In the wake of the September
11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Downtown business community renewed
its longstanding calls for direct commuter rail service to Lower
Manhattan. Discussion has
focused on a proposal to connect the Long Island Rail
Road’s Jamaica
transfer station to Lower Manhattan. A similar plan was endorsed by Mayor Michael
Bloomberg in his vision for Lower Manhattan. But the Downtown business community’s plan
encountered strong opposition due to its price tag (estimated at $1.9 billion
to $5 billion or more) and because it would use an existing East River subway
tunnel and thus disrupt subway service.
The issue of suburban access to Lower Manhattan
thus continues to be an important and contentious issue.
This report seeks to put the debate over LIRR service to Lower
Manhattan into a larger context by posing two fundamental
questions: (1) What should be the focus of commuter access improvements? (2) What modes would best serve those needs?
Based on a review of past studies of Lower
Manhattan commuter access options and available data on travel
patterns, we conclude that focusing on direct commuter rail service from Long
Island does not address Lower Manhattan’s
most critical suburban access needs.
Improving the commute from the Metro North service area north of the
city is much more important than improving the commute from Long
Island:
§
Travel
times from Long Island are relatively competitive between Lower Manhattan and much of Midtown. The travel time
difference is only two to six minutes for Long Island
commuters destined for East Midtown – the center of gravity for Midtown jobs –
as compared with those going to Downtown offices. Commutes to East Midtown and Downtown are
also similar in that commuters must transfer between the LIRR and the subway or
bus.
§
Midtown,
on the other hand, enjoys a major travel time advantage for suburban commuters
traveling from Metro North’s service territory in Westchester County, Connecticut and other northern suburbs.
The travel time difference is 10 to 15 minutes shorter for Metro North
commuters working in East Midtown compared with Downtown. The Downtown trip also requires a transfer to
the crowded Lexington Avenue
subway or other transportation, whereas most Metro North commuters who work in
Midtown can walk to work from Grand Central Terminal on East 42 Street.
§
Surveys of
businesses in Lower
Manhattan substantiate
our conclusion that improved access from north of the city is the most critical
need.
§
The
significance of differences in LIRR versus Metro North travel times is evident
in commuting data. Twenty-one
percent of all Long Islanders commuting to Manhattan
work in Lower Manhattan compared with 16% of workers
living in Metro North’s service territory.
Suburban commuters who live north of the city are more likely to avoid
the long Metro North/subway commute to Lower Manhattan
than are LIRR commuters, for whom travel times to Midtown and Downtown are more
comparable.
Lower Manhattan business interests
have focused on achieving direct LIRR commuter access because it is seen as
relatively feasible compared with building a direct Metro North connection. There is no doubt that a direct Metro North
connection to Lower Manhattan is a remote possibility at
best. Rail should not be assumed to be
the only suitable mode for improving suburban access to Lower
Manhattan, however. Other
modes – specifically ferry service – should be considered in addressing the
pressing needs for better access to Lower Manhattan.
§
While many
people think of rail as synonymous with suburban commuting, in fact, commuter
rail accounts for only 44% of suburban commuting to Manhattan (including
commuters from the New Jersey
suburbs as well as New York and Connecticut
suburbs). Led by extensive bus service
from New Jersey that takes
advantage of the Lincoln Tunnel bus lane, express buses and ferries carry about
one in five suburban commuters to Manhattan. In thinking about suburban commuting, then,
it is important to bear in mind that commuter rail is not the only viable
public transportation mode.
§
High-speed
commuter ferries from coastal suburbs in New Jersey and Long Island to Manhattan can offer substantial travel time savings
over commuter rail service. A
recently discontinued ferry service from Glen Cove,
Long Island to Pier 11 at the foot of Wall Street was
over 20 minutes faster than an LIRR trip to Penn Station – not even including
the travel time from Penn Station to Lower Manhattan. This and other examples of high-speed
commuter ferries illustrates that ferries can offer superior travel times for
suburban commuters.
§
The total
cost of providing ferry and rail services (when including government subsidies)
is roughly comparable.
