Transportation and Cornell's NYC Tech Campus

The failed New York City Olympic bid has been on my mind lately as we approach the dates of the summer games. The proposal had a bit of Robert Moses-era grand scale planning and promises of civic infrastructure improvement that have been largely absent in the City since Moses retired. That may be a good thing—many of his projects did not turn out so well for either the City or its residents, and who knows how things would have turned out had we won the bid.

Aerial view of proposed Olympic Park in Queens (NYC2012).

My own involvement in the Olympic bid was limited to an informal advisory role and I am pleased that some some of my ideas were adopted by the designers. But the planners often sought to impose their grand designs on skeptical and at times hostile neighborhoods. When they backed off a little and listened, the plans were improved. When they ploughed on and fought, rejecting and ridiculing suggested alternatives, they not only lost, but also ended up adopting some of the ideas they had summarily and forcefully rejected, losing much of their credibility in the process. I think that this failure, particularly when it came to the location of the main stadium, contributed to the rejection of the bid.

When planning big projects in New York, developers need to be open to ideas from critics; particularly those who are not NIMBY naysayers but who genuinely want to help make projects work better with existing neighborhoods. True, not every idea is worthwhile, and we all know about too many cooks and design by committee. Still, projects often benefit from second looks by outsiders and careful review of critics may generate great ideas that enhance a project. And developers should be careful : one never knows when you may be forced to adopt the same alternative that you were so anxious to disparage in the process of discrediting your critics. It can be very awkward if you ridiculed that which you now embrace.

Rendering of the NYC Tech Campus
Cornell University/SOM Architects

The first truly transformative project in the City since the Olympic bid is the NYC Tech campus to be built on Roosevelt Island by Cornell University and the Technion. I'd like to offer some unsolicited (hopefully constructive) advice, exploring the challenge of transportation, as it relates both to the construction and ultimate use of the new campus, and how these will impact on adjacent neighborhoods. This is a great project, and I hope it succeeds, but that there has been little public discussion of these issues, so here goes.

Roosevelt Island Bridge (wikipedia)

Roosevelt Island is currently served by a single vehicular bridge, which carries cars to a central garage near the north end of the Island. There is a single main street that serves the residential buildings and some service roads, but this is hardly going to work as a main artery to and from the campus at the south end. While most employees and students will likely use public transportation, how will the campus accommodate those, including visitors, who come by car? Will they park in the garage and take a shuttle bus? If so, is there enough capacity to accommodate the influx? 

Roosevelt Island Parking Garage (courtesy RooseveltIsland10044.com)

There are three forms of public transit that currently serve the island: a bus that connects to the Astoria elevated train, the tram, and the F train which connects to stations along Sixth Avenue, Brooklyn, and Jamaica. There is no easy subway connection to Midtown East, at least until the Second Avenue Subway is extended south of 63^rd Street (and even then, while a tunnel exists, there are no current plans to run trains from Queens down Second Avenue). While several other subway lines cross the island, none have stations and it is presumed to be prohibitively expensive (or given the grade requirements, near impossible) to add stations to any of these tunnels, though this should certainly be explored.

While one study proposed a pedestrian bridge connecting Manhatan to the north side of the Island, another option for pedestrian and bicyclists would be to restore elevator service from the Queensborough (Koch) Bridge. Younger New Yorks may not realize it, but (like all East River bridges), the Queensborough was not built primarily for cars, indeed there were few cars on the road in the 1920s. The upper level was for pedestrians and elevated rail, connecting Queensborough Plaza to the Second Avenue El (if you know where to look, one can still see remains of the rail lines). The lower level was for cars, wagons and the outer two lanes on either side were dedicated to trolley service (the trolley terminal still exists under Second Avenue). An elevator allowed pedestrians, trolley riders (and even cars and trucks) to descend from the bridge to the island below (the elevator building was torn down in 1970, the trolleys abandoned in the late 50s after the bridge to Astoria was completed). 

Evolution of the design of the Queensborough Bridge (Greater Astoria Historical Society)

Elevator and storage building on Welfare Island
(Greater Astoria Historical Society)

Trolley station seen from the stairway to the upper level pedestrian lane. An underpass connected this station to the elevator on the other side.(www.nycsubway.org)

Since the outer lanes are now used for pedestrians and bicyclists, building a new elevator makes a great deal of sense, and unlike the tram, would connect riders and walkers to both boroughs. In theory, it might be possible to use one of the outer roadways and a freight elevator for deliveries of goods, as was done in the past, though dedicating such a road to this use strikes me initially as a poor use of a major transportation resource.

The most logical and inexpensive, new links are apt to be ferries. Roosevelt Island is ideally suited for water shuttle service: it is close to both Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan, and it is narrow (so that no building is far from the shore). The demand for long-term ferry service will have to be gauged of course, but the need for water-borne transportation during construction and for the delivery of goods once the campus is built will be significant.

