Transit

In a press release sent out yesterday, Governor Cuomo gave an update on his $500 million overhaul of NYC's bridges' and tunnels' tolling systems. When he first put forth the plan in October, he included flashy renderings of the new cashless collection systems, complete with LED light shows, but his latest announcement tells us that by the end of 2017, old-fashioned tollbooths will be a thing of the past at all MTA-operated bridges and tunnels in the New York metropolitan region.
Is this a good idea?

Transit

Ghost tunnel under Central Park will reopen along with Second Avenue Subway

Image Wiki Commons

December 22, 2016

Ghost tunnel under Central Park will reopen along with Second Avenue Subway

There are countless relics from the subway's past hidden beneath NYC, but one of the most intriguing will reveal itself again in just 9 days when the Second Avenue Subway (SAS) invites straphangers to swipe their Metro cards for the first time. As Quartz noticed this past summer, a peculiar loop cutting through Central Park appeared when the MTA released their new subway map touting the addition of the SAS. Reporter Mike Murphy immediately questioned the mysterious addition that would move the Q train further north without issue ("I felt like people would have noticed if the MTA had been ripping up Central Park to build a tunnel," he wrote). After a bit of digging, he found out the half-mile stretch was built over 40 years ago and, at least according to archival maps, it's only been used twice since then.
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Transit

December 20, 2016

Feed your parking meter remotely by phone using the DOT’s new app

Leaving a burger half-eaten and making a mad dash to the parking meter may soon be a hassle of the past. The new ParkNYC app allows users to pay for parking with their smartphones, eliminating the need to feed parking meters with cash or credit/debit cards. This month ParkNYC zone numbers will be rolled out […]

Transit

December 20, 2016

City adds 13,000+ new subway maps ahead of Second Avenue Subway opening

With just 11 days left until the public opening of the Second Avenue Subway, Governor Cuomo has made another show of good faith, announcing that more than 13,000 subway maps featuring the new line have been added throughout the transit system. This includes the installation of 12,600 new in-car maps and 1,000 large station maps in addition to even more maps at Metro-North and LIRR hubs and one million pocket maps that are currently being printed.
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December 20, 2016

LaGuardia ranked nation’s worst airport in new study

J.D. Power has just released their 2016 North American Airport Satisfaction Study ranking the nation's airports by customer satisfaction, and New York's LaGuardia Airport has been bestowed the title of the country's worst. According to the study—and just about anyone who's visited LGA in the last few months—construction woes related to Governor Cuomo's $8 billion plan to transform the hub into a world-class airport by 2020 has led to serious headaches for travelers, and a 6-point drop in overall satisfaction from 2015. Last year, LGA ranked as the second worst airport in the U.S., just after Newark International.
See all the rankings here

Transit

December 20, 2016

Second Avenue Subway will run with limited service for its first week

If you thought yesterday's news that the Second Avenue Subway would meet its deadline and open on January 1st was too good to be true, you were partially correct. Though service will in fact begin as of the new year, a press release from the Governor's office tells us that for its inaugural week, the line will only run from 6am to 10pm, a blow to late-night commuters and those visiting the city for the holidays.
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December 19, 2016

Staten Island Ferry ridership hits record high

A record number of people cruised between Lower Manhattan and Saint George this year aboard the Staten Island Ferry, thanks somewhat to a move to have ferries depart every 30 minutes. More than 23 million people rode the ferries, which are free, between July 2015 and this past June, according to statistics from the mayor’s […]

Transit

December 19, 2016

First look at the Second Avenue Subway’s $4.5M public art installation

If a sparkling new line isn't cause enough to celebrate, once the Second Avenue Subway opens on January 1st, 2017, millions of New Yorkers will also be treated to several stretches of world-class art while navigating the 96th, 86th, 72nd, and 63rd Street stations. As the Times first reports, the MTA has poured $4.5 million into beautifying the stations with contemporary tile artworks by famed names Chuck Close, Sarah Sze, Vik Muniz, and Jean Shin.
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December 19, 2016

Second Avenue Subway officially opens to the public January 1, 2017!

