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MAKING TRACKS - Vol. 1, No. 2 - April 1995
Entire contents of MAKING TRACKS is copyright © 1995 by Village Crosstown Trolley Coalition,
but may be reproduced either in whole or in part with a clear acknowledgment of the source.
Please report any errors to us at VCTC. Thanks.
Inside this Issue
The Crosstown Trolley: A Boon to Village Business
A Day in the Village
Trolley Topics
A Boon to Village Business
By William K. Guild
The Village Crosstown Trolley, a river-to-river replacement for the 8th St. crosstown bus, will be an enormous transportation improvement for area residents, especially those who live in the West Village or east of 2nd Avenue. For the first time in generations they will have fast, dependable access both to the Village core and to transit lines serving the rest of the city. Trolleys will draw many new tourists and other visitors to our often mysterious and confusing jumble of attractions. And light rail, operating in pedestrianized streets, will go a long way toward relieving the congestion and air quality problems afflicting the neighborhood.
But what of businesses along the route? How will the shops get their deliveries? How will they ship their orders? And how will customers reach the shops if they cannot park along the transitway?
The last question is answered most easily, especially in a transit-oriented city such as New York. As noted in our Premier Issue, the small shops, galleries, boutiques, restaurants and cafés along St. Marks Place, 8th St. and Christopher St. cater to a walk-in trade. Customers arrive by subway, bus, PATH--possibly by taxi--but rarely by limousine or private car. They do not need parking space but walking space, with attractive and reliable public transit within the neighborhood as well as to it. The Village Crosstown Trolley, providing frequent service in substantially auto-free streets, convenient low-floor cars and daily or monthly passes with transfers to other transit, will more than make up for the loss of a few on-street parking spaces.
As for shipments and deliveries, it is a fact that businesses now are almost completely dependent upon trucks and vans. This is true not only along the 8th St. corridor and in New York generally, but also in cities across the country and throughout the world. Local merchants typically have opposed the conversion of traffic-clogged streets into pedestrian zones for precisely the reasons put forward here: that cars, vans and trucks will lose access to their businesses. Yet when such conversions have gone forward, particularly in conjunction with improved public transit, these same merchants have been the first to recognize and applaud the result.
We cannot set forth a complete blueprint for essential vehicular access to each store, business or residence along the 8th St. corridor. One purpose of a feasibility study, the next logical step in the development of plans for the Village Crosstown Trolley, is to examine such issues and we shall have more to say on this in future issues of MAKING TRACKS. Such a study would look closely at how shops in such pedestrianized spaces as the World Trade Center, Rockefeller Center and the South Street Seaport manage to receive essential deliveries. For now, however, it may help to clarify some specifics of the VCTC proposal. We will then look at the experiences of some other cities and even other neighborhoods in New York which have instituted pedestrian zones.
Viewing the congestion and gridlock of the 8th St. corridor at almost any hour of the day or night, with vehicles of all descriptions battling for position between parked cars and double-parked trucks, and with crowds of pedestrians on narrow sidewalks assailed by noise and exhaust fumes, it is hard to realize that this is really a rather wide thoroughfare. Except for two short 50 foot segments along Christopher St., there is at least 60 feet of open space between building lines along the entire route. The sidewalks are narrow--8 or 9 feet in some places, forcing pedestrians to squeeze past trees, lampposts and parking meters--to accommodate a vehicular roadway widened to 42 feet or more. This illustrates clearly the misplaced priority of widening roads in downtown areas to improve traffic flow.
A light rail transitway, on the other hand, is 20 feet wide or less, depending on the specific light rail vehicle (LRV) to be used. This would leave at least 20 feet clear on each side (15 feet in Christopher St.) for pedestrians and for various amenities. Indeed, since LRVs do not ordinarily run bumper-to-bumper like motor vehicle traffic, pedestrians are free to "J-walk" between trolleys. Except at stations, where a slightly raised curb will facilitate access to low floor cars, there is no physical barrier between transitway and sidewalk; a distinctive pavement design is sufficient.
One minor and, perhaps, temporary modification will be needed on the segment of 8th St. from 5th Ave. to Cooper Sq. to accommodate downtown NYCT buses on the M2, M3, M5 and M18 routes. They will need a slightly wider pathway than the eastbound trolleys along the south side of 8th St, with provision for two or three stops. Considering that many transit corridors routinely mix buses and trolleys, or even serve buses exclusively, this inconvenience should not detract significantly from either the utility of the transitway or the ambiance of pedestrian space along the Village Crosstown corridor.
Unlike the ubiquitous urban trolley networks of the early 20th Century, modern light rail systems do not generally compete for space with cars and trucks in busy downtown streets, but operate in dedicated or exclusive transitways . Indeed, some systems, such as the new St. Louis Metro Link, are almost completely grade-separated, much like our subway or elevated lines. Others, like the pioneering San Diego trolley, run at grade through downtown streets from which ordinary vehicular traffic is barred. Streets along some routes are shared with motor vehicles. In Portland, Oregon, the MAX light rail line uses exclusive trackage in one-way downtown streets. A lane is reserved for motor vehicles and "off-side cut-outs" are strategically located for truck deliveries. One thing all of these new systems have in common is the acclaim of the business communities which they serve.
Two or three decades ago a number of towns and cities sought to compete with burgeoning suburban shopping malls by converting downtown streets into "malls," banning cars from the center and providing parking lots at the fringes. Generally these efforts to recreate suburbia in the city have been unsuccessful, except when combined with vastly improved public transit.
A case in point is the Mid-America Mall in downtown Memphis, Tennessee, created in the early 1970s by barring cars from a section of Main Street and giving the area a "pedestrian orientation." Although the eventual installation of a "people mover" transit system was recommended from the start, the Mall fell far short of its original goals, including retail retention and expansion, linkages between downtown activity centers and new development.
