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WPCNR THE SUNDAY BAILEY. News & Comment by John F. Bailey. August 19, 2007 UPDATED 1 :30 P.M. WITH PIX: At the “Council of Neighborhood Situations” monthly Kvetch Klatch Tuesday evening, (better known colloquially as the Council of Neighborhood Associations which wrings its hands monthly about deterioration of their quality of life in their neighborhoods), Joseph Apicella and Brian Cappelli of Cappelli Enterprises fielded questions and barbs from the mostly southend residents on the City Center, and the Ritz Carlton.
Mr. Apicella & company proceeded to reintroduce the Cappellis’ Station Square project which it occurred to me has virtually nothing much to do with impacting the persons living south of Post Road.
The Chaos Hour (6 to 7 PM) at the Little Station of Horrors.
Why should the residents of the southend and the Northend even care about whether the Station Plaza is built or not? Especially when, based on their questions they have not been paying attention. In all the years this reporter has attended CNA meetings, I cannot recall anyone ever complaining about the Metro North TransCenter. White Plains residents attending these meetings, other than complaining about the ragtag taxi squad, where cabs are shared – an unheard-of process—rarely complain about something they should complain about – the traffic pattern, the inadequate parking facilities, and the gridlock when arrivals and departures peak. Just try jockeying to drop off your spouse in a hurry when you’re slightly behind schedule in the 8 AM or figure out how to pick them up at the 6 PM Chaos hour.
What they should care about is the hour of chaos that takes place every morning and evening rush hour at the White Plains TransCenter (railroad station).
The Cappelli Empire though obviously focusing on the profit-motive in proposing a 4-building, modern transcenter-hotel-office complex there, is right. The station is antiquated, has no grandeur or cachet and does not serve the public it has now. Mr. Apicella pointed out that the MTA and MetroNorth do not think the station is inadequate.
Anyone who attempts to pick up or drop off passengers, or park a car to take the train knows that it is inadequate, inconvenient and dangerous. Impatient drivers waiting to pick up arriving or dropping off commuters, jockey for position to park for a pick up and drop-offers are jammed by shuttles and cabs stopping at the apex of the loop attempting to merge. The backup does a 360 backing out onto Ferris Avenue (top of this picture). It’s a nightmare of exhaust fumes, pedistrians dodging bumpers and persons with rides walking in front of departing taxis.
Part of that inadequacy is laid to the inept management of the facility by the City of White Plains – for years—extending back several administrations. The Delfinos cannot take the full hit on this mess, but the progressive Delfino Administration can once again fix it – if they planned beyond the next week.
Let’s take a look: the taxicabs. The taxi drivers want more fees from the city Taxi Commission and a gas price relief allowance added to their wretched fair structure. However, they give lousy service. The cabs are filthy. The drivers scruffy. They force passengers to share cabs, even though they are not supposed to, and the long line of cabs impedes private automobiles when motorists try to drop off or pick up customers. The cabline in place for years due to really inept thinking on the part of the city – exists mostly on tradition. There appears to be no rationality behind it.
Today, the cabline location makes no sense and is a major inconvenience.
Next let’s look at the plaza. Incredibly there are parking meters in a series of rows for transients to park for limited periods of time. That does not make sense because cars crawl between the rows of parked cars to await arriving passengers. The awaiting cars block parked cars from backing out of spaces. Does that make sense? No, Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. White Plains, it does not – despite what any bureaucrat will tell you. This is bureaucratic design! A Rube Goldberg operation.
Now – the Parking Structure. Depending on who you talk to, there is a 600 person waiting list for slots. This garage should long since been expanded by the city even before the Super Developer arrived to revitalize and save the city. The thing is Mr. Cappelli can only do so much: the city has to supplement his development with a comprehensive infrastructure that can handle the growth. Well, the city is too busy adding rolling stock, burning money on parks they let go into disrepair and repaving streets, and building parking garages to keep their ban on overnight parking rules in effect, provide parking for a hospital that could purchase the parking themselves, and a parking garage for the City Center that they negotiated into for fear of losing the City Center project.
Did they ever think of adding floors to the top of the train station parking garage that exists now at the train station – or the feasibility of same? Did they even look at putting up a parking garage annex spilling over to the fire station 7 – as Mr.Cappelli so astutely suggests? No. No thinking here—for years. When I was commuting to the city a decade ago, that train station garage was already overcrowded and spaces in demand. The 1997 Comprehensive Plan as I recall never even thought of that.
Now The Cappelli Organization has offered a solution – a station makeover, new parking facility, a glass transit center gateway, and the glass complex of new high rise office and hotel buildings to “hub up” the TransCenter area.
Well that is, despite the Cappelli Organization promise of getting the buildings built by 2009, a way off.
However, the city can redesign their station parking now if they had any negotiating skills with the transportation authorities.
There’s more things wrong with the station – you’ve got the Greyhound and Trailways buses picking up in the midst of the influx traffic motoring into the plaza. You’ve got the Bee Line county buses swinging into the bus center across the street. And, you’ve got that big empty Gateway II Lot that could have been built into a parking facility. Did anyone ever think of adding parking at the upper floors of the underused BEE LINE facility? (Just a thought.)
Last but not least are the shuttle buses. There are a lot of these little mini-buses which, because they stop and drop, block traffic, further aggravating the situation for passenger pickup and drop-offs. There are simply too many shuttle buses that contribute to the rush hour gridlock at the transit station.