Recent weeks have brought conflicting reports of whether or not the Second Avenue Subway would meets its December 31st deadline, but Governor Cuomo has announced that the public will be able to swipe their cards on the new line as of January 1, 2017! The stations will be officially open for business on New Years Eve, at which time the Governor will host a group of dignitaries to celebrate the nearly 100 years-in-the-making project. As the Daily News reports, this also means that there will be no partial opening as previous accounts speculated, and all stations (96th, 86th, and 72nd Streets, along with the transfer point at 63rd Street), entrances, and elevators will be ready to go. "We believe in the team, and that’s why we’re saying we’re going to open Jan. 1. It’s a leap of faith, but I’m willing to take that leap of faith," said Cuomo.
More details ahead

Transit

JFK’s TWA Hotel breaks ground, gets new renderings

The shovels were out at JFK's TWA Flight Terminal yesterday, as MCR Development and JetBlue broke ground on their project to turn Eero Saarinen‘s mid-century modern masterpiece into the high-end, 505-room TWA Hotel. According to a press release, Governor Cuomo attended the festivities, noting that the conversion "will preserve this iconic landmark while cementing JFK’s status as a crown jewel of aviation." The news also came with two renderings that show the two, six-story, crescent shaped hotel buildings that will rise on either side of the existing structure.
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December 15, 2016

Interview: Friends of the Brooklyn-Queens Connector discuss bringing a streetcar to NYC

After working for decades advocating for transit equity and environmental justice at various organizations, Ya-Ting Liu came on board as the Executive Director of Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector. It's been almost a year since the non-profit advocacy group first released a proposal for a streetcar to run along the borough's waterfront, and since that time the city has stepped in to back the estimated $2.5 billion project, even appointing a director and creating preliminary maps of the streetcar's possible routes. As one of several transportation undertakings on the table, the BQX certainly has a big year ahead. 6sqft recently sat down with Ya-Ting To get the scoop on what's to come, as well as some insider thoughts on the streetcar's common misconceptions.
Read the full interview this way

December 15, 2016

Second Avenue Subway won’t open until all stations are finished says MTA

On Monday, the Governor's office put out a statement that Cuomo was "cautiously optimistic" that the Second Avenue Subway would open on time by the end of the month. Yesterday, MTA chairman Tom Prendergast echoed this statement, but was quick to point out that the long-awaited line would only open on December 31st if all stations were up and running (previous reports talked of a partial opening), reports the Daily News. "Track’s done, signals are done, we’ve run trains, we’ve exercised the signal system," he said. "We’re talking about finish and escalators, elevators — things of that nature in the station."
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December 14, 2016

Scooter-shares posed as NYC’s next CitiBike, L train alternative

Transportation alternatives to the L train when the subway line is suspended for renovation in 2019 are getting sexy. As city agencies scramble to come up with alternatives for the 250,000 people riding the L train through Manhattan and Brooklyn every day, the think tank at the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management put out “A Scooter […]

Transit

December 13, 2016

NYC will rent out public parking spaces to car-sharing companies

The city will roll out a pilot program in the spring that allows car-sharing companies such as ZipCar and Car2Go to rent out scarce public parking spaces and even metered spaces. A shared goal of many city agencies is to minimize the number of cars in the city—on account of environmental factors, space, and traffic, […]

Transit

December 12, 2016

Amtrak’s Hudson River tunnels project could bring 3 years of traffic jams

Back in January, Amtrak unveiled its $24B Gateway Program, a plan that would overhaul the Hudson River rail tunnels by building a brand new tunnel and repairing another that is currently in disrepair. Work under the plan would also encompass expanding Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan and replacing rail bridges in New Jersey. While details on the course of construction were previously thin, according to draft proposals obtained by Reuters, we now know that work on the new tunnel will begin in 2019, and the West Side Highway could be subject to three years of traffic jams as a result.
more details here

Transit

December 12, 2016

Governor Cuomo is ‘cautiously optimistic’ about Second Avenue subway opening deadline

Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s chief of staff, said Friday that Governor Andrew Cuomo was “cautiously optimistic” about a December opening for the long-awaited Second Avenue subway project, according to AM New York. After several weekly visits to the under-construction 72nd Street site, the governor appeared confident that the MTA would be able to meet the project's December 31 deadline. U.S. representative Carolyn Maloney had also expressed confidence in the Second Avenue subway meeting its year-end deadline.
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December 9, 2016

