From the Neighborhood Retail Alliance:
NYSDOT has finally responded to the NRDC request in a letter dated July, 2, 2010-but is claiming that there is no need for an independent review: "The NEPA documents that are being developed are an Environmental Assessment and a revised Access Modification Report....We understand the request for an independent review but believe that working closely with NYCEDC, we can assure that the data will be based on sound data."
This is, without a doubt, a simply breathtaking assertion in the light of the contradictory and fallacious submissions from the very development corp that is now been made a valued collaborator with the state agency empowered to render fair and accurate judgments in these kinds of matters. It is, at the same time, inexplicable in the light of the Ketcham findings that the Van Wyck Expressway cannot accommodate even a tiny fraction of Willets Point traffic. The only way to do so would be to widen the expressway to four lanes in each direction for several miles. NYSDOT simply does not have the money to do this and the cost of widening the elevated structures would total a billion of dollars or more, another subsidy to developers when critical transportation projects all over New York State are being shelved.
All of this implies a gross negligence by NYSDOT of its statutory oversight responsibility-and indicates that the agency, instead of clearing the air-as NRDC suggests-through an independent review, is actively colluding in a bag job; as its resistance to WPU's freedom of information requests dramatizes quite well. The question now is where does the FHWA stand? Will they really rubber stamp this buffoonery or will they step up and kill what has already been demonstrated as an abject failure?
Showing posts with label NRDC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NRDC. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Development costs hidden from public
From the Neighborhood Retail Alliance:
The question of whether or not the Willets Point development will ever get off the ground is much more an imponderable today than it was-pre recession-two years ago. In the first place, with the city out of funds, services being cut, and lay-offs looming, the cost of the development would appear to be prohibitive, and in any case hard to justify. The fact that the city's lap dog EDC has yet to lay out these costs honestly, indicates that it fears sticker shock in the citizenry.
In addition, the issue of traffic-one that wasn’t really raised with any precision during the ULURP process-has become crucial. In the first place, the development, according to the city’s own court papers, cannot be built without the approvals for ramps off of the Van Wyck Expressway. That approval process, conducted by both NYSDOT and the Federal Highway Administration, has revealed that there are serious problems with the data submitted by traffic consultants hired by EDC. The process is so tainted that the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has written to the regulatory authorities calling for an independent traffic study under the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act.
What is totally, clear, however, is that-now that Willets Point United has become engaged-is that the process will be drawn out and thorough, with an independent review of the traffic a very real possibility. This call for transparency and independence is being seconded by a variety of local civic groups, organizations concerned with the cumulative impact of, not only the Willets Point traffic, by all of the traffic generated by scores of projects in the vicinity of the Iron Triangle.
The more that the folks become aware of the true costs of developing Willets Point-and this includes the massive traffic that it, and other local projects, will generate, the less likelihood that the project will ever get off the ground. But given all of the serious questions raised above, it should be incumbent on all elected officials to endorse a moratorium on Willets Point development-particularly the use of eminent domain-and a call for a comprehensive and independent traffic study that will underscore the real impacts that all of the communities of Queens will be facing in the future.
The question of whether or not the Willets Point development will ever get off the ground is much more an imponderable today than it was-pre recession-two years ago. In the first place, with the city out of funds, services being cut, and lay-offs looming, the cost of the development would appear to be prohibitive, and in any case hard to justify. The fact that the city's lap dog EDC has yet to lay out these costs honestly, indicates that it fears sticker shock in the citizenry.
In addition, the issue of traffic-one that wasn’t really raised with any precision during the ULURP process-has become crucial. In the first place, the development, according to the city’s own court papers, cannot be built without the approvals for ramps off of the Van Wyck Expressway. That approval process, conducted by both NYSDOT and the Federal Highway Administration, has revealed that there are serious problems with the data submitted by traffic consultants hired by EDC. The process is so tainted that the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has written to the regulatory authorities calling for an independent traffic study under the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act.
What is totally, clear, however, is that-now that Willets Point United has become engaged-is that the process will be drawn out and thorough, with an independent review of the traffic a very real possibility. This call for transparency and independence is being seconded by a variety of local civic groups, organizations concerned with the cumulative impact of, not only the Willets Point traffic, by all of the traffic generated by scores of projects in the vicinity of the Iron Triangle.
The more that the folks become aware of the true costs of developing Willets Point-and this includes the massive traffic that it, and other local projects, will generate, the less likelihood that the project will ever get off the ground. But given all of the serious questions raised above, it should be incumbent on all elected officials to endorse a moratorium on Willets Point development-particularly the use of eminent domain-and a call for a comprehensive and independent traffic study that will underscore the real impacts that all of the communities of Queens will be facing in the future.
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