In late 2013, the MTA will complete a 2-mile extension of the 7 line, from its current terminus at Times Square to 34th Street and 11th Avenue. Improving transit access to the far west side of Manhattan is part of a far-reaching City plan to activate the Hudson Yards area, an “under-utilized” neighborhood in Manhattan roughly bounded by West 43rd Street, West 28th Street, Eighth Avenue and the Hudson River, with commercial, residential, cultural and public space development. The area is currently served by buses — including the M42, which received the shameful Pokey Award last year for being the slowest bus in New York — but subway access is as far away at Times Square or Penn Station. But in a time of limited financial resources and other pending transit projects that would serve already-bustling communities with comparable transportation expansion needs, how was the decision made to extend the 7 line?

In spring 2011, Alexandra Woolsey Puffer and Jeff Maki, as teaching artists for the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), posed that very question to a group of ninth, tenth and eleventh graders. CUP is a nonprofit organization that uses art and design to improve public participation in shaping the places where we live. Fast-Tracked is the latest in CUP’s “Urban Investigations,” a series of project-based after-school programs that ask high school students to explore fundamental questions about how the city works and translate their findings into multimedia teaching tools for audiences in the arts and social justice professions. For Fast-Tracked, they worked with students from the New Design High School on the Lower East Side of Manhattan who are participating in College Now, a free City University of New York program designed to prepare New York City’s public high school students for success in college. Over the course of 15 weeks, the students, led by the team from CUP, investigated how transportation planning works by talking to stakeholders, researching policy and financing, and pounding the pavement. Here, Woolsey Puffer and Maki share their students’ story of the 7 line extension and what they learned about who determines the shape and flow of our public transportation. — V.S.

Students design a subway system for aliens (L) and for pirates (R)

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES A SUBWAY MAKE?
What’s the connection between subways and (re)development? Which comes first, the subway or the people? And why doesn’t the bus get any love? These are the questions that formed the basis of our CUP Urban Investigation in collaboration with ninth, tenth and eleventh grade students who are part of the College Now program at the New Design High School.

We began our investigation by exploring the fundamentals of mass transit. We posed the question to our students: is a subway system built for aliens the same subway system a pirate would want to use? Different riders want to visit different places, and everyone has his or her own idea of the path the subway should follow and the stops it should make. With 8 million people living in New York, there is no easy solution. Because transit needs to serve so many different types of riders, the name of the game is tradeoffs.

Access to transit, for businesses and for residents, is access to opportunity. Subways bring people to places they need to go — for work, for fun, to eat, to get home — and living close to transit increases options for all of those activities. But the longer the journey takes, the less practical it becomes, especially early in the morning or late at night, when transit service is less frequent.

By analyzing where subway stations are located in their own neighborhoods, how they are used and how they impact their surroundings, the students recognized the importance of efficient, reliable public transportation in everyday life. From that basic understanding, we began to look closely at one new subway development currently underway in New York: the extension of the 7 train westward, from its current final stop at Times Square to 34th Street and 11th Avenue.

By December 2013, this $2.1 billion 7 line extension will take riders to Hudson Yards, a 26-acre “under-utilized” area on the far west side of Manhattan. If you visit the area today, you’ll find check-cashing stops, parking lots, car repair garages, the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel and the Javits Convention Center. Few people live there and at first there does not appear to be strong demand for a new subway station. “This is the middle of nowhere,” summarized Shadiq Williams, a student at New Design High School. But a proposed redevelopment of the area will transform the MTA’s West Side Rail Yard into a multi-use residential and commercial complex — and improved access to transit is a key part of the redevelopment plan.

The Hudson Yards redevelopment area. The current/future route of the 7 line (solid/dashed yellow) and the newly redeveloped High Line (green).

WHO DECIDES WHERE THE SUBWAY GOES?
So, did (re)development follow from the plan to extend the subway, or did the subway follow the development? We turned to four people with markedly different viewpoints on transportation planning and real estate development to find out how the decision was made to extend the 7 train to Hudson Yards — and ended up with many different answers to the questions of who decides where the subway goes and how those choices are made.

Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) and a former deputy mayor of economic development, told us about the tradeoffs politicians are required to make when allocating limited financial resources. “Do we spend it on police? On education? On infrastructure? You spend it on all of them,” he explained, “but in what proportion? It’s a judgment call, but that’s what government people are elected to do.” When deciding how much to spend on improving mass transit, politicians must consider the broader implications of the proposed project. For Spinola, the redevelopment of areas like Hudson Yards and improved subway access to the neighborhood help create what he referred to as “another infrastructure” — namely, office space — and can generate construction jobs during a tough economic climate.

Students interview REBNY President Steven Spinola (L) and Pratt Center for Community Development Director of Policy Joan Byron (R)

We got a very different perspective on the issue when we talked to Joan Byron, Director of Policy, and Elena Conte, Organizer for Public Policy Campaigns, at the Pratt Center for Community Development in Brooklyn, where transportation is a social justice issue. “The short answer is that the MTA decides. But the bigger question is, who wields the most influence over the MTA?” Byron said. “Who has power over legislators? Those folks have the most input.” Byron and Conte noted that lower-income residents of the city typically don’t have a strong voice in transportation planning issues, particularly in comparison to real estate developers, and are often left with slower, less-reliable transit options.

An imbalance in efficient transit access is one of the reasons Byron and Conte are strong supporters of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). BRT is bus service that acts like a subway, with dedicated travel lanes and platforms for efficient entry and exit. Just like the subway, you pay your fare before getting on the bus. BRT is more practical and cost-effective to build and operate than the subway — $1 million per mile to build here in New York City, as opposed to an approximate $1 billion per mile cost to build a subway — so why isn’t there more BRT in New York?

To investigate why the MTA prioritizes specific transit modes for certain sites we turned to Mark Schiffman, vice president of MTA Capital Construction, the department responsible for “mega projects,” such as the 7 line extension, the Fulton Street Transit Center and the Second Avenue subway. Mark showed us renderings of the proposed development for Hudson Yards and maps of where the subway is being extended underground, and addressed some of our questions about the new station and the process of deciding where the subway goes.

Students meet with MTA Capital Construction VP Mark Schiffman (L) and DCP consultant Sandy Hornick (R)

“It used to be that one individual, such as Robert Moses, would determine in large measure where a public works project would go,” Schiffman told us. If that one person preferred highways and bridges to public transit, for instance, then priority was given to building roads. Today, it’s harder to figure out exactly who decides; it is a process with many players and multiple steps. One key piece of the process is the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which, as its name suggests, identifies the potential effects a project will have on the environment of the city — traffic flow, patterns of light and shadow, ecology, infrastructure and more. An EIS is required by the federal government for any project that receives federal funds. But, Schiffman pointed out, no federal funds are being used for the 7 line extension. The MTA saw an opportunity to fast-track the development by financing the project with bonds. Yet the MTA still chose to undergo the EIS process, a decision made, Schiffman told us, “to prevent one individual from playing king.”

Sandy Hornick, a consultant to the New York City Department of City Planning, elaborated on what Mark Schiffman introduced to us: the EIS process, ULURP (the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, a public review process for zoning changes), and the “creative financing” of the project that, as Schiffman described, would “fast-track” its development. Hornick explained that the 7 line extension is being funded through municipal bonds rather than state or federal monies, which come with restrictions and long-term financial unpredictability. Distilling the complex financial processes down to their essence, Hornick summarized: “All of this development will generate a lot of revenue. And we can borrow against this future revenue and use those bonds to pay for the subway.” Other transit projects that are funded by the federal or state government receive money over a certain period of time, after which they have to hope that funding will continue so that they can proceed with construction. With this project, as Schiffman said, “the money is in the bank, so we have certainty that we’ll be able to build.”

Creating the timeline

BACK IN THE CLASSROOM AND OUT ON THE STREET
Back in the classroom, we had our field notes, the recordings and transcriptions of our interviews, and an understanding of a new vocabulary we had encountered when talking to our interviewees. Now, we had to make sense of it all. What did our stakeholders tell us about the decision-making process? What are the issues at play? The alternatives? What can we do as citizens to affect the process?