Public petition asks Mayor de Blasio to back East River Skyway

A month ago, U.S. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, City Councilman Stephen Levin, and State Assemblyman Joseph Lentol drafted a letter to the Mayor, urging him to advocate for the East River Skyway as a solution for the impending L train shutdown. Building on this momentum, a digital petition addressed to de Blasio has launched on Change.org where the public can show their support for the plan, as well.
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Transit

December 8, 2016

George Washington Bridge bus terminal renovation misses December deadline

The $183 million renovation of the George Washington Bridge bus terminal in Upper Manhattan, which began eight years ago, will not be completed by its December 2016 target, according to developers. Lawmakers and locals are stunned by the problematic delay that affects 5 million annual riders of NJ Transit buses and other carriers, as well […]

Transit

December 7, 2016

NYC will have free Wi-Fi in all underground subway stations by year’s end

NYC Subway riders will soon be less able to blame their subway commute for not being able to immediately answer that all-important email or text. Last January 6sqft highlighted Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to get all MTA subway stations connected with free Wi-Fi by the end of this year as part of a comprehensive plan to upgrade subway infrastructure. According to AMNewYork, plans to implement free Wi-Fi in all 279 of the city’s subway stations are on track for the end of this year; as of Tuesday, 250 of them are already up and running.
It's all part of an ambitious plan

December 6, 2016

Iconic JFK Terminal begins its life as the ‘TWA Hotel’ with new signage

After sitting vacant at JFK Airport for 14 years as a vestige of jet-age architecture, Eero Saarinen's iconic 1962 TWA Flight Terminal received a new life in the summer of 2015 when it was announced that the neo-futurist structure would be reborn as a high-end hotel. MCR Development teamed up with JetBlue and the Port Authority to develop a "505-room LEED-certified hotel with restaurants, 40,000 square feet of meeting space and a 10,000-square-foot observation deck," as 6sqft previously described. Initial reports referred to the project as the "TWA Flight Center Hotel," but the Times now confirms that it'll simply be the "TWA Hotel." And with construction four months in, Curbed noticed that signage for the hotel has gone up, preserving the airline's logo and font.
See the sign ahead

November 28, 2016

$1.7B BQE rehab will be Department of Transportation’s most expensive project ever

When it was built in the 1940s, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway became immediately notorious for the fact that Robert Moses planned it to rip through otherwise quiet, low-scale neighborhoods. Today, it's poor reputation has more to do with potholes, bumps, congestion, and pollution. But that will soon change, as the city is embarking on a five-year rehab of the heavily trafficked, 1.5-mile stretch of the highway that runs between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street in Brooklyn and includes "21 concrete-and-steel bridges over local roads," according to the Times. And at $1.7 billion, it will be the Department of Transportation's most expensive project ever undertaken.
More details ahead

Transit

November 21, 2016

Shipbuilding companies work around the clock to meet 2017 ferry service deadline

City officials are pushing to have the $325 million citywide ferry service, helmed by Hornblower and managed by the city's Economic Development Corporation, up and running a few months before next November, when Mayor Bill de Blasio stands for re-election. As 6sqft reported in September, two bayou-based shipbuilding companies, Horizon Shipbuilding in Bayou La Batre, Ala. and the awesomely-named Metal Shark in Franklin, La., are racing to complete the 19 new boats scheduled to hit the water this summer. The ferry service will be the most extensive passenger ferry service of its kind in any U.S. city.
Get a sneak peek at the shiny new fleet-to-be

Transit

November 17, 2016

In light of fare hikes, need for low-income Metro Cards becomes urgent

Fighters for the Fair Fare initiative to secure half-priced MetroCards for low-income New Yorkers strengthened their resolve Wednesday as the Metropolitan Transit Authority announced plans to increase fares by 25 cents early next year. The group argues that the brunt of bus and subway fare increases fall on the city’s low-income residents who might forego food, […]

Transit

November 16, 2016

Triboro’s ‘Wrong Color Subway Map’ uses art as an antidote for subway confusion