Is NYC as Transit-Oriented As We Think?

M II A II R II K · #1 Posted **Apr 1, 2018, 11:08 PM**

Is NYC as Transit-Oriented As We Think?

March 27, 2018

By Moses Gates and Sarah Serpas

Read More: http://lab.rpa.org/nyc-transit-oriented-think/

Quote:

A recent bill in California that RPA has been following – SB 827 – would propose minimum transit density standards not just in major cities, but statewide: 8-story buildings on wide streets within a 5-minute walk of mass transit, 4- or 5-story buildings on narrower streets or those within a 5-10 minute walk. It didn’t take long before people starting figuring out exactly where this might apply in places like Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

- We decided to see what would happen if similar regulations were applied to New York City. What we found was surprising – New York’s zoning isn’t as transit-friendly as you might think. Even though you would think that given the fierce need for housing here, and the premium most people are willing to pay to live near a subway, that the City would promote the creation of at least slightly larger buildings near transit. But, our research found that there are still lots of places in the City that are just not zoned for the density that their transit proximity might suggest.

- First, we had to figure out which parts of the city an SB 827-like provision would cover in New York City. SB 827 would apply to parcels within ½ mile of “a major transit stop” or ¼ mile of a “high-quality transit corridor.” And the bill defines a “high-quality transit corridor” as one with rush-hour bus service every 15 minutes – a definition which would cover almost all of the 5 boroughs. So we decided we’d focus on any place that was within ½ mile of “major-transit stops,” meaning subway or commuter rail, and we subtracted Landmarks and Historic Districts.

- This doesn’t mean hug swaths of Brooklyn and Queens would be likely to get redeveloped. After all, SB 827 only allows 4 or 5 story buildings on residential streets, so a developer probably isn’t going to spend the time and money to tear down a three-story building to build a four-story in its place. So our final filter was to find only areas where it might be feasible to build something larger than is currently allowed or already exists. For this we looked at places where a building twice as large would be allowed under the standards of the California bill.

- These are the places where we are really not utilizing our transit infrastructure. Places like Woodside and Windsor Terrace, with 20-minute subway commutes to the largest job center in the country, are zoned for less than half the density that would be allowed on transit routes through the entire state of California under their proposed Transit-Oriented Development bill. There are even places – like Forest Hills North and parts of Midwood – which currently only allow large single family McMansion development despite being within walking distance of express subway stops like 71st-Street Continental or Newkirk Plaza.

.....

Next we narrowed our search to only parcels where either the allowed zoning or the existing building is less than what would be allowed if California’s SB 827 were applied

Potential parcels for redevelopment with SB 827-like zoning

Crawford · #2 Posted **Apr 1, 2018, 11:16 PM**

Headline is stupid. The headline should be "Is current NYC zoning code as transit-oriented as we think"? Transit orientation is typically defined as some measure of transit share, not whether or not potential buildings can rise to a particular height.

I don't think the typical person thinks much about zoning intricacies, so not sure how to answer. Certainly NIMBYs have made development unnecessarily restrictive in much of the city. Whether potential zoning relates to existing ridership is a different question.

Hudson11 · #3 Posted **Apr 1, 2018, 11:51 PM**

also, NYC's transit system, particularly rail (the main catalyst of TODs), extends well beyond the borders of the city directly to Long Island, Westchester and Connecticut. These places are providing more affordable yet still transit-friendly places to live in urban or urban-esque population centers. New Rochelle, for example, is exploding with development. A new residential highrise recently topped out and 7 more highrise projects, some including two towers, are in the development pipeline.

emathias · #4 Posted **Apr 2, 2018, 12:52 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crawford

Headline is stupid. The headline should be "Is current NYC zoning code as transit-oriented as we think"? Transit orientation is typically defined as some measure of transit share, not whether or not potential buildings can rise to a particular height.
...

It's a problematic comparison, but I think you miss a chunk of why that is. Modern code almost never allows the construction of what might be called "bed density" approaching anywhere near what was allowed 75+ years ago like a very large chunk of New York housing stock was. So, for example, an ADA-compliant 8-story building in California with average 2-bedroom unit sizes of, say, 900 square feet (still small by US standards overall) and wide halls elevators and more building space dedicated to modern amenities, will probably have fewer people actually living there, available to take transit, than a 120 year old New York 5-story walk-up building with narrow halls, no elevator, 600 square foot 2-bedrooms, and the extent of its "amenities" are free heat from the boiler in the basement.

So it's really not a valid comparison to compare un-built California modern buildings to long-time New York buildings. There are soooo many differences that make the comparison nearly useless. If they wanted to see the impact for a useful comparison to New York, they have the density data for New York at the Census block level, so they should be able to, relatively easily, generate projections for Census blocks fully built out based on California's new law and then populate those buildings using comparable data from Los Angeles or San Francisco to understand how actual Californians are likely to reside in such buildings.

My guess is that to get density levels comparable to those in Manhattan and Brooklyn and the south Bronx, a given city would likely need to construct buildings of double the height because the "bed density" would be about half on a per-square-foot basis.

the urban politician · #5 Posted **Apr 2, 2018, 1:49 AM**

NYC is obviously more transit oriented than any other American city, but that's not saying much.

Manhattan is really the place where transit dominates.

Not only did I live in NYC, but my entire father's side of the family lives there--mostly in Queens and Long Island. Anybody of means in Queens pretty much drives everywhere.

During the years I lived in Queens I used the subway because I believed in mass transit. But that was only when my destination was Manhattan or Jamaica Van Wyck. Otherwise, of course I had to drive.

Crawford · #6 Posted **Apr 2, 2018, 1:58 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Not only did I live in NYC, but my entire father's side of the family lives there--mostly in Queens and Long Island. Anybody of means in Queens pretty much drives everywhere.

This is mostly true, outside of the most urban sections of the borough, but Queens has higher transit orientation than basically anywhere in the U.S. outside of NYC.

So if Queens is "auto-oriented", then the entire U.S. is "auto-oriented" excepting Manhattan, Bronx and Brooklyn.

the urban politician · #7 Posted **Apr 2, 2018, 2:37 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crawford

This is mostly true, outside of the most urban sections of the borough, but Queens has higher transit orientation than basically anywhere in the U.S. outside of NYC.

So if Queens is "auto-oriented", then the entire U.S. is "auto-oriented" excepting Manhattan, Bronx and Brooklyn.

Queens is relatively auto-oriented.

And America is too

And that's how things are today, at least.