To put things in perspective, the students created a timeline. From the transcripts, we cut out process-related quotes from each of our four interviewees and sorted them chronologically, from the very beginning of the project to the present, to help us understand what actually happened across organizations and from different perspectives.

Newly informed, we decided to revisit Hudson Yards and visualize the complete process of the 7 line extension in real space. We identified “six steps” to the project: Planning, Analysis/Scoping, Financing, Rezoning (ULURP), Agreement/Memo of Understanding, and Construction. With student-drawn placards that illustrated these six phases in hand, we organized a “process-ion” along the path of the subway extension — starting at 8th Avenue and 41st Street, continuing across 41st Street to 11th Avenue, and then turning south to 11th Avenue and 34th Street. We marked each of the six steps above ground, while tracing the path of the new subway tunnel beneath our feet.

Walking the Line, the 7 line process-ion

Fast-Tracked “Process-ion” by the Center for Urban Pedagogy

The final installment of our Urban Investigation was to share the story of the 7 line extension with a larger audience. We created a newspaper to inform others about what we had learned. We included quotes from our stakeholders, our own thoughts on the project, and the drawings we created to represent the six steps of the process. The newspaper — “This is a Story of the 7 Line Extension and the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project” — will be distributed along the 7 line and beyond. (Click here to download a PDF copy.)

Printing the newspaper

Our exploration of transportation planning in New York City was full of surprises. What surprised our students the most was the fact that there is no public vote. The messiness of real-world politics, as we learned from each interview, was a lesson in the constraints and tradeoffs that need to be made in government and public policy.

More, though, than the process of figuring out who decides, we learned that behind government process there is an entire team of dedicated public servants (and lobbyists and advocates) who are willing and even excited to talk about their work. At a stage in life where the students are trying out their adult selves, it is important to find ways to practice the role of “engaged citizen.” Elected officials really do owe us all their time and accountability — especially in cases where public input is often limited to community boards composed of appointed officials.

One student remarked that transportation issues became more legible to her when she traveled from Queens to Red Hook for a summer internship at Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez’s office. She said that the trip took longer than she had hoped it would each day, and there weren’t adequate transportation options. Her participation in this investigation into transit planning had heightened her awareness of the gaps in efficiency in her own commute and helped her imagine how to create change. We hope that by helping our students understand public process a little better, they will be more likely to take an active role in their own communities and help ensure that a diversity of voices and interests are represented as our city’s policies and plans are made.

Fast-Tracked is a collaboration of CUP Teaching Artists Alexandra Woolsey Puffer and Jeff Maki with CUP staff and students from College Now at New Design High School: Sarai Arroyo, Kharee Boyd, Lawrence Daise, Juan Garcia, Steven Meijas, Isaiah Ortiz, Dahyana Santos, Aldo Sorcia, Ronex Tse and Shadiq Williams. We’d like to thank our student crew who spent 15 weeks after school to find out who decides where the subway goes.

Creating materials for the newspaper

Presenting the final newspaper at the High Line

All photos courtesy of Jeff Maki and Alexandra Woolsey Puffer for the Center for Urban Pedagogy.

Jeff Maki is an artist-programmer in New York City and a principal collaborator with Publicworks Office. Jeff writes about the legibility of urban infrastructure and advises public and private organizations on the future of digital cities.

Alexandra Woolsey Puffer is an artist-designer in New York City and a principal collaborator with Publicworks Office. Her interests include social systems and symbolic capital.

The views expressed here are those of the authors only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Janette Sadik-Khan at Shared Streets

Recently, the discourse surrounding sharing New York’s streets (or perhaps more specifically, how to share them with cyclists) has become, to put it mildly, heated. Cycling in the city and the deployment of bike lanes has garnered widespread attention in the press, with The New York Times, The New Yorker and New York all thoroughly covering the unfolding drama of the contentious Prospect Park West bike lane. Having gained notoriety through media outlets across the nation, the issue has now hopped the pond, with the Guardian offering its own take on the debate. All this for what one might otherwise assume is an innocuous street improvement to accommodate cyclists.

