Hail a bus. Hey, they have plenty of empty seats.

Has White Plains finally gotten around to letting taxi cabs cruise and be hailed by passengers?

Maybe the idle buses should do that. Let pedestrians flag them for local rides. The number of buses in downtown White Plains seems to increase every day. There are more and more buses pounding through the Transmania bus depot area and more parked illegally, especially on Hamilton Avenue outside Walmart.

Millennials to the suburbs on bikes?

Wow, the mayor and planning commissioner must be right:

Bike Lanes Are Bringing More Millennials to the Suburbs by Clare Trapasso July 20, 2016 6:00 am ET realtor.com

It’s what passes for conventional wisdom these days ...
_____________________

The task force and/or Common Council should do a sanity check.

Mount up as a group and ride bicycles around downtown White Plains on the bike lanes. Be sure to ride through the Transmania train station and bus depot area. Try it along the streets with the most buses.

Go ahead, I dare you. Then report back to the public on your experience.

What's that, you know improvements must be made? Improvements so massive and unimaginable by current planners, decision makers and administrators, that such a group ride would not be attempted without a police escort.

Until you've done this simple common sense thing, you have not even begun to deal with transforming the Transmania into something Earthlings might recognize as positive.

Reduce parking to reduce traffic.

It's pretty basic common sense stuff. If you want to increase traffic to and near the Transmania train station and bus depot complex, continue to do what the City of White Plains seems compelled to do:

- establish and maintain massive multi-lane high speed roads
- build and maintain massive parking structures
- encourage and/or allow a sudden massive influx of buses to invade downtown with apparently no restrictions, oversight or even awareness.

Oh, wait. The buses are some rocket scientist's idea for reducing traffic. Yeah, that might seem to make sense in the abstract but here on planet Earth, Westchester County, people middle class and up wouldn't be caught dead on a bus. It's not at all like Manhattan.

On the other hand, if you reduced parking, such as by demolishing the municipal parking garage, then people would naturally figure out other ways to get to the Transmania. Why not let them, instead of bureaucrats, elected officials and consultants pretending to do that? Commuters might then demand stuff like Uber, buses that work for buildings and neighborhoods, whatever. Or they could simply ride the current buses. Those buses are almost empty almost all the time in White Plains. Of course, the buses might then need to run at times when people actually need them.

Ralph Kramden for County Executive.

At least he might know what to do about all those county Bee-Line buses in downtown White Plains:
- parked illegally
- driving "Not in Service"
- driving with almost no passengers.


Hey, Ralphie boy!

Bus commissioner?

Who the heck is in charge? Neither Westchester County nor the City of White Plains seems to have a responsible adult who knows why downtown White Plains is inundated with buses (public and private), many of which have taken to residential streets near the train station - bus depot area.

Many, maybe most, of these buses have either no passengers or hardly any passengers, which makes an inquiring mind wonder what the heck is actually going on. Is there any oversight? For the county Bee-Line bus system, who, if anyone, knows how and why our tax money is being spent?

http://transportation.westchestergov.com/contact-us

Department of Public Works and Transportation
100 East 1st Street
Mount Vernon, New York 10550

BeeLine@westchestergov.com

Smart Commute Program

Lawrence Cunningham, Program Specialist (914) 813-6718 llc7@westchestergov.com
Mary Ellen Burns, Program Specialist (914) 813-7741 mbb4@westchestergov.com

Planning Studies

Naomi Klein, Director of Planning (914) 813-7758 nkk3@westchestergov.com
Craig Lader, Principal Planner (914) 813-7759 cmla@westchestergov.com

_____________________________

http://www.cityofwhiteplains.com/index.aspx?nid=97

White Plains Parking and Traffic

John Larson Commissioner jlarson@whiteplainsny.gov

Thomas Soyk Deputy Commissioner/City Transportation Engineer tsoyk@whiteplainsny.gov

255 Main St. (Annex Building)
White Plains, NY 10601 Ph: 914-422-1232

______________________________

Let's send messages at all of them.

from: Ken
to: BeeLine@westchestergov.com,
llc7@westchestergov.com,
mbb4@westchestergov.com,
nkk3@westchestergov.com,
cmla@westchestergov.com,
jlarson@whiteplainsny.gov,
Tom Soyk <tsoyk@whiteplainsny.gov>
cc: transitdistrict@whiteplainsny.gov,
Rob Astorino <ce@westchestergov.com>,
letters@lohud.com,
news12wc@news12.com,
Benjamin Boykin <benboy78@aol.com>,
Alfreda Williams <awilliams@westchesterlegislators.com>
date: Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:14 AM
subject: White Plains, NY - Bus commissioner?

Rename train station "Port Authority Bus Terminal like mess".

Might as well make it accurate and descriptive. The City of White Plains apparently has no interest in controlling the impact of regional issues that have encroached into its train station area, the one where it supposedly is trying to introduce something novel in White Plains: imagination.

It has all the imagination and charm of the mid town Manhattan Port Authority Bus Terminal.

The area looks like it has been invaded by bus driving creatures from outer space. Like some really bad 1950s science fiction movie with no plot, just empty buses deployed for no apparent reason. Hey, maybe they drove here from another planet. That would make more sense than a governmental entity planning and/or approving such activity.

Message to Common Council members about the state of downtown.

to: "Thomas M. Roach" <roachformayor@gmail.com>,
"Beth N. Smayda" <bsmayda@bethsmayda.com>,
"Dennis E. Krolian" <dkrolian@whiteplainsny.gov>,
"John M. Martin" <jmartin@whiteplainsny.gov>,
Milagros Lecuona <milagroslecuona@gmail.com>,
John Kirkpatrick <jkirkpatrick@oxmanlaw.com>,
Nadine Hunt-Robinson <nhrobinson@whiteplainsny.gov>
date: Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 3:41 PM
subject: White Plains, NY
To: CC members​

http://white-plains-ny.blogspot.com/

​Maybe some of you have not been paying attention. ​Go back and read the blog posts of recent months. Then spend ten minutes on Barker Avenue and Water Street to get the impact of the HUGE buses that are taking over WP.

Or simply step outside of city hall. Buses are everywhere. Do you approve? CC members do not live anywhere near this mess but you should be alarmed. Are you? If not, why not?

http://www.panynj.gov/bus-terminals/port-authority-bus-terminal.html

White Plains is quickly devolving into that.