My fellow blogger, the Roosevelt Islander, ran a post yesterday, Feb. 26th, discussing various reader responses and web commentary about living here on Roosevelt Island. Many of the comments are about issues regarding the lack of retail establishments and local entertainment venues, the quality of the existing businesses, and transportation issues.
In the past weeks I responded to a few web based inquiries, on Wired New York, where I focused again on transportation issues as well as to really get a feeling for a particular building here you need to speak to as many people that you can meet from that building.
I have often repeated my concerns regarding not so much the on-island transportation Red Bus issue but more in regard to getting to and from the island. With five new buildings either under construction or planned I periodically worry about whether the current subway / tram infrastructure we have can handle the growing traffic.
The above video is of what is becoming a pretty typical line to board the Tram during rush hour. Very often you can end up missing one tram and needing to wait for the next one. At only 4 to 6 minutes between arrivals and departures it moves pretty quick but where this video was shot in the Summer waiting in the cold gets old quite fast when the Winter winds are blowing in your face.
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It's like the good old days when there was no subway! Only slightly different, since everybody was actually waiting on the platform, packed like sardines.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I loved the article awhile back about how they could increase capacity by various means, including pre-loading passengers. Which, of course, mean people waiting on the platform instead of outside the turnstiles, which they could do because they had someone working in the booth on a regular basis, but they got rid of that person to save money. Fucking brilliant.
In other news, the MTA is going to stop repairs on the escalators so as to ensure that we have more escalators working.
I think we should have moratorium on new development(including the buildings under construction right now) until the MTA does something about the clown show.