It is no secret or surprise that New
York City is prone to congestion. Doesn’t it make sense that in a city
with 8.5 million people, last I heard, some of them may be going the same way
at the same time and things could get a bit crowded, thus impeding progress?
Just for the record (brace yourself, I actually did some research), the City of
New York has more people than 39 out of the 50 states. Add to that the
number of tourists and people that commute into the city for work and you have
a whole lot of people in a very small space. That is the essence of
congestion.
What does come as a surprise are some
of the things that are done to try to relieve this congestion (or at least the
rhetoric is trying to relieve it) or, in some cases, in spite of it. These
maneuvers take an already delicate situation and push it across the threshold
into madness. What maneuvers you may be asking? Well, I will
explain.
I hope that it is universally
understood that many people in a limited space will cause congestion.
What I thought was universally understood, but apparently is not, is that if
you take a congested area and add even more people, it will make the previous
problem of congestion even worse. I stand corrected. Over the last
however many years, the number of new residential buildings, which at times are
massive, that have gone up in New York City is astonishing. I thought
things in Harlem had gotten out of control, but then I saw downtown Brooklyn
and Long Island City (oh my goodness!). It truly is staggering. But
going back to the original point, with all of this money to throw around, why
is so much of it being spent to build so many more residences when there are
many other needs in the city (that is a rhetorical question since I am pretty
sure the answer is greed, or “hypercapitalism” to keep it politically correct)?
There is not a need for so many new apartments. I am sure there is not a
demand for so many new apartments either; there can’t be. Whatever the
occupancy rates, the overall effect of more people moving into neighborhoods
and thus into the city is more congestion. Granted, maybe people are
moving from one part of the city to another, but it sure does not feel that
way. One immediate way to ease the plague of congestion is to discontinue
this prolific building of more residential space, thus adding to the population
of a city that is already bursting at the seams.
The problem noted in the previous
paragraph lies at the root of another issue which compounds the plague of
congestion (I am enjoying that phrase). All of these residences don’t
just appear; they need to be constructed. This brings us to another
issue; never-ending construction, everywhere! New York City is an
interesting place to try to get significant construction work done.
Besides the legal morass (unless you have pull and can skirt the morass), there
are tight spots and a lot of people. So, although those responsible for
construction may have a difficult time and at times really have to exercise
ingenuity to get the job done, their presence inconveniences others that work
or live in close proximity, and others that may just be passing through. This ultimately compounds the problem of
congestion. How so?
Let’s start with building construction.
If a large building is being erected, typically there is some closure of the
street or loss of a lane to allow for the use of a mobile crane, allow space
for deliveries, or just to provide wiggle room for the task at hand. This
reduces the amount of space available for passage which means less vehicles can
get through. If there are barricades and such, perhaps a driver has to
limit their speed to negotiate the new impediments. Then there are the
deliveries. Traffic is stopped as the concrete truck, trailer carrying
rebar, P.C. Richards truck or similar vehicle park or back their way into a
spot. Or maybe the vehicle just double parks, again removing a lane of
traffic. This creates the need for lanes
of traffic to merge and merges are a nightmare to progress. At times when
a large vehicle double parks, it causes quite the fiasco if another large
vehicle is coming through the same street. What is happening now is that
there are so many buildings going up at one time, so close together, that
several construction sites are all causing these difficulties at the same time
in the same area. At my previous job I had to do quite a bit of driving
and was constantly confronted with a lane disappearing, cones designating
previously usable space now being taken for some unknown cause or just because
someone had some cones they had to put to use.
Or on occasion there would be a flagmen in the street keeping cars from
moving for some construction related reason such as a crane making a pick.
I think you get the point.
Let’s move to road construction.
Typically, construction on a road means the loss of at least one lane, in some
cases more. In many cases having one less lane is not the killer.
It is the merging that holds up progress, as people have to renegotiate their
current use of space. Further hurting the situation is the impatience of
drivers and resistance to allowing anyone to go in front of them. All of
this fighting probably just costs people time. Actually, let me digress
for a moment:
DIGRESSION: What I have seen time and again
in New York is the blocked intersection. The traffic that has the light
is unable to proceed because traffic going in a perpendicular direction is
blocking the way. Sometimes drivers misread a situation and get caught in
the middle of an intersection (particularly problematic when they are driving a
large vehicle). But what happens a lot of times is that someone who is
impatient and unwilling to wait will proceed into the intersection knowing full
well that they will not get all the way through before the light changes.
When the light inevitably does change while they are still in the intersection,
the cars with the green light are unable to go. Or, and this brings us
back to merging, one lane can go and another cant. This creates the
situation where cars in the lane that can’t proceed merge into the other, again
slowing progress and increasing the likelihood that themselves may end up
blocking an intersection. It is a really vicious cycle and made more
frequent with construction related impediments.
