cross-Hudson tunnel which will add two additional commuter rail tracks between Secaucus Junction and an expansion of New York Penn Station under 34th Street. The SDEIS outlines several significant design changes, including shrinking the Penn Station expansion from 475,000 ft² to approximately 300,000 ft² to avoid private property impacts to the north. The new tunnel will accommodate an additional 25 trains per hour, more than doubling current trans-Hudson commuter rail peak hour capacity to 48 trains per hour.

Undeniably, this will put thousands of new train riders onto sidewalks that already overflow today, as Tri-State’s Penn for Peds campaign has highlighted. The SDEIS identifies 49 “failure” sidewalk corners, stretches of sidewalk, and crosswalks which will see unacceptable pedestrian crowding and congestion during peak hours (technically speaking, they will experience a pedestrian “level of service” of E or F). This total includes 20 new sidewalk failures, 6 new corner failures, and 9 new crosswalk failures which did not appear in the original DEIS analysis. There are several possible explanations for the additional failures. The analysis year was upped in the SDEIS to 2030 from 2025, adding five more years of growth to the results. The project team expanded the studied pedestrian area north to 35th Street, identifying additional failures. Finally, the redesigned station extension no longer includes a street-level station entrance at the northeast corner of 35th Street and 8th Avenue because of cost concerns, though it does have three more ADA-accessible elevator entrances than the original design.

The ARC redesign also includes a cross-Hudson tunnel dug deeper beneath the riverbed. The change responds to the concerns of the Army Corps of Engineers, Hudson River Park Trust, and others that a shallow dug tunnel would damage the riverbed, disturb vegetation and aquatic life, and cut straight through Manhattan’s historic timber bulkhead. This deeper tunnel’s tracks, however, would connect only to the new station platforms, not to Penn Station’s existing platforms. Such a connection would have allowed for slightly increased flexibility in the event of a stalled train or other incident in Penn Station or the existing Hudson rail tunnel.

The bleak portrait of pedestrian overflow painted in the SDEIS points to a need for more comprehensive mitigation measures. While the project team mentions some specific pedestrian improvements like removing street furniture, NJ Transit (the project’s lead agency) does not have jurisdiction over NYC sidewalks, streets, street vendors, subway stairwells, etc. For this reason it is imperative that those agencies with authority — primarily NYC DOT — offer concrete solutions, and that Manhattan elected officials encourage them to do so.

While significant measures must be taken to ensure that sidewalks in the Penn area can handle an increase in pedestrian traffic, the ARC project is absolutely necessary to reduce congestion and support regional job growth. Commuters should testify to both points at public hearings on the SDEIS, which will take place in Newark on March 31 and in lower Manhattan on April 1 (for full details, click here).

NYC’s Penn Station is the busiest transit hub in the country, handling more people a day than the three NYC-area airports combined. Every day, thousands upon thousands of commuters and travelers spill through its entrances. So why is the surrounding area so inhospitable to [...]]]>
Who needs the space on 32nd Street more?

NYC’s Penn Station is the busiest transit hub in the country, handling more people a day than the three NYC-area airports combined. Every day, thousands upon thousands of commuters and travelers spill through its entrances. So why is the surrounding area so inhospitable to pedestrians?

The Tri-State Campaign office is mere blocks from Penn, so Campaign staffers often ponder this question as they circumnavigate vehicles in crosswalks on their way to work. With increased attention focused on Penn as the Empire State Development Corporation’s Moynihan Station environmental review moves forward, now is as good a time as ever to change this state of affairs. That’s why Tri-State is launching a campaign to win pedestrian improvements around Penn Station.

Others are concerned about this lack of regard for pedestrians, particularly Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer. Last week Stringer proposed widening sidewalks and creating bike lanes on West 33rd Street, an idea supported by the Regional Plan Association, Transportation Alternatives, and the Tri-State Campaign. Stringer and the three groups are also pushing for inclusion of pedestrian improvements in the Moynihan Station environmental review.

The prioritization of cars reaches its most absurd on 32nd Street between Seventh and Sixth Avenues. This stretch of 32nd Street is one of the heaviest traveled areas around Penn Station, since it leads directly to the Seventh Avenue entrance of Penn Station and links it to the Herald Square subway and PATH stations on Sixth Avenue. Its narrow sidewalks are made narrower by scaffolding and street vendors, and can’t handle the commuters’ parade which unfolds every weekday morning and afternoon. (Images after the cut.)

A typical morning outside of Penn Station.

The imbalance exists in both halves of the space-time continuum. On Tuesday Tri-State staffers timed the traffic lights at the intersection of 32nd Street and Seventh Avenue (at 9:15 a.m. and at 5:20 p.m.) and found that pedestrians were allotted 20 seconds to cross the street. Cars got a full minute.

Waiting to cross 7th Ave (at 32nd Street).

NYC DOT could take quick action at this trouble spot by restricting vehicular access to 32nd Street during rush hour. Public comments on ESDC’s scoping document for the Moynihan Station project are due on Monday.