Recchia Rising?

Via Gowanus Lounge's news links, the Post reports that Councilman Domenic Recchia is looking to unseat Congressman Vito Fossella:

The 13th Congressional District encompasses Staten Island and South Brooklyn's Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights and Gravesend neighborhoods. Fossella, a Republican, has represented it since 1997.

Recchia has been a steadfast supporter of enhanced service on the F lines in Brooklyn, specifically supporting the rstoration of F express and extending the V local.

We need more transit supporters in Congress (and fewer Republicans). This is exciting news and we're delighted that Recchia will throw down with Fossella. Last time around, Steve Harrison gave him a good go, getting 43% of the vote despite being outspent 15-1 by Fossella. 2008 is going to be a bad year for Republicans, and this district may well swing to the Democrats.

Harrison, by all accounts a solid guy, is also expected to run in 2008. One thing is certain: It's going to be an interesting couple of years in Brooklyn politics.

We Need High Speed Rail

Via Atrios, the AP has an article on the resurgence of interest in high speed rail:

While sleek new passenger trains streak through Europe, Japan and other corners of the world at speeds nearing 200 mph, most U.S. passenger trains chug along at little more than highway speeds — slowed by a half-century of federal preference for spending on roads and airports.
snip

The six-year-old Acela Express is the only U.S. rail line that tops the 125 mph considered "high speed" by international standards. And even supporters concede it barely qualifies, hitting its maximum 150 mph for less than 20 miles from Boston to Washington, D.C., and averaging just 86 mph over the full 456-mile run.

Even so, Acela's ridership rose 20 percent in May as gasoline prices topped $3 a gallon nationwide, said Amtrak spokesman Cliff Cole. Nationally, Amtrak is poised for its fifth straight year of ridership gains this year, said Marc Magliari, a spokesman for the railroad.

snip

John Spychalski, a transportation expert and professor at Penn State University, says high-speed rail will continue to languish unless lawmakers provide the same financial backing as highways and air travel. He said some could be swayed if high-profile projects such as California's succeed.

If you want to get depressed, just imagine for a moment that after 9-11, instead of attacking Iraq, we had invested $600 billion not in bombing another country, but in rebuilding our own infrastructure with a nationwide system of intercity high speed rail. Talk about a true investment in national security.

What's done is done, but it's never too late to see some actual leadership. Instead of running around throwing money at BS "alternatives" like clean coal and ethanol, let's bring our investment in high speed rail up to par or better with the huge subsidies we give away to the plane and the automobile. Hell, if you must have your clean coal, at least use it to generate the electricity to run high speed rail.

Rail could be superior to air or auto transit on many inter-city routes in the US, and is by far the most energy efficient. No conversation about "energy independence" should gloss over the fact that subsidized travel by plane and by car is the largest cause of our dependence on foreign oil.

Reading this article reminded me of a post I saw on Daily Kos back in march on building a national high speed rail network. This has to be a national priority akin to the Eisenhower Highway System, and once again, national security is a compelling reason for doing so (but far from the only reason). Searching for that post, I stumbled upon this post, which ups the ante by laying out stages for construction and integrates with Canada and Mexico for a North American rail network akin to the one in Europe. The map above comes from that post by seaprog.

Elect a Democratic President and we might actually get this started.

Assemblyman Brennan on the F Express

I reached out to Assemblyman Brennan's office last week because of an anonymous comment I received about six weeks ago:

Anonymous said...

Man, you need to do an interview with Assembly Member Jim Brennan so that he can explain to you why a restoration of the F express will NEVER happen on his watch. I suggest that you go talk to him and report back.

Far out, man. Buzzkill! That was quite an assertion, but since I asked for some clarification and never got it, I didn't take it very seriously. I had also heard from various people, that Brennan is a straight shooter, a shining example, honorable, etc. Eventually, curiosity got the better of me and I called up Brennan's office.

Turns out, Jim Brennan CAMPAIGNED on restoring the F Express back in the early 1980's. However, apparently vibration and property damage in the Windsor Terrace area have been a serious concern among some of Brennan's constituents. This led to moving the F express to a back burner, and focusing on getting the MTA to correct the vibration issues, with some results, but persistent problems for many properties along the line. The problem seems to be that the line runs too close to the surface in this swath.

My response was, we can fix the vibration problem with better tracking and trackbed; restoring the F Express still needs to be a priority.

Assemblyman Brennan followed up this week with a statement and with a copy of a letter he sent to the MTA this week, pasted below:

I support the concept of restoration of F express service and extending
the G train to Church Avenue and V train service along the F line in
Brooklyn. However, restoration of the F express must proceed cautiously,
with extensive testing and review of track conditions. The property
above the F train tunnel has experienced serious vibration and noise
problems over the years, primarily in Windsor Terrace but also in
Kensington and along the Ninth Street corridor. My office has intervened
four times over the past 20 years to get the M.T.A. to spend millions in
track renovation and repairs to protect adjacent homes and property from
damage due to vibration.

At this time we are sending a letter to the M.T.A. asking for extensive
testing of F express service prior to the beginning of construction on
the elevated platforms at Fourth Avenue and Smith-9th Street. Thank you
for your efforts to raise this issue.