There are excavations that are covered with steel plates that can
wreck the bottom of your car, unless of course you go slow and thus cause
backups behind you.
SIDENOTE: This became a terrible issue some years
ago on the Tappan Zee Bridge, a bridge that connects Rockland and Westchester
counties in New York State. Thick steel
plates had been placed on the road to cover either potholes, or construction work in progress. There was no way to go across
those plates at highway speeds, so traffic slowed to a crawl during rush
hours. I worked with a few guys that
came that way on their way to work.
Their normal 10-15 minute commute became 45 minutes to an hour.
Road construction sometimes necessitates lane shifts, which in New
York are almost never done well and in fact could frequently be classified as
criminally negligent. Oh, do you know what happens when there is a poorly
executed lane shift, lane closure, or orange barricade rolling around because
it was improperly placed and someone hit it? The plague of congestion is
compounded. And then there is the New York special; a road construction
project taking 10 years to complete (20 if you want to discuss the Gowanus
Expressway). Additionally, the project that takes 10 years to complete is
half a mile from the other project that has stolen two lanes of traffic.
The sum of this is simple: Wherever you are going, it is going to take a very
long time. Also, wherever you are going,
you are going to be late.
What also appears to be evident from
these recurring situations is that the NYC Department of Buildings and
Department of Transportation do not talk enough, at least not about ways to
alleviate some of the delays caused by construction. There is
construction everywhere at the same time. Don’t applications have to be
filed for all of this work? Isn’t it possible that just once someone
says, “maybe this project is not a good idea right now”? I understand, it is bad for the very
important individual Economy and his cousin Economic Growth. But what about consideration for quality of
life and perhaps the economic output that is lost as everyone sits in traffic?
(Oh, and it appears that the City itself has the construction bug. I am
not one to open cans of worms, but who exactly is paying for all of this?
Where did all of this money come from? Either there is some stash of
money that I am not aware of or bondholders are delirious with glee.
Someone at some point is going to have to pay for this*).
On a similar note, there is something
else that has seemingly become popular, outside of full-blown construction;
maintenance of roads and bridges during busy traffic hours. I will repeat
the gist of one of my complaints from the previous paragraph; it does not make
sense to close down lanes everywhere at the same time. During the day
there are agency vehicles on the sides of roads and bridges, protected by cones
used to close lanes all over the place. I understand that routine
maintenance needs to be done, but is there really no other way or time? I
recall sitting in traffic on the Grand Central Parkway in the last few months
because a lane was closed and the merging became something bordering on
maniacal. As I got to the trouble spot, workers were seemingly changing
light bulbs. Numerous vehicles losing 20-30 minutes of time for
lightbulbs, during the middle of the day no less, is pretty outrageous.
Outside of that, the time lost approaching the Throgs Neck Bridge, crossing the
George Washington Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, Verrazano Bridge and along the
Staten Island Expressway is staggering and in this one man’s opinion, mostly
unnecessary.
And briefly, while we are talking about
work during the middle of the day, why do Sanitation trucks run their routes
during rush hour? Also, does alternate side of the street parking need to
be done so often? How clean are the street sweepers actually keeping the
streets? (These particular matters are discussed in other
articles/complaints).
The last contributing factor to
congestion to be addressed here is the new street configurations. Under
this umbrella, I will include new bike lanes and the addition of Citi Bike
docking stations. Going back to the earlier idea, that a lot of people in
limited space causes congestion, if you increase the number of people, or
decrease the amount of space, that makes the problem worse. What has been
happening in New York City has been a dastardly combination of both.
These new street configurations have decreased the usable space of vehicles by
a lot, at least as far as the naked eye can tell. Perhaps it was done to
promote safety. Maybe someone is trying to model New York after a
European city, with a Robert Moses approach to getting things done (meaning
without regard for its long-term, or big picture implications). Whatever
the case, what does seem to be apparent is that it has added to the plague of congestion
in the city. How so?
Many significant avenues and
thoroughfares have had the number of lanes reduced. Also, and I cannot
speak as to the intent of this, there are now these random pedestrian islands,
spaces and lanes that are unused. I would not state with any conviction that
all reduction of lanes is a bad thing.
In some cases, where exclusive turning lanes have been added, I would
dare say they have been helpful. But I
think the implementation has gone too far.
First, let me
say that if a lane is going to become a turn only lane, there should be some
advanced warning or notification by way of a sign. Motorists get caught in weird spots when the
lane they are traveling in magically becomes a turn only lane, in particular if
the light at that intersection has an exclusive turn signal. In congested areas, this situation can cause
mayhem (such as on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn).
Secondly, I
don’t think these lane reductions took into account the fact that people double-park. In fact, people double park a lot. Part of the reason is that convenient parking
spots are incredibly hard to come by.