All this finally changed in May, 1993, when the Memphis Area Transit Authority opened a 2.2 mile trolley line through the Mid-America Mall. Languishing businesses suddenly boomed and a host of new retail establishments, from pharmacies to craft shops, sprang up. Restaurant owners were especially pleased with the new luncheon trade attracted from other parts of town. Promoters had relied heavily on successful trolley restorations in historic sections of Seattle and New Orleans in planning the Memphis improvement.
Closer to home, Philadelphia is now restoring trolley service to its downtown area, supplementing the bus-only "transit mall" which has been operating along Chestnut Street for several years. Downtown Brooklyn is considering restoring trolleys to its bus-only þtransit mallþ on Fulton Street. These experiments demonstrate that the inconvenience resulting from reduced truck and van access is more than compensated by increased attractiveness and customer accessibility afforded by transit, particularly in the form of streetcars.
The Feb. 6 New York Observer reported the recent vote of Community Board #1 to support the closing of Manhattan's Fulton Street to lunchtime traffic, creating mid-day pedestrian malls along both Fulton and Nassau Streets. After successful summer experiments, and with the urging of merchants and business groups, the Board favored the permanent closing to attract midday business and increase tourism. Even with no new transit facilities, Phil Nuzzo of the Nassau Street Mall Improvement Association praised the move for providing "a cleaner, quieter . . . friendly link between the Seaport and the World Trade Center."
The principal corridor linking the East Village, Greenwich Village and West Village is a bustling, vital retail area in spite of the deplorable conditions created by 'round the clock car and truck traffic. Christopher St., 8th St. and St. Marks Place share a character, ambiance and historic significance as well as geographic proximity. Yet in its present state the corridor divides these neighborhoods rather than uniting them.
Key to the improvement is the creation of an open, pedestrian-oriented space through the principal retail segments of the corridor. Fulton St. now has a « mile long "cleaner, quieter . . . friendly link" between tourist destinations, at least at lunchtime, and the merchants are overjoyed. The longer Village corridor needs attractive, reliable crosstown transit if it is to achieve its potential. Light rail--a trolley line--is the ideal transit mode for this setting. Clean, quiet and unobtrusive, trolleys will enhance the pedestrian space rather than impinge upon it. The Village Crosstown Trolley, a tourist attraction as well as a major transit upgrade, will quickly become the pride of the corridor. It deserves the support of residents, educational institutions, politicians and especially the business community from river to river.
Visitors to the East Village may well wish to explore the sights and shops of the West Village, less than two miles away. Yet what should be pleasant and interesting walk, from St. Marks Place to Christopher St. across the heart of Greenwich Village, turns into a disagreeable struggle along narrow, almost impassible sidewalks, through the noise, grime and diesel fumes of 8th St. Our visitors will be tired and out-of-sorts by the time they reach the West Village, if they get there at all, and they certainly won't have done much shopping along the way.
Of course, there is the crosstown bus--the westbound ride across 9th St. will be better than the eastbound gridlock of 8th St.--but sightseeing or shopping along the way will be out and the 20 minute weekend gaps between buses may be as daunting as the fare. Then too, riding a bus is just no fun. Our visitors might as well take a taxi.
The crosstown trolley proposed by VCTC, on the other hand, will provide fast, frequent two-way service in a single transit corridor from river to river. A unified, pass-based fare structure will enable residents and visitors alike to transfer to and from subways and other transit, actually encouraging shoppers and tourists to reboard after visiting stores or cafés along the way. And, logical or not, the fact is that most people enjoy a trolley ride. The trolley itself will be a magnet drawing thousands of tourists, shoppers and other new visitors to the Village crosstown corridor.
- WKG
The Wall Street Journal has discovered trolleys. On Feb. 24, 1995, citing examples in Tuscon, Dallas and Memphis, the pro-business Journal found a surprising connection between restored street railways and improvement in downtown commerce. Walter Rich, operator of Syracuse, NY's "City Express" rail line linking the university campus with downtown and the new Carousel Mall, argued in WSJ that "the whole theme is to entice people who are visiting one attraction to visit another and stay in the community longer."
Electric surface transit vehicles may return to 8th St. in coming months. Four small battery-powered buses have been purchased by the NY State Power Authority for testing in polluted and traffic-clogged NYC. One or two of the buses, on loan to NYC transit, may soon be assigned to the M8 crosstown line. Battery powered streetcars were once the mainstay for light density street railway lines in Manhattan, replacing horsecars where the cost of building electric conduits in the street could not be justified.
Budget pressure from Albany and recently discovered toxic waste sites may spell the end of the road for Route 9A--the West Side Highway project. Removing this waste may substantially increase the already bloated $380 million cost of rebuilding the five mile road. The "interim roadway" has functioned quite adequately since the old elevated highway collapsed some 20 years ago. Rebuilding arterial streets on a 40 to 50 year cycle is the norm in New York City. Federal funds now earmarked for the premature rebuilding of this road, the last remnant of the once mighty Westway project, can be reassigned to any highway or transit project in the City. New political realities in Albany may force this to happen. If only ten percent of these funds were traded in to fund the Village Crosstown Trolley and pedestrian promenade, the project could become a reality. A trade-in would also speed development of the long awaited riverfront park now held hostage to the 9A project. Only a tiny fraction of available Federal funds would be needed to develop and attractive park, and to install a few more traffic lights and crosswalks so Villagers could actually reach the park. When the time comes to rebuild 9A, some 30 years from now, the work can be done within the roadway itself and not in the park. How these Federal transport funds are allocated is the City's decision to make.
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