NYC has plenty of urban legends, many of which are literally urban legends. Perhaps this article will finally put an end to these largely untrue “myths” about the city’s built environment!
NYC is fully “built-up”.
The New York metropolitan region is populated by more than 20 million people. Approximately 70% of the world’s countries have fewer people than the NYC area, and only three U.S. states have more people. For such a dense place, it is understandable to think it’s already built and complete. After all, the city is built on an island and there’s nowhere left to build.
First, some of the city’s land is connected to the mainland (most of the Bronx), but that’s besides the point. Even the fact that the city has and should continue to create and develop new land (partly to combat rising sea levels) is not the primary concern. There are also thousands upon thousands of empty lots in NYC, but even tall buildings can (and are) being demolished for taller buildings. After all, a 707 foot skyscraper is being torn down for an ever taller one in Midtown. There are fewer people living in Manhattan now than there were in the 1920s, 100 years ago, and it’s especially pronounced now during the pandemic.
In New York, the sky should be the limit. Isn’t that what New York is all about, after all? Reaching your full potential? Let’s radically reform our zoning and land use regulations to unleash our city, our people, our imaginations and our prosperity. Much of the city couldn’t be rebuilt with today’s rules, including most of its iconic buildings and cherished neighborhoods. To me, that’s insanity — especially when government is dictating what happens on privately-owned land to such an extent that NYC is forcing developers to remove floors from buildings (200 Amsterdam now can keep the extra floors).
Technically, buildings can be taller (and hopefully that persistent “bedrock myth” can vanish). But what about the subways, which are already crowded (pre-pandemic) and often perceived to be over-capacity? Or the roads, the sewers, the schools? Or how about our sunshine, our clean air, our parks, and our public spaces? The noise and vibrations and change that would undoubtedly alter our neighborhoods? There are solutions to all of these valid concerns, with NYC already providing incentives for developers to improve transit and infrastructure, and even build schools and public spaces in exchange for building taller. Neighborhoods are always changing, and NYC should dream and build big again. Smart planning and development can mitigate concerns like noises, odors, air quality, traffic, and much more. Plus, our streets would have a lot more sunlight (even with tall buildings) if we reformed scaffolding regulations!
When politicians truly want something done, they’ll find a way; the replacement of the collapsed bridge in Minneapolis was completed in less than a year in 2008. But it shouldn’t take an emergency to have progress and lull us out of the status quo. It doesn’t need to take 100 years to deck Sunnyside Yard or build the Second Avenue Subway! The problem is a lack of political will and a lack of civic strength to press our collective imagination forward. The solution? Giving less power to politicians and government and giving more power to individuals.
NYC is always going to be “so expensive”.
Excessive red tape makes NYC expensive. It’s simple: we need to increase the supply of housing to make the city more affordable. Just look at how rents have declined during this year’s pandemic because of an increase in supply. Admittingly, this is a unique and terrible situation, but the general idea remains the same — supply & demand. The city is not fully built out. Plus, new construction eventually becomes old housing, and it keeps costs from rising as much as they otherwise would.
Cities like Houston with far fewer development regulations have actually experienced a decline in housing costs since the 1980s (adjusted for inflation). Houston is not a shrinking city like Detroit (or even Chicago); it’s one of the fastest growing in the country and it is still affordable generally because it is easier to build there. True, Houston is growing outward, but it is also becoming denser and taller downtown, and New York doesn’t have to become Houston (nor should it) to be affordable. There is plenty of room for taller buildings (especially along subway corridors), and for more subway lines (if costs are brought down) or bus corridors (hopefully the North Shore BRT ends up built someday).
Houston isn’t the only example; in much of the world, housing prices aren’t exploding and construction costs aren’t skyrocketing to the levels which are considered normal in NYC (or other high cost cities like San Francisco). In Tokyo, the most populous metropolitan region in the world, property rights are much stronger than in New York and people can use their land “as they see fit”, so neighboring people therefore have no right to stop development (the subway is also more privatized). In other cities, such as Vienna or Singapore, subsidized and quality public housing keeps housing costs affordable, but in New York, government-owned housing could end up like NYCHA: broken. What if NYCHA’s land was unleashed for private development instead? We don’t even need government-run housing; reform zoning, and have the City sell off property for non-profit developers to build affordable housing (which is the most common model in Germany).