Presumably modern ferry service would be nicer than
this boat to what was then known as Blackwell's Island
(New York Public Library)

Bringing trucks in through Astoria and the north end of the island would be a nightmare for residents and businesses on both sides of the river. The amount of traffic, with its noise, delays, and pollution, would quickly sour any hopes of a positive town-gown relationship and would likely cause damage to the infrastructure. There may be other alternatives, but the city will need to quickly develop a plan that meets the needs of the university without trampling on the quality of life of everyone else in the community.

Even after the entire campus is built, there will be a need for alternative transportation: universities get deliveries and most normally come by truck. Figuring out a way to regularly transport equipment, furniture, books, food and more without overwhelming the existing infrastructure will be a challenge. A receiving center in Queens or Manhattan with a transfer to ferries is certainly one alternative.

Things also need to get off the island. One significant item is trash. Even a green campus produces waste: recyclables, compostables, reusables and landfill-bound waste. Unless the campus plans to handle all of these on-site, it needs a plan to handle waste without all the normal trucks. One idea would be to extend the technologically advanced waste system already in place on the Island. This system uses vacuum tubes that can sort and collect waste from each building and bring it to a central location. It has been in use since the island was first developed for residential buildings in the 1970s and works great. Newer versions can handle source-separated waste and it would be a major quality of life enhancement for the entire island if the new campus used the system. (Here is a nice video on how it all works)

Nature Abhors a Vacuum from gregory whitmore on Vimeo.

It will also be interesting to see what, if any, internal transportation Cornell will provide, beyond encouraging the very “green” options of walking and bike riding. Given the distance to the subway station, will the campus have a shuttle bus, horizontal elevator or other futuristic people mover system to whisk people from the south end to the train and tram station? No word yet, but a well designed system could also help with deliveries and the need to efficiently move items large and small around campus.

The automated WEDWay Peoplemover uses a very energy efficient, track-embedded linear induction system with no moving parts (except the vehicle wheels). Here it's an amusement park ride, but larger versions run in airports and subway systems. (http://nice-vintage.blogspot.com/).

I hope that the planners are already ahead of me on the transportation issues. Perhaps they have come up with other, more creative and effective options. If so, I look forward to hearing more. But just in case, I offer these ideas in the spirit of constructive advice to the planners of a great project with incredible potential for New York. 

Komen and Planned Parenthood? A Case Study in Poor Strategic Planning.

What did Komen do wrong?

Most of the commentaries I've seen about Komen and Planned Parenthood are written either from the perspective of those who oppose the initial decision to terminate the relationship or those opposed to the reversal; largely along pro-choice and anti-abortion partisans. But what I haven't seen is an analysis of how Komen handled the matter from an objective POV. Here is where I think Komen erred.

1. If you are going to end support for cancer screening at a nationwide network, you need to have a plan in place to replace the services so that there is continuity of care. The replacement must cover the same catchment areas and populations and should expand, not cut back, the level and scope of care. More people, especially in vulnerable populations, should be served, and at the same or better price point. And since many people utilize Planned Parenthood for other reasons and are thus many who would not otherwise seek screening are encouraged to get screened, the new provider should also be able to demonstrate that they will be able to get the same referrals. Komen was vulnerable because they had no "Plan B" ready to go when they made their announcement and it was clear that many people would lose access to care.

2. If you are going to terminate a relationship, it is too late to assume you can do so quietly. Social networking has changed everything and it is now impossible to control the message, how it is released, or how the story will be played. The days of media just reprinting press releases without comment are over, forever. And anything you have said or done in the past is going to be found, put out there and will come to haunt you. Don't even bother trying to keep things quiet. It only creates suspicion.

3. As a corollary, be honest and credible in the rationale you give. Nobody, not those who supported Komen's decision and certainly not the opponents, believed for a nanosecond Komen's excuses for why it cut funding. The lack of credibility, coupled with an alternative explanation that made far more sense given the politics surrounding the decision, resignations, past statements by Komen's staff, etc., made every further statement by Komen's embattled leaders look more ridiculous than the last.

Komen is under no obligation to partner with an organization that its board or staff would prefer to disassociate with. But having effectively partnered with them up until now, if it decided to end that relationship it should have acted differently. A good strategist would have guided them to:

1. Have a viable alternative ready to go
2. Work with, not against social media
3. Be honest and credible in everything you do and say

Had they followed these simple, basic steps, I believe that while there would still be negative reactions and some bad press, they could have blunted the most serious criticism and mitigated the damage to their reputation. Instead, they got a relentless (and successful) campaign that kept them in the news as villains for days and severely damaged their reputation among every group, left, right and center.