Note: on his website Mayor Tom Roach does not say anything about light rail along Interstate 287 connecting Westchester and Rockland counties over the new Tappan Zee Bridge, renamed for former Gov. Cuomo. So either Mayor Roach did not try to get light rail or he tried and failed.
From the campaign website for the re-election of Mayor Tom Roach:
https://www.voteforroach.com/toms-vision/
Most recently, Tom worked with our State Representatives to bring an east-west bus rapid transit system to Westchester County, that will open up once the new Tappan Zee Bridge is completed. This will help reduce congestion on our roads and highways, and allow our commercial offices to attract new tenants who want to be transit-accessible. Thanks to investments like this one, White Plains is rapidly adding jobs, which creates customers for small businesses in our city.
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At least this contains a rationale for how inundating downtown White Plains might benefit the citizens of White Plains. However, the part of White Plains that's probably impacted are those supposedly obsolete corporate parks that are barely in White Plains along Interstate 287.
If the regional buses simply crossed the bridge, new or old, and dropped passengers off along 287, there would not be an issue, one which neither Mayor Roach nor his challenger in the primary, Milagros Lecuona, have even bothered to address.
But those HUGE regional buses barge into downtown White Plains and drive along multiple residential streets, including North Broadway, Barker Avenue, Park Avenue and most recently Grant Avenue. Regional buses going to and from the train station are facilitating transportation through White Plains but those passengers are not staying in White Plains, not even long enough to shop in a department store. How does that benefit White Plains?
Plus, the 287 corporate parks have fleets of local private buses taking workers to/from the train station and the 287 offices. White Plains gets some benefit from corporate tax paid to White Plains. See Leros, "33 Westchester Avenue".
As usual quality of life in downtown is not considered: safety, noise, pollution, congestion. Congestion? Don't those buses reduce the number of cars in White Plains. The city website still states that 300,000 cars enter White Plains every day. Now add all these silly buses. And what's the point of having the buses go to the train station? They could have crossed the bridge and dropped off their passengers at some Hudson River train station in Westchester. Except the new bridge is designed to protect the river towns from unwanted traffic. Where was Mayor Roach and many other elected officials when that was planned? Who protected downtown White Plains. Who protects it now?
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