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January 30, 2008
Ravitch: MTA obfuscates full cost of West Side Rail Yards project
Atlantic Yards Report
During a panel discussion last night, Richard Ravitch, former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, criticized how the MTA is going about planning for the Hudson Yards project and the West Side Rail Yards.
Norman Oder was there, and he applies Ravitch's criticism to point out shoddy practices in allocating civic resources for Atlantic Yards:
Imagine if someone like Ravitch had blown the whistle on the "extraordinary infrastructure" loophole in the Atlantic Yards Memorandum of Understanding, which opens the door for increased public spending. Imagine if anyone with civic responsibility beyond some Brooklynites criticized the Bloomberg administration for more than doubling its announced pledge of $100 million to support Atlantic Yards.
Oder also speculates as to how long it might actually take to build Atlantic Yards, based on estimates for the West Side rail yards:
Juliette Michaelson, Senior Planner, Regional Plan Association, suggested that the rail yards will take "two or three decades to be built out."
Given that the project would involve about 12 million square feet of development, as opposed to 8 million square feet for Atlantic Yards, a rough extrapolation suggests that AY would take not the announced decade but 14 to 20 years to build--which is what even those associated with the project acknowledge in unguarded moments.
Posted by steve at January 30, 2008 6:32 AM