Metro North WOH Rail Options Using the Tappan Zee Bridge TZB

lilbluefoxie wrote:

Nexis4Jersey wrote:
That was how i approached the project , but the more I read , the more I liked. I heard the Mayor Nyack and Suffern are demanded the state build Rail , I don't understand why the feds can't give us the 16 Billion $$. They seem to have the $$$ for so many other things , leaving Mass Transit in the Rail format and bus format in this region is dangerous....

I think certain people on this board need to start looking at how and where people commute to in this region and why they live out so far. People live out 50-70 miles because its cheaper and less stressful , but there are some people on this board who do not understand that and think those people should be punished. It boggles my mind....there should be more one seat rides in this region that would increase ridership and make it easier to expand / restore the Rail system....

punishment is stalling on this bridge project over extras, while people in that region are stuck with a bridge that's ready to fall down at any moment. There's no guarantee this rail addition is going to bring in ridership, but adding 4 lanes in each direction over the 3 and 4th reversible one will help with the traffic over the bridge, and if its a crosstown line, its even more likely to be a flop.

People like their cars, and I don't see whats so bad with taking the Port Jervis or Pascack Valley line if you live in Rockland? So you have to take PATH at Hoboken, its not a big deal, PATH hits the major spots in midtown and downtown. People would have to get on the Subway anyway when they got to Penn Station. It seems much cheaper to just find a way to make those rail lines better than to devise some elaborate cross Hudson commuter rail line.

I don't agree with this idea that some people have that we should make motorists suffer to try to coax them into taking the train, especially in regions that aren't a major city. this is an important link in the interstate highway system and it should be treated as such, not as some mass transit experiment, in an area with plenty of rail lines as it is.

Bus Ridership and Buses in Rockland and Orange counties are frowned apon , so the only option to really get ppl going is a train... People in this region mainly work near Grand Central so have a one seat ride to GCT would great increase usage and a few other things. The Bridge is not in danger of falling , its structurally sound as Alon Levy put it....if it were in danger of falling it would have been replaced long ago. I think drivers should be punished in a way , they get way too many improvements in this region or transit....its time they get some of the Pain. If you don't build Mass Transit in both formats over the bridges drivers are punished with no real added capacity.....

lilbluefoxie wrote:People like their cars, and I don't see whats so bad with taking the Port Jervis or Pascack Valley line if you live in Rockland?

Because they're useless if you work in Westchester County or Connecticut. And that's where the majority of drivers crossing the bridge during commuter hours are going.

The current bus service across the bridge has the problem that it gets stuck in the same traffic jams as the cars.

I have not been able to figure out if the BRT that everyone is talking about would have its own dedicated separate roadways; if so, then for practical purposes, it would be equivalent to commuter rail. I don't know if it would make a serious dent in the number of cars -- has anyone done the appropriate studies to find out how many car trips could be replaced by the proposed BRT?

A dedicated bus/carpool lane on the bridge as well as the Thruway would be a great idea and the most we can hope for. Most of the congestion in the morning occurs between the GSP exit and West Nyack. I know because I've sat in it many times. If people would see buses and carpools flying by while they sit in traffic, they'd probably consider an alternative. Like was said though, most people still love their cars and no, car drivers should not be punished. It would be up to public transportation to find ways to beat driving and make people change their thinking. I'm all for commuter rail, but this cross county line has "flop" written all over it and BRT would cost a whole lot less and accomplish virtually the same thing. Saying that buses are frowned upon in Orange and Rockland counties and saying that most people who live there work very near GCT are two huge assumptions not based on much merit. (Did I mention the new plan for the 7 train to go from Secaucus through Grand Central?)

SecaucusJunction wrote:A dedicated bus/carpool lane on the bridge as well as the Thruway would be a great idea and the most we can hope for. Most of the congestion in the morning occurs between the GSP exit and West Nyack. I know because I've sat in it many times. If people would see buses and carpools flying by while they sit in traffic, they'd probably consider an alternative. Like was said though, most people still love their cars and no, car drivers should not be punished. It would be up to public transportation to find ways to beat driving and make people change their thinking. I'm all for commuter rail, but this cross county line has "flop" written all over it and BRT would cost a whole lot less and accomplish virtually the same thing. Saying that buses are frowned upon in Orange and Rockland counties and saying that most people who live there work very near GCT are two huge assumptions not based on much merit. (Did I mention the new plan for the 7 train to go from Secaucus through Grand Central?)

I have no idea how they're going to get the Port Authority to go along with the (7) to NJ idea. I'm sure they can put together an HOV lane, we had one for years on the LIE and it works great, especially when me and my friends are going out somewhere during the week. but make it the regular lane style over there, no need to waste extra space with the elaborate entry and exit thing the LIE's one has got going, and no half ass lets mess up the road style HOV lane like the Gowanus has.

and car drivers already have to subsidize the subways and PATH every time they go across one of the bridges...

