State Officials Present West Street Plans

 by Ronald Drenger

Preliminary renderings presented by the State Department of Transportation show alternative visions for the planned West Street promenade, from Chambers Street to the Battery, with a bypass tunnel next to the World Trade Center site, above, and without the tunnel, below. Images courtesy of New York State Department of Transportation/Vollmer Associates.
Although Governor Pataki and Downtown rebuilding officials have declared that they want to create a West Street tunnel as part of the redevelopment of the World Trade Center area, the State Department of Transportation is still evaluating tunnel and non-tunnel options, agency officials said on June 9. But the officials said they believed that the tunnel plan would do a better job separating pedestrians from vehicle traffic next to the World Trade Center site and transforming West Street into a bustling, tree-lined promenade.

At a meeting of Community Board 1’s WTC Redevelopment Committee in the Assembly hearing room at 250 Broadway, the officials provided the most detailed public presentation to date on the planned promenade from Chambers Street to the Battery, though they said that planning was still in its early stages.

Downtown residents closely scrutinized two 26-foot-long color drawings taped to the walls that showed preliminary visions of the project, with and without a tunnel, and some residents raised concerns about the potential impacts of the proposed tunnel on the neighborhood.

Richard Schmalz, the state Depart,ment of Transportation's director of the West Street project, answers questions about the proposed plan to build a tunnel beneath West Street. Photo by Carl Glassman

Another informational meeting on the West Street project, at which members of the public can speak, will be held on June 24, from 2 to 8 p.m., at the U.S. Custom House, One Bowling Green.

Much of the presentation and the subsequent discussion at the community board meeting focused on the portion of West Street adjacent to the World Trade Center site, which the officials said would be turned into a landscaped, pedestrian-friendly area, making it easier for people to cross to and from the World Financial Center and Battery Park City.

The proposed tunnel would run under this stretch, from Vesey Street to Liberty Street, with the tunnel’s northern ramp extending up to Murray Street and the southern ramp ending at Albany Street. Four lanes of traffic, two in each direction, would run through the tunnel, and another

four lanes, in addition to turning lanes, would remain on the surface for cars entering or leaving Battery Park City and the Financial District, and for tourist buses.

The officials estimated that three-quarters of vehicles traveling on West Street, or Route 9A, would use the tunnel.

“Putting 75 percent of vehicles underground makes it possible to have a much more pedestrian-friendly area,” said Richard Schmalz, director of the Route 9A project and Lower Manhattan redevelopment at the Department of Transportation (DOT).

Schmalz and Tim Gilchrist, the department’s director of planning and strategy, also presented a “long tunnel” option, extending almost to the Battery, but said that fewer than a third of vehicles would use it and that they would probably soon eliminate it from consideration.

Without a tunnel (the “at-grade option,” in DOT lingo), about 60,000 vehicles would travel on West Street each day after the area is redeveloped, the department estimates, while if the “short” tunnel is built only about 18,000 vehicles are expected to travel on the surface lanes. About 60,000 people will be crossing West Street each day, the agency estimates.

There would be wide, landscaped pedestrian islands for those people, and a wide walkway between the street and the World Trade Center site.

Artists rendering looking north on West Street, at Liberty.
Looking west on Liberty Street from West street.
South of Liberty Street, planners envision a busy strip with cafés, shops, art galleries and lots of new trees, and the sidewalk on the east side of the highway would be widened considerably, from 8-10 feet today to 35-40 feet, said Heather Sporn, deputy project director.

At the southern end of West Street, a new one-acre park would be created on a deck over the entrance to the underpass that leads around the tip of Manhattan to the FDR Drive.

“This creates a green swath that leads into a much grander terminus than you had before,” Sporn said. “You will really have a connection between the World Trade Center site and what we consider to be a very important place, Battery Park.”

The whole project, she said, “will create east-west connections, enhance north-south movement, and create as much green space as possible.”

The project requires an environmental review and DOT officials pledged to work with the community as plans are refined.

“These are conceptual renderings to start the dialogue with the community board,” said Gilchrist.

Once the government completes the environmental review is completed and makes a final decision about a tunnel, the design phase for the West Street project would take about two years and construction another two and a half years if the tunnel is included, while the at-grade option would take about a year to fully design and 18 months to build, Schmalz said. The total time could be cut by about a year under a proposed streamlined contracting process, he added.

