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 May 19, 2001 |
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Editorial view: On a weekend when Roosevelt Island is celebrating its art and artists, The WIRE would prefer this space be occupied by attractive images of our Island, and visitors to ArtFrenzy surely would prefer them. But the fact is, for all the celebration of what's wonderful about Roosevelt Island and its people, there is too much that is going to seed to be ignored. That's because the orientation of Roosevelt Island management long ago somehow became preoccupied with enticing the new, and seriously distracted from maintenance of what's already there – particularly the badly-deteriorating infrastructure that holds this Island and its facilities together. 
The Tram station in Manhattan is an appalling example, along with many others that activist Judy Berdy points out to Ryan of RIOC in a letter appearing in this issue. The new stairway at the Manhattan-side station has been finished for a long time – going on months. But it isn't available to Tramway users; instead, it's already become home base for a homeless person's accumulation of stuff. Presumably, that's easily solved when the time for a ceremonial ribbon-cutting approaches. 
What isn't easily solved is the deterioration of the rest of the station. We grow accustomed to seeing it, but if you take a fresh look at the concrete of the main station structure, you'll see many cases of spalling. 
Spalling occurs in concrete when steel rebar (short for reinforcement bar) rusts. The expanding rust ruptures concrete and eventually pieces of it fall away. The strength of the underlying structure is compromised. If the spalling is not dealt with promptly and properly, there can be real trouble. All the discolored areas in these close-up photos of parts of the Manhattan Tram station are the telltale evidence of spalling.
The proper remedy is to drill out the surrounding concrete, remove all the rust, and refill the area. But last week at the Tram station, there was a worker patching over areas of spalling. That's only a cosmetic fix. It hides the problem temporarily but leads to more damage in the long run. We're led to wonder if RIOC is trying to cover up damage just long enough to have some dignitary – who might otherwise be appalled – cut a ribbon. Whatever the motivation, just opening the new stairway won't be a cause for celebration or ribbon-cutting unless some attention is given to saving the rest of the terminal. Unsafe Traffic Patterns While the advancing deterioration at the Manhattan Tram station is no threat to life and limb, RIOC has created a genuine safety hazard in its handling of Island traffic. It needs to be addressed. Until the fence was erected around the Southtown site, drivers navigating the Island had a handy turnaround at the split in Main Street just south of the existing residences of Northtown. That's gone now. All southbound traffic on the Island must travel all the way to the Tram station to reverse course. Even if that were "temporary" during the long Southtown construction process, it would be unacceptable. But from all appearances, the plans for Southtown will permanently impose a round trip of 20-some blocks on any driver who makes a left off the ramp from the Roosevelt Island Bridge. There's added pollution and fuel use, time lost, and higher cab fares with cab drivers even more reluctant to transport Island-bound riders when they know they'll have a 20-block trip just to get off the Island. But those concerns are comparatively unimportant when you consider the increased traffic load – now on the west road and someday on an extended Main Street. What is the increased traffic load south of the old turnaround? Triple? Quadruple? More? Whatever it is... It's unsafe. Many drivers speed from the last Northtown stop-sign all the way to the first stop-sign near the subway station, already annoyed with time lost making frequent stops on Main Street. They gun their engines again between that one and the next one, and then again on the way to the crossroad at the Tram station. Those patches of asphalt have a wild mix of pedestrians: kids, seniors, bicyclists, the disabled and the frequent motorized wheelchair. The traffic pattern should be addressed immediately. The unnecessary increased traffic traveling the equivalent of 20 Manhattan blocks to reverse course (can you imagine that in Manhattan proper?) should be eliminated, and the old turnaround restored. Even with that done, attention will have to be given to the drag-strip zones RIOC has created. Even after all that, we'll be no better than break-even with the recent past – and that wasn't all that good. The message to RIOC is: Safety first. Fix it. And That's Not All There's another RIOC blunder that bears on both safety and convenience in that same stretch of road. Some RIOC genius decided to put the subway bus stop some 72 steps north of the subway station exit. That wasn't at all necessary when moving one underemployed utility pole would have opened at least one extra lane just opposite the subway station door.
Even with just three lanes, buses going both directions could stop much nearer the subway station. It would be more convenient, particularly for seniors and the disabled. It would also solve a serious pedestrian hazard. Right now, if an Island-bound subway passenger decides to wait for a red bus or a Queens Surface bus, s/he walks the 72 steps north, perhaps exposed to hostile weather part of the way. Waiting at the bus stop, if one concludes the wait will be too long, the decision to walk north is a risky one.
That's because you must walk some 50 steps, in traffic, diagonally, to get across the roadway and onto protected sidewalk. There is no pedestrian crosswalk there, nor is there any ready access to the sidewalk on the other side. And in that stretch, cars are reaching their highest speed on the Island. But There's More Queens Surface buses operate like most City buses. If no passenger signals for a stop and there's nobody waiting at a stop, the stop is skipped. That means passengers flooding out of the subway station from a freshly-arrived train – some of whom might like to take their free second MetroCard ride into Northtown – are out of luck. You can just miss your bus simply because the driver sees nobody waiting. Red buses skip the stop sometimes, too, even though passengers are leaving the station. None of this addresses foul weather, when easy access to a bus is all the more important. But the safety problems are of paramount concern. It just happens that properly addressing the bus-stop and turnaround safety issues will also produce additional convenience for all who use the subway. DL
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