Given this context, the Municipal Art Society’s second annual Streets Month — a month-long series of lectures and tours presented with support from the Rockefeller Foundation — is timely. Last Monday evening marked the first of several lectures this April, a lecture/panel discussion entitled “Shared Streets” that explored the challenges of sharing New York’s 6000 miles of streets, our largest public space. Tomorrow, “Big Streets: Using and Reusing City Thoroughfares” will take place at the New York Institute of Technology at 6:30pm. Click here to register.

Last week’s event featured talks from the New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner (DOT) Janette Sadik-Khan and Gil Peñalosa, former Commissioner for Parks, Recreation and Sport for the city of Bogotá, Colombia and the executive director of 8-80 Cities. These presentations were followed by a panel discussion featuring Peñalosa, Sam Schwartz of Sam Schwartz Engineering, and Kate Slevin of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, moderated by Andrea Bernstein of WNYC’s Transportation Nation project.

As Streetsblog reports, “Shared Streets” did not exactly chart new terrain in what has become a familiar topic of conversation. That said, given how the press has characterized the passions in meetings of this sort, I was pleased to see an entirely civil evening unfold. In the formal, calm confines of the Scholastic Auditorium, the speakers underscored not only the multitude of ways the DOT has encouraged a more diverse usage of the city’s streets, but also the difficulty implementing these changes in this sometimes stubborn city. Perhaps more importantly, the event helped to reframe the debate as to why the issue remains critical to the future of New York.

Sadik-Khan’s stump speech offered an appropriate overview of the many initiatives the DOT has implemented since 2007 to foster a broader spectrum of transport modes and to fortify the streets’ multiple roles as places of mobility, commerce and recreation. This primer was helpful. The recent bike lane debates have had the capacity to obscure some of Sadik-Khan and the DOT’s other successes. Under her tenure, the agency has implemented the Select Bus Service, which has reduced transit times and increased ridership on the the routes, deployed 18 new public plazas, and launched programs like the Summer Streets program, giving Park Avenue over to cyclists and pedestrians on August Saturdays. Under the department’s more conventional remit, the DOT is working to make the streets safer, as well as providing maintenance to service the city’s transit infrastructure.

None of this is news, but it was an excellent reminder that the DOT has done an exemplary job of improving the streets for everyone; from the city’s 3 million daily bus riders, to pedestrians, motor vehicles, and of course, cyclists. In this light, it’s interesting how the bike lane issue has come to define the department and Sadik-Khan herself. Yet despite the conflict that has risen in response to the installation of bike lanes, the DOT has done a remarkable job in getting things done. Change is never easy, particularly in New York; it’s a “high profile and sometimes controversial” job, as Sadik-Khan noted, a fitting segue to Mr. Peñalosa’s presentation.

In a breakneck tour across the globe of cities implementing what could be regarded as best practices, Peñalosa echoed Sadik-Khan’s sentiment in timely soundbites. Change is hard. Looking at examples of what have become paragons of successful urban interventions — Copenhagen’s pedestrian streets and cycling culture, Paris’ Velib bike hire, Bogotá’s car-free Sundays — Peñalosa described the need to rebalance our investment in the street to correct the decades-long emphasis on the automobile, and the challenge in doing so.

Mr. Peñalosa helped to refocus the nature of the debate by reminding us of the larger issues at hand. Bike lanes aren’t only for providing cyclists with safe and efficient routes. More importantly, they’re providing New Yorkers with an alternative. Improving the entire DOT transit portfolio — providing an infrastructure of choice — is critical to keeping the city fluid, and allows it to remain competitive with other large metropolitan areas.

The final panel was a slightly less focused discussion, largely surrounding the various cycling controversies that permeated the evening: the role of cyclists on our shared streets, the rules they should obey (or ignore), and the politicization of the lanes. But what became clear from the panel was the need not only to provide the physical infrastructure for cycling but the cultural support for it as well: both the hardware and the software to foster a widespread culture of cycling in New York.