Two Way Merge Creates Big Time Jam when “Departure Traffic) entering on right into exit to Ferris Avenue, jockeys with cab and pick-up traffic entering from left.
Abandoned former Greyhound Terminal on West Side of Station Not in Use is an obvious solution staring the city in the face for a decade. Why isn’t it used. You even have a functioning traffic light for no traffic (serving only Bronx River Parkway northbound traffic onto Main Street).
Has anyone ever noticed that all the activity at the train station takes place only on the East side of the station? This is ludicrous. I do not know who owns the former Greyhound-Trailways terminal and street on the West Side of the station – but it is not used, ladies and gentlemen.
Why not?
I can hear the excuse now: Not enough entrances up to the platform. So build one. All it takes is one stairway and overpass. Or open a fence right around the underpass going under Main Street.
The traffic powers that be in the city should think seriously about routing all shuttle and cab traffic to this unused Greyhound street and let the cabs kew up there and drop off there. It’s wide with a built-in terminal for AIR LINK, hotel and office complex shuttles — even dare we say it? A Starbucks. This would really allow exclusive private vehicle pick up and drop off on the east side of the station to use the outer loop in the existing plaza (where the cabs are now), which makes much more sense than the private vehicles waiting in the lanes among the cars parked in metered slots in the plaza, don’t you think?
Another possibility that should be looked at is making a continuous one way loop for pickups and drop offs, instead to the two directional loop that exists now.
Considering the concentration of vehicles in that area now at peak pickup and dropoff hours, this needs to be addressed.
Do you know what this Van Is? Signage, advertising of AIRLINK and other shuttles is non-existent at the Train Station. There should be a central shuttle staging area that could be set up on the West Side of the Station at the abandoned Greyhound Depot.
Now, about Air Link – the shuttle bus from the train station to the Airport.
Kenneth Jenkins, the County Legislator told me last week at a County Airport Press Conference that the county shuttle to the airport is taking 60 persons a day. That is about 5 to 6 an hour. He is pleased with that.
This tells me that if the County actually promoted this service intelligently (does the county do anything smart?), you’d get a lot more.
Come on, Uncle Andy – put White Plains Councilman Dennis Power on this one to give that local angle – put him in charge of promoting Air Link. (In fact, the entire White Plains Council should get off their collective hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil, ask no questions, offer no ideas, affordable housing schtick and take an interest in their city problems and the station situation — if they are evening thinking of thumbs-upping the Station Square project Cappelli is reintroducing.)
(Now, since Mr. Power has no expertise in advertising – but then he does not have professional expertise in Environmental Facilities where he now works for you now – he’s a Dennis of All Trades I’ll give him some pointers to start:)
1. Could we put up a highly visible AIR LINK sign at the Train Station? (More than 1)
2. Could we designate a spot permanently where the AIR LINK bus arrives and departs from the Train Station? (Andy, this is what they do in major transit hubs).
3. Could those great public service radio stations of Westchester – WVOX, WFAS, and The PEAK, and HUD, give you some public service spots (10 seconds) – to create awareness of service. Twist a few arms, Andy, you know how to do that.
4. Could we put up some signs at the County Airport about AIR LINK, and a designated pick up and drop off spot at the airport. I did not notice any signs at the terminal entrance – so if you have them – they are not very good signs. Throw the design to Thompson & Bender, they can get them up within a week. How long have you been running AIR LINK without decent signage? (Since it’s inception).
5. Have AIR LINK make well advertised pickups (by reservation) at offices in White Plains. (That could actually have the ancillary halo effect of creating another County Department or bureaucracy, too, Andy).
6. Have an Air Link Hotline so customers could find out about it. (Next one due in, it’s times of departure, etc.)
7. Advertise Air Link in the Yellow Pages.
8. Have Air Link Serve the south end of the city, too.
The Taxi Disgrace
I also have some suggestions for the City on the ongoing Taxi disgrace.
1. Privatize the city cab operation. Put out an RFP and award a franchise. The taxi drivers have been given decades to clean up their act and seem incapable of providing good service, clean service and legal service (obeying the rules). I’d provide limousine, sedan, van service on request, with a dispatch queue at the Train Station.
2. Failing that, inspect the present cabs monthly for cleanliness and order cabs that need an “outside and inside” to a car wash in lieu of a $25 Quality of Transit Ticket. It could be dubbed a “WILO.”
3. Do not allow shared cabs — at all. (This is also a safety issue.)
4. Allow only 6 cabs in the East Side Station plaza at any one time, with cabs parked in a staging area ( perhaps on the West Side of the Station.
5. Clear out a section of the parking meter area for the cabs to park, this would give you a clean, cab free outer loop, and allow persons needing cabs to go direct to the cab area, perhaps a short walk across the lane where the cabs park now.
6. Make all Taxi Drivers where a jacket and tie.
7. Supplement Taxis with Rickshaws for short jaunts to the downtown.
8. Install cab meters and do away with the fee system to areas of the city.
9. Install cab stations in outlying areas of city (at busstops) to encourage transit to the station.
10. In lieu of that Bring back Officer Bill Belosi from retirement and have him sort out the Plaza Mess in the Morning and the evening by his legendary traffic intersection management.
Anyway, that’s one reporter’s opinion on how the station rush hour madness and aggravation could be addressed until the Cappelli Station Plaza is built.
And folks, it is going to be built. Trust me on that one.
