We must get moving on transit problem
 Island is now one of most underserved areas of its size in nation -- with vacant office space to prove it

Staten Island Advance - Monday, June 12, 2006 

I read in yesterday's Advance that office tenants at the Teleport in Bloomfield are disappearing faster than hope at an Atlantic City craps table.

They say the vacancy rate is 50 percent inside the manicured corporate park, and that there's no real reason to believe the trend will turn around.

My response is, no kidding!

I mean, it's not like anyone who ever thought about the Teleport situation is shocked.

They couldn't be.

Did you ever try to make your way from, say, Wall Street to South Avenue via public transportation? If not, here's a tip.
Pack your lunch. It could take a while. Give it a try from St. George on any Tuesday afternoon, in fact.

If you're up for it, that is.

Staten Island commercial real estate is suffering because, while most of the region surrounding Manhattan was linking its way to the hub of the American economy via mass transit, we did nothing.

While Long Island and Jersey City and Hoboken and Westchester and North Jersey were taking the political steps to make their communities players in the game, we took a pass.

Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City, a few miles away from the jobs and the money and the international decision-makers, wasn't even in the game.

That's why we are now one of the most underserved areas our size in the nation. It is also the reason floor upon floor of property here is collecting dust -- and tax bills.

We're in a pickle, is the bottom line. Not that all of our problems are anyone's fault. Sometimes stuff just happens.

But we need to get to work, and the clock is ticking.

'KEY TO THE FUTURE'

"Mass transit is the key to the future," says professor Jonathan Peters, who has been studying the issue for years at College of Staten Island's Center for the Study of Staten Island. "If we don't deal with it, the long game won't be good. It is our only way to equalize with the rest of the area."

Buses won't be enough.

They're too slow, and too affected by factors like traffic and weather.

It's that simple.

We need more.

Listen to this statement from a New York real estate heavyweight.

"The Teleport is not one of the great success stories," Julien J. Studley told the New York Times. "There are just too many other areas that are much more convenient."

That was printed in the Times on Jan. 3, 1988. Over 18 years ago.

Obviously, not much has occurred to change that outlook. Otherwise, the Teleport would have more tenants.

Come back 18 years from now.

If people are still saying the same things the Island will be in huge trouble. Transportation is the No.1 issue, and there is no No.2. That's the way it's been for a long time, even if most folks haven't been paying attention.

And every day we're not working on the problem in a serious way puts us all on a more slippery slope than the day before.

Without mass transit, businesses will continue to leave. And as the population, and the automobile traffic, increases, neighborhoods and towns will begin to suffer real consequences.

SNARLED STREETS

People won't want to live in a place where the streets are constantly snarled and commutes are such an unreliable hassle.

Those who can will move away.

Real estate values will suffer. Small businesses will close.

So it's not just about corporate interests, or money.

This is even more of a big deal to the cops and teachers and deli owners who have staked out a future on the Island.

"If we don't do something," Peters warns, "there's going to be no advantage to being here."

The lone solution is mass transit.

It can turn the future on its ear, and in a hurry. Just look at Williamsburg in Brooklyn and Long Island City and the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

They were transformed in no time.

Why?

They had the core, beginning with transportation. On Staten Island, we have our own assets that are as good, or better, than in those locations. How about the green spaces and the waterfront and the education system, for starters?

And there's more. But we need a way to get around.

Step one for us is revitalization of the North Shore rail from St. George to Arlington (basically right past the Teleport front door), and a connection to New Jersey light rail over the Bayonne Bridge.

That's idea is little more than a pop-up if we're really serious.

"Low-hanging fruit," Peters calls it. "If we can't get that accomplished, we're in real trouble."

Why wasn't all of this work started years ago? The real reason is because it's not easy getting government to respond to a problem like ours.

Fixing things will be costly, and long-term and we'll need a real bi-partisan effort to get it done. The last time I looked that wasn't a strong point of elected officials. But this is the World Series, for Islanders. It's the Super Bowl. The most important project of the last 40 years, hands down.

After a North Shore rail line is in place, we'll need to extend the system to mid-Island and the South Shore.

It won't be easy. And it won't be cheap.

But if we want to see places like the Teleport booming the way they could be, it's the answer.
 

By Cormac Gordon
Reprinted here with permission from the