And the letter:

Dear Mr. Sander,

Thank you for your response to my letter concerning F Line Express service. I do understand that the Culver Viaduct rehabilitation project will require use of the F Express tracks, beginning in 2008. However, the Culver Viaduct rehabilitation and bypass will have significant impact on service during the period of work and it is important for the community to have meaningful information about what to expect, especially in view of the longstanding vibration problems experienced by property owners along the F line in Windsor Terrace and Kensington.

I would therefore like to ask you to begin testing F Line Express service prior to the Culver Viaduct rehabilitation by running a limited number of express trains over these tracks over a period of 3-4 months. Such a study would provide valuable information about the current quality of the tracks, would test the impact of the service on surrounding communities, and would provide data for assessing the value and viability of re-introducing regular F Express Service after completion of the Culver Viaduct project. Given the chronic subway vibration problems in Windsor Terrace and Kensington communities, it is prudent to conduct this sort of controlled study before you begin running trains on the F Express tracks during the rehabilitation project.

I would like to invite you to come out to Brooklyn to brief the community boards and local elected officials about the service impact of the project and to begin a dialogue about restoration of the F Line Express. I would also appreciate a complete description of the schedule and impact of the rehabilitation projects, as well as a map of the location of the F Line Express tracks. Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

James F. Brennan

That's one more elected official on board the F Express. I think Brennan's idea of testing the express tracks out before the Viaduct project gets under way is sound; if the trackage will need a major overhaul, let's get that out of the way while the Culver Viaduct rehab is under way.

You (probably) heard it here first.

F Express Probability

Andrew Inglesby from NYC Transit appeared at the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association meeting on Monday to address questions about the Culver Viaduct rehab, the prospects for the F express, and everyone's favorite new development, the Billy Stein project at 360 Smith Street.*

Michael Rundle has a piece in today's Metro paper on the possibility of an F express including a quote from yours truly. It's a good piece. Ben at SecondAvenueSagas also has a post up on the F express, and of course, the inimitable Gowanus Lounge has the definitive meeting coverage. Actually, GL's meeting coverage spans an incredible three posts, but the other two posts concern 360 Smith, which we'll get to in another post today.

The news from the meeting was generally good. First, if the Culver Viaduct rehab is significantly delayed (a year or more) the MTA is looking at implementing interim express service. That's a big deal.

Second, and most significant in my view, is the MTA is seriously looking at restoring the F express after the Viaduct rehabilitation. Before the community voiced it's demand, and the elected officials and media devoted a great deal of attention to this issue, restoring F express service was not even on MTA's radar screen. Now, I am fairly confident that it is going to be a reality. We need to maintain pressure to make sure that the reality includes expanded local service to accompany the coming express service: the F express and V local.

In another news, another elected official has cautiously come out in favor of the F express: Assemblyman James Brennan. More details in the next post.

New Giants/Jets Stadium Renderings - Transit Included

I've been a casual Giants fan all my life, and been to the occasional Jets game as well. Typically, I don't get that excited about new stadiums, because it's difficult for me to look past a poor use of public money to subsidize wealthy team owners. (As is virtually always the case). Curbed has a rundown with links to today's NYT story and more renderings.

But the renderings for the new Meadowlands complex do get me excited about one thing: prominent rail access to the stadium. In the new renderings at top and bottom, you can see that their is a new NJ Transit facility right next to the new stadium . . . a big improvement.

Plenty of people will be able to meet car-commuting friends to tailgate in the parking lots. I imagine that the new Xanadu complex will also have some sort of beer garden or sports bars (or both) that will be serving up pre- and post-game fare as well.

So, there is a ray of sunshine in this giant boondoggle in the Meadowlands: at least it will be accessible by mass transit.

340 Court Street: Casting A Shadow On the Future

Brownstoner had a post up yesterday on the future of the former International Longshoreman’s Association building located at 340 Court Street (between Sackett and Union).

As I noted previously, we heard at the CGNA meeting last week that the Clarett Group had paid $24MM for the site; we also heard they could build up to 21 stories on the site. A view of the projects on their website is not particularly encouraging - lots of tall structures. Although the quality seems high, the buildings Clarett seems to specialize in are out of scale for Carroll Gardens. (The picture above is a montage of renderings from the Clarrett website.)

The more likely scenario is that they would build "quality housing" under the zoning code, using more of the lot area and building up to 70 feet, instead of 21 stories. Obviously this would be a better situation but still far from ideal.

The best solution would be to get the area properly rezoned in the vein of Cobble Hill, with a strict 50' height limit on the neighborhood.

ARM Resets

Via the always reliable Calculated Risk, this chart comes from a Bank of America research paper. The chart shows, inbillions of dollars, the amount of adjustable rate mortgages re-setting each month from 2007-2009. It isn't pretty.

A lot of people have been talking lately about troubles in the housing market, though in New York, we haven't really seen any effects just yet. The bad news is, on a national basis we have barely begun to feel the pain, and while New York may be behind the curve, we are not immune.

Several years of unsustainable double-digit growth combined with the long-overdue credit contraction will lead to serious declines in the US housing market. And that does include New York.