‘No’ to the bus terminal
Many thanks to Mary Anna Towler for not jumping on the RGRTA
bandwagon like every other local public commentator (“Buses to the Rescue?,”
June 18). While it is premature to say what the best approach is to solving
Rochester’s transit and downtown development needs, it is clear that to proceed
full steam ahead on Central Station — at the expense of other already
well-evaluated projects — borders on the irresponsible.
Ms.
Towler’s comments focus on the operating-costs question — still unanswered
— but she inadvertently continues the silence on the Sibley Station
alternative. All of the supporters of RGRTA’s proposal laud the wonderful
things it will do, but totally ignore the fact that there is an alternative: an
alternative that will accomplish every one of those objectives at one-tenth the
projected cost of Central Station and that has merits that go beyond the
Central Station proposal.
The
Sibley Station proposal of the Urban Design Committee of the local chapter of
the American Institute of Architects lays out a central transfer station that
provides greater operating efficiency for the buses, that keeps the buses and
pedestrian traffic on the street, that provides shelter, rest rooms, and other
amenities, and that is right in the middle of the Main-Clinton area of such
concern.
But
in addition, it makes use of a Rochester landmark (Sibley’s) and keeps the
buildings on the north side of Main Street intact for facade removal and
redevelopment into retail, housing, and ancillary uses that reflect both the
scale and architecture of downtown Rochester, features that Central Station
does not have.
Further,
this same AIA committee is preparing an approach to turning the existing Amtrak
station into an intercity bus-rail intermodal facility that would serve as a
northern anchor to a redeveloped and landscaped North Clinton corridor.
No
one is denying that Central Station would accomplish some good. But when you
have an alternative on the table that does all of this and more for one-tenth
the cost, doesn’t it at least deserve a look?
Nathan L. Jaschik, Planning Associate,
Common Good Planning Center, Meigs Street, Rochester
Terminal terminal
Mary Anna Towler focused on a very important issue: the
thinking on public projects (“Buses to the Rescue?,” June 18). Years ago, city
officials were “infatuated” with skyways, building them to encourage more
interaction downtown. As with the skyways, the bus terminal will not accomplish
its goals.
In
the fall of 1988, Main Street was ripped apart for an entire year as new
sidewalks were installed and new bus shelters built, with computer monitors
that displayed automated schedules to hail a new day at RTS. Millions of
dollars were spent on that project.
Fourteen
years later, here we are back at Square One, focusing on the downtown “hub” as
the solution to the problem of improving mass transportation in our city.
The
current routes of the bus system give us no ability to travel cross-town. Then
there’s the obtrusive nature in which busses travel, impeding the regular flow
of traffic. They meander, like pedestrians who use a granny-cart to carry their
wares.
The
bus stop at the Wegmans Pittsford store is an example of solid planning: It
separates buses from traffic and provides a stairwell for passengers to gain
access to the store.
Why
would we as a community spend $58 million dollars for Central Station, when for
$5 million to $7 million we could transform the Sibley Building and house a bus
terminal there?
Effective
and efficient mass transportation is as important as every other development
decision made in our community. We don’t need to fight for our future.
We need to come together to intelligently discuss and think about the
options available to us and reach smart and wise decisions.
Elizabeth
Serling, Park Avenue, Rochester
Use Sibley’s
I would like to commend Roslyn Bakst Goldman for her recent
letter in the Democrat and Chronicle concerning the practical use of the
magnificent Sibley Building for a downtown bus terminal. The demolition of Main
Street’s other buildings is not practical. And I think the ownership of other
properties should be made known.
I
don’t think we taxpayers should be funding the corporations of Don and Bill.
Raymond
J. Tierney Jr., Village Lane, Brighton
A Sibley Station would cost much less
I appreciate Mary Anna Towler’s position on the question of
the bus station (that’s really all it is) RGRTA proposes to build downtown for
an estimated cost of $58.5 million (“Buses to the Rescue?,” June 18). In a
decision I believe they will come to regret, the Genesee Transportation Council
Policy Committee voted on June 19 to divert more than $30 million from
previously approved projects to fund the bus station.
I spoke
up against diversion of the funds, but I am afraid I was spitting in the wind.
The majority of the members, including Mayor Bill Johnson, through his
alternate, Commissioner Ed Doherty, and City Council president Lois Giess had
already made up their minds to vote “yes.” Doherty claimed the City
was bound by the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding that the City, RGRTA,
and Monroe County signed in 2000.
Only
Paul Haney, the City’s representative-at-large, had the courage to speak up
against the terminal.
Diversion
of the funds leaves the terminal $16 million short of its goal, and after
lashing out at Representative Slaughter at the meeting, County Executive Jack
Doyle urged that the City put pressure on Slaughter to come up with the balance
of the money.
Many
of us transportation and transit professionals have opposed the proposed
terminal for years and have spoken out against it, only to be accused by Bill
Nojay of being lackeys of Slaughter, a tactic I believe was calculated to
divert attention from weaknesses in his proposal.
It is
frustrating that the media, especially the television stations in their
coverage of the Policy Committee meeting, appeared to politicize the issue.