The emphasis on the lanes, a widely reported hot-button issue that has created some rather unlikely foes, is to be expected. And while the provision of bike lanes are one of the more visible of recent DOT initiatives, cyclists are by no means the only actors on a shared street, and it’s perhaps unfortunate that this issue continues to hijack much of the discussion. Sadik-Khan only touched on the success of the Select Bus Service, and their role in the DOT portfolio was largely absent from the panel discussion. While it is heartening to see such an active debate evolve — as one audience member pointed out, more people than ever are now conscious of the new bike lanes throughout the city — the discourse may distract from equally pressing issues facing the DOT.

As New Yorkers, we’re blessed with an innovative and courageous transit authority that has the foresight to provide transit alternatives that will continue to make moving through the city both easier and more enjoyable. With budget shortfalls looming, providing multiple ways to keep the city mobile is critical to ensuring New York can remain competitive globally – the actual mode is far less important than the continued ingenuity and willingness to break beyond conventional planning practices.

For now, bike lanes and cyclists will continue to dominate the Shared Street discussion in New York. But assuming continued support from the city, perhaps the strident resistance will ebb as it has in Copenhagen, Paris and Bogotá, and naysayers will slowly gain an appreciation for these contentious paths.

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Mat Triebner is a freelance urban strategist, designer, and co-founder of Scout Ltd., a UK-based spatial consultancy promoting creative reuse of vacant lots. He lives in Brooklyn.

The views expressed here are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

New York Times Headline. March 13th, 1888.

122 years ago today, on March 11th 1888, it started snowing. When the snows finally came to a stop three days later, over forty inches were reported in New York and New Jersey and some snowdrifts grew as high as 50 feet. All major cities between Washington and Montreal were completely isolated from each other. The damage was so severe – collapsing wires caused fires, melting snow caused floods, at least 400 people lost their lives – that as soon as New Yorkers dug themselves out of what came to be called “The Great White Hurricane” they went about ensuring that no future weather event would cause as much injury, death or destruction to property and livelihoods. One of this legislative regime’s longest-lasting legacies is its effect on mass transit.

The Great White Hurricane of 1888. The New York Historical Society

Among the laws enacted that year, one prohibited catenary in Manhattan, meaning no more overhead lines were permitted to transmit electricity to trams, trolleys and buses. Some argue that the storm is what pushed Northeastern cities to finally move ahead with plans to start building public transit underground (Boston’s subway, the first in the nation, opened nine years after the storm). That law is still in effect, which still hampers the City’s ability to install light rail or certain kinds of electrical bus systems.

Over the past few months, the City has been looking at a number of different options – including light rail and streetcars – for improving mass transit service in Midtown Manhattan. And in last week’s roundup, we relayed the news that the DOT plan for Midtown includes dedicating a bus lane, or transitway, along 34th Street river to river. By invoking the precedents of Curitiba and Bogotá, we implied that this move signifies Manhattan’s first foray into the world of Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT. Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic has a comprehensive analysis of why, for better or worse, BRT is not the most accurate way to characterize the transitway, and he also makes reference to the 1888 law about overhead wiring. To be sure, the plan will speed up the journey considerably. But the project says more about the priority DOT places on improving pedestrian experience of the street than it does about the DOTs willingness to experiment with more efficient modes of transit. “Despite the fact that the DOT has been on an all-out crusade to improve bus service, has no money for more subways, and has demonstrated little interest in light rail or streetcars, it evaluated all four in its recent study for the 34th Street corridor.” Its recommendation to create a dedicated bus lane, which is cheaper than the alternatives (“between $30 and 125 million, versus $250 million and up for light rail or several billion for a full-scale subway line”), is not about making bus service rapid. “With 13 stations end to end — roughly every 800 feet — buses will average a miserable six miles per hour, hardly faster than a person can walk the route.” It’s about improving “the streetscape for pedestrians, who until recently have been put in last place by New York City decision-making.”