The only thing is, you'd need something to go between the carpool lanes and regular lanes so you don't have people trying to cut back and forth into the stopped traffic of the regular lanes... that would block up the bus/carpool lane pretty quickly.

Carney wrote:Ferry service from Nyack connecting to MN Hudson line may be practical since it could serve eastern Rockland County commuters adequately.

Someone from MTA told me that a Nyack-Tarrytown ferry was considered within the past ten years. I think it was to be provided on a temporary basis during one of the bridge repair blitzes. One of the problems planners encountered was providing adequate parking in Nyack. Another issue was requiring ferry riders to have to walk through one of the Tarrytown commuter parking lots to get from ferry to platform.

Btw, a friend of mine who lives in Santa Monica tells me BRT in the LA area has proved very popular. If it works there it could work anywhere I guess.

Found this interesting blog on the disappearance of transit options from the web-site (I alluded to the fact a page or two ago that the tzbsite.org had been scrubbed).

http://www.streetsblog.org/2011/10/24/w ... nt-page-1/

Two weeks ago, each of the four alternatives for replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge included a new Metro-North commuter rail line and some form of bus rapid transit. The design, which widened the highway but also included a major expansion of transit in Rockland and Westchester counties, was the product of nine years of study and a whopping 280 public meetings. The whole process was thoroughly documented, with information about each alternative — along with hundreds of pages generated by the environmental review process and public commentary — easily found on the state’s Tappan Zee Bridge website.

On October 11, the Federal Highway Administration and Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office announced that the bridge project had been selected for expedited federal review. The project they promised to speed up, however, was vastly different from the one vetted over the course of nearly a decade. The new plan for the bridge promised to add space for car traffic but left the transit component to be completed at an unspecified future date. Transit advocates are skeptical that the commuter rail and BRT lines will ever see the light of day.

At the same time that transit was removed from the plan, the state expunged from the public record all information about the nine-year public process and the four design alternatives that included rail and bus lines. The Tappan Zee website no longer displays the documents it did two weeks ago, as blogger Cap’n Transit first noted. The endorsement of transit, the extensive environmental analysis, the history of public input — all of it gone, replaced by three short documents chronicling the brief history of the transit-free project.

SecaucusJunction wrote:The only thing is, you'd need something to go between the carpool lanes and regular lanes so you don't have people trying to cut back and forth into the stopped traffic of the regular lanes... that would block up the bus/carpool lane pretty quickly.

thing is, I would have it as a peak only HOV lane, during non rush hour times it would be a regular travel lane.

Also I don't get why people think just becasue its not on here now that the train tracks on the tappan zee is gone for good, if they build it with provisions for it they can always go back and add it in later when there's more demand for such a rail line. We all know the current TZ Bridge is on its last legs, im not necessarily opposed to a rail line, I personally think it would be a boon to freight, to have a closer freight rail line nearer to NYC. However what I dont support is the rail on teh bridge being the roadblock to getting the new bridge done.

lilbluefoxie wrote:

SecaucusJunction wrote:The only thing is, you'd need something to go between the carpool lanes and regular lanes so you don't have people trying to cut back and forth into the stopped traffic of the regular lanes... that would block up the bus/carpool lane pretty quickly.

thing is, I would have it as a peak only HOV lane, during non rush hour times it would be a regular travel lane.

Also I don't get why people think just becasue its not on here now that the train tracks on the tappan zee is gone for good, if they build it with provisions for it they can always go back and add it in later when there's more demand for such a rail line. We all know the current TZ Bridge is on its last legs, im not necessarily opposed to a rail line, I personally think it would be a boon to freight, to have a closer freight rail line nearer to NYC. However what I dont support is the rail on teh bridge being the roadblock to getting the new bridge done.

The demand is there right now, not later. If they don't built the train tracks at the same time with the new bridge it's NEVER going to happen. There is no later. The price tag will only get higher and higher. IMO it's either built the whole thing now or it's never happening.

metrony wrote:

lilbluefoxie wrote:

SecaucusJunction wrote:The only thing is, you'd need something to go between the carpool lanes and regular lanes so you don't have people trying to cut back and forth into the stopped traffic of the regular lanes... that would block up the bus/carpool lane pretty quickly.

thing is, I would have it as a peak only HOV lane, during non rush hour times it would be a regular travel lane.

Also I don't get why people think just becasue its not on here now that the train tracks on the tappan zee is gone for good, if they build it with provisions for it they can always go back and add it in later when there's more demand for such a rail line. We all know the current TZ Bridge is on its last legs, im not necessarily opposed to a rail line, I personally think it would be a boon to freight, to have a closer freight rail line nearer to NYC. However what I dont support is the rail on teh bridge being the roadblock to getting the new bridge done.

