M.T.A. and D.O.T. officials at town hall meeting LTRAIN continued from p. 12
Tubes are corroding He said the L train tubes under the East River, though badly damaged by flooding with saltwater during Hurricane Sandy, are safe only because N.Y.C.T.A. took emergency action to shore up their systems. “But corrosion is continuing,” he noted. “We would have to shut it down eventually.” Worst damaged are the “conduits” — basically, concrete parts of the tubes through which electrical cables are threaded. Most of what’s in the tunnels now needs to be ripped out and removed — from the tracks to the corroded conduits — and replaced with new equipment.
Mitigation plan Byford acknowledged that during the anticipated L shutdown, about 70 percent of displaced L riders would switch to alternative subway lines. The G line would have longer trains. M service is being improved. And, once the Canarsie Tunnel is repaired, Byford said, the authority would be able to run more trains on the tracks since new substations would be added to boost the line’s power.
He added that, earlier just that day, the city had agreed to have larger ferries — with 240 passengers versus 149 — on a new route to run between Williamsburg and Stuyvesant Town during the L shutdown. There would be a total of three of these ferries, with two running until the late hours, and one on standby.
High H.O.V. hopes The Williamsburg Bridge, meanwhile, would be totally converted to H.O.V. (High Occupancy Vehicle), with lanes for H.O.V.-3 cars (with a minimum of three passengers), and “busway” lanes. The bridge, as Byford put it, would be “a very high-intensity H.O.V. and busway,” from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., with more than 80 buses per hour streaming into Manhattan. “That’s more than a bus per minute,” he noted. “Build a new tunnel!” a woman in the audience cried out in frustration. But Byford said that wouldn’t work, and that the L tunnels are decaying. “That would take six years,” he said. “We don’t have six years — we don’t have two years.” He later said that closing one tunnel at a time for repairs would double the project’s duration to three years, while doing overnight work only would be difficult
because of having to clean up silica dust from the work to allow riders to safely use the tunnel during the day. Added Trottenberg, “We are really hoping this H.O.V. lane will do a lot and will...discourage people from driving into Manhattan during this period. ... A big part of the plan is to have less vehicles come into Manhattan. The more we have buses, the more we have people cycling, hopefully, it will get people out of cars.”
Pushing pedaling The mitigation plan would also see crosstown bike lanes added in Manhattan on 12th and 13th Sts. The lanes would be “protected” by buffer zones ranging from 4 feet to 9 feet wide, with flexible plastic “delineator” poles that motor vehicles — like fire trucks — can drive over, if need be. “We do think cycling is going to be a big part of the solution,” Trottenberg explained, adding that the number of bike-share CitiBikes in Manhattan and Brooklyn would be increased, and that the new pedal-assist CitiBikes are making it easier for some people to bike over the Williamsburg Bridge. She later added, “I think the bike lane we’re building potentially will be the fastest way to go from the East Village
to Williamsburg.” She later added, “Bicycles burn no gas and emit no carbon. One of the things we heard in the community is that there’s a lack of protected east-west lanes.” She noted there had been a number of cyclist fatalities in the past year on Chelsea side streets.
Want electric buses Both Chin and Kavanagh called for nonpolluting electric instead of diesel buses to be used during the interim plan. Byford said that, of the 200 new buses that would be added to the streets under the plan, five would be electric and 10 would be electric / diesel hybrids, and that more such buses would be added moving forward to the greatest extent possible. Byford said N.Y.C.T.A. would also be monitoring the air for dust, specifically, PM 10 particulate matter. The ultimate goal is for the city to move to an all-electric bus fleet as soon as possible, he said. “You will have a faster ride [on 14th St.] during the L shutdown than you normally have,” Trottenberg said of the Select Bus Service busway that would operate from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., under the plan. LTRAIN continued on p. 21
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TheVillager.com
September 20, 2018
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