NYC has a cost problem and it’s not only housing: it costs too much to build infrastructure here. Basic projects such as building a public restroom or replacing a backup generator with a more environmentally-friendly one end up costing tens of millions of dollars and years of environmental review, even though it will end up getting built regardless and will improve the environment. All the time and money spent on bureaucratic paperwork keeps positive projects from hitting the ground and makes us worse off; projects which benefit the environment and society such as public transit expansions shouldn’t need lengthy environmental reviews. No individual person would design a system that works this way.
New York is a wealthy city and wages are higher than most peer cities. But London, Paris, and other global cities still manage to build substantially cheaper projects. On a tour of the Second Avenue Subway during construction, I was told by MTA Capital Construction that they couldn’t build express tracks because Second Avenue was “too narrow”. Clearly this is not even a good excuse, since even narrower streets have four-track corridors underneath like the IND Fulton Line, and the IRT Lexington Line and other lines are built with two levels of tracks; the Second Avenue Subway is also built deep underground with modern technology and they could have technically built express tracks if they could afford them. There are so many projects the region cannot afford because costs are the highest in the world. For instance, common sense projects such as connecting the 3 and L stations in East New York into a single complex, or connecting the G and BMT Jamaica Line into a station complex, should have happened decades ago. Also, cheaper projects like installing bus and bike infrastructure don’t need a lot of money, and are mostly held up because of political opposition. Imagine how much better our lives would be if all the energy spent opposing projects was spent finding workable solutions!
“Progressives” are NIMBYists.
Oddly, the far-left, Marxist movements of NYC (the “anti-Amazon and anti-Industry City” folks) would like you to think that they are progressive! But there is nothing progressive about being anti-progress, anti-change, anti-growth, and anti-development. So often, individuals in neighborhoods (often liberal locations in NYC) rally to oppose new housing in their area. Rarely do residents seek out new growth, even though the housing crisis in NYC and in the country continues to grow worse from liberal, anti-development policies.
Development isn’t “bad”, and if the folks around now got their way 100 years ago, then the neighborhoods they enjoy now (many of which couldn’t be built with today’s regulations) may not even have existed in the first place. NIMBYism is not partisan and neither is it only an urban phenomenon. It is prevalent in rich and poor neighborhoods, whether they are rural or (sub)urban, conservative or liberal.
Certainly, every effort should be made to listen to community feedback and provide jobs to locals when developing new projects in a neighborhood. However, even if most jobs created won’t be provided to the local community, they are still jobs created for the region. Would the people protesting like it if they weren’t allowed to work in other communities (however ‘local community’ is defined and measured)? Or if people from outside their community stopped visiting their stores and restaurants? When we divide ourselves, we all fail. When identities are broken down to the most elemental level, everyone is an individual.
Imagine how much energy would be unleashed if regulations were loosened; adding more regulations (especially just to fit the “media narrative”) is the opposite of progress. What if we started fresh with a mandate to cut anti-growth rules, and add more pro-growth incentives (such as for value capture financing)? Can we limit the length of environmental assessments and zoning regulations, which have only gotten more complex over the years? Infill NYCHA properties, and require new schools, libraries, subway station entrances, and other government facilities have housing and other mixed-uses atop them (if demand is there in the area)? The billion-dollar Fulton Center could have been built as part of a downtown supertall skyscraper, funded by a developer (and probably built more efficiently) instead of funded by billions of taxpayer funds. All this added density and dynamism would be good for the environment (less sprawl), the economy, for job creation, for unions, for taxpayers — for New Yorkers. YIMBY!
Of course, some buildings and areas are worthy of preservation. But we’ve swung too far from the Robert Moses era into the other direction, where community input is too valued, and where it’s almost impossible to get visionary projects built (or even common sense projects which would be relatively simple in other countries and global cities). Instead of banning choice, expand it; banning single family homes, for instance, is arguably a distraction — just allow more to be built, and building apartments will be more profitable in convenient locations where there is demand.
NYC public transport is crowded and slow because “there are too many people”.