They portrayed Slaughter as the culprit who is standing in the way of a $58.5
million terminal and ignored the fact that professional transportation and
transit planners find many problems with the proposal and that there is an
alternative proposal on the table that will accomplish the same objectives for
approximately 10 percent of that amount.
Most
recently, our cause has been taken up by the Urban Design Committee of
the local branch of the American Institute of Architects. Founded in 1999, the
local Urban Design Committee is one of many such groups in the country. It is a
group of volunteer design professionals and citizens that acts as a resource
for the City of Rochester and surrounding towns and villages, offering design
guidance and recommendations through participatory planning. It is strictly
non-partisan, beholden to no group or individual.
The
Urban Design Committee’s work is grounded in the time-tested principles of
urban design, reaffirmed by the AIA’s “Livable Communities Initiative
Resolution,” which was adopted at the National Convention of the AIA in
2000, and the Charter of the New Urbanism adopted by the Congress for the New
Urbanism.
Examples
of the committee’s work is the creation of design ideas for the award-winning
Artwalk on Rochester’s University Avenue, the Pittsford Village Comprehensive
Plan, the Brooks Avenue-Genesee Street neighborhood, the St. Paul Street
Corridor, the East Avenue-Winton Road urban village, and the Commercial Street
gateway in East Rochester.
The
UDC has come up with the Sibley Center alternative to RGRTA’s proposed terminal.
The estimated cost of Sibley Center ranges from $5 to $7 million, which is
approximately 10 percent of the estimated $58.5 million for the RGRTA proposal.
Sibley Center would accomplish RGRTA’s objectives by providing shelter and
other amenities to transferring city bus passengers, for much less cost.
But cost
comparison alone doesn’t do the question justice, when there are so
many other problems associated with the RGRTA proposal, such as:
• The
unknown costs of an underground terminal;
• The
added transit time for the buses to tortuously navigate from the street to the
underground parking spot for transfer of passengers and then return to the
surface to resume their journey, adding a minimum of 10 minutes if not more to
every bus route in the city;
• The
creation of a glut of office space in an area where there is already much
excess rental capacity, with the latest vacancy rate at 26 percent.
• The
hazard of carcinogenic diesel fumes in the underground space, which would
require a substantial ventilating system that may never be adequate to remedy
the problem;
• The
illogical idea of a day-care center, when current day-care centers in the city
are having to close because of lack of financial support;
• The
touting of creating new retail space when Midtown across the street has plenty
of space and is seeing an exodus of retail establishments;
• The
idea of a restaurant in the terminal, promoted as a nice place to dine, when in
fact most bus patrons couldn’t afford fine dining and would be satisfied with a
fast-food item until they could get home (and in the Sibley Center proposal,
buses would be just an escalator ride away from an existing food court);
•
Building a terminal that would require the demolition of old and sound
buildings that, in addition to classic beauty, may have mixed-use potential,
and replacing them with a massive public building that would add to the
loneliness of Main Street at night.
In
addition, and quite critical to the overall transit planning
for Rochester, there is the need to use the current Amtrak site in a more
productive manner. Studies show a stronger relationship between rail and
regional bus transportation modes than a regional bus and local bus
combination. That demonstrates the need for an intermodal terminal similar to
the terminal built in Syracuse.
Instead
of spending $58.5 million on a terminal of doubtful value, the UDC proposes
that the money could be better spent on the alternate city bus terminal in the
Sibley Center and, with the money saved, construct an intermodal rail/regional
bus center on the site of the present Amtrak Station.
This
would afford the opportunity to create a true “gateway building” of
significant architectural design, to welcome travelers to the city, making it a
dominant public asset that would be truly a fitting gateway to the community.
Doug Midkiff, Fifth Avenue, Fairport (Midkiff
is a longtime transportation consultant.)
Notes from the Central Station vote
I read with interest your article about the proposed Bus
Terminal that the Transit Authority wants to build on Main Street (“Buses to
the Rescue?,” June 18). I was a participant in the June 19 meeting that
approved the project. It was quite an affair.
I was
appointed earlier this month ago as a City citizen-representative to the
Genesee Transportation Council, which basically has the power to determine how
hundreds of millions of dollars of federal transportation money are spent in
the nine-county Rochester area. I have long opposed the bus-terminal project as
a foolish waste of taxpayer money and not a real solution to improving public
transit in Rochester. What transpired at the meeting was amazing.
I
attempted to ask a series of questions about the proposal.
The proposal
calls for $5.28 million of “Local Share.” I wanted to know where the local
share was coming from. Bill Nojay, chair of the Transit Authority, refused to
address any questions or concerns, and County Executive Jack Doyle became the
point man.
After
hemming and hawing, it was conceded that the $5.28 million would come from
Transit Authority funds. How the Authority has amassed $5.28 million of “extra”
money is a bit of a mystery. In reality, this money could be used to reduce bus
fares.
Last
year, Mr. Nojay thought he would be running for Congress against Louise
Slaughter and he proposed lowering bus fares 25 cents. Well, the State
Legislature gerrymandered the Congressional Districts, Mr. Nojay was no longer
a candidate, cutting the bus fares was quickly forgotten, and now the Authority
has $5.28 million for the bus station.
