A portion of the ceiling crumbled onto the 18th Avenue N train platform this morning. Repairs for the station are not scheduled until October 2014. (Photo by Brian Hedden)
THE COMMUTE: I’m not talking about crime, but rather the other type of safety. Will the subway derail? Will a chunk of the ceiling fall on your head? Will the train fall off of an elevated bridge? Will the platform crumble because of inadequate supports? That type of safety.
If your first reaction is that the chance of something like that happening is slim to none, think again. After all, we rely on government to make sure the food and water we drink is safe and that the subways are safe, too. We do that through periodic inspections of infrastructure and equipment. But are these performed in an adequate and timely manner to ensure we are protected and problems fixed before they become life threatening?
We would like to think so.
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A vintage Brooklyn bus map. Source: Enframe Photography
THE COMMUTE: There are two schools of thought on this. One is that changes should be made incrementally as the need arises. That is known as ad-hoc planning. The other is that changes should be made using a comprehensive approach by periodically studying all the routes for deficiencies, for example, once every 10 years, by performing origin-destination surveys and using other data.
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Yesterday we posted about how the 77-year-old roundhouse that sits just off the tip of the Manhattan Beach peninsula is going to be removed. The roundhouse has been a navigational aid that longtime sailors in our area have relied on. The mariners in our community are very against its removal.
Sailor and community activist Stan Kaplan e-mailed us yesterday to elaborate on why keeping the roundhouse is imperative.
I am advocating for keeping the Roundhouse. As my point of view has been published, I am attaching The US Coast Guard’s current “Notice to Mariners.”
On page 5 at the top, it suggests that using floating aids to navigation can have “varying degrees of reliability.” It also suggests to “utilize bearings from fixed objects and aids to navigation on shore” is much more reliable.
It is my understanding that the Roundhouse is in shallow water. To make safe passage, it will have to be dredged. As it has been suggested, a floating aid to navigation, a.k.a. a BUOY, will have varying degrees of reliability. It would be prudent for the Corp of Army Engineers to put a tower as a replacement. The Roundhouse is a large masonry structure that boats will avoid. This structure has been there for over 70 years, and it will probably last another 70.
View the Coast Guard’s Notice to Mariners [pdf].
Photo by Michael Comeau
Longtime sailors in our area aren’t too thrilled about the city’s plan to get rid of a 77-year-old concrete roundhouse, a part of Coney Island’s Wastewater Treatment Plant’s system that currently discharges treated sewer water into Jamaica Bay.
The roundhouse structure is a diffuser that pushes treated wastewater in various directions, and it sits just off the tip of the Manhattan Beach peninsula. The Army Corps, in conjunction with Department of Environmental Protection, will be replacing pipes that lead to it as part of an 18-month repair job, and installing new underwater diffusers that will render the roundhouse unnecessary. DEP reps said the cost of maintaining the structure outweighs the benefits to boaters as a navigational aid.
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The mayor is unveiling a plan today that may help repair and reopen the Manhattan Beach esplanade, spur dredging of Sheepshead Bay, and make repairs to the Gerritsen Beach seawalls – among scores of other waterfront development proposals.
This plan, called Vision 2020, will open or develop huge swaths of New York City’s beachfronts, riverwalks and marinas and will produce an end result that Bloomberg describes as “one of the most sweeping transformations of any urban waterfront in the world.”
According to the Daily News, the plan calls for spending $700 million over the next three years to buy waterfront land, upgrade beaches, protect wetlands, improve water quality and add more parks in all five boroughs.
The development will likely employ hundreds – if not thousands – which is a good thing, since there will be plenty of unemployed teachers to fill those jobs.
Dredging Sheepshead Bay is expected to be included in the new plan
Southern Brooklyn communities may celebrate a major victory come December when the Department of City Planning releases its final version of the Vision 2020 plan, which outlines the city’s waterfront development goals over the next decade.
After a draft plan from the agency snubbed several communities along Brooklyn’s southern coast, City Planning is expected to embrace a slew of new proposals put forth by local community boards, said Community Board 15 Chairperson Theresa Scavo.
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The Department of City Planning will be holding a public meeting tonight, October 12 to discuss the Vision 2020 “Comprehensive” Waterfront Plan. At this meeting, City Planning will give a presentation, which will be followed by an opportunity for public comment.
Sheepshead Bay and Southern Brooklyn must be heard! As we told you last week, the new Vision 2020 plan outlines development priorities along New York City’s waterfront for the next ten years. And all of Southern Brooklyn was snubbed, giving only a vague suggestions of “exploring” the ideas that community leaders have been saying are critical for the sustainability of our neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Manhattan and Northern Brooklyn waterfronts got scores of commitments to build parks, gardens, museums, boat launches, markets and more.
If you can’t make tonight’s meeting, then submit your comments online so that our concerns are clear.
Public Meeting on Draft Recommendations
Tuesday, October 12, 6 p.m.
Rosenthal Pavilion, NYU Kimmel Center for University Life
60 Washington Square South, 10th Floor, New York, NY
Subway:
A,B,C,D,E,F,V at West 4th St.
R,W at 8th St-NYU
6 at Astor Pl.
Repairs to the Plumb Beach bike path is one of the only local suggestions that made it into the waterfront planning document guiding the next 10 years of development.
The city’s new so-called “comprehensive waterfront plan” ignores the needs of Southern Brooklyn neighborhoods, said Community Board 15 Chairperson Theresa Scavo, and she plans to tell the Department of City Planning that we demand more.
“What they’re pressing right now [in Brooklyn] is Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Red Hook and the Gowanus Canal,” Scavo told Sheepshead Bites. “Look at the things they’re pushing over there. The ‘up-and-coming waterfront’; but what about the one that’s been here for years?”
“Compared to other places, we didn’t get much of anything,” she added.
The Vision 2020 proposal is designed to steer the development and zoning agenda of New York City’s 500-plus miles of waterfront, targeting places for revitalization, development and preservation. It’s currently in its draft stage, and the Brooklyn Borough Board – made up of the Borough President and Community Board chairs – will hear a presentation tonight from the Department of City Planning.
Find out what Scavo will tell City Planning, and what local issues the Community Board wants added to Vision 2020.
Community Board 15 is featuring a speaker tonight from the Department of City Planning to give a presentation on the “Comprehensive Waterfront Plan.” Originally published in 1992, the waterfront plan is a framework for the citywide reclamation of the waterfront, guiding land use decisions along New York City’s shoreline for the last 18 years. Now, as part of the city’s new Vision 2020 effort, the plan is being revisited to provide new opportunities for waterfront improvement. [Read more about the Comprehensive Waterfront Plan and Vision 2020]
The Community Board will also have a public hearing on an enlargement to a Norfolk Street home in Manhattan Beach.
When: March 23 @ 7 p.m.
Where: Kingsborough Community College; 2001 Oriental Boulevard; Faculty Dining Room
Contact: (718) 332-3008