Yes, the NYC subway can be crowded (even during the pandemic), and yes, crowds are composed of many people. But look at Tokyo, the largest metropolitan region in the world, where passengers are literally pushed and squeezed by employees onto train cars, and where trains are known to run so punctually that a delay of less than a minute will make the news. The correlation between ridership levels and crowding levels is not statistically significant, and the subway can (and is) being made faster (more reliable). After all, the whole purpose of the subway is to handle crowds; overcrowding can happen when there’s an incident and service isn’t running normally, and it can happen even if there’s low ridership. In fact, according to some measurements, there was more overcrowding in the 1970s, when ridership was much lower than pre-pandemic levels, because service was not fast (unreliable)!
More accountable, competent, and honest governance would go a long way towards fixing problems. Many of Japan’s railroads are privatized, and the same is true in Hong Kong, where the MTR has a 99% on-time performance rate. Because of the way they are privatized and the incentives they have, these railroads actually care about their customers and about performance. Before spending billions on new subway lines or even modern CBTC signaling equipment (allowing trains to be faster and closer together safely), simply improving culture and operations in NYC would surely go a long way. Subway speeds are already increasing and the subway is back to being around as fast as it was when it was first built, but it can be faster, and safer; speed and safety go hand-in-hand.
This isn’t to say that modernizing the subway isn’t necessary. The NYC Subway’s L and 7 are two of the best performing lines because they are CBTC equipped, so trains can be operated faster, closer together, and not have as variable running times due to human operation (especially with all the signal modifications that are now being fixed). Operators are still needed on these lines in case of emergency (such as if CBTC goes offline or someone is on the tracks), and conductors are still needed also for safety and mainly because most of the system is not set up for one-person operation (train operators cannot view the entire platform at many stations from their vantage point). Plus, it likely would add dwell time to have the operator also need to open and close doors at stations.
New Yorkers want to get to their destinations quickly more than they want to have fancy stations. The $4 billion new WTC PATH terminal is actually farther west than the first WTC PATH terminal, which was also farther west from the original Hudson Terminal, making commute times longer for most who aren’t heading west to the WFC. Could $4 billion have been spent instead to connect the PATH physically to the NYC Subway? In addition, the ESI projects are another example of improving aesthetics (not even adding elevators) where the money could be spent on more useful initiatives. Would a private company prioritize these projects over projects which would improve efficiency and capacity? Probably not (or if so, they would go out of business), but politicians prioritized them because it’s not their money and they want a visual legacy. (Private companies, of course, have built beautiful places, and Grand Central Terminal, for instance, was very expensive, but it was also profitable for NY Central and it is still not over-capacity.)
Supporting public transit = supporting government-run transit.
Why is the US more polarized with government seemingly unable to get infrastructure built (or maintained)? Perhaps it’s our uniquely American culture of individualism, single-family, car-oriented homes and historical distrust of government and taxes. Or maybe it’s rising inequality, demographic diversity, a history of racism, or the Electoral College, gerrymandering, and campaign finance corruption. Is it badly designed public agency structures and incentives, politicians beholden to interest groups, and laws and regulations keeping projects from getting off the ground?
Whatever the causes, NYC is the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country with a budget larger than that of most U.S. states. NASA can send rovers to Mars but the USPS can’t deliver mail on-time and we can’t seem to build new transit lines (or maintain the system we have particularly well). The MTA’s finances can be researched for decades and still not completely understood, but costs have been rising ever since the City forced private operators of the subway system into bankruptcy and unified the system. Privatizing aspects of the system could be a way to bring greater transparency, accountability, and efficiency to a network which could be made again into a global model of transport success.
Privatizing elevator and escalator maintenance as well as station cleaning and other operations (common in Europe), and setting clear performance targets, is a potential first step. There’s no good reason why a city of elevators in skyscrapers has elevators in subways out of service for months (or years) which only travel a few stories. It also doesn’t need to cost hundreds of millions to install elevators.
More steps? Plaster advertising all over the subway, which is happening already but much more can be done. Would you rather see chipped paint and leaky tiles or ads covering the renovated walls and ceilings? Lease out entire sections of stations to marketing companies willing to renovate and maintain the area.
Subsidizing the MTA based on ridership levels (to change the incentive to be more like a public utility) could also improve transparency and force the MTA to care more about customers and not politicians and the “media narrative”. The subsidy would vary and account for ridership changes outside of the MTA’s control (such as weather).