Earlier this week, the Omnibus continued its look at how standards and codes, inflexible by nature – such as the code prohibiting living units in cellars – may be developed in the public interest but are often enforced at the public’s expense. In other words, if we don’t continuously evaluate how technological, cultural and demographic shifts change the way people live, urban development will continue to outpace governance. I’m not saying we should insist on a return of overhead wires. But we should certainly arm ourselves, as concerned urban citizens, with the knowledge of where the laws that limit urban innovation originate.

Map of proposed bus transit along 34th Street, from New York City DOT.

THE PROVENANCE OF BEAUTY. from Sunder Ganglani on Vimeo.

Gentrification is good; gentrification is bad.  Gentrifiers bring resources to neglected communities; gentrifiers displace longtime residents.  A gentrified neighborhood is better / worse off than it was before.

There is no resolution on this issue, and there probably never will be. There’s also no shortage of opinions. The latest is from New York’s The Foundry Theatre, whose newest project entitled The Provenance of Beauty cleverly merges theater, city, and social commentary. It takes as subject matter and setting one of the city’s most storied and notorious districts: the South Bronx.

The Foundry’s production relies on a staging technique that is simple and innovative: the play takes place entirely on a bus, originating and terminating on 121st St. in East Harlem then moving through the Hunt’s Point and Mott Haven sections of The Bronx. One performer (Sarah Nina Hayon) rides with the audience; she assumes a number of characters to contribute live vocal anecdotes to compliment a chorus of recorded voices – all penned by poet Claudia Rankine and delivered to the audience via personal headsets. The narrative is composed of historic vignettes and anecdotes about specific sites along the route, and Rankine’s pointed commentary about gentrification (and the audience’s role in it) largely corresponds with specific public spaces the bus encounters. One memorable episode concerns the conflicting aspirations of the Giuliani administration and neighborhood residents regarding the creation of Barretto Point Park on the East River [site of the Floating Pool -ed.]

What is most exhiliarating about the roving stage is the way normally unnoticed urban characters and happenings become a part of the performance – a fresh attempt to realize the conceit of city as theater and theater as city. The mother with a stroller waiting at a crosswalk, the well-kept and not-so-well-kept buildings – even the mundane pause at a red light – all contribute to the action unfolding on the headsets. The effect prompts a sharper awareness of the rich fabric of associations we experience every day in the city.

This awareness, combined with the distance introduced by the headsets and tinted windows of the tourbus, is unnerving, and I found myself wishing that the recorded narrative would have relied on this subtle tension to prompt audience reflection. Instead, the script at times resorts to the kind of damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t accusations common to the discourse on gentrification. It seems to assume voyeurism on the part of the audience, as if to say you can never know the South Bronx because you’re not from here – how dare you try?

To be sure, this provocation may be intrinsic to Rankine’s theatrical intentions. But it seems to overlook what makes the South Bronx unique: namely, an ability to repeatedly reinvent itself and thrive. As a friend pointed out afterward, what ultimately makes Provenance compelling is that the South Bronx itself is so compelling: the architecture, the music, the food – above all, the streetlife. Surely the borough that nurtured Kool Herc, Edgar Allan Poe and La Lupe (whose theater and home show up on the tour) has the capacity to integrate newcomers without losing the character that has made it special and continues to inspire creativity of all kinds.

Ultimately, viewers must decide for themselves which bits of narrative resonate and which grate; in short, the performance demands that each viewer arrive at a relationship with the South Bronx on her own terms. If The Foundry’s innovative conception of city-theater prompts this internal reflection, it would be despite its reliance on those aspects of gentrification discourse that we’ve heard before. But it could well foster new imaginative modes of engagement with the built environment and the social relations it structures – and point a way forward for the theater, for the South Bronx, and for New York.

Performances of Provenance of Beauty are at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. on weekends between September 5th  and October 25th. Reservations: www.thefoundrytheatre.org or 866.811.4111. Tickets: $35.

Read more reviews of this performance:

+ The Village Voice

+ The Daily News

+ WNYC


As with all review and opinion pieces posted on Urban Omnibus, the views expressed are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

Travis Eby is a recent graduate of the Yale School of Architecture.  He loves his stoop in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.