§
Ferries
offer a capacity commensurate with the need. The handful of high-speed, longer-distance
commuter ferries currently operating serve 5,000 passengers per weekday, a
sizeable ridership when compared with the 19,000 Lower Manhattan
commuters served by Metro North. Ferries
could serve a much higher volume of passengers where demand merits greater
service levels.
Thus, we conclude that a network of high-speed, high-amenity
ferry services between selected suburbs and Pier 11 near Wall Street and/or the
World Financial
Center offers the opportunity to
substantially improve the accessibility of Lower Manhattan. Ferry service could operate along the Hudson
River to points in Westchester and Rockland
counties and via the East River to points in Westchester
and Connecticut. Existing service to New
Jersey and the North Shore of Long Island could also
be expanded. Thus, current governmental
efforts to establish or evaluate ferry service from north and east of the city
should be supported and expanded.
Ferries offer a number of advantages. New ferry services can be implemented quickly
and with manageable capital costs. Ferries also make full use of Lower
Manhattan’s best natural advantage – the business district’s
proximity to the water, its compactness and high density of office space. The large majority of Downtown workers are
within walking distance of either Pier 11 on the East River
or piers at the World Financial
Center.
At the same time, high-speed ferry service also raises
important issues concerning cost, possible government subsidies and overseeing
subsidized ferry services. The task of
siting new ferry terminals is also an important issue.
A second mode also deserves serious attention – express bus
service from New Jersey. More New Jersey
residents commuting to Manhattan as
a whole take express buses to get to work than any other single mode including
commuter rail. Yet the vast majority of
express buses terminate at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on West 42
Street. The travel time differential to Lower
Manhattan as compared with Midtown is greater for these commuters
than for LIRR riders. A few routes serve
Downtown Manhattan directly, but the travel times are very extensive due to
traffic congestion at the Holland Tunnel.
Speeding up express bus service to Lower
Manhattan is a challenging task.
The Holland Tunnel’s two tubes are not conducive to adding exclusive bus
lanes. Traffic congestion at the Manhattan
approaches and exits to the tunnel are an important source of delay. Other approaches are worthy of consideration,
such as linking express bus service to PATH in Hoboken once downtown PATH
service reopens toward the end of 2003 or to ferries on the New Jersey side of
the Hudson River. These options merit
further analysis as possible ways to improve access to Lower
Manhattan relatively quickly and affordably.
In sum, Lower Manhattan’s suburban
access needs will not be met with one mode – be it rail, ferry or bus. Neither ferries nor express buses are
panaceas to Lower Manhattan’s transportation needs. But expanding ferry and express bus service
to Downtown offers clear advantages in addressing critical access needs in a
timely fashion. Development of ferries
and express buses thus deserve at least as much attention and energy in the
planning for Lower Manhattan’s economic recovery as do improvements to commuter
rail access.
Since the September
11, 2001 terrorist attacks, much attention has been focused on the
issue of improving mass transit to Lower Manhattan. In February 2003, Governor George E. Pataki
announced plans to allocate federal funding for Lower Manhattan
to several projects. The projects
include a new PATH terminal at the World
Trade Center
site, revamping the Fulton Street
complex and its maze of subway lines, and connecting both transit terminals
with an underground pedestrian concourse. These proposals would rationalize and
unite the Trade Center
and Fulton Street
transportation hubs and create a transportation terminal with a strong
identity, similar to Grand Central.
The governor's plan will also rebuild the subway terminal at
South Ferry and connect the station with the Whitehall
Street subway station and a new Staten Island
Ferry Terminal. In the South Ferry station, the obsolete single-track 5-car
station would be replaced with a 10-car, three-track, two-platform terminal.
These improvements would cut down on delays on the 1/9 line and thus speed
commuter access between Lower Manhattan and Penn Station,
a key goal for Lower Manhattan.
