"I've been on the board longer than anyone in this room," said Community Board 1 member Ray O'Keefe. "This is the worst idea I've ever heard."

The proposal that prompted O'Keefe's remark-and the target of many other invectives hurled during a CB1 Waterfront Committee meeting on May 27-had been offered by Richard Schmalz, director of the Route 9A reconstruction project for the state Department of Transportation.

Schmalz told the committee that commuter buses that routinely-and illegally-park on West Street from Battery Place to Rector Street have to move because of upcoming construction that will turn the bus staging area into part of a pedestrian promenade.

The agency selected two lanes of the FDR Drive adjacent to the South Street Seaport as a designated parking area-with room for as many as 18 buses at a time. Like Route 9A, the FDR Drive is the jurisdiction of the state DOT.

Schmalz called the plan temporary.

"Do I have a permanent solution? No, I don't," Schmalz said. "However, we felt that by giving the buses a place to go at least we had some control over where they would wind up."

"We know it's not going to be temporary," responded Linda Roche, the committee's chairwoman. "It's going to wind up being permanent."

Many of the board members and others at the meeting live near the Seaport and charged that the worst place those buses could park was near their homes, where they would traverse already jammed streets and fill the air with more fumes.

In addition, board members said that the plan flies in the face of a CB1 proposal that calls for a promenade on part of the FDR Drive.

"Instead of getting a promenade, we get a bus parking lot," said board member Paul Hovitz.

Board members also blasted the plan for rewarding bus companies that have long been parking illegally.

"You're talking about publicly funded elevated parking for private companies to make it more convenient for people who live outside of New York City and make it inconvenient for people who live in New York City," shouted John Quinn, a member of the co-op board at the Southbridge Towers residential complex.

Schmalz said the plan would be reconsidered. "We will sit down with the city DOT and discuss alternatives," he said.