Today’s Headlines

  • Families for Safe Streets Takes It Straight to John Flanagan at His Suffolk Home (CBS 880)
  • Rampant Mechanical Defects Slowing Down Train Service, Subway Workers Tell the Post
  • In 10 Years, DOT’s Plaza Program Has Turned Space for Cars Into 74 Places for People (NYT)
  • Corey Johnson’s “DOT Ombudsman” Bill Is a NIMBY Empowerment Act (QChron)
  • Driver Seriously Injures Man on Northern Boulevard in Jackson Heights (News)
  • NY1 Previews the Coming Fight Over Commercial Trash Carting Reform
  • Staten Islanders Rally for Safer Streets at Borough Hall (Advance)
  • A Dispatch From the First Weekend of Dockless Bike-Share in the Rockaways (AMNY)
  • TWU Prez Tony Utano: Dockless Bike-Share Jobs Pay Less Than Citi Bike and Lack Benefits (News)
  • Hundreds Have Signed on to Support Safer Bike Lanes on Utopia Parkway (QChron)
  • Now’s the Time to Design Good Walking and Biking Connections for the Next Grand Street Bridge (QChron)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

  • Jeff

    Noooo!!! I love the Grand St Bridge!

    But if it has to be replaced, it’s crazy that they weren’t able to secure permission to “demap” that little stub of Newtown Creek (the East Branch) as a navigable waterway so that they can build a more simple fixed bridge.

  • AnoNYC

    City reveals plan to invest $100M in freight infrastructure

    http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20180716/REAL_ESTATE/180719944/city-reveals-plan-to-invest-100m-in-freight-infrastructure

    “The city unveiled a plan Monday to invest up to $100 million in freight infrastructure, the opening step in Freight NYC, an initiative envisioned by the de Blasio administration to shift more of the millions of tons of food, products and materials that are carted into the city each year by pollution-belching trucks to trains and ships.”

  • redbike

    Thanks for posting this. Rep. Jerry Nadler has been flogging a similar concept
    https://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20180409/FEATURES/180409925/freight-tunnel-not-quite-on-track
    for decades; peculiar that Nadler’s not mentioned in the Cranes article you cite. Dunno whether the latest iteration will go anywhere — none of the previous proposals are more than dreams — but at a minimum, it’s encouraging to see stuff like this being considered.

  • Larry Littlefield

    You need to understand what kills it. Stuff isn’t going to be delivered to your local store by train. It’s going to be delivered by truck.

    Stuff could be delivered by train to New Jersey, and transferred to trucks. Or delivered by train to New York City if a new rail tunnel is built and huge areas are cleared for rail yards. And then all those trucks serving NYC and Long Island could depart from there.

    Basically, when those around the Newtown Creek found out that the trucks for 12 million people would be arriving there off Review Avenue and getting on the LIE/BQE, they were not amused. Frankly, I’m not sure Streetsblog would be celebrating that either.

    Same thing with a new tunnel near the GW and the train to truck transfer taking place in the South Bronx.

    “Millions of tons of food, products and materials.”

    Sounds like they aren’t addressing the intermodal market, the large volume of stuff that typically arrives by truck. They are seeking to have bulky, low value products that generally ship by train get further than New Jersey by train. Fine, but absent a tunnel that means a couple of extra days north and south over the rail bridge south of Albany, turning around in the yards in the Bronx to go back in the other direction over the Hell Gate Bridge, and interfering with commuter rail traffic along the Hudson Line.

  • redbike

    Thanks for pointing out the multi-modal / last-mile (or last-ten-miles) issues. Acknowledging these hurdles, I’m encouraged to see this stuff discussed.

  • Larry Littlefield

    Actually, it’s a last 100 to 150 miles issue. Except in metro NY, the Hudson River, the resulting bottleneck of the two main truck routes over the GW and Verrazano, and heavy traffic in general cut that down somewhat.

  • Flakker

    Aside from what’s been said- subsidizing air freight seems like an
    absolutely horrible idea from a climate change perspective. However,
    subsidizing Brooklyn Army Terminal would make sense if it, for example,
    augmented the existing operations at South Brooklyn Marine Terminal
    https://untappedcities.com/2017/02/02/behind-the-scenes-at-the-floating-freight-rail-line-that-crosses-the-hudson-river-in-nyc/
    It might marginally improve air and noise pollution too- but the idea
    that it’s going to decongest anything is just silly. Without congestion
    pricing, those trucks will generally be replaced by cars.