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MAKING TRACKS - Vol. 4, No. 2 - Spring 1998
Entire contents of MAKING TRACKS is copyright © 1998 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
Ruth Wittenberg Triangle: A Major Opportunity for Transit Improvement
New Waterfront Trolleys Begin Service in Three U.S. Cities
Trolley Topics
Letter from the Editor
By George Haikalis and William K. Guild
Too much space for cars and too little space for pedestrians-that was the near-universal outcry raised at a forum on the design competition for Ruth Wittenberg Triangle, the tiny traffic island near 8th St. and Sixth Ave. in the heart of Greenwich Village. Under the able leadership of Ms. Vickie Wiener, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) sponsored the competition to come up with ideas to enhance this bit of urban public space, recently named to honor the steadfast preservationist who greatly contributed to the creation of the Village's Historic District. The forum, held April 4, 1998 at the Van Alen Institute where all 46 entries were on display, included both jurors and designers.
The competition revealed the substantial interest in traffic reduction measurers among Villagers. Many of the design participants proposed extending the triangle and closing adjacent streets. Several noted the presence of several rapid transit lines just below the streets that completely surround the triangle, but which play no visible role in the urban design of this area.
For trolley advocates, the attention focused on the triangle and its traffic problems affords a real opportunity to advance the proposal for the Village Crosstown Trolley. VCTC's plan for restoring the river-to-river 8th St. crosstown streetcar, and locating it in an auto-free pedestrian street, works especially well at the Ruth Wittenberg Triangle location. The trolley would cross Sixth Avenue at 8th St., turn northwest briefly on Greenwich Ave. alongside the triangle, and swing west into Christopher St. Just below the surface are the Sixth and Eighth Avenue subway lines and the PATH line to New Jersey. New opportunities to reach the West 4th St. subway station and the 9th St. PATH Station could be incorporated into an innovative design for humanizing this public place. A convenient transfer between surface lines and the two rapid transit systems, and an underground passageway linking the stations, are real possibilities at this location.
Historically, the site of Ruth Wittenberg Triangle was the busy transit hub of the Jefferson Market district. Streetcar lines radiated to all parts of Manhattan and even, for a time, to Brooklyn (see "The 8th Street Corridor: A History" in MAKING TRACKS, Fall 1995). Sixth Avenue cars ran from the Battery to Washington Heights and 8th St. crosstown cars from river to river. The Seventh Ave line, from Central Park South to Astor Place and Delancey St., shared the crosstown tracks on Clinton Place, as 8th St. was then known. The Sixth Ave. el, with trains from South Ferry to as far north as Woodlawn Road during rush hour, stopped at 8th St, while the Hudson Tubes (now PATH) at 9th St. ran north to Herald Square and west to Hoboken, Jersey City and Newark, NJ.
PATH remains, but its single entrance at 9th St. is inconvenient and circuitous. The el station was replaced in the 1930s by the West 4th St. IND station, designed more for transfer between subway lines than for street access. While this station is currently served by seven different subway lines, several planned entrances either were not built at all or have never been opened, severely limiting access. As for surface transit, the streetcars also were replaced, by bus routes operating on decreasing frequencies and, until the recent advent of subway-bus transfers, with dwindling ridership.
While many of the Ruth Wittenberg Triangle proposals are aesthetically pleasing, few deal with past or present transportation issues and none would build upon the significant transit infrastructure already in place. Invisible from the surface, the 9th St. PATH station is sandwiched between the Sixth Ave. (lower level) and Eighth Ave. (upper level) subway lines just north of the West 4th St. station. As they curve under Greenwich Ave., the Eighth Ave. tracks actually pass beneath the one-story "taxpayers" south-west of the Triangle, which are subject to a NYC Transit easement and may not be modified or replaced without the agency's consent. And close inspection of the newsstand just south of the intersection will disclose an unused entrance to the West 4th St. station.
All of this presents an outstanding opportunity for commercial and residential development, coupled with the improved transit which the Village sorely needs. The "taxpayers" would be replaced by a multi-story structure integrating the existing underground transit facilities. The west end of the 9th Street PATH station, some 40 feet below Christopher St., would be linked by escalator and elevator to a new transit concourse at the north end of the West 4th St. station. The developer, whose property value would assuredly be enhanced, could be required to furnish these improvements, or at least to contribute substantially to their cost. PATH would gain an entrance complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act, riders would gain an easy transfer between PATH and the subway, and the entire neighborhood would gain improved access to and between transit modes.
