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.
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