The MTA (like the City) also has a tremendously large real estate portfolio. Much work is being done to dispose of unneeded property or lease property to developers for decking and development. At locations where real estate demand would not justify the cost, installing solar panels would be ideal. Most yards, for instance, are unlikely to be decked as they are located in far-flung areas of NYC without the demand to justify the cost of moving tracks for support columns, installing ventilation and lighting, and building expensive structures which may not be allowed to be tall enough to be profitable (due to zoning regulations). Solar panels can be installed above tracks (and on top of buildings and other facilities such as parking lots) much more easily and would do much to improve the resiliency and sustainability of the region.
In 100 years, will NYC’s transportation infrastructure be essentially unchanged from now? Since 1940, only a little more than 30 new stations have been added to the NYC Subway network, most of which were part of defunct railways that already existed; the system actually has less trackage now than it did in the mid-20th century. The PATH subway hasn’t been extended in more than 100 years and a relatively simple extension to EWR may never make it past the red tape. Clearly something political is broken in the region, which often does not take a regional approach to transport common in other global cities. Much needs to be done to unleash the region, improve quality of life, and make it more competitive nationally and globally. For instance, will the recent FAA rule change help finally connect the Astoria Line to LGA?
Most humans live in cities, and billions more will live in cities in the coming decades. Cities across the world need to do more with less and learn from each other as they work to find solutions to local and global problems. Even returning passenger transport to New York’s existing right-of-ways (such as the LIRR Lower Montauk, Bay Ridge, and Rockaway Beach lines) costs billions. New York was once the pioneer of transportation infrastructure, building fast with visible results. Now it arguably needs to catch up on everything from regional rail to secure bicycle parking facilities, which in some European cities even include showers and other amenities. Will the City truly move forward, or (at least) allow private companies to provide innovative solutions without red tape shutting them down?
(This Oonee location was unfortunately removed from Lower Manhattan due to excessive regulations.)
To be clear, many MTA employees and managers deeply care about their work (as do City employees), but they are stuck in a system which is well-documented to be institutionally broken. Governor Cuomo effectively governs the MTA, but critics argue that Albany is far removed from NYC affairs and the Mayor would be more accountable if ownership was transferred to the City. This was tried before, and one of the main purposes of the creation of the MTA as a State public authority was to create a semi-independent agency removed from political interference and local financial constraints. If the Governor messes up transit policy, then why would the Mayor (and especially Mayor De Blasio) be any different?
Indeed, perhaps the Mayor would be more influenced by NIMBY concerns and white elephants because he has more at stake and wants to get people off his back? What incentive would there be to improve efficiency and performance? There’s a reason why unionized Delta flight attendants are so much more helpful and pleasant than unionized MTA station booth attendants, who are often sleeping on the job and upset to be disturbed. Privatization does not mean anti-union; perhaps TWU employees would be happier, healthier, and safer working for an employer which cared more about their well-being!
Unless a leader comes around who is honest and truly cares about improving the region, then the incentives are otherwise for politicians to do what’s easiest to stay in power. Making things look pretty quickly and controlling the media narrative are much easier than fixing systemic, complicated problems which likely won’t be solved within an election cycle or if so, unfortunately won’t garner as much attention. Whether politicians pressure agencies like the MTA to look good by hiding inconvenient facts or whether the internal culture is willing to do so without external pressure in order to make their jobs easier, the point is that there are rarely consequences for bad behavior (which in a private enterprise would result in bankruptcy if nothing is done to solve problems). In fact, bad behavior can get rewarded while those trying to solve problems are too often punished for speaking out (the culture is scarily similar to these scenes in HBO’s Chernobyl, although obviously the level of repression is not comparable).
Would a private company interested in retaining customers (or an entity structured as a public utility like Con Ed) spend time and money spreading knowingly false data and practices internally and externally, causing confusion and making things worse instead of at least keeping the status quo? Maybe, but they would eventually face consequences, and definitely would not be rewarded with billions more to spend! Rather than the MTA as it is, perhaps a regional system (including New Jersey and Connecticut) could be loosely developed as an umbrella corporation (somewhat similar to the TfL) under a public utility model, with most operations privatized like they were before government bankrupted them with red tape.
