CNA hypocrisy: concerned about HIGH-RISE CONSTRUCTION AND URBAN SPRAWL.

This from an organization dominated by people who do not live anywhere near downtown and refuse to have a single meeting anywhere near downtown.

from: WPCNA <rsvp@wpcna.org>via mail181.wdc02.mcdlv.net
reply-to: WPCNA
date: Sat, Jun 9, 2018 at 5:56 PM
subject: June Meeting: Roundtable -- Airbnb, Dockless Bike Shares, New High Rises

HIGH-RISE CONSTRUCTION AND URBAN SPRAWL
A number of new high-rise apartment complexes have been recently completed, are under construction, or are planned for the near future in White Plains. These include 52 Broadway, 65 Lake Street, Broadstone White Plains, 440 Hamilton Avenue, 1 Dekalb Avenue, 121 Westmoreland Avenue (Norden Lofts), 136 Westmoreland Avenue, 55 Bank Street (The Continuum), 60 South Broadway (The Pavilion), and 95 South Broadway and 4 Lyon Place (The Esplanade). The newer projects bring traffic, noise, and congestion to neighborhoods once dominated by single family homes and open land. For the City, urban sprawl promises relief from a disproportionate reliance on the City sales tax and nuisance revenues. For residents, the sprawl signifies an unwelcome change in the quality of life.
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No self respecting CNA official lives anywhere near any of these places.

Turn only lanes made even more dangerous by bike rentals.

White Plains Police consider it legal for the second lane to also turn when there is a turn only lane. The result is that two lanes of cars may turn into pedestrians in the crosswalk. This is exacerbated at the places where cars are trying desperately to cross over the five lanes of one way traffic to enter a garage on the opposite side of the street. Examples:
- Galleria garage at Martine Avenue and MLK Blvd.
- Galleria garage on South Lexington Avenue from right on Main Street.
- Main Street into Galleria garage after left from South Lexington Avenue.

Now there is suddenly a flood of rental bicycles, which surprisingly have become attractive to teenagers. Fortunately, riders have mostly had the good sense so far to not use the absurd bike lanes. They are usually riding on sidewalks. Here is an example of how the turn only lanes are dangerous to bike riders.

At the intersection of Martine Avenue and South Lexington Avenue, ironically adjacent to the Public Safety building, traffic on South Lexington Avenue has these three adjacent lanes:
- turn only lane
- bike go straight only lane
- second "it's OK in WP to also turn" lane.

Those are the three lanes. A bike would be trapped between TWO lanes of turning cars.  How the heck can that be safe? And yet it's been that way for years. The only thing that's prevented an accident is that hardly anyone uses those ridiculously dangerous bike lanes. But now the rental bikes makes this a real possibility.

Do the right thing. Change the most dangerous situations immediately. Then FINALLY implement some common sense changes that radically improve quality of life in downtown White Plains.

The Common Council has finally got to stop serving the interests of its neighbors in the house neighborhoods who only want to conveniently drive and park in downtown for their amusement. Be responsible.

Danger: intersection of Martine Ave. and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Message sent 5/21/18 to whiteplainscityhall@whiteplainsny.gov

Subject: Illegal turns.
The one millionth. Right in front of a police car. At the library corner turning left onto Martine Avenue. Cars in the second lane make this illegal turn all the time, as they do at other busy intersections. Enforcement to protect pedestrians is non existent.

It's Dodge City for pedestrians, both literally and figuratively.

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Message sent 5/24/18 as reply to city workers involved:

Only the left lane (MLK Blvd.) is marked as turn only. May cars in other than the left lane also turn? If not, White Plains has several downtown intersections where this is a safety problem, especially for pedestrians. Compounding the problem of cars turning from one way MLK Blvd. onto one way Martine Ave. is that cars in left lane two and sometimes also (left) lane three are trying to get all the way across to the right on Martine ASAP to drive into the Galleria parking garage. Maybe that entrance should be closed.

One way Main Street turning left onto one way MLK Blvd.: one dedicated turn left only lane but cars in lane two often also turn left and cars in lane THREE also turn pretty frequently.

One way Church Street turning left onto Hamilton Ave., which is two way there, and cars in the middle straight lane regularly also turn left.

It's been this way in White Plains for decades. For the Traffic and/or Public Safety Departments to act like they don't know about this is disingenuous. The overriding objective is to move and park cars.

Five lane one way roads are inherently dangerous, especially for pedestrians. The turning problem described at these and other intersections is inexcusable and always has been. A complete overhaul is in order.

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Traffic Laws. Thursday, December 4, 2008

Enforce moving violations, not parking violations.

With the economy in turmoil the decision makers must be wondering where WP city revenue will come from with retail sales and restaurant business noticeably down. Their natural inclination will be to increase property tax and step up enforcement of ... parking violations.

How about enforcing moving violations? WP is Dodge City. When it comes to moving violations there is no law. Red lights are routinely run. Right on red is supposed to be: full stop, turn. In WP it is hairpin turn on red.

