Johnson rolls out transit takeover plan
BY RICO BURNEY
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson
delivered his fi rst State of the
City address on Tues., March 5.
But it wasn’t just a feel-good list of blandishments
about projects and people.
Rather, it was a focused presentation of
sweeping ideas to improve transportation
in the city. In Johnson’s speech and
in a 104-page report that accompanied
it, he laid out a bold vision.
His primary proposal is for the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority’s
New York City Transportation Authority
— the state authority that owns the
city’s bus system and has operated the
city-owned subway system since 1953
— and the M.T.A.’s Bridge and Tunnel
Authority to be spun off into a new
mayoral-controlled agency tentatively
titled Big Apple Transit, or BAT.
Johnson argues that the current
M.T.A. management structure results
in the authority existing “in a vacuum
of accountability,” and gives the governor
and suburban counties disproportionate
control over the city’s transit
system. He argues that by placing the
city’s transit under the mayor’s direct
oversight, people would know exactly
who to hold accountable.
Currently, the M.T.A. is effectively
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson
delivered his first State of
the City address, at LaGuardia
Community College in Queens,
on Tues., March 7. Photo by John
McCarten/N.Y.C. City Council
controlled by a board of 17 voting
members who collectively cast a total
of 14 votes.
Six members are appointed by the
governor, four are recommended by the
mayor to the governor, and three more
members are recommended to the governor
by the two Long Island counties
and Westchester. The fi nal four members
are recommended to the governor
by four additional suburban counties,
and they cast one collective vote. All
appointees are then confi rmed by the
state Senate.
Under Johnson’s proposed system, a
new “mobility czar” would report directly
to the mayor and oversee B.A.T.,
as well as the city’s Department of
Transportation and the Taxi and Limousine
Commission.
The governor’s communications director
Dani Lever was quick to counter
that the city already technically owns
the subway but chooses not to run it because
it “could never afford it.”
“The city can cancel the M.T.A.
lease with one year’s notice,” Lever
wrote on Twitter. “The Mayor has total
veto over the state and city funded
N.Y.C.T. capital plan. The City does not
want to take N.Y.C.T. from the M.T.A.
because they get billions of state dollars
that they would lose. This is funding
that no other city or regional transit
system gets.”
Johnson’s report argues that this is
not the case, and that the city could
fi nd new ways to raise money. His plan
calls for bringing in new revenue from
congestion pricing, which he vowed
the City Council would pass by itself if
Albany fails to do so. Other new possible
revenue streams Johnson cited, include
a “millionaires’ tax,” raising the
sales tax from 8.9 to 9.25 percent and
a “progressively structured transfer
tax” on real estate transactions, among
other things.
While his B.AT. proposal is the one
that grabbed the most headlines, the
rest of Johnson’s 50-minute address —
backed up by those in his report — was
also full of ambitious ideas that are arguably
even more audacious than the
speech’s marquee proposition.
He called for a major overhaul of the
city’s aboveground transit network, including
adding at least 30 miles of new
bus lanes and 50 miles of new protected
bike lanes per year. He also is proposing
installing bus lane cameras for
enforcement, plus Transit Signal Priority
technology, to reduce the amount of
time buses spend at red lights, on all
routes by 2030, as well as signifi cantly
expanding the city’s pedestrian plaza
program.
Johnson’s report aims for these
changes to increase bike ridership from
3 percent of trips to 14 percent of trips
by 2030 and to half the number of private
vehicles in the city by 2050.
Also on his transit wish list is to end
what he called a “regressive fare system”
— and possibly even make the
whole system free.
“Fare increases should not be the
be-all and end-all for transit funding,”
he stated. “Instead of raising fares, we
could be thinking about freezing fares,
lowering fares and maybe even a system
without fares.”
2nd rezoning meet less chaotic, still anxious
BY GABE HERMAN
The second meeting in the ongoing
Soho/Noho rezoning process
was more organized than
the fi rst, but still featured fearful community
members concerned that their
voices would be heard.
