RIRA President On Blood Drive, Gristedes Complaints, Good Shepherd Renovations, Red Bus Problems & Future Meetings
Image of April RIRA Meeting
1. RIRA Blood Drive on June 19, Roosevelt Island Day. You'll see us at the Saturday market asking you to volunteer. Certainly, donating blood saves and, if that is not enough attraction, there will be apple juice and Oreos afterwards. Up through age 30, I still had been squeamish about donating -- the needle and all that stuff. Then a mentor told me: it's really the right thing to do, think how you can help someone else's life. I got over it. Please consider donating blood. Thanks to Matt Katz for organizing this.
2. Dear Mr. Gristedes, I still haven't heard from you. In my last WIRE column, I complained about spending $300 on groceries, but they were spoiled when delivered an hour later (I did not accept delivery). Your manager refused to refund the money. I called the credit card company to dispute the charge and it still is not resolved. Maybe you could explain to us residents why you think it is OK to deliver spoiled groceries, why your manager finds this to be an acceptable level of service for the community, and why you make it difficult to get a refund.
3. Renovating Good Shepherd Church Plaza. Matt Katz (Chair of RIRA Planning Committee) reports:
Katz welcomed the group, saying that, while the meeting was under the auspices of the RIRA Planning Committee, a formal sub-committee had not been formed and that the meeting was, at least at present, an ad hoc response to Abramson's request to discuss the Good Shepherd Plaza renovation project with community stakeholders. He noted that the invitation list included management and tenant representatives from the building complexes abutting the Plaza; RIOC, RIOC Board and RIRA reps; as well as organizers of the events that use the space. Approximately half of those invited were attending.
Turcic, RIOC Chief Engineer, presented the plan. He said there was little change involved, and that the proposed HVAC upgrade was the only element that requires approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The cooling tower in the Chapel belfry is to be replaced by a ground-level condenser just west of the side entrance that will be covered by a wooden barrier. The red slate pavers are to be replaced, drainage will be reconfigured, bench locations are to be reconsidered and the tall lights will be replaced by ten-foot lights similar to the ones on Main Street and with new eight-foot lights at the west entrance doors.
Turcic indicated that subsidence has caused drainage problems. The north-south-running drains on the east and west sides of the Chapel will remain, but the other north-west-running drain, located near the back of the Chapel, would be replaced by east-west-running trench drains where the concrete stripes now break up the red tile pattern. In addition, the squared-off concrete apron at the eastern (apse) end of the structure would be rounded to conform to the shape of the building. Will there be any interior Chapel work? Turcic responded, "No".
Other questions ... What color the proposed herringbone brick would be? Turcic said it could match the present color with concrete pavers, still broken up by concrete stripes. Why the present red pavers would be replaced using a small herringbone pattern? Turcic said that the interlocking pattern would last longer. When asked about existing stocks of Z-brick, Turcic said there was none left and that it was no longer manufactured. He said that the Plaza sub-base was crushed concrete covered by sand, and noted that two-inch bricks would replace the existing, more fragile one-inch pavers.
Turcic said that Alex Herrera of the Landmarks Conservancy was assisting in the choice of a wooden barrier to camouflage the HVAC installation. Residents provided comments, including asked if it was possible to have no air conditioning. Turcic said the air conditioning upgrade already had been put out to bid (due by April 5). Presently this current air conditioning system is not operational and its replacement won't be completed by this summer. Turcic noted that the existing cooling system was inefficient and would be replaced by a more efficient method that can be directed to the level where people are congregating. He said the new system would cut energy costs by half.
Katz asked the group to consider next steps. Abramson suggested another meeting to discuss design elements such as herringbone brick (or another surface), planters, moveable furniture and so on. She noted that construction would probably start in the fall (September? October?) so as not to disrupt summer activities and would require about three months to complete. Katz noted that the Fall for Arts performances would need another venue in this case.
4. The Red Bus still has problems. This is an ongoing problem for three years. Residents keep providing suggestions and Mr. Martinez (RIOC VP of Operations) ignores them. We complained about this in 2007 and 2008. In 2009, Mr. Martinez agreed to try some experiments. We tried the experiments (which improved the bus scheduling and validated the residents suggestions), but Mr. Martinez chose not to incorporate them into the schedule. These same strategies could be used now so regular bus service is provided ever 15 minutes (rather than two buses back-to-back every 30 minutes). These same strategies would also show why the present bus route (southbound stop on by Riverwalk Common) won't work when the tram returns -- and they don't work now as bus drives do not continue directly from Riverwalk Commons to the subway stop.