Pedestrian hostility is taken to a new level in WP. Get the CC members walking on the downtown streets and maybe they will take action before someone is killed.
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Southbury, CT: you can't get there from here.

At least not by public transportation. Southbury, CT is a town in western New Haven County, Connecticut. It's adjacent to a major highway, Interstate 84. So you'd think that one of the many huge regional buses that inundate downtown White Plains each day would go there.

Not even Connecticut Transit does. Nor Greyhound. If someone in White Plains took the Metro North train to Brewster, which is on 84, you'd think there would be a connecting bus that ran along 84 to Southbury. Nope.

So what the heck is White Plains getting out of having all those regional buses downtown, which have a VERY low percentage of seats filled?

$115 million for the Bee-Line county bus system in 2018.

https://www3.westchestergov.com/images/stories/budget/2018/2018adoptedOperating.pdf

Page 597:

400 Expenses

4924 Bus Operating Assistance 2018: $115,872,847
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Is this a joke? $115 million for the Bee-Line county bus system? Casual observation in White Plains at or near the bus terminal at the train station shows VERY low percentage of seats occupied by passengers.

Regional buses: percent of seats occupied, percent of passengers who merely board a train?  Saturday, April 14, 2018

Those are two simple common sense questions that Mayor Tom Roach and traffic commissioner Tom Soyk should answer.

Some of the regional bus companies that drive to the White Plains train station:
Coach (allowed by city to park illegally adjacent to mini mall)
Adirondack Trailways
Greyhound
CT Transit (Connecticut)
Leprichaun
TappanZeezpress (Rockland County, NY)

Along with:
Afternoon rush hour traffic on Hamilton Avenue: where are all those vehicles coming from and going to?

Finally, the BIG common sense question:

How does any of this benefit White Plains, especially downtown?

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Train station project mostly repairs neglect. Clock tower remains!

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) designed the White Plains train station badly in the mid 1980s and neglected it.

http://web.mta.info/mnr/wp-reno/wp-reno.html#p1

The current three year project is presented by both the MTA and the City of White Plains as a major change but no matter how many times I read the MTA's own description I come away thinking: so?

The 1980s work omitted heating and cooling and made a roof which did not cover and protect passengers from water when getting on/off trains. Fixing these mistakes is presented as a "significant makeover", yeah of MTA mistakes.

The work that just started seems to be cleaning and painting, you know, like responsible people do for routine maintenance.

Then MTA will make the waiting areas larger. Nice touch. "On-platform vendor space" will presumably be for coffee for the commuters who really count, the ones who drive and park in the garage and don't want to descend to ground level to get a cup of coffee. That's for pedestrians who live in apartments and walk to the station. The Common Council always takes care of its own.

Oh, and replace the disgraceful restrooms.

There will be an "information dashboard", which they sort of already have. And WiFi, presumably like Hastings Tea & Coffee has had on Main Street for years. USB charging stations! Yippie!

The new side platform sounds good, whatever that is.

Since "only 11 parking spaces will be displaced", that means that the fleeting idea of removing the parking garage was dumped along with any real attempt to get residents to/from the train station other than by residents driving their cars and parking them for ten hours. Not an efficient use of resources, either personal or municipal. I guess they could take the county Bee-Line bus. Nah.

Clock tower remains! Yes, that symbol of MTA incompetence and White Plains mediocrity. The primary photo shows no substantive change in the station design and retains the clock tower, which has not kept correct time for years. About three years ago MTA simply set all four sides to noon/midnight. So in three years when this project is complete, the clock tower will be there but will time be correct? Hey, why not fix the clock NOW?

"Installation of a new sidewalk between Hamilton Ave. and the lobby entrance". Right now there is no crosswalk on the west side of Hamilton on Bank Street or west of the tracks for people on the pathway. What's happening to facilitate pedestrian crossing of Hamilton Ave. anywhere near the train tracks, including people on the Bronx River Pathway on foot or bike? Right now even project workers must wait for a traffic opening and dash across to get from one part of the work area to another. The City did not even have enough common sense to deal with that.

The new station should be a big improvement, if only because the MTA neglected the current station so much for so long. But functionally it does not seem to be very different. Maybe it will at least clear the way for the Common Council to finally put those ground level parking areas to good use, like generating tax money.

Regional buses: percent of seats occupied, percent of passengers who merely board a train?

Those are two simple common sense questions that Mayor Tom Roach and traffic commissioner Tom Soyk should answer.

Some of the regional bus companies that drive to the White Plains train station:
Coach (allowed by city to park illegally adjacent to mini mall)
Adirondack Trailways
Greyhound
CT Transit (Connecticut)
Leprichaun
TappanZeezpress (Rockland County, NY)

Along with:
Afternoon rush hour traffic on Hamilton Avenue: where are all those vehicles coming from and going to?

Finally, the BIG common sense question:

How does any of this benefit White Plains, especially downtown?

