WPCNR TAPPAN ZEE NEWS. By John F. Bailey. July 25, 2012:
In a lohud.com webcast that went down after the first twenty minutes due to unexplained technical difficulties, Larry Schwartz, Secretary to Governor Andrew Cuomo, and Thomas Madison , State Thruway Authority Executive Director, made clear that a Tappan Zee Bridge cross-Rockland, cross-Westchester Bus Rapid Transit system will not become reality for years.
The form the BRT lanes promised on the new Tappan Zee Bridge will take after they touch the Rockland and Westchester shores has also not been decided. That massive undertaking will only take shape after the state conducts meetings with community officials all along the route. Schwartz emphasized the state wanted to proceed forward working directly with the communities. This, coming after the New York State Thruway has been involving communities in presentations, drawing up plans and taking their comments the last ten years, as a cost of $280 Million.
The moderator,Nancy Cutler, Lohud Rockland County Opinion Editor, asked directly if there been any decision about whether to extend the promised BRT Lane piecemeal (across Westchester County and Rockland Counties) or across the counties, Schwartz said
” I think the commitment is to not make any predertermined decisions but to work with the Rockland County Executive, the Westchester County Executive, their staffs, as well as the local elected officials in the community, the business community, the transit advocates, and the civic associations to figure out what makes sense, what’s needed and what will be used (ridden). “
“We’re going to have as many meetings with the community and the different stakeholders here in the lower Hudson Valley region as needed. We’re targeting now between 50 to 100 (meetings), but if we need to do 150, whatever number we need to do, this is an on-going process. Governor Cuomo has made it clear that he wants the process to be open and transparent now and throughout the construction phase of the new Tappan Zee Bridge. That’s why we’re here in this ongoing effort to establish an open line of communication, to get input and feedback , to learn to listen, and also to be responsive to the concerns and questions that Westchester and Rockland residents have regarding our building a new Tappan Zee Bridge.”
Schwartz promised to do a better job “in terms of our openness, our transparency, and making sure we have a constructive dialogue.”
He said..”In addition to being transparent, we need to be honest, trustworthy, straightforward and credible. That’s the governor’s task to me and to the project team here in not making commitments the state will not be able to keep.”
Madison said the build first with transit inclusion was the best solution: “a brand-new structure that would not preclude any transit option for the future, and this was central to the governor’s vision for moving forward with the Tappan Zee Bridge project: let’s build a bridge now; build a bridge we can afford today, but make the necessary investments today that make a commitment today that in the future we will not preclude any transit option on the bridge.”
Schwartz noted on BRT feasibility:
“even on an incremental (construction) basis, it’s going to be cost.y that One of the proposals we presented today was a Suffern to Tarrytown BRT System that would cost $1.9 Billion, depending on how you construct it. SomeBODY has to pay for that. We have to find the money. Governor Cuomo has made it clear we have to move forward with the bridge, and we have to do this project in the most financially feasible and affordable way, that doesn’t have an impact on the taxpayers, and minimizes the impact on the toll-payers. The governor’s committed to transit; he’s certainly committed to transit on the bridge; he’s committed on working on transit solutions off the bridge…there’s a lot of ideas out there some of those ideas are going to have significant community impacts and I think we need to do a better job of educating and informing the community, when you build a BRT what that really means in terms of not only costs, but community impact. In 1997, they talked about widening I-287 to include HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes…there was a lot of community outcry from Greenburgh, Elmsford, and White Plains and Governor George Pataki dropped the idea.”
An engineer on the panel Mark Roach, said the key to making BRT a success was reliability which could only come from dedicated bus lanes.
When the complete discussion is available, WPCNR will follow up with more coverage of the rest of the discussion. At the time when the feed went down on Internet Explorer from the lohud site, there were approximately 325 viewers
Tonight at 6 PM at the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, 735 Anderson Hill Road there will be another forum with state officials to discuss Tappan Zee Bridge issues. Thursday there will be one in Rockland County at the Rockland Community College Cultural Arts Theatre, 145 College Road, Ramapo.