These transit projects would tremendously improve the
functioning and convenience of several busy transit stations and
terminals. They would not, however, add
to the transportation network serving Lower Manhattan. More ambitiously and more controversially,
the Downtown business community has called for direct commuter rail access to Lower
Manhattan. The Downtown
business community argues that rail access is crucial for the future of the Lower
Manhattan business district.
This stance is the heart of “Key Principles in Rebuilding Lower
Manhattan,” a white paper released in September, 2002 by the Alliance for
Downtown New York, the Association for a Better New York, the New York City
Partnership and the Real Estate Board of New York.” The white paper argues that “commuter and
airport access improvements are essential to maintain and enhance Downtown’s
role as an economic engine for the region.”
In December, Mayor Bloomberg endorsed the idea of a new
tunnel between Downtown and Kennedy International
Airport and thus through the
AirTrain system connect Lower Manhattan to the Long
Island Rail Road station in Jamaica.
This report assesses commuter access needs for Lower
Manhattan based on currently available data and studies conducted
by public agencies over the past decade.
Analysis of this information provides a fuller picture of the strengths
and weaknesses of the Lower Manhattan transportation
system and helps to identify opportunities for improvement. We conclude with recommendations about ferry
and express bus services that we believe would best address the commuter access
problems – and do so relatively quickly and at relatively little cost. These recommendations are intended to further
discussion about improving suburban and airport access to Lower
Manhattan in a direction that will be constructive to Lower
Manhattan’s economic vitality.
Clearly, additional studies will be needed to further develop feasible
and effective proposals.
Commuter rail access to Lower Manhattan
is considered to be particularly imperative because it is seen as a competitive
advantage that the Midtown business district has over Downtown. The “Key Principles” paper states that,
“Downtown has lost market share to midtown Manhattan
and the suburbs over the past half century, principally due to its poor rail
service to areas of the region beyond the city line.” In his December speech, Mayor Bloomberg
declared, “We must invest in making Downtown more accessible – both to the rest
of the world and to residents of the metropolitan region.” Midtown, of course, has direct commuter rail
access to Penn Station and Grand Central while Downtown does not. To reach Lower Manhattan,
Metro North and Long Island Rail Road
commuters must transfer to the subway and NJ Transit commuters must transfer to
the subway, PATH trains or ferries.
Calls for commuter rail access are not new. Lack of commuter rail access has long been
seen as an issue that has put Downtown at a disadvantage compared to
Midtown. This position was clearly
articulated, for example in the “Lower Manhattan Transportation Access Economic
Benefits Study,” a 1996 report prepared for the Empire State Development
Commission, the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Alliance
for Downtown New York. This report presented the results of
interviews with “senior representatives of Midtown growth industries, downtown
tenants and real estate professionals.” Interviewees compared the Midtown and
Downtown business districts, and Downtown did not fare favorably in the
comparison. According to the report, the
interviewees stated that the only advantage for Downtown was “the relatively
low cost of space.” Interviewees cited
several advantages for Midtown, including “amenities” such as restaurants and
shopping; greater availability of “large floor plates” in Class A office space;
and “ease of access” for commuters.
Inferior transportation access thus was seen as one of several
disadvantages facing the Downtown business district.
When asked to consider possible commuter transportation
improvements to improve the competitiveness of Downtown, interviewees desired
alternatives that would “significantly reduce travel time and crowding, as well
as augment comfort.” They felt that
either “direct commuter rail access” or a “shuttle service” with “seamless”
connection to commuter rail would achieve those goals. Nearly all agreed that “extension of both
Metro North and LIRR service would be most desirable,” but that “if only one
could be extended, it should be Metro North.”
There have been a number of proposals and studies in recent
years focused on improving access to Lower Manhattan. These include calls for a “regional rail
system” that would greatly eliminate the transportation differential between
midtown and Lower Manhattan;
building new rail tunnels to Lower Manhattan to accommodate a pair of “super
shuttles” linking Lower Manhattan to Penn Station and Grand Central;
and a “Regional Express Rail” that would connect Metro North tracks at Grand
Central to Lower Manhattan and the LIRR terminal in downtown Brooklyn. A full-length Second
Avenue subway, now undergoing environmental
reviews, would improve access to Lower Manhattan from
Grand Central by relieving the severe overcrowding now experienced on the Lexington
Avenue line.
