From the NY Observer:
The Department of City Planning published on its Web site today its 182-page Peripheral Travel Study—in an extensive effort to identify opportunities for short and long term strategic plans to address transportation needs in the boroughs outside of Manhattan.
What the report finds is that, while a lot of New Yorkers commute from outside the island to Manhattan jobs, more stay in their outer boroughs. More than 880,000 city residents do commute from the four boroughs into Manhattan, but more than 1 million workers live and work in the same borough in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. (Borough commuters into Manhattan join 628,000 workers who reside in Manhattan and another 540,000 from outside the city).
Despite the "common perception that most workers are concentrated in the Manhattan Central Business District (CBD), the opposite is true," the report says.
Manhattan does have the greatest density of employment, and it does draw more workers from throughout the region than any other area. But more people live and work in the same borough than commute to any other. And excluding journeys to Manhattan, there were more than 323,000 interborough journeys-to-work, 44 percent of which where between Brooklyn and Queens.
Guess Manhattan isn't as popular as people thought?
Though The Observer did not read the entire report, it seems that an important finding is that in the outer boroughs, people tend to work relatively close to their residence, and among those that work close to home in the same study area, non-automotive travelling is most popular. Future public policy, the report recommends, should explore ways to encourage workers living and working in the same area to avoid using their cars.
15 comments:
1. ah ha, yet another excuse for bike lanes.
2. anty mentioned that a lot of people work in the suburbs?
3. are the numbers warped because so many outer borough people are invisible illegal aliens that never registered on the survey?
1. You're an idiot. We shouldn't need an excuse for bike lanes. Being a world city should be enough reason.
2. Is thanty supposeded to maked sense?
3. You point is...? That there are even MORE intra-borough commuters than we realize? Hence, more reason for non-automotive commuting within a borough? You're arguing for more bike lanes, are you?
Bikes are an unpractical means of commuting for the vast majority of people, so yes, you need an excuse to put them in because what that money should be going toward is improved mass transit. Because it's too hard and expensive to put that in, bike lanes it is!
Oh Crappy, your blog has so much potential, but it seems forever mired in flawed logic, bigotry, a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of cities, and an unexplicable hatred for pedestrians and bicyclists.
I doubt you will change, but here's hoping.
-Disappointed Reader
A fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of cities? Born and raised, lived in the biggest one for decades. I understand this city more than you do, pal. And I am a pedestrian on a daily basis as is everyone else who comments on here. Bikes lanes are 1910, not 2010. Time to wake up and stop drinking Kool-Aid.
Why don't you bike lovers all move to a place that is set up for bikes? We don't want you here, our taxes are needed for things other than bike lanes. You can't ride a bike in the ice, rain, bitter cold or extreme heat. That means more than half the time a bike is impractical. Go away!
Bike lanes are a misplaced priority. They are a major expense and they do nothing to reduce the numbers of cars and trucks on the roads. Every trip inside New York City you can do on a bike, you can probably do with public transportation as well.
I agree with Crappy that intraboro mass transit needs to be improved, radically. I used to joke about how I live just four miles, give or take, as the crow flies from Shea Stadium or CitiField but to get from my apartment to there takes a minimum of three trains and a visit to Manhattan (or a ride on the dreaded G), or an eternity on any number of buses before getting on some train or other, and an hour or an hour and a half or more of my life. But then I realized it wasn't all that funny. Maybe getting to a ballgame isn't such a big deal, but what if I had business to do in another part of the boro? What if I had a girlfriend in Astoria - I used to and that was a geographic nightmare. There has to be a realization that the subways don't just exist to funnel people into Manhattan for work - they're how they get around doing whatever it is they do in the rest of their lives.
I've always liked the Triboro Rx idea that the Regional Plan Association proposed back in 1996. It would be like a useful G, really tying together the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, and providing literally dozens of links with other lines. And since it would mostly use existing infrastructure and rights of way it wouldn't be Second Ave Subway expensive to build. I know it was mentioned in some report from the MTA a few years ago but nothing, so far as I know, has been done about it. I think it should be the next big priority. But I don't expect to actually ever see it built.
I disagree with Crappy about bikes. They might not seem practical for everyone but they are practical for a lot of people. There are really three issues that need to be addressed to make them more practical: safety, security, and stink.
If a potential bike rider thinks that he'll probably get killed on the road he probably won't ride. The city has been doing a lot of work on that in the last few years. Those bike lanes and paths everyone hates has made riding much, much safer. Biking in New York is no longer the province of daredevils. Tens of thousands now commute every day during the warmer months (roughly April through October). That might not seem like a lot in a city of millions but it’s a pretty good return on investment for a little paint and street work.
As for security and stink, there's probably not a lot the city can do directly, but it can certainly encourage employers to step into the breach. I'm lucky, my employer has its own gym (several, actually) and the annual cost for a membership and a locker is quite reasonable. And it has a relatively secure bike cage where I can lock up during the day. I can ride in, shower, change, secure my bike, then go to work. That makes all the difference to me and I'm sure it would to thousands more people. I know I'm lucky, and I work for a very large institution that can afford to do such things but I suspect that ways could be found - say through the tax code - to encourage many other employers and businesses to provided similar options to their employees.
Why do this? Because our transit system is already near capacity. Every person on a bike is one less person on a train, bus, or in a car. Yes, we have to build more subway lines but we also have to get as many people off the subways as we can. And bikes are a fairly cheap way of doing it. They might not be the entire solution to our transportation problems - I sure don't think they are - but they can help a lot.
Ridgewoodian said...
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Agreed. The lack of a North-South train through queens is a joke. I had to take 4 trains to get to within my own borough, having to pass through two others, to get to Astoria from Glendale (M to J [because heaven forbid the M isnt on shuttle service!] J to F, F to W.
Totally insane.
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