Honestly,
which would be better for bus riders and more apt to increase ridership: a
25-cent cut in the fare or an underground downtown station?
The
total planned cost for the project is reportedly $58.4 million, although we
don’t know, because no actual plan or cost estimates have ever been released.
The budget approved last week is for $37.5 million, although it was noted that
including funds already spent, the total is $42,463,800.
Even
at that level, there is a $17 million gap in the funding. Is it wise to approve
and proceed with a project when there is a $17 million gap in the funding?
I
received no real answer except that the federal government should come up with
the money. That’s $17 million of federal money over and above the $32.6 million
of federal money that the Transportation Council was voting on. The last time I
checked, the federal government was running a $400 billion deficit and didn’t
have enough money to fully fund the “No Child Left Behind” school program, Head
Start, a real Medicare prescription drug program, etc., etc.
The approval of the bus-station project
was made possible by postponing several other projects, including several
transit projects (like buying new busses and building small satellite bus
stations in the suburban towns) and highway projects like the reconstruction of
Mt. Hope Avenue and East Henrietta Road and East Ridge Road. Why postpone them?
Transit
officials tried to claim that they weren’t being postponed but, under prodding,
acknowledged that they could be built sooner if the money weren’t diverted to
the Bus Station. I believe that more people would derive benefit from these
projects than they will from a downtown bus station.
I then
proceeded to lay out my reasons for opposing the bus station in addition to
those cited above. For instance, the station perpetuates the old “hub and
spoke” transit system, which was designed in Rochester in the late 19th century
when virtually everyone worked downtown or close to downtown. That simply isn’t
reality today. There are 10,000 fewer people working downtown today than 10
years ago. About 25 percent of downtown office space is reportedly vacant.
A
transit system needs to move people from where they live to where they work —
and that today is more apt to be Henrietta or Greece or Perinton than downtown
Rochester.
There
are good ways to improve public transit. In 1998, the Transit Authority put a
great deal of effort (and I’m sure money) into developing a long-range plan. In
a report of about 600 pages, the proposed bus station is discussed on half of
the first page and never again.
The
Report did make a lot of good suggestions, including the small suburban bus
stations. For example, we might want to entice Monroe and Wayne County
residents along the Route 31 corridor to ride the bus to their jobs (which are
much more apt to be in Henrietta, Webster, etc., than in downtown Rochester).
But they won’t ride the bus all the way into downtown and then all the way back
to Webster or Henrietta.
But
if there were a small transfer station at the Park and Ride lot at the
intersection of Routes 490 and 31F, where they could transfer to busses going
to Henrietta or Webster, they might ride the bus to work.
During
that 1998 planning process, the Sutherland Group interviewed 1,124 people for
suggestions for improving local public transit, and not one mentioned a
downtown bus station. The Sutherland Group convened 10 focus groups to discuss
improving public transit, and not one person in the focus groups suggested a
new downtown terminal as a transit improvement. There are better ways to
improve transit, and the public knows it.
As I reached this point in my discussion at the
Transit Council meeting, a fascinating thing happened. One of the County
representatives made a motion to “call the question” and end debate. I really
must have been getting under their skin, and the truth must have been starting
to hurt.
Such
a motion is not subject to debate, and it passed in a wink of an eye with only
the City representatives opposing it. That was too bad, because Council members
didn’t get to hear my last argument for opposing the bus station: It will make
a mess out of downtown traffic, especially at the corner of Main and Clinton,
arguably the busiest pedestrian intersection in the city.
The
proposal requires all busses to leave Main Street, go north on Clinton Avenue,
then west at about Mortimer Street into the station, and then exit to St. Paul
Street where they will go south back to Main Street.
The
Sear Brown Group studied this configuration for the Transit Authority in 1998.
The report’s data on bus trips shows that (using 1998 data) the weekday volume
of eastbound busses on Main Street will grow from 351 to 1,016; northbound
busses on Clinton Avenue will grow from 154 to 1,351, and southbound busses on
St. Paul Street will increase from 160 to 1,357.
Why
these huge increases? Every bus in the city will have to circle the block!
Every eastbound bus on Main Street will go from St. Paul Street to Clinton
Avenue twice as they circle the block. The worst problem will occur because 665
busses per day will have to make a left turn from eastbound Main Street onto
Clinton Avenue while 414 westbound Main Street busses are turning right onto
Clinton.
All
1,079 busses will be turning on the green light in competition with pedestrians
who are trying to cross Clinton Avenue. In the battle between busses and
pedestrians, guess who will win!
The
bus station is a foolish waste of taxpayer money. There are better ways to
improve public transit. The location is bad. Main Street traffic will be a
mess. But worst of all, in a total wipeout of democracy and citizen input, the
Transit Council terminated debate and refused to hear the truth.
The
fix was in and the public be damned. Jack Doyle and the treasurer of his
campaign funds (Mr. Nojay) had won the day.
Paul
Haney, Broadway, Rochester (Haney, a member of the Genesee Transportation
Council, is a former Rochester City Councilmember and was finance director in
the administration of Democratic County Executive Tom Frey.)
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This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 1, 2003.