The demand is there right now, not later. If they don't built the train tracks at the same time with the new bridge it's NEVER going to happen. There is no later. The price tag will only get higher and higher. IMO it's either built the whole thing now or it's never happening.

and do you think that no new bridge, and continuing to use a bridge that's way past its design life, continuing to patch it up so it doesn't fall in, and risking the lives of everyone who uses it, is a better solution than just dealing with a new Tappan Zee that doesn't have train tracks from the start?

I don't think the highest cost of the rail line would be for the bridge itself but getting the tracks there from Suffern, Grand Central, and Port Chester, not to mention the ramp to try to somehow get the tracks from the bridge to the Hudson Line. So, if it doesn't cost crazy amounts of money to build the new bridge with rail capacity, then they may as well, on the off chance that it *might* happens in the next few decades. Again, just because people commute to White Plains doesn't mean they will necessarily use the train.

One powerful argument for including a transit option was to limit future development sprawl. I think just about everyone agrees that traffic -- over the bridge and along 287 -- is going to only get worse. As the commute by car gets even more tedious that in itself will be a powerful inducement to developers to build away from the I-287 corridor.

And don't believe for a minute the roughly $5.5 billion cost of the transit-less bridge is the real final cost. The powers that be are already talking about highway improvements that will be needed east and west of the new larger span.

I know this will be revolutionary thinking to some of the members here, but mass transit is a MUCH more cost effective and efficient way to handle commuter traffic when you look at the long-term costs. I-287 will NEVER be finished it seems to me. As soon as they get done with one project costing in the hundreds of millions dollars they're planning the next. They're spending close to a billion dollars RIGHT NOW on the project to widen the road and rebuild entrances/exits in the White Plains area.

and do you think that no new bridge, and continuing to use a bridge that's way past its design life, continuing to patch it up so it doesn't fall in, and risking the lives of everyone who uses it, is a better solution than just dealing with a new Tappan Zee that doesn't have train tracks from the start?

The bridge is functionally obsolete, not structurally deficient. It can safely and effectively accommodate current traffic volumes and loads for decades to come. The crying wolf about 'it can fall into the river at any moment!" is utter nonsense, promulgated, no doubt, by the special interests that stand to benefit from the ludicrously inflated price tag of an "expedited" replacement.

The simplest solution is to raise tolls to pay for the necessary upkeep. Without a significant widening of the Thruway for 10+ miles on either side of the bridge (which will never, ever happen), there isn't enough upside to justify spending approximately $60,000 per (mostly single-occupancy) vehicle for a new bridge. I agree that it seems outlandish to spend $50-75 million a year to maintain a single bridge, but it's less outlandish than spending $6-7 billion on a bridge without a public transit option.

Mr. Duyvil the bridge is NOT structurally sound. The serious problems were outlined as much as six years ago in this news report:

The [i]Journal News[/i] wrote:Design flaws, corrosion and years of neglect have damaged the Tappan Zee Bridge so badly that an inspection report warns the beams supporting its safety railings could fail and more holes are likely to puncture its roadway. Photos from the 2,929-page report show cracked columns, steel beams eaten clear through by rust, and off-center support bearings missing as much as 40 percent of their concrete footings.

Here's a link to the article.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20051127/N ... erioration

And...

The nycroads website wrote: The bridge should be strengthened to ensure its structural safety. Since the bridge opened, a seventh lane was added to handle growing traffic, and research has shown that the wind loads on the bridges are actually greater than the bridge was originally designed to handle. These increased load requirements have taxed the reserve strength built into the bridge.

Link-
http://www.nycroads.com/crossings/tappan-zee/

Tommy Meehan wrote:Mr. Duyvil the bridge is NOT structurally sound. The serious problems were outlined as much as six years ago in this news report:

The [i]Journal News[/i] wrote:Design flaws, corrosion and years of neglect have damaged the Tappan Zee Bridge so badly that an inspection report warns the beams supporting its safety railings could fail and more holes are likely to puncture its roadway. Photos from the 2,929-page report show cracked columns, steel beams eaten clear through by rust, and off-center support bearings missing as much as 40 percent of their concrete footings.

Here's a link to the article.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20051127/N ... erioration

Your Lohud link--which is to an article written six years ago, before the $200+ million redecking project was greenlighted--proves my point. The experts quoted in the piece say that the bridge is safe, but that it will be extremely costly to keep it that way. The people who are sounding the alarm are politicians.

The re-decking project would have never seen the light of day if the structure was truly about to fall into the river. You can read more about the project and the expectations going forward at these two links.

http://www.thruway.ny.gov/projectsandst ... index.html
https://www.dot.ny.gov/recovery/sponsor ... ?nd=nysdot

Fear-mongering isn't helpful. When NYSDOT kicks trucks off the bridge or permanently shuts down lanes, then I'll buy the "she's gonna fall!" argument. Until then . . .