NYC is a dirty place because it’s “so dense”.
New York certainly produces a lot of waste, with much of it ending up piled on sidewalks for street pick-up, or just littered on the street. But it doesn’t have to be this way; just look at Tokyo, which is far denser and more populous, but much cleaner – and the trains run on-time, too!
By 2050, the UN estimates that 70% of the world’s population will live in urban areas, where the vast majority of energy is consumed and emitted, and where sustainable living ought to be made more paramount. Dense, dynamic, accessible cities – which make public transit viable and allow for walkability and biking – require basic infrastructure to work well. While urban farming, LEED-certified buildings, green roofs, bioswales, secure bike storage, and much more are certainly important, basic public health requires providing clean water, maintaining the sewers, and yes, taking out the trash (and recyclables)!
New York is one of the country’s dirtier cities. Most of the city wasn’t plotted out with alleys, so trash is piled up on sidewalks. Besides the Sanitation Department, private companies are contracted for commercial waste and recyclables, and the system is not without its flaws. Mountains of trash often incentivize people to pile their garbage on top of them further, feeding the millions of rats in the city – and underground, the MTA is challenged by rubbish removal, both in stations and on the tracks.
Reducing the amount of waste is one solution – either by manufacturing products with the goal of upcycling in mind, or by not consuming as much in the first place. But improving how our used materials are dealt with in the region is not without precedent. After all, Battery Park City, a master planned neighborhood itself built on landfill, compacts much of its trash and keeps it off the sidewalks, and on Roosevelt Island, there is a pneumatic system which collects refuse within buildings. In addition, the city is hopefully working towards building an underground garbage storage network – as is common in many other global cities – which would allow waste and recyclable materials to be stored underground (rather than on the sidewalk) until DSNY arrives. Or, simpler above-ground storage containers would also eliminate the need to place plastic bags on sidewalks until collection, so that other garbage does not get piled on, rodents do not become a huge problem, and general quality of life and public health is improved.
But what to do with all the waste once it is picked up? Fresh Kills has been closed for decades now, so New York City’s Marine Transfer Stations transport containerized waste from the region to non-urban landfills beyond the region via barges. The NY & Atlantic Railway also transports waste from Long Island (connecting with other railroads in the regional network), keeping trucks off the road and reducing congestion.
In addition, the areas underneath highways don’t need to be littered with trash and don’t need to feel like they divide neighborhoods (elevated lines are less wide but also loud and block sunlight). Can government lease this space to interested stakeholders so long as access for maintenance is kept? The East River Greenway area underneath the FDR in Lower Manhattan is a good example. The point is, from making it easier to plant street trees to removing street garbage bags (there are already somewhat similar examples in Queens), there are a lot of small fixes and “quick wins” that together, can make a big difference in quality of life.
NYC is “dead”.
Tens of thousands of New Yorkers have passed away during the pandemic.
Countless businesses are closed for good.
This is an awful time for the Big Apple.
It is understandable to think New York is “dead“. Why will people return to offices (or the city) when they are able to work remotely and not spend time and money commuting, and packing or buying lunch in an expensive business district? Remote work is certainly more convenient and liberating for many, and it’s probably true that fewer workers will be returning to offices in the foreseeable future. There have been many failures of leadership across all levels of government.
But NYC is not like other American cities with a central business district that shuts down after 5, and all the city’s cultural offerings will eventually return. Office buildings can be renovated into housing (more easily with fewer regulations), and many will still want to work together to have face-to-face, random interactions that spur creative thinking and energy. Plus, even if more work remotely, they will then likely want to get out even more to enjoy their surroundings. For those who prefer a more quiet lifestyle, remote work would allow them more freedom to choose where to live, and perhaps the city’s lower rents will attract more newcomers who are ready to contribute to the city.
NYC is not just a city of office buildings, and for those who will return to work, newer offices are being designed to maximize the advantages of coming into work. Hopefully open restaurants and open streets are here to stay, and the City works to improve quality of life and competitiveness, and most importantly, get the basics right. Now is the time to get to work on our infrastructure and build more bus and bike infrastructure.
Until next time, check out Moynihan Train Hall, the best news for the region so far this year!
To be covered as soon as possible…
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