Now, even as officials forge ahead with a widely debated alternate plan, many transit advocates are calling for those contingency measures — more bus and ferry service, new bike lanes, traffic restrictions — to be put in place even with no shutdown. The planned changes, they say, are still needed in a growing city facing critical transportation challenges from congestion to a broken subway system.
Why turn back, they say, when so much of the groundwork is done. Bike routes have been expanded. Bus lanes have been painted, and the skeletons of bus fare machines have been installed on sidewalks. New bus and ferry services have been announced.
“What we have in front of us is a city that has to expand our transportation system,” said Ydanis Rodriguez, chairman of the City Council’s transportation committee. “We have an opportunity to become the most pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly city in the whole nation.”
But critics counter that some of the changes would turn their neighborhoods into testing grounds for transit experiments that focus largely on moving commuters, and that the plans should be re-evaluated and weighed against the safety, health and quality of life of residents.
Across the country, cities are grappling with similar issues as they try to re-imagine their aging and increasingly inefficient transportation networks for modern needs. Many cities have overhauled subways and buses to attract more riders, and redesigned streets to make more room for cyclists, pedestrians and green spaces. They have embraced a host of initiatives to raise money for public transportation and reduce congestion and pollution.
San Francisco has transit-only lanes on 30 miles of streets and plans to add 20 more miles in the next decade. It has even highlighted some busy lanes with red paint to make them more visible to drivers, resulting in fewer cars blocking the lanes, transit officials said.
Portland, Oregon, is spending millions to promote walking and cycling in its downtown area, and working to make bus service faster and more reliable. It has also offered incentives to commuters to take alternative transportation, including a program that gives free transit passes to those who turn in their city-issued parking permits.
“Major cities across the country face the same challenges, and they are likely to only get worse unless we take action now,” Chloe Eudaly, Portland’s transportation commissioner, said. “Investment in our active transportation infrastructure and increasing ridership on public transit is critical to preserving and maintaining the livability of our city and our planet.”
In New York, there are more alternatives than ever for subway riders who tire of delays and overcrowding. Ferry routes will serve all five boroughs next year. New bus lanes are being installed at an average of seven miles a year, for a total of 111 miles so far, with city officials planning to pick up the pace. The city’s network of bike lanes has grown to 1,240 miles, including 300 miles of bike lanes added to streets since 2014 alone.
But the 15-month shutdown of the L train had been the catalyst for faster and more sweeping changes. It spurred the installation of more Manhattan crosstown bike lanes — cyclists complain that there are not enough — on 12th and 13th streets, and a bike lane on Delancey Street to keep cyclists moving on and off the Williamsburg Bridge, the city’s busiest bicycle bridge crossing with 7,300 trips per day.
The city’s first “busway,” or bus-only corridor, was designed to restrict car and truck traffic on 14th Street. Officials also planned to impose high-occupancy-vehicle requirements on the Williamsburg Bridge: Private vehicles with fewer than three passengers — including taxis and ride-hailing cars — would be barred from using the bridge between 5 a.m. and 10 p.m. to make room for a fleet of new temporary buses carrying displaced L riders.
Under the alternate plan backed by Cuomo, weekday L train service — including during morning and evening rush hours — will remain unchanged, and repairs will be carried out at night and on weekends, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The agency plans to increase bus and subway service — including on the G, M and 7 lines — to accommodate L riders affected by the construction, but has not yet released specific details. Shams Tarek, an MTA spokesman, said no final decisions had been made on other specific plans or services in the previous shutdown plan.
An MTA draft memo obtained recently by Streetsblog NYC suggested that there would no longer be a need for the temporary buses over the Williamsburg Bridge and the new ferry service. Tarek said the memo was outdated and that options were still being studied.
Veronique Hakim, the MTA’s managing director, said the agency was seeking public input and working with city officials to come up with a new plan “serving the needs of our customers while being sensitive to local communities.” The plan would be constantly monitored and adjusted as needed, she added.
“New Yorkers can be certain that the alternate service plan for the new and improved L project will include additional transportation options designed to accommodate every affected L customer,” she said.
Still, Joseph P. Schwieterman, a professor of public service at DePaul University, said that without the pressure of a looming shutdown, “there is now a risk that momentum will be lost,” adding that “planning for bus lanes, better ferries and more bike options is hard enough without sudden shifts in policy.”
City officials would not answer questions about whether specific contingency measures would go forward or the costs incurred in planning for the shutdown.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a recent news conference that the city was evaluating the new L train plan to decide “if there’s anything that we were planning that is no longer needed because of the L train, but that we might want to do anyway.”
The mayor has made improving bus service a priority, and many transit advocates said he could start by keeping the new bus lanes that are already on the ground.
“It would be lame to peel a bus lane off after pledging in his state of the city to get bus riders moving,” Jon Orcutt, a former city transportation official, said. “These are standing city policies and — L train shutdown or no L train shutdown — they should continue to be city policies and programs.”
Even without a shutdown, commuters will need backup options during “the great L train slowdown” on nights and weekends, said Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for the Riders Alliance, a grassroots group of transit riders. He added, “We can’t just go back to the norm and pretend nothing’s happening.”
The uncertainty about the alternate plan has also raised concerns among New Yorkers. On the Lower East Side, residents had braced for more gridlock and air pollution from the temporary buses over the Williamsburg Bridge. Now they do not know what to expect. Susan Stetzer, the manager of a local community board, said she remained concerned “about all the unknowns.”
The 14th Street Coalition, which represents more than two dozen residential buildings, block associations and businesses in the West Village, Chelsea and Flatiron neighborhoods, has called for officials to abandon the plans for a busway and wider pedestrian areas on 14th Street — which in some places would narrow the street to two lanes from four lanes — and restrictions that would divert car and truck traffic to nearby streets. Some residents also want the crosstown bike lanes on 12th and 13th streets removed.
Judy Pesin, 66, a member of the coalition, said the 14th Street changes would restrict deliveries to homes and businesses, slow down emergency vehicles, and make it harder for older people, parents with young children and those with disabilities to access cars.
“Clearly the change in plans means it’s time to listen to the community,” she said, “because the commuters are still going to have a moving L train.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.