Queens demands an end to the DOT e-scooter share cesspool PILOT

 

AMNY 

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is urging City Hall to put an “operational pause” on the ongoing electric scooter share pilot program in Queens, citing an epidemic of discourteous parking practices.

In a letter to Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, Adams—who leads the city’s legislative body while also representing neighborhoods like Jamaica and Springfield Gardens—said she has “profound concerns” with the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) e-scooter pilot, which launched in eastern Queens this summer following a yearslong program in the eastern Bronx.

Specifically, the speaker contends that scooter parking has been haphazard throughout the pilot area, with riders leaving their scooters on sidewalks or roadways and blocking pedestrian traffic flow.

 “The lack of orderly operation and enforcement when e-scooters are left on public streets and sidewalks with reckless abandon must be urgently addressed,” Speaker Adams wrote in her Oct. 7 letter to Rodriguez, which was shared with amNewYork Metro. “I am requesting a reset of the department’s E-Scooter Share program in Southeast Queens to ensure the necessary protocols and protections are enacted to prioritize the safety of all residents while supporting local transportation needs.”

The speaker suggests that the “operational pause” should be used to “properly address these many outstanding issues.” 

The pilot launched on June 27 in an approximately 20-square-mile area of eastern Queens between Flushing in the north and JFK Airport in the south, following what DOT deemed a successful pilot in the eastern Bronx. Both the eastern Bronx and eastern Queens are areas unserved by Citi Bike and relatively lightly served by mass transit, making them prime spots to test out new forms of micro-mobility.

The same three major scooter companies participating in the Bronx pilot — Lime, Bird, and Veo — also joined the Queens pilot. DOT says that since launch day, 37,000 riders have taken nearly half a million trips in Queens, while 5.7 million trips have been logged in total since the pilot began in the Bronx in 2021. Most rides begin and end in the same neighborhood, the agency says.

Unlike Citi Bikes, the scooters can be parked anywhere when a rider is done with them, except on busy corridors where they must be parked in designated “corrals.” Per program rules, scooters are allowed to be parked in the “street furniture” section of the sidewalk, where decorative aspects like street trees or bus stops are sited, but cannot obstruct the right-of-way for pedestrians on the sidewalk.

But since launch day, some Queens residents and pols have complained about riders disregarding those rules and parking scooters haphazardly, sometimes blocking sidewalks or entrances to people’s homes. Adams said that scooters “are too often chaotically left scattered on public and private spaces throughout Southeast Queens.” “For months, my constituents have witnessed and shared many accounts of e-scooters being left on sidewalks and streets, as well as in front of homes, driveways, businesses, places of worship, and beyond,” Adams wrote in her letter. “These conditions present potential hazards, especially to older adults and people with disabilities in neighborhoods.”

Update

 

Speaker Adrienne Adams is going to have a town hall about the DOT's e-scooter share pilot tomorrow at 1 pm with State Senator Leroy Comrie. I'm sure the corporations and the DOT that approved to put their product on the street against the objections of the communities affected will be there to defend their failure and beg for more chances to continue this PILOT. While waiting for that, here's the sequel to my documentary of this disaster scooter cesspool polluting the streets of South and North Queens.

Correction: Looks like I didn't notice the date on that town hall that took place Mid-August, but I'm not going to take it down because those clips from the second video were made around that time and it really emphasizes the City Council's speaker's negligence and obtuseness by making a photo op grand gesture for a pause of the DOT's e-scooter cesspool PILOT.

Kathy Clown and Mayor Swagger agree on Penn Station real estate land grab deal

AP 

 A funding agreement was reached for the multibillion-dollar redevelopment of New York’s aging Penn Station, the country’s busiest rail hub.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams announced details of the deal Monday.

The plan would create new commercial and residential buildings around the station, with those building’s developers getting to make payments in lieu of taxes for a period of 40 to 45 years. The amount collected in excess of existing property taxes would be applied to the project.

That money would contribute more than $1 billion to pay for improvements to streets, sidewalks and other public spaces, as well as 50% of the improvements to transit infrastructure including underground concourses and subway entrances.

“This agreement brings us one step closer to a beautiful, modern station worthy of New York with vibrant open space, lively streetscapes, and better, more seamless connections to local transit,” Hochul said in a statement.

The reconstruction of the station and the first phase of the improvements to public spaces is expected to cost roughly $8 billion. Hochul’s vision is a scaled-down version of earlier plans announced by her predecessor, fellow Democrat Andrew Cuomo.

A recent study commissioned by Reinvent Albany, a state government watchdog group, estimated that the payments in lieu of taxes would amount to about $4 billion, a number that assumed a southern expansion of the station to accommodate more tracks when a new Hudson River tunnel is built several years from now. That expansion, which is in initial discussions, is projected to cost an additional $13 billion.

The plan has provoked criticism from neighborhood groups who contend it will destroy a vibrant area and displace residents and businesses.

Samuel Turvey, chairperson of RethinkNYC, a transportation and land use advocacy group, said the plan is misguided because it fails to turn Penn Station into a through-running facility where trains would pass through to other areas of the city, rather than turning around and returning to their origin or sitting in rail yards.

Turvey called the plan “a very ugly replacement theory where local residents, small businesses and historic structures are being cast to the winds with the help of the state and city.”

The Real Deal 

City and state officials have come to terms on paying for the renovation and expansion of Penn Station — some of it, anyway.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams announced on Monday an agreement over how the city will collect property taxes from the 18 million square feet of construction planned on sites surrounding the station.

As expected, the city will continue to collect the property taxes it receives now on the development sites, increasing by 3 percent each year. It will also get payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs, from the developers of each of the 10 future towers; the mechanism allows money to be directed to a specific purpose, in this case Penn Station work, rather than go into the general fund.

The property owners will not pay traditional property taxes on the increased value of the land for an extended period of time. The city will not collect the full property taxes on these sites until the agreed-upon contributions to the project are met or after 80 years, at the latest.

The PILOTs will cover 12.5 percent of the estimated $7 billion cost of renovating Penn, and of the possible expansion of the station, reportedly a $12 billion project. The payments will fully offset the cost of public realm improvements, such as street and sidewalk work, and will take care of 50 percent of the expense of transit work, including underground concourses and new subway entrances.

Adams called the deal a “win-win” for New Yorkers.

The announcement does not include many details on the expected value of the PILOTs, nor how they will be distributed between the renovation and expansion. It also does not specify how much the state expects to make from the sale of development rights in the neighborhood.

State officials released a copy of the financial framework late Monday afternoon. Opponents have complained that the project’s finances lack transparency.

Elizabeth Marcello, a research analyst with Reinvent Albany, a watchdog group that has been critical of the state’s plans for Penn, said the announcement further blurs the lines between the expansion and renovation of the station.

“There’s still a lot of glaring questions we don’t have answers to,” she said.