Oct 21st Stringer Sponsored Community Forum re Transportation Issues

This coming Tuesday, October 21st, Roosevelt Island residents will have another opportunity to discuss transportation issues affecting the island this time not just with RIOC regarding the Tram but with our elected officials and each of the government agencies that run and maintain our bridges, subways, and buses.

The Community Forum is being lead by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and as this post appears to also include Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, State Senator Jose Serrano, Assembly Member Micah Kellner and City Councilmember Jessica Lappin.

According to a representative from Borough President Stringer’s office the agenda is not yet final but one of their goals is to make the forum as interactive as possible including discussions of issues as well as possible solutions.

As opposed to Community Board 8’s Roosevelt Island transportation forum which took place in Manhattan at the Blood Center this forum is scheduled to take place here on the Island and as such can expect a much better turnout than the less than a dozen who attended the CB8 meeting.

All residents are encouraged to attend as this is a great opportunity to ask questions and hear from all parties plans for next year when the Tram is offline for several months. The timing of this meeting is appropriate as at least one of the referendum proposed by RIRA for the November elections includes the Tram.

Reactions to CB8 RI Transportation Mtg - Ferry Service

Last night Manhattan Community Board 8 held a special joint Roosevelt Island and Transportation Committee meeting at the New York Blood Center. It was held in the Auditorium in case a large number of individuals attended. It was not needed. The following are my thoughts and reactions as well information provided to us in the order of the agenda.

Part 1 - Ferry Service

The ferry landing planned for the site by the Octagon and the Dayspring Church / Former Boathouse will not be ready any earlier than Fall 2009 and certainly not ready for the planned Tram rehab outage in March / April 2009. The NYC EDC representative, Michael Taylor, a Senior Project Manager for Maritime Transportation Policy, who attended when asked why that site basically stated that those decisions are made a pay grades exceeding his own. He made it clear that the City is only going to build the dock and at this time there are no plans to include a Roosevelt Island ferry stop in the proposed City subsidized pilot ferry program. This was confirmed by Josh Orzeck, Community Coordinator, of the NYC DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner's Office.

It appears that while the City is building the landing that they will be simultaneously undertaking a study to determine the impact and how an Octagon Landing will fit into any larger ferry routes. Mr. Taylor did state that part of the concept was to build the landing at the North end of the island to create a separate transportation link despite the fact, brought up by those in attenance,, that the majority of possible riders are are closer to the existing mid/South transportation hub.

A lot of good points were brought up by committee members and the public. These included (1) the fact that when the UN is in session the West Channel is closed (2) any landing should be designed to handle larger craft for evacuation purposes (3) there exists a former landing on the East Channel underneath the QBBridge that perhaps coud be rehabilitated and it closer to the existing hub. Each was listened to and acknowledged politely. The reaction to the existing landing was that it would take as much money to rehab that one as the Octagon site and the decison has been made already.

It is clear that unless a ferry operator can be profitable they will not provide service. My feeling is at the Octagon location sufficient riders will not materialize to make it profitable and we will be left with a nice dock to look at. I do give Mr. Becker plenty of credit for moving the process along and working with our elected reps to secure funding. I just hope it works and that additional landings can follow but that is highly doubtful. The public officials will never give us money for a second shot at this for years.

Will NY Water Taxi’s Dropping of it’s East River Route Cancel the New Octagon Dock?

As reported today by the Roosevelt Islander (via Curbed and others) and the New York Times, the struggling New York Water Taxi company is cancelling its service on the East River route for the next four Winter months. What impact that has on the construction / refurbishment to the Octagon dock is unclear. But it can’t be a good thing if Octagon LP was expecting to receive year round service from NY Water Taxi and was going to be footing the bill for the construction. At least the Octagon residents did not lease their units with the promise of such a dock and the ferry service.

Update 5:00 pm

According to e-mails received this afternoon from Bruce Becker of Octagon LP the plan is to provide year round ferry service from the dock once constructed with the initial stop being 34th Street. Mr. Becker acknowledged that “long term feasibility of water taxi service is dependent on a larger network of routes so any reduction of service elsewhere is not helpful”.

Mr. Becker also informed me that a meeting was held today with representatives from both Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney’s office and the NYC Economic Development Corporation, which were “encouraging” in that the EDC is “studying how they can [aid] our efforts”.

According to Mr. Brice Peyre, of the Congresswoman’s New York City office, the staff member who attended the meeting had already left for the long holiday weekend so he could not add any comments regarding the aforementioned meeting.