The underground concourse would be part of a neighborhood transportation center, with a street-level plaza serving as a surface transit station. The complex would include MetroCard vending machines, maps, information kiosks and other passenger amenities. The plaza would replace part of the existing one-story structure which now juts into the intersection, creating more open space. This would be a fair exchange for the developer, whose new structure might rise several stories above the plaza.
Restoring Ruth Wittenberg Triangle as a transit hub would actually improve the flow of vehicular traffic in the Village, particularly if development included the crosstown trolley proposed by VCTC. Experience from the Plaka of Athens to the canyons of Wall Street shows that limiting motor vehicles in dense urban areas actually improves traffic flow while reducing congestion, noise and air pollution. With Christopher and 8th Streets converted to pedestrian and transit use, as proposed in VCTC's plan, northbound traffic on Sixth Avenue would have few turn options and no cars or trucks would cross the avenue between Waverly Place and 10th St.
A block to the west, at Sheridan Square, vehicular traffic patterns will also be simplified and congestion eased. Except for the light rail line on Christopher St., no traffic would cross Seventh Ave. South between Barrow and 10th St. All other cross traffic would be limited to merging with, or diverging from, the southbound flow along the avenue. These changes should improve traffic flow and decrease fender-benders, while easing the physical and mental toll on pedestrians making their way across what is now a very dangerous and confusing intersection.
VCTC would like to commend GVSHP and the Van Alen Institute for their leadership in sponsoring the design competition, thereby initiating this discussion of neighborhood improvement. Judging by the responses to date, we believe the time is ripe for a follow-up competition, to encompass transportation facilities near the Ruth Wittenberg Triangle as well as a slightly expanded area of development. In addition to providing a more appropriate setting to commemorate a major pioneer of the preservation movement, a successful design would encourage transit access while reducing the need for motor vehicles in the Village.
By George Haikalis
In what looks like a modest urban transport trend, three U.S. cities have extended historic trolley lines from city centers to waterfronts in the past nine months. New Orleans, Memphis and San Francisco all see trolleys not merely as high quality local transport, but also as a means to stimulate tourism and economic development. Dramatic changes in waterborne activity have allowed cities to transform urban waterfronts into tourist attractions. New streetcar lines can direct this development in ways that reduce auto use and create attractive urban landscapes. The lesson is clear for our river-to-river Village Crosstown Trolley proposal.
New Orleans' famous St. Charles streetcar line operates through that city's charming Garden District, a collection of old homes, cafes and shops, to downtown. This line has been extended along Canal St.-New Orleans "main drag"-to the Mississippi waterfront, where it connects with an existing waterfront tourist streetcar line operating on little-used freight rail tracks. Built in 1834, before U.S. railways adopted a standard distance between rails, the "broad gauge" St. Charles line is the nation's oldest continuously operating light rail line. The waterfront line was regauged to match the St. Charles line so that trolley cars could operate between the two lines. The city's transit employees built five brand new "vintage" trolleys in the system's car house. These replicas of traditional Perley A. Thomas streetcars include lifts for wheelchair passengers. The new line was placed in service on December 13, 1997. Further extensions are planned, including restoration of the Desire line, made famous by Tennessee Williams but converted to bus operation many years ago.
Memphis extended its downtown Main St. trolley (see "The Crosstown Trolley: A Boon to Village Business" in MAKING TRACKS, April 1995) to the numerous tourist attractions recently added along its Mississippi waterfront. Most noteworthy is the replica of a pyramid from its famous Egyptian namesake. The 2.5 mile extension is expected to double ridership on the line. Memphis has purchased seven full-sized vintage streetcars from Melbourne, complementing the initial fleet of smaller trolleys that were built to look like traditional small-town trolleys. Despite some concerns from downtown businesses, the Main St. pedestrian mall and its trolleys are sparking renewed interest in the city's center. The trolleys link the Beale St. Historic District and its famous Peabody Hotel, a renewed Union Station, a civil rights center and the modern tourist attractions on the waterfront. Plans are being developed to extend the line into the suburbs on abandoned railroad lines.
