 
Mass Transit Is Answer to Traffic Woes
Next congressman must bring our
transportation difficulties to attention of those in Washington
Staten Island Advance - Monday, June 02, 2008
 I took a ride from Forest Avenue in Silver Lake to Platinum Avenue
by the Staten Island Mall just as school was letting out on Friday.
Then I drove back to Silver Lake again.
All I can say of the experience is, "Wow!"
Now I know how Danica Patrick felt at the back of the Indy 500 pack
last weekend.
The roads were crammed with school buses and mothers rushing to pick
up their little ones. And, of course, freshly minted teenage drivers
who basically are out there on the jammed streets of New York City
winging it, often at something like mach speed.
The going was slow, I'll tell you, and the construction delays at
hot-spots like Clove Road and Victory Boulevard teeth-gritting.
I'd give the general ambiance close to zero on a scale of one to 10.
In fact, I'm guessing my blood pressure was still up three hours
later.
Then yesterday, I read the Sunday Advance front-page piece on our
borough's own little slice of the Baghdad Airport Road, circa 2005.
That would be the Staten Island Expressway. My colleagues, Maura
Yates and Tevah Platt, did a sensational job summing up the
challenges we all face dealing with the hellacious traffic on that
7-mile stretch of urban nightmare.
OBVIOUS MISTAKE
But there was one obvious mistake. The authors said studies indicate
as many as 170,000 vehicles use the SIE every day. I know that's
false because there are at least that many belching, growling trucks
and cars squeezing over the Goethals Bridge anytime, day or night,
that I'm trying to do the same.
My point is -- and this should be pretty obvious to anyone who's
given this problem even the least thought -- we aren't about to
drive ourselves out of the horrendous traffic that has beset the
Island, fouling the air, chasing jobs, attacking the quality of life
and causing general havoc.
The answer, the only answer to the issue, is mass transit. And, with
apologies to everyone involved in the nice little project of getting
a few daily buses to be allowed to cross the Bayonne Bridge, we
don't consider more road vehicles a genuine solution to too many
road vehicles.
It's one local issue that will make this coming congressional
election so interesting.
Imagine, a veteran political hell-raiser like Mike McMahon versus
(can you believe it?) an actual E-ZPass-toting board member of the
Metropolitan Transit Authority, the government entity that has
snubbed its nose at Staten Island for these many
congestion-increasing years?
I say, let's talk. And make it real, if you will. Time's been
wasting.
A few weeks back, the Center for the Study of Staten Island held a
public policy conference concerning the future of the borough at the
College of Staten Island.
The day was informative, and well-designed.
But the highlight for me didn't come during the hour-long
discussions, or the presentations made by just about anyone involved
in Island development, from bankers to builders to civic groups to
regulators.
The big moment arrived during a midday lunch break, and it wasn't
the vegetable wrap with a light cream dressing (though that wasn't
half-bad).
The real event within the event was a simple sentence uttered by CSI
professor Jonathan Peters, the local guru when it comes to
transportation and the future of Staten Island.
"In terms of mass transit," Peters told the crowd, "our elected
officials have failed Staten Island."
That simple, and, as far as I'm concerned, completely correct,
statement in such a setting finally acknowledged the 800-pound
gorilla that is in any room where the future of Staten Island is to
be seriously discussed.
And for his candor, we all owe Peters.
People who have studied Island transportation needs for years,
beginning with Peters' group and moving on through the industrious
folks at the Chamber of Commerce, just about all come down in the
same place.
LIGHT RAIL
It's called Light Rail.
Like the Hudson--Bergen Line from Bayonne to Jersey City, or the
Camden--Trenton Light Rail. Or the systems in Denver or San Jose.
"Places with less density than Staten Island," Peters points out.
Ideally, a train would run from the foot of the Bayonne Bridge out
the Martin Luther King Expressway to the entrance of CSI. From
there, the train would make a right to Richmond Avenue and head due
south toward Amboy Road.
It would connect with the Hudson--Bergen line in Bayonne and
transport Islanders en masse to within a couple of minutes from Wall
Street in less than an hour. Door-to-door.
That would do more for Staten Island in terms of jobs, real estate
values and quality of life than just about anything else anyone can
think of. A New York Times article yesterday cited a recent Rutgers
University study claiming that $5 billion in new housing stock has
been built along the Hudson-Bergen stops in the last eight years.
That's called progress.
What would such an undertaking cost? Plenty. How long would it take
to build? A decade.
What's the key?
Federal funding. That's what makes our congressional representation
so critical. We need someone who has the brains, the will and the
moxie to put the issue on the Washington, D.C., radar.
Planners estimate that Staten Island will have 100,000 more
residents 20 years down the road. Look around you. Where are they
going to live? How are they to get around?
You want them driving on Richmond Avenue at 3 p.m. every day with
the soccer moms and the high school kids? How about stuffing a few
thousand more per hour onto the SIE? Or letting them park their cars
in your yard?
Think that'll work?
By Cormac Gordon
Reprinted here with permission
from the
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