Bus mania is to get train station money as hub for east-west Lower Hudson Transit Link?

New York "state's designation of White Plains as the hub for the east-west Lower Hudson Transit Link".

The article quoted below explains some of the illogical decisions by the City of White Plains government in the last five years. The author lives in a White Plains house neighborhood without sidewalks. My comments follow.

Train station renovation key to revival of White Plains neighborhood
by Richard Liebson, Rockland/Westchester Journal News Published April 16, 2019

The tract is crisscrossed by wide, three- and four-lane streets filled with cars, trucks and buses mostly heading for somewhere else...

With about 12,000 weekday riders passing through, White Plains is the busiest station in Westchester and third most active overall, behind only Grand Central Terminal and the Stamford, Connecticut, station...

The MTA originally planned to spend only a few million dollars to spruce up the terminal. The authority decided to up the ante and go all in on the renovation after negotiations with the city, and the state's designation of White Plains as the hub for the east-west Lower Hudson Transit Link over the Hudson River.

The new station, combined with Westchester County's Bee Line bus terminal and an expected influx of Transit Link bus riders from Rockland County, solidify White Plains' importance as a regional transportation center. The combination of state highways and county parkways in and around the city underline that status...

2016 ... year-long study, funded by a $1 million state grant ... zoning that envisions pedestrian- and bike-friendly streets and crosswalks ...

The new zone will create easier circulation to and from the station for vehicles and pedestrians...

The new zoning has resulted in a number of development proposals from private property owners that have been approved or are in the approval process...

Gone at the re-built southern end of the three platforms are the cold, concrete benches, the crumbling platform ceilings, the paper schedules mounted in glass cases and the scratchy, public address system that made announcements difficult to understand.
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Mayor Thomas Roach and others have delusions of grandeur dancing in their heads. As documented here, the Hudson Link buses have had almost ZERO passengers. It's been a local, state, federal government boondoggle. The number of cars has not decreased as the number of buses continues to dangerously increase, all at the loss of quality of life for downtown residents. The mayor and almost all Common Council members for the last half century live in house neighborhoods outside downtown. They are elected at large, not by geographic district. The current bad policy is just the most recent because of that basic disconnect.

In what millenium will ANY changes happen? Not ONE street has been changed. Not one. The 4-5 lane one way monstrosities that Mayor Roach mocked many times years ago remain, with their multiple turning lanes and resulting diagonal crossing. White Plains is more pedestrian hostile than ever.

Development proposals? It takes a decade for anything to get built. Sometimes multiple decades.

Most of the train station work is neglected routine maintenance for more than three decades following bad original design. And apparently much of that is due to the city selling out and letting downtown become a giant bus terminal. Of course, none of this impacts any of the Common Council house neighborhoods.

Metro-North Railroad project manager Brad Knote should look a little less pompous and maybe fix the four sided MTA clock tower that's been broken for several years. It's a symbol of incompetence and arrogance.

Affordable housing hypocrisy expands.

Common Council members should send us a Candygram when they implement affordable housing policy which actually puts their skin in the game: "affordable people" live near them and CC members actually subsidize affordable housing policy themselves.

Affordable Housing: the hypocrisy Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The Common Council members all live in houses in the suburbs of White Plains and so are not directly affected. The last thing they want is an affordable person moving into the house next to theirs...

CC members pretend to represent all WP residents but they represent only the interests of those who live in houses in the suburbs of WP. This is another example of why WP needs CC members elected by district, not at large.
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Affordable Housing Tour Sunday, December 21, 2008

Who pays for affordable housing? Wednesday, February 3, 2016

First of all, it's affordable apartments. There may be a few condos, probably adjacent to the interstate highway, but no houses. White Plains decision makers live in houses and are immune to any impact of "affordable housing"...

House owners do not have 10% of the houses on their block occupied by "affordable housing" people. Nor are they paying more in property taxes to make up for "affordable housing" people paying less...

The "market rate" renters in the other 90% of apartments are making up the difference. Do White Plains decision makers know? Do they ask?
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Common Council continues hypocrisy of affordable housing (apartments). Tuesday, March 8, 2016
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https://www.cityofwhiteplains.com/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=783

City of White Plains News
Posted on: February 27, 2019
Expansion of Affordable Rental Housing Program Proposed

... since 2003 ... expand the City’s Affordable Rental Housing Program (ARHP) in several ways ...

The proposal is currently being discussed by the Common Council and will ultimately require the passage of a local ordinance and amendments to the City’s Zoning Ordinance
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