Attention to Lower Manhattan’s
transportation needs obviously intensified after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The greater sense of urgency has prompted a
search for solutions that would be less costly and therefore more rapidly
implemented, than either the Second Avenue
subway or any plan involving entirely new commuter rail tunnels.
Brookfield Properties, one of the largest real estate
interests in Lower Manhattan, released a study outlining
one such idea in February, 2002. Under the Brookfield
plan, a “super shuttle” would run from the Jamaica LIRR station to Lower
Manhattan. Trains would
operate along existing tracks – via the LIRR Atlantic Branch from Jamaica to
Downtown Brooklyn and then into Lower Manhattan via the Cranberry Street subway
tunnel presently used by the A and C subway lines. A short stretch of new tunnel within Lower
Manhattan would bring the shuttle to its terminus in the World
Trade Center
area and some tunneling would be required to link the two existing lines in Brooklyn.
To make room for the shuttle in the Cranberry
Street tunnel, the C train would be rerouted to
the Rutgers Street tunnel
that is used by the F train. The C would
thus run directly from Downtown Brooklyn to the Lower East Side,
bypassing Lower Manhattan. The A train would not be re-routed but would
need to carry riders who currently use the C train to reach Lower
Manhattan; these riders would need to transfer to the A train at Jay
Street in Downtown Brooklyn.
The Brookfield
proposal is intended as a cost-effective solution to the Lower
Manhattan access problem, but some of the specifics of the plan
are not ideal. LIRR commuters would not
need to transfer to the subway to reach Lower Manhattan,
but they would still have to transfer from commuter trains to the super shuttle
at Jamaica. The shuttle would make only one stop in Lower
Manhattan, so many commuters – particularly those in the Wall Street
area – would have to walk some distance to reach their destinations. More fundamentally, the plan focuses only on Long
Island. It offers no
solutions to the problems of access for Metro North and NJ Transit commuter
rail riders.
While the cost of the Brookfield
proposal is said to be less than that of other ideas, it is still considerable,
particularly since some new tunneling in Manhattan
and Brooklyn would be involved. John Zuccotti, Chairman of Brookfield
Properties, says that the plan would cost $1.9 billion while other reports put
the cost at $5 billion or more. It also has other drawbacks as well, since it
would disrupt an existing subway line and require Brooklyn C train riders to
transfer to the A train to reach Lower Manhattan.
The next section takes a step back from the specifics of the
Brookfield proposal and other plans
for improving Lower Manhattan commuter access to ask two
fundamental questions: what should be the focus of commuter access
improvements? What modes would best
serve those needs?
Lower
Manhattan’s
Commuter Access Needs
Several considerations are important to identifying
priorities for improved commuter access to Lower Manhattan:
- Relative
travel times: which geographic markets most need to be better served
with quicker travel times?
Specifically, to what suburban locations does Midtown currently
enjoy significantly shorter travel times?
After currently planned enhancements are in place, where will
travel times to Midtown be significantly better? These areas should be prioritized when
considering Lower Manhattan transportation
improvements.
- Place of
residence of suburban commuters:
where do most suburban commuters to Lower Manhattan
live? Where do commuters to Midtown
and other parts of Manhattan
live? Improvements to Lower
Manhattan transportation should address the needs of current
commuters destined for Lower Manhattan. Improvements should also address
situations where relatively few commuters journey Downtown due to overly
long travel times.
- Mode of travel:
what mode is needed to transport the anticipated volume of
passengers? What modes are
cost-effective and can be built in an acceptable time frame?
In assessing these questions, we keep in mind the need to
identify solutions that can be implemented in a relatively short time period
(on the order of a few years, at most, not decades) and at a cost commensurate
with the benefits.