San Francisco, noted for its hills and cable cars, has had a long-standing love affair with streetcars. Thanks to the Twin Peaks tunnel and other off-street segments, five busy trolley lines were retained even as other cities were scrapping their trolley systems. These routes were placed in subway tunnels under downtown Market St. when the regional rapid transit system (BART) was built. During subway construction trolley advocates persuaded the city fathers to retain and rebuild the surface tracks for a line oriented to tourists.
Plans were made to extend the line to and along the city's waterfront-the Embarcadero. The northern segment, now under construction, will reach the busy Fishermans Wharf tourist area and relieve overcrowding on the cable car lines. The southern segment, placed in service in January, ramps the sub-surface streetcar lines up to the median of a broad boulevard, not unlike Manhattan's West St., which has replaced the little-loved Embarcadero elevated highway, badly damaged by an earthquake. The line continues to the city's commuter rail station and will eventually serve a new baseball stadium and development complex near China Basin. The two segments of the waterfront line will be linked to allow through service. While unlikely to eclipse the cable cars as a city symbol, the trolleys on Market Street and along the Embarcadero are becoming close seconds.
Trolleys and urban waterfronts are developing hand in hand. Before Memphis, New Orleans and San Francisco added waterfront routes, three other North American cities began the trend. Seattle converted a little-used rail freight line into a waterfront trolley linking a number of tourist attractions. With spectacular views of Puget Sound and the distant mountains, the trolley proved popular with Seattle's many visitors. In Cleveland, a working waterfront along the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie was transformed into a tourist attraction. The Shaker Heights light rail line was extended west from the famed Terminal Tower in downtown Cleveland to the river, and north to the lakefront, terminating at the Amtrak Station and museum complex and serving commuters as well as tourists. In Toronto, often cited as one of the world's most livable cities (due in no small part to its extensive streetcar system), the city built a new light rail line from Union Station to the Lake Ontario waterfront. An immediate success, the line was soon extended inland along Spadina Avenue to serve a major uptown residential neighborhood.
Like most projects constructed in densely developed cities, these downtown-to-waterfront trolley lines faced enormous planning difficulties and considerable opposition. But trolley advocates kept interest levels high, and initiated interim services using hand-me-down trolleys and existing trackage. The obstacles are even greater in a city like New York, but the benefits of trolleys and pedestrian streets are greater as well. VCTC is encouraged by the growing interest in wider sidewalks on 8th St. and the efforts of the Historic Brooklyn waterfront trolley volunteers. Stay tuned.
While city officials still debate the merits of the long-awaited 42nd St. trolley, New York's suburbs are busy taking a serious look at streetcars. Nearly a hundred public officials, business leaders and concerned citizens attended a day-long workshop on light rail transit for the I-287 corridor which would link leafy Rockland and Westchester counties. The June 17, 1998 forum was sponsored by the Federated Conservationists of Westchester and organized by its energetic leader Maureen Morgan. Speakers included transit experts and even a pro-transit director of a conservative, Washington-based think tank. Interest in the 33 mile long Suffern-White Plains-Port Chester light rail transit line has grown since the state canceled plans for widening the cross-Westchester segment of the congested expressway. The half billion dollars saved by scrapping that costly and disruptive highway project could pay for the new light rail line.
Just to the south of Rockland County, NJ Transit, in its West Shore alternatives study, is considering proposals to extend the mostly urban Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Line, now under construction, many miles further north into suburbia. Bergen County officials see re-use of lightly traveled rail freight lines for LRT service to Edgewater, Hackensack, Englewood and Tenafly as an economic stimulant to these older towns and as an environmental plus for northern NJ.
In Nassau County planners are looking at LRT as on option for linking the widespread shopping malls, governmental offices, university campuses and sports complexes that pass for a "downtown". The LRT plan would permit the county to move away from its almost total dependence on the auto for local travel.
Letter From the Editor
Dear Reader,
Now that the warmer months are here, our thoughts naturally turn to the waterfront, but how do we get there? A cover story in this issue describes new trolley services in three U.S. cities which provide access to the waterfronts of New Orleans, Memphis and San Francisco. The other cover story discusses the Ruth Wittenberg Triangle competition here in NYC and how VCTC's proposal for a river-to-river trolley line could play an important role in the development of this major intersection in the West Village.
Michael Goodman, Editor
NY Today
TimeOut New York
CitySearch New York
