Today’s the day for the 14th Street busway
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
The buses now have much of 14th
Street almost entirely to themselves
each day, as the controversial
14th Street Busway plan took
effect today (Thursday), according to
Mayor Bill de Blasio.
The city made the announcement
Friday after winning the latest court
battle over the proposed 14th Street
Busway plan in Manhattan.
A New York Appellate Court Judge
ruled against a coalition of local businesses
led by advocate Arthur Schwartz
seeking to block a proposed partial vehicle
ban along 14th Street between
3rd and 9th Avenues.
Soon after the Sept. 27 ruling, de
Blasio and city Transportation Commissioner
Polly Trottenberg said the pilot
busway program would take effect
on Thursday morning, Oct. 3. It will be
in effect at least 18 months.
“Thanks to this latest court ruling,
the new 14th Street busway has gotten
the green light and starting next
week, bus riders will fi nally get moving,”
de Blasio said. “This is a smart
project that speeds up buses and leaves
room for the drop-offs and deliveries
the neighborhood needs. These are the
changes we have to make as a city to
Buses along 14th Street in Manhattan
fi ght congestion and give people transit
options they can rely on.”
Trottenberg said the busway aims
to speed things up along the M14 Select
Bus Service, a route that makes
27,000 trips each day and is regarded
as one of the slowest lines in the
entire borough.
“With over 27,000 trips taken on
the M14 Select Bus Service each day,
the new busway will help create more
reliable commutes with shorter travel
times,” Trottenberg said. “DOT and
New York City Transit will continue
to work with the NYPD, elected offi -
cials, local merchants, neighborhood
residents, drivers and bus riders along
14th Street to monitor and evaluate
the new service and make adjustments
as needed.”
Once the pilot program takes effect,
traffi c will be restricted to buses,
emergency vehicles and trucks making
local deliveries (no more than 3 axles)
between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. daily.
The busway idea was conceived as
PHOTO BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
the city developed contingency plans
for a planned full shutdown of the
Canarsie Tube on the L Train.
The full shutdown was scrapped,
however, but the city and DOT kept the
busway proposal alive.
Schwartz and his coalition then sued
the MTA and DOT over the busway,
believing it would be detrimental to
local businesses. In June, a New York
State Appellate Court judge stopped
the plan, which was to have started
in July.
Tomorrow’s looking better for L train project
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
Workers kicked off the second
half of the L train tunnel rehabilitation
project on Monday
under budget and three months
ahead of schedule.
At a Sept. 29 tour of the newly-reconstructed
Manhattan-bound tube,
Governor Andrew Cuomo praised new
construction techniques pioneered by
overseas transit networks employed to
avert the so-called “L-pocalypse” — a
total shutdown of the storm-wrecked
Canarsie Tube that carries straphangers
between Manhattan and Brooklyn
aboard the L train — for the rapid pace
of construction.
“Today we saw up close what happens
when you abandon the old ways of
doing things and think outside the box
— you get the work done better, faster
and cheaper,” Cuomo said. “This project
will ultimately be a case study for
how the MTA needs to operate going
forward, especially as they implement
the upcoming historic capital plan
that will completely modernize the
entire system and deliver the 21st century
transportation service worthy of
New York.”
As part of the fi rst phase of the rehabilitation
project, workers installed
tens of thousands of feet of new power,
PHOTOS COURTESY OF GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO’S OFFICE
Governor Andrew Cuomo toured the newly-reconstructed Manhattanbound
tunnel in the Canarsie Tube on the L line on Sept. 29.
communications and signal cables;
a new wall structure with a specially
reinforced polymer to handle heavy
loads; more than a mile of new, continuously
welded track; 3,415 feet of
discharge pipes and a new fi ber optic
monitoring system.
Repairs to the Brooklyn-bound
tube, which began on Sept. 30, are
expected to wrap up next April —
bringing the entire project to a fi nish
a full three months ahead of the projected
15- to 18-month timeframe, the
governor said.
The Transit Authority originally
planned a complete shutdown of the
Canarsie Tube to repair damage infl
icted by Superstorm Sandy in 2012,
arguing that the time and cost savings
justifi ed the roughly yearlong interruption
to cross-borough service.
However, Cuomo made a surprise
announcement in January that the
tube would remain open throughout
the project, after meeting with academic
leaders to review the project
and determining that the use of new
construction methods and technologies
utilized by international transit networks
could result in effi cient, quick
infrastructure repairs.
Numerous service changes that
the MTA made to keep riders moving
during the L train project remain in
place, the governor noted, including
the following:
• Service on the 7, G and M lines was
enhanced on weeknights and weekends,
including an extended M train
along the Second Avenue Subway line
to 96th Street.
• Enhanced bus service along 14th
Street in Manhattan, including additional
weeknight and weekend service
on the M14 Select Bus Service.
• Free transfers in Brooklyn between
the Livonia Street L train station and
the Junius Street 3 train stop; and between
the Broadway G train station to
the Hewes Street or Lorimer Street stations
on the J/M/Z lines.
As the Canarsie Tube project continues,
the MTA is also continuing
efforts to build new elevators at the
Bedford Avenue and First Avenue
stations on the L line, and installing
a new escalator at the 14th Street-
Union Square station.
Schneps Media TVG October 3, 2019 3