Story #1, AWOL on the South End on Saturday: A resident reported the following:
2:17 PM #1 Bus arrived at Riverwalk stop. All passengers disembarked. (0 min)
2:17-2:20 PM - #1 Bus idled at Riverwalk stop. Departed Riverwalk stop. (3 min.)
2:29 PM - #1 Bus arrives at subway stop (9 minutes!!!)
The $1 Million Question: Why did it take the bus 9 minutes to make the "continuous" loop from the Riverwalk stop to the Subway stop???
Story #2, AWOL on the North End on Sunday: Three buses go northbound past Gristede's, do not return for a half hour, even though there is a dispatcher on duty. On Sunday night, about a dozen residents were waiting at Motorgate for the red bus. I arrived at 8:05, others were their 5-10 minutes before me, one bus already has gone northbound. At 8:07, I tried looking at the Nextbus schedule, which communicates with the GPS systems in the buses. During the next 14 minutes, two buses northbound (for a total of 3), only one returned at 8:21. Here's a minute-by-minute summary:
Time Nextbus
8:07 11 min.
8:08 9 min.
8:09 6 min.
8:10 4 min.
8:11 3 min. (a bus coming shortly, but actually 10 minutes away)
8:12 3 min.
8:13 2 min.
8:14 11 min.
8:15 9 min.
8:16 6 min.
8:17 2 min.
8:18 6 min.
8:19 4 min.
8:20 3 min.
8:21 3 min. (bus arrives ahead of Nextbus schedule)
It's clear that this system doesn't help passengers. At 8:10 with a Nextbus prediction of 4 minutes, you might think the bus was Just Around the Corner, but in fact you would have been better off walking because the bus arrived much later than predicted. Likewise at 8:20, if you though you had time to run downstairs from Motorgate or River Road, the bus arrived early and you would have missed your bus.
I spoke to RIOC Board Member Jonathan Kalkin about this. He said there are adjustments and calibration needed for Nextbus, and sometimes the drivers leave the GPS system on while they are taking buses to Manhattan. I pointed out that this explanation might be plausible if we were waiting south of the helix, but there were 2-3 buses already on their way to Octagon, so this isn't a problem with the driver and the GPS, but with the Nextbus system itself. Kalkin and I agreed to work together on these problems.
Overall, there is multiple problems here, and they all land on Martinez' desk:
— there is an ongoing refusal to listen to residents' experiences on what works/fails (Martinez, 3 years experience; residents, 30+ years experience);
— regardless of the demonstrated success of residents' suggestions, he refuses to incorporate them into the operations;
— problems that might be caused by RIOC's staff are ignored and not addressed, e.g., bus drivers improperly maneuvering into the bus loading dock that caused passengers to cross outside of the crosswalk, which might have contributed to the cause of the accidents near the subway
— directing the RIOC traffic engineer to only look at RIOC solutions and not at residents' solutions and concerns
I've spoken to several RIOC board members and they aren't happy about this situation. Regardless of all the politics, the obvious failure here is: RIOC continues to not deliver consistent and reliable red bus service on a simple, 2-mile loop with a half-dozen stops. This isn't rocket science. This a management failure at RIOC.
5. Upcoming RIRA meetings. The next Common Council meeting is May 5 at 8:00 p.m. in the Good Shepherd Community Center. Upcoming RIRA Town Hall meetings (in preparation for RIOC Board meetings) are on April 28 and June 16.
The RIRA President's message is also published as the RIRA column in the 4/10/10 Main Street WIRE.
2 comments :
Am I the only one who thinks that the RIRA report is not the right place for FF's complaint about his experience with Gristedes? Make it a letter to the editor or a blog or something. I am very sure the majority of RI residents don't care much about this.
I am growing tired with his lamenting.
I second that. Your groceries didn't arrive as you thought they should, but it is Gristedes, what did you expect? Don't shop there if you don't like them. There are a lot of other places that deliver groceries for the same or better prices if you don't like Gristedes service.
Also the bus thing is getting pretty old. It's the simplest most discussed bus route in America. For the most part I would say the Red bus has improved a lot since the tram shutdown. I used to be able to get home faster walking from the subway to Manhattan park than taking the bus; not anymore. That being said the small problems that remain shouldn't be tough to fix. When the tram is running again we will have to chose between to situations for the red bus. Either people cross the street at the tram, or they do it at the subway (depending on which way the bus travels). Way more people seem to ride the subway than the tram, and the tram road is less busy than either of the north-south roads, so keeping the current bus route would cause the least amount of people to cross the street. I agree the buses shouldn't idle at Riverwalk or the new tram station.
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