Credit: NYCDOT Transportation CHAPTER 10 | TRANSPORTATION 174 How the Transportation System Works Transportation in New York City is complex due to the many different modes of travel, the ways they interact, and the grand scale of it all. And New Yorkers use this system in overwhelmingly large numbers, with 7.6 million daily subway and bus riders, close to 850,000 daily commuter rail riders, and almost 2 million people crossing the region’s major bridges and tunnels every day. This network is busy for much of the day and night—not just during traditional commuting hours—with freight moving around the region by truck, hospital workers going to and from their shifts, and local residents and tourists visiting the city’s many attractions. Stillwell Avenue subway station in Coney Island The area of Manhattan south of 60th Credit: Zev Starr-Tambor Street—the business center of the region and the nation—draws commuters to jobs from It carries one-third of all transit riders and Even after Sandy had departed, damage and all over the New York area and beyond. Over two-thirds of all rail riders in the nation. It power outages prevented restoration of the 3.6 million travelers enter this district every includes the nation’s busiest rail hub and the subway system for several days, with key weekday, with 1.4 million of those entering largest bus and rail car fleets. It encompasses sections shut for a week or longer. Responding during the three-hour morning peak. Public 6,000 miles of streets, 12,000 traffic signals, quickly, City and State officials instituted a transportation is absolutely critical to this and nearly 800 bridges (including more than a series of interim solutions to fill the transportation travel, since 75 percent of those trips into the couple of famous ones). gap—including sending hundreds of buses to central business districts are made by public carry commuters back and forth across East transit. Of those who do drive into this area, And, of course, it boasts the one and only River bridges and adding ferry service. the majority depend on crossing a bridge or Staten Island Ferry. However, damage to various elements of the tunnel to do so, including 220,000 entering system was severe—totaling many billions of from Brooklyn, 175,000 entering from Queens, This complex behemoth is the New York region’s dollars. In fact, as of the writing of this report, and 115,000 entering from New Jersey. transportation network. It encompasses the some elements still are not fully functional and largest public transportation system in America, will not be for months or even years. Travel within and among the outer boroughs is made up of subway networks, bus networks, more varied. The use of buses is significant commuter railroad networks, and ferry The storm not only caused disruption; it outside of Manhattan—with 2.1 million daily networks. And each of these networks is, in and demonstrated the centrality of the transportation bus users in the other boroughs—as is the use of itself, staggeringly large. system to the city’s economy and overall ability of private vehicles, particularly for longer trips to function. It also laid bare the vulnerabilities between the outer boroughs, where driving is Under normal conditions, the interconnected of various parts of the system to extreme generally faster and more direct. Many outer networks work together, adding up to an weather and pointed to challenges that the borough trips also require a major bridge extraordinary supersystem, upon which New region faces in increasing resiliency, given the crossing, and trips to and from Nassau and Yorkers—and the economy of the city, region, size and complexity of its transportation system. Suffolk Counties must pass through New York and nation—all depend. Day and night, millions City. Close to a million trips pass between of New Yorkers and visitors use this system to But these challenges must be tackled. In Nassau County and Queens every day, and over travel to and from work, school, shops, and keeping with the broad goals of this 500,000 trips cross the major bridges that cultural events, while goods move around the report—which are to minimize disruptions connect between the outer boroughs every day. region by road, rail, and water. The city that caused by climate change and to enable New never sleeps fittingly has a transportation York City to bounce back when extreme While the city’s transportation system is highly system that never sleeps—until, with weather events strike—the City will work to interconnected, it also does not exist in Sandy, nearly every element of New York’s make the transportation system more resilient. isolation. Instead, it is one network among the transportation system shut down. It will seek to protect critical elements of many that keep New York running. For example, the system from damage, maintain system the transportation network in the city depends Sandy’s storm surge flooded vehicular tunnels, operations during extreme events, and put on the power network to function; electricity is subway stations, roads, and airports. in place plans for backup transportation needed to run subways and trains, to switch on Transportation outages followed, impairing options to increase mobility until regular traffic signals, and to light tunnels, stations, and mobility and access to, from, and within the services can be restored. terminals. And, in turn, many of the city’s other city and the region, and affecting 8.5 million critical networks rely, wholly or in part, on the public transit riders, 4.2 million drivers, and transportation network to run properly; this is 1 million fliers. especially true in times of emergency, when first responders and those bringing key 175 A STRONGER, MORE RESILIENT NEW YORK supplies (such as food and fuel) must be able over the East River. With the same goal in mind, flexibility and efficiency of the system. For to reach individuals and communities that are New York City also worked with the Interborough example, the City has expanded its pedestrian in desperate need. Rapid Transit (IRT) Company to create its initial and bicycle networks. Walking has always underground connections, opening the first played an important role for all manner of local However, due to historical development subway line in 1904. The subway system has trips and to gain access to the transit network, patterns and operational needs, many parts of since expanded to become the largest in the and cycling volumes in the city continue to the city’s transportation infrastructure are world, with 659 miles of track and 468 stations, grow. In addition, the City has maximized located near the waterfront or in low-lying playing a critical role in making New York the inter-modal connections and added several Bus areas, making them particularly vulnerable to global city it is today. Rapid Transit (BRT) routes (known in New York the effects of climate change. This is true for as Select Bus Service), or dedicated bus many rail yards, which require large, flat As the city continued to expand through the corridors that improve the speed, reliability, expanses of land of the type frequently found 20th century, New York’s water-spanning and attractiveness of bus service. Additionally, near rivers and the shoreline. Similarly, by tradition was picked up by the Port Authority of after many years during which the use of definition, ferry terminals must be at water’s New York and New Jersey (the Port Authority) private ferries waned as new bridges and edge and close to the level of the water. Other and the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority tunnels were built, the City, over the last 15 assets are on the waterfront because that is (which subsequently became part of the years, has helped bring about a renaissance in where land was available or could be created Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or MTA). this transit mode, spurred by rising congestion through fill—this is how, for example, New These two agencies built four bridges, and two on other networks and redevelopment of York’s airports were sited. tunnels connecting New Jersey to New York the waterfront neighborhoods of New York City, and seven bridges and two tunnels within City and New Jersey. (See map: Regional Some transportation assets, meanwhile, are the city. Meanwhile, in the latter half of the 20th Transportation Network) not just at sea level, but are actually built below century, the region’s three major airports, sea level. This is the case for the large segments including Kennedy and LaGuardia in Queens, Transportation Operators of the city’s transportation network that became international gateways that, together, All of New York’s various transportation were built underground (including tunnels host more passenger traffic each year than the networks and services are linked in many ways, for vehicles and trains), designed both to span airports in any other metropolitan area outside allowing a New Yorker or a visitor to the city water bodies and to provide higher speed and of London. to connect easily from one mode to another. greater capacity connections through dense So, for example, a marketing executive from and congested areas. In recent years, the City has expanded its Philadelphia might take an Amtrak train to Penn transportation network by promoting a range Station, then transfer to a subway, only to get Transportation Networks of alternatives to driving, thus increasing the off several stops later to hustle through the The first formal transportation elements to develop in New York City were its roads, which, under the Dutch and later the English, evolved Regional Transportation Network from a network of Native American trading paths.