Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Sam Schwartz photo and set by Tracy Collins Following up my coverage of the May 22 public meeting on the Barclays Center Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan, I want to focus on some exchanges that deserve more analysis, given that the questions didn't quite get full answers. I already wrote this morning about one seemingly inadequate answer: whether the halving of on-site parking, and other changes, should have triggered revision of project documents. The answer was no, but the evidence seems otherwise. Below, the embedded video (shot by Jonathan Barkey) is keyed to the specific questions. Disincentives One of the biggest issues looming: What disincentives will prevent people from circling neighborhood streets to look for free, on-street parking? When Community Board 6 District Manager Craig Hammerman read the question, there were some titters from the crowd. Forest City Ratner consultant Sam ("Gridlock Sam") Schwartz answered incompletely, stres...

A key Barclays Center figure, General Manager John Sparks , made brief appearances at two meetings ( morning and evening ) May 22 regarding the Barclays Center Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan. In both cases, he received the exact same introduction by Forest City Ratner executive Jane Marshall, reading from a prepared script. "We engaged with our new colleagues, the arena operators, to develop plans for running the building," Marshall said. "To that end, I want to introduce John Sparks, the general manager of the Barclays Center. As such, he runs the building, and everybody reports to him. Going forward, as John builds his team and we open the arena, there will be more interaction with arena operations and the community, elected officials, and agencies. We want you to meet him. He cannot stay for the entire presentation today, but we thought it was important to put a face to the name. Enter Sparks Photo and set by Tracy Collins Sparks, in his br...

Update: I queried the ESD yesterday about the answer below, and Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, responded this morning: "We will post a corrected answer to this question as soon as we can."  At the meeting May 22 on Transportation Demand Management, officials were asked if, given the changes in the plan, notably the offering of only 541 on-site parking spaces instead of the promised 1100 (driven by the inability to use once-planned stackers ), revisions were required to project documents. Several officials, including Hankin, said no, but that deserved a lot more explanation, given that the parking change, as well as other changes, clearly depart from previous agreements and disclosures. Then again, changing some of the documents might have meant delays, including potential additional environmental review. (State officials and developer Forest City Ratner are currently fighting a court ruling that requires a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statemen...

“We might be able to put a ticket on a MetroCard, but we might not be able to put a MetroCard on a ticket," Forest City Ratner executive Jane Marshall said at a public meeting in May 2011.  And the plan was part of the suite of strategies promised in the   Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments  the developer signed with the Empire State Development Corporation. But Forest City Ratner officials and consultant Sam Schwartz yesterday said it would be impractical to link a MetroCard to a ticket, that it would not serve as a practical incentive, and that many arena-goers already have unlimited ride MetroCards. All of those are plausible, but another angle on the issue should be clear: scrapping the plan would save Forest City Ratner a lot of money. Let's say every ticket were bundled with a MetroCard, with two $2.25 fares . If the arena were chock-full, with 18,000 patrons, that $4.50 fare over 41 home games would represent $3.3 million. But let...

Perhaps 100 people attended last night’s presentation of the Atlantic Yards Transportation Demand Management (TDM) at Borough Hall, a relatively small number. Perhaps it’s because activism around the arena has died down. But it’s more likely because few knew the details of a plan released only yesterday morning. (See slideshow at bottom.) The meeting was cordial and rather low-key; after a presentation by Forest City Ratner consultant Sam Schwartz, reprising his show at a morning meeting, emphasizing the tagline, "Eleven trains, one destination.” Yes, there will be cross-marketing to local businesses, yes there will be additional post-event transit service, yes, there will be pre-paid parking. Yes, the surface parking lot capacity has been cut in half, to 565 spaces, including 24 for the police. (The reduction,  announced early this month , was driven significantly by the surface capacity and the inability to use stackers.) But still many people remained unconvinced that t...

(Here's coverage from the evening meeting, with Q&A .) Sam Schwartz While the MTA and LIRR will add transit service after Barclays Center events to encourage use of the adjacent transit hub, and arena operators are trying hard to educated and encourrage event-goers to use such transit, the long-delayed Transportation Demand Management plan released today by developer Forest City Ratner still left arena neighbors worried. Without residential parking permits or other disincentives to drive, “I think the risk to the community has been elevated,” commented Peter Krashes of the Dean Street Block Association after the bimonthly meeting of the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet, which involves agency stakeholders. While the reduction in the on-site surface parking lot--to 565 spaces (including 24 for the NYPD) from a potential 1100 spaces (with stackers)--”is a good thing,” Krashes said, there’s no “insurance” that the reduction won’t lead to more people seeing free pa...

This morning's Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting was almost exclusively about the Transportation Demand Management plan that aims to get arena-goers to use public transit. But Lolita Jackson, the mayor’s director of special projects (and not quite ombudsman  on quality-of-life issues), for the first time spoke publicly at moderate length, though her remarks were relatively brief and a bit cryptic. A task force of agency officials, Jackson said, has done “three walkthroughs” (presumably beyond the Atlantic Yards site itself) and “did discover some conditions we were able to alleviate very quickly.” The response includes “ some enforcement from NYPD,” presumably to limit parking violations; outreach from Department of Health rodent export Dr. Bob Corrigan to businesses; and an effort to more efficiently collect information regarding project-related issues delivered via 311 calls. Beyond that, Jackson said, work is ongoing to establish protocols regarding arena...

Transportation consultant Sam Schwartz (aka Gridlock Sam) is  well-respected , and for good reason: he has a distinguished career in the public sector and the private sector.  But he also works for his clients, and they come first. And this morning, when, on behalf of Forest City Ratner, he unveiled the long-promised Barclays Center Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan, he wouldn't acknowledge that it was  six months late . (I'll have more about the plan, which, as expected, emphasizes the marketing of transit, in another post. On the plus side, Schwartz said that education has already helped increase the number of expected transit users, and promised to personally warn people not to driver to the arena. By contrast, local elected officials, who've been pushing for residential permit parking and other disincentives to drive, warned that the plan didn't go far enough. Also note: there's a public meeting at 6 pm at Borough Hall today.) Que...

There's a big meeting tonight at 6 pm at Borough Hall for the public to respond to the belated release about the Barclays Center Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan, and Atlantic Yards Watch points out many questions to raise  about fitting an arena into a residential area. How much will we learn from Forest City Ratner consultant Sam Schwartz and associated government agencies? Unclear. But some questions might be answered earlier in the day at the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting at 9:30 am at Borough Hall; I hope to have at least a preliminary report up by the afternoon. Disincentives to drive? The biggest questions regard disincentives to drive, which have not been mentioned so far in official plans: will Forest City, and the involved city and state agencies support an arena parking tax surcharge? will they support residential permit parking? how will they otherwise restrict arena patrons from parking on streets near the arena? AY Watch note...

Last night, on Brooklyn Independent Television's  Intersect , on the BCAT TV Network, Lori Raphael, Director of External Affairs at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, and James E. Caldwell, President and CEO of Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development (BUILD), joined host Brian Vines "for a discussion about job and business opportunities for Brooklynites" as "the Atlantic Yards become the Barclays Center." (The show appears Mondays and Thursdays at 1:30pm & 9:30pm and Wednesdays at 3 pm & 11 pm, on Time Warner 56, Cablevision 69, RCN 84, Verizon 44, and streaming: Channel 3 . It also should be available on the web site as an individual episode.) Given such a focus on opportunities, not to mention the conflation of the Vanderbilt Yard with the Atlantic Yards site, it wasn't surprising that the project was presented as a win-win, with a mild acknowledgment of people who "feel" promises haven't been kept. (Is it just a "f...