Billed as a public-engagement workshop,
the Feb. 28 event was titled “Defi
ning Mixed-Use.” It opened with Manhattan
Borough President Gale Brewer
sounding a conciliatory note after the
earlier chaotic open house last month.
“I do think the fi rst public even
sucked, and we learned many lessons,”
Brewer said. The borough president is
an initiator of the process, along with
the Department of City Planning and
Councilmember Margaret Chin.
“There are no preconceived ideas,”
Brewer stressed, adding the process
was about public participation, which
Chin reiterated in her remarks.
Jonathan Martin, of BFJ Planning,
who will produce a report of recommendations
at the end of the six-month
process, said the area’s zoning is outdated
because it is no longer primarily
a manufacturing neighborhood.
“There’s a lot of retail and other uses
going on,” Martin said. “Some of the issues
with zoning include that it does not
refl ect what we see on the ground.”
Sylvia Li, a City Planning staff member,
then gave a slideshow presentation
on economic data about the neighborhood.
But about 12 minutes in, the
crowd of about 200 grew restless, especially
when data was presented about
which job sectors are represented in the
neighborhood. Li acknowledged that
the data, from the state Department of
Labor, did not include independent artists
and freelancers.
This drew groans and interruptions
from the room.
“We’re not up there,” a man said of
the presenters.
“There’s no residential artist representation,”
a woman protested.
When a quick survey of the room
was taken asking how many were artists,
about 90 percent of the people
raised their hands.
Li assured more data about artists
would be brought to future meetings —
but the crowd interruptions continued.
“Artists are the essence and the reason
this neighborhood exists,” a woman
stressed. “Without the artists, Soho
would be a crosstown expressway.”
She was referring to the aborted
plan by Robert Moses to build a Cross
Manhattan Expressway across Broome
St., linking the East River bridges and
the Holland Tunnel. As manufacturers
vacated their buildings in anticipation
of the project, artists moved in and
founded the world-famous residential
enclave.
“The fear we have,” another woman
added from the audience, “is we are being
co-opted by an already-made decision.”
In short, many residents fear that,
despite the rudimentary trappings of
an open process, “the fi x is in.”
Martin stepped back in to concede
faults in the data, and to say that, with
the crowd’s permission, they would
move on to the next part of the meeting.
Each group’s table in the room was
asked to map how they see the neighborhood
being used now, and what
they want for its future, in terms of
types of uses.
Each table then reported back to the
room. Longtime Soho resident Pete
Davies, speaking for his table, said
their chief problems were traffi c and
there being too much destination retail,
rather than local businesses. His
group’s wants included tax breaks for
artists and quieter streets at night.
The need for more local retail shops
was a common issue raised at many
tables, along with the need for more
green space and protecting artists’ historic
presence in the neighborhood.
Speaking the day after the meeting,
Councilmember Chin told this paper,
“Yesterday’s session was the beginning
of something extraordinary, true
participatory planning. Long-term
residents of Soho and Noho helped us
defi ne what mixed-use will mean for
these two unique neighborhoods. This
style of community-based planning,
common elsewhere in the country, is
proactive rather than reactive.”
Days after the meeting, on March 4,
the formation of a new ad hoc group,
the Save Soho-Noho Coalition, was announced.
It will include several community
groups, among them the Bowery
Alliance of Neighbors, the Broadway
Residents Coalition, the Greenwich
Village Society for Historic Preservation,
Lower Manhattan Loft Tenants,
the Noho Neighborhood Association,
and the Soho Alliance.
Members said the new coalition’s
aims include wanting to protect Soho
and Noho’s unique Joint Living-Work
Quarters for Artists zoning; keeping
current limits on retail sizes allowed in
the area; maintaining current density
regulations as they relate to fl oor-area
ratio (F.A.R.); and maintaing the creative
character of Soho and Noho.
“It’s clear that big real estate and big
institutions have an agenda to reshape
Soho and Noho in their image,” said
Andrew Berman, executive director of
G.V.S.H.P.
6 March 7, 2019 TVG Schneps Media