Artist's concept of a proposed park to go atop decking at foot of West Street.

Many Battery Park City residents have opposed the tunnel proposal, saying that construction will be disruptive, that the finished product will cause congestion and pollution and impede vehicle access into and out of the neighborhood, and that it’s the whole project is simply not worth the money.


The Transportation Department estimates that the West Street project will cost $900 million with the tunnel and about $200 million without the tunnel, and critics point out that major infrastructure projects frequently exceed early estimates.

Community board members, other residents and a representative of Councilman Alan Gerson raised some of their concerns at the community board meeting.

A couple of residents suggested creating more

pedestrian bridges to make it easier for people to cross West Street without a tunnel.

The DOT officials said they planned to look at that option, but cautioned that people often ignore pedestrian bridges and cross highways at grade even if it’s not as safe. The bridges would have to be at least 22 feet high to give enough clearance room for vehicles and “people tend not to go up,” Gilchrist said.

More bridges could also hamper other goals of Lower Manhattan’s redevelopment, the officials said.

“You can put people in pedestrian bridges but it does remove a lot of street life that you maybe want to encourage in this area,” said Sporn. “People stay within this closed system. We want to encourage people to walk, to visit shops, to be on the street. Then you have a much more normal environment.”

Jordan Gruzen, a Battery Park City resident and an architect who has designed several Downtown buildings, agreed.

“I see the short tunnel as the right solution, and I see bridges as the wrong solution,” he said.

But another resident said that planners were neglecting local community interests. “You’re thinking about businesses, cafés and tourists by talking about keeping people at grade level so that there’s street traffic, rather than about giving us a way to get in and out from Battery Park City to Tribeca,” he said.

The officials responded that a vibrant street environment would benefit residents as well as visitors and that the area on top of the tunnel would improve pedestrian access to and from Battery Park City.

The officials also addressed residents' concerns about vehicle access. Drivers from Battery Park City and financial district will easily be able to get onto West Street in either direction or into the Brooklyn-Battery tunnel or the underpass to the East Side, generally using the same routes as they use today, , Schmalz said.

When one resident questioned whether the tunnel would improve traffic flow, Schmalz said that that wasn’t the goal. “It’s less about moving vehicles more efficiently than about separating vehicles and pedestrians and allowing pedestrians to move more easily.”

Another resident raised doubts about how pedestrian-friendly the tunnel plan would actually be, pointing to the Park Avenue underpass, which is considered a nightmare for pedestrians, as a precedent.

Schmalz said that DOT was studying that tunnel, which he acknowledged was poorly designed, especially where it comes back to street level at 33rd Street. He said that on West Street there would be wider medians and “refuge areas” for pedestrians to stop as they crossed the highway.

In response to concerns about disruption during tunnel construction, Schmalz said that traffic on West Street would be maintained while work goes on, “and we will maintain pedestrian bridges or at-grade crossings, and possible even have shuttle services into and out of Battery Park City.”

“We’re still at the conceptual level, it’s hard for me to lay out all the details on the construction level,” he added. “We have to look at the staging, and how we can minimize disruption.”

Some critics complain that the decision to build the tunnel has already been made. In a major speech in April on Downtown redevelopment, Governor Pataki included the tunnel among a list of projects that would be built, and he released a timetable indicating that the tunnel would open by December 2007.

A spokeswoman for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which is overseeing rebuilding on and around the World Trade Center site, said then that the tunnel “has emerged as a preference.”

When asked after the community board meeting if the at-grade alternative was still being seriously considered along with the tunnel option, Schmalz said, “Until we do the environmental review—looking at the impacts on air, noise, access, cultural resources and all the other issues—and then make a decision, they’re equal. But certainly we’re not going to ignore what the governor says.”

“We have to go through the process and in the end show that it’s in fact the right decision,” he added, regarding the governor’s stated preference for the tunnel. “That one, perhaps, is favored, but we have to be fair and equal as we do the analysis.”

Those who can not speak at the June 24 informational meeting can send written comments to Richard Schmalz, Project Director, Route 9A/Lower Manhattan Redevelopment, 21 South End Avenue, New York, NY 10280.