Rail Access
Discussion of the Lower Manhattan
commuter access problem has focused on differences in travel times to Midtown
versus Downtown. Underlying the
discussions is the perception that Midtown commuters can take commuter trains
directly to their offices while Downtown commuters must transfer to the subway
to reach their destinations. In fact,
transfers often are required to reach Midtown destinations as well and travel
times are quicker to Downtown offices from some suburban areas.
While Midtown does have direct commuter rail access, much of
the service is to Penn Station, a considerable distance from the heart of the
business district on the East Side. To reach the area around the Citicorp
building (53rd Street
and Lexington Avenue), for
example, a subway transfer is required.
Some NJ Transit rail service terminates in Hoboken
and transfers are required to reach either Midtown or Downtown. Downtown commuters on some NJ Transit trains
have an advantage because they can take a shortcut to Lower
Manhattan by transferring to PATH at Newark.
As a result, it is not uniformly true that Midtown has
better commuter rail access than Downtown.
From some suburbs, access to Midtown is considerably faster than access
to Downtown while from others Downtown has a travel time advantage. The table below illustrates these
differences. All of the suburbs shown
are 25 miles from Lower Manhattan “as the crow flies,”
and all have commuter rail stations. The
travel times listed in the table below include the total in-vehicle time,
including the time spent riding commuter rail and connecting subway/PATH service,
but do not include transfer and walk time.
Relative travel times to Lower Manhattan and East Midtown by
commuter rail
|
County
|
Suburb
|
Railroad
|
Difference in Time (min.)
|
Difference in No. of Transfers
|
|
Faster to Midtown
|
|
Westchester
|
Rye
|
Metro
North
|
10-15
|
1
|
|
Westchester
|
White Plains
|
Metro
North
|
10-15
|
1
|
|
Westchester
|
Irvington
|
Metro
North
|
10-15
|
1
|
|
Nassau
|
Bellmore
|
LIRR
|
2-6
|
0
|
|
Nassau
|
Hicksville
|
LIRR
|
2-6
|
0
|
|
Nassau
|
Locust Valley
|
LIRR
|
1
|
0-1
|
|
Same to Midtown and Downtown
|
|
NJ –
Morris
|
Morristown
|
NJ
Transit
|
0
|
0
|
|
Faster to Downtown
|
|
NJ –
Middlesex
|
New Brunswick
|
NJ
Transit
|
0-5
|
0
|
|
NJ –
Monmouth
|
Red Bank
|
NJ
Transit
|
10-12
|
0
|
|
NJ – Bergen
|
Ramsey
|
NJ
Transit
|
11-12
|
1
|
|
Rockland
|
Pearl
River
|
NJ
Transit
|
11-12
|
1
|
Midtown has a major advantage over Downtown only for Metro
North service to Grand Central.
Commuters from Westchester (as well as Dutchess
and Putnam counties, and Connecticut)
have direct access to the East Midtown business district at Grand Central but
must transfer to the subway and spend 10-15 minutes of additional travel time
to reach Lower Manhattan.
In contrast, there is only a slight travel time advantage
for Long Island Rail Railroad riders bound for East Midtown versus those bound
for Lower Manhattan.
With regards to NJ Transit commuter rail service, there is no advantage
for Midtown at all. Indeed, on some
lines, travel times to Lower Manhattan are as much as
10-12 minutes faster than travel times to East Midtown and may even require one
less transfer.
Thus the problem of better commuter rail access to Midtown
than Downtown is most of all a problem of better Metro North access to Midtown
than to Downtown. Proposals that offer
benefits only to LIRR commuters, such as the Brookfield proposal for a “super
shuttle” from Lower Manhattan to Jamaica, do not address the much greater
problem of Metro North access.
It should be noted, however, that several recent commuter
rail infrastructure improvements favor Midtown, as listed in the following
table:
Recent commuter rail infrastructure
improvements with benefits to Midtown service
|
Project
|
Railroad
|
Status
|
Benefit to Midtown service
|
|
Kearny Connection
|
NJ
Transit
|
Completed
|
Direct
service to Penn Station for several Hoboken lines
|
|
Montclair Connection
|
NJ
Transit
|
Completed
|