Bus battle: Westchester pushes back against Tarrytown express bus
Matt Coyne, mcoyne@lohud.com Published 6:30 p.m. ET April 12, 2018

"Where are you going here?" said Assemblyman Tom Abinanti, D-Greenburgh. "Tarrytown doesn't need those buses. They do nothing for Tarrytown besides create havoc and put people in danger." ...

Original plans for the bus system, now being branded the Hudson Link instead of the wordier Lower Hudson Transit Link, saw Metro-North-bound Rocklanders ferried to the White Plains TransCenter instead of Tarrytown.
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Mayor Tom Roach: "bring an east-west bus rapid transit system to Westchester County" Wednesday, August 30, 2017

... 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".
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http://white-plains-ny.blogspot.com/search/label/Buses

2,500 new, residential downtown PARKING spaces INCREASE traffic.

Somehow this gets lost in the development news about the 2,500 new very expensive apartments being built in White Plains. The numbers are a rough estimate. The point is that for each new apartment, at least one new, private parking space is also created.

- The Continuum rental building is already open at 55 Bank Street: 550 units
- Construction has begun at 60 South Broadway: 700 units
- Hamilton Plaza, site of the decades long pathetic mini mall: 900 units
- something between Franklin and Westchester Avenues: 300 units?
- 440 Hamilton Ave., the long time AT&T office building will convert to apartments when its business tenants vacate: how many?

2,500 new downtown apartments looks like a low estimate. No matter. Tom, Tom (mayor Roach, traffic commissioner Soyk) can clarify as White Plains officials speak yet again to the Battle Hill Association April 19 in a classic White Plains example of the tail wagging the dog.

So what happens on a Saturday morning when a significant percentage of new residents with new parking spaces decide to join the incumbents and drive to a supermarket, Bloomingdale's, a golf course, ...? Remember, these spaces are ALL downtown, not even in the suburbs of White Plains, you know, where the decision makers like Common Council members and commissioners live.

Or do decision makers think these new residents will all walk? Or take the county Bee-Line buses? Or maybe the regional buses and shop in the Adirondacks or in Babylon, L.I.? Those buses have few passengers. I recently rode the Bee-Line 63 bus in early afternoon and was the only passenger for much of the trip to/from Scarsdale. Why is there an ever increasing number of HUGE, mostly empty, buses driving through downtown. Ask Mayor Roach April 19. Ask Traffic Commissioner Soyk April 19. Ask the Battle Hill Association meeting organizers if any of that is on their radar.

I was the only passenger on Bee-Line 63 on a Sunny afternoon.

I got the 63 at about 1:05 PM Tuesday March 13, 2018 at the bus terminal across from the train station. For most of the trip I and my companion were the only passengers. We went to a house in Scarsdale. After about an hour, we got the 63 back to White Plains. Again for much of the trip we were the only passengers.

This personal experience confirms my observation over many months and documented in this blog, that Bee-Line buses mostly drive in White Plains with almost no passengers during the day. And White Plains is both the county center and in the center of Westchester County. What a waste. Why does the county legislature spend so much money on the Bee-Line bus system?

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks: the Transit District model.

Say what?

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union, the Cold War superpowers, on the issue of arms control. The two rounds of talks and agreements were SALT I and SALT II...

The talks led to the STARTs, or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties ... which proposed limits on multiple-warhead capacities and other restrictions on each side's number of nuclear weapons.
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Instead of reducing the number of nuclear weapons, a new higher limit was agreed to. That's what the City of White Plains is doing with its expansion and especially with the planning being done in the new Transit District near the train station and bus terminal.

The final report of the Transit District emphasizes lots of environmental stuff along with lots of growth, much of which is the addition of thousands of new high rent apartments. What's lost in all this is that the number of new parking spaces will exceed the number of new apartments.

DOWNTOWN WHITE PLAINS TRANSIT DISTRICT FINAL REPORT Sunday, March 18, 2018

Fewer parking spaces will reduce the number of cars downtown. So why add thousands?
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So rather than reigning in traffic and pollution, the City of White Plains is establishing big increases. No there's no other interpretation. But it's being presented as responsible planned growth. And it continues to ignore:

1. Decades of the City of White Plains allowing rush hour traffic to go through downtown streets, especially Hamilton Avenue. Those cars don't stop to pay sales tax, they just drive through.

2. Regional buses driving on downtown streets to/from the train station without any real explanation of how that is good for White Plains generally and downtown specifically. Most passengers are probably simply getting on a Metro North train into Manhattan. Are most of the rest getting on private buses taking them to jobs in the corporate parks along 287? That would be ironic, since the buses just got off 287, many having crossed the new bridge over the Hudson River.

Part of the problem is that proposals to have light rail along 287 went nowhere, in part, because White Plains did little or nothing to promote it. Now under the guise of public transportation, White Plains is mindlessly allowing HUGE regional buses to come all the way to the train station. It sounds like a nice regional plan but what's in it for downtown White Plains other than for politicians who live in houses in the suburbs of White Plains to feel like big shots?