What has happened in some places, such as along 7th Avenue in
Harlem (Adam Clayton Powell for the newbies), is that three travel lanes have
been reduced to two. Once a car, or more
likely a truck, double parks, you now have one lane. Something similar has happened along Columbus
Avenue. There are now three travel lanes
with zero wiggle room on the sides. What
has happened more than once is that not just one vehicle double parks, but two
vehicles double-park on opposite sides of the street from one another in close
proximity. Do you know what this
creates? A bottleneck of three lanes
going to one. Sometimes this happens
when there is two-way traffic; cars double park opposite each other. This adds to the plague of congestion.
Gray Paper Figure 2.
1 - Looking north along
7th Avenue in Harlem. View of
former travel lane now converted to dead space
Third, what
are these random areas of empty space?
For example, along Mount Morris Park, the number of lanes has been
reduced to one, half lanes have been placed next to the parking lanes, and
there is this wide swath of street that is used for absolutely nothing. In Times Square it makes sense, since there
is a large volume of pedestrian traffic.
In other areas where this has been done it is simply a waste of space. Something similar has also been done on St.
Nicholas Avenue between 116th and 117th streets. On St. Nicholas, this gets interesting on
Sundays as cars are double-parked by attendees of nearby churches and tour
buses try to navigate their way through these increasingly narrow streets. There are likewise other random spaces that
do not run parallel to traffic but have seemingly been set aside solely for the
purpose of wasting space. If you are
going to set aside these spaces, at least put some benches, artwork, plaques
honoring people of note, or something, sheesh.
Gray Paper Figure 2.
2 – Looking north along
Mount Morris Park. Former lane of
traffic turned into empty space.
Gray Paper Figure 2.
3 – Looking north along
Mount Morris Park. Lanes on each side of
the street of indeterminate purpose.
Gray Paper Figure 2.
4 – Corner of 120th
street and Mount Morris Park. New, empty
space of indeterminate purpose.
Gray Paper Figure 2.
5 – Same corner,
different angle.
Gray Paper Figure 2. 6 – Intersection of 116th
street, 7th Avenue and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem. New space and lane (to the left) of
indeterminate purpose).
Gray Paper Figure 2. 7 – Looking
south/southeast from 117th street and St. Nicholas Avenue on a
Sunday (towards picture location in previous photo). Cars double-parked on right. Buses attempt to go through on Sundays.
Gray Paper Figure 2.
8 – At the intersection
of Tillary Street, Clinton Street and Cadman Plaza W in Brooklyn Heights. In all fairness, it appears that a Citi Bike has put a station here since this picture was taken.
Gray Paper Figure 2. 9 – Looking south along
Columbus Avenue. A bike lane, a lane of
indeterminate purpose and space set aside for a fire hydrant.
Fourth, too
much deference has been given to bike lanes.
I do think bike lanes have been a great addition in most places, but again,
a good idea has been taken too far. If
they are directly adjacent to passenger traffic, the damage is minimized
(except for where I will mention below), but when a parking lane divides them
from the passenger traffic, there is now space that is irretrievable. I cannot confirm that there is actually a law
forbidding stopping or standing in a bike lane, but by the way I have at times
seen vehicles such as trucks, or cars trying to beat the alternate side parking
align themselves, I would imagine sitting in a bike lane is an issue. Here is the issue with that: Space is taken
away from cars to travel (and there are still a lot more cars, in need of more
space, than bikes on the road) so that a bike can get by, which it could
otherwise do anyway if a car is double-parked in the bike lane. I have seen this situation create mayhem… No
wait, let me be consistent. This adds to
the plague of congestion.
Gray Paper Figure 2. 10 – Intersection of
Washington Street and Willoughby Avenue in Brooklyn. Both the white truck and the car on the right
are parked. It appears that the truck is
parked as to stay out of the bike lane.
This is not
quite fifth, but still something that makes absolutely no sense to me in my
little world. With all the reconfiguring
and bus stop construction and re-striping of lines that has taken place, why
has nothing been done to clearly define how far a car should be from a fire
hydrant? I understand, it allows more
parking tickets to be written. But I
have never seen a traffic cop pull out a measuring tape to verify that someone
is parked illegally. This means that the
proximity to the hydrant is subjective and would also likely mean that many
tickets have been written in error. This
has wasted people’s money (for those that just decide to pay it) and people’s
time (for those that decide to fight it).
It would be nice if something were done, not just for the opportunity to
further tax motorists and appease that guy, Economy, but with the best interest
of citizens in mind.
It appears to
me, and I am no expert, that the plague of congestion could be alleviated to
some degree by addressing some of the glaring issues mentioned above. If there are too many people without enough
space, the answer cannot possibly be to add more people or take away space. New York City will always be crowded but it
would be nice if at some point there was a consensus that it is not a good idea
to make the situation unnecessarily worse.
