Will Williamsburg Choke on Traffic and Overcrowded Trains?

Call traffic and overcrowding the dark underbelly of Williamsburg and Greenpoint development. The MTA's no-brainer of a discovery of how awful the L train has gotten only hints at the problems that will come in the next five-ten years as thousands of new apartments come on line. (The MTA is finally re-introducing old cars to the L to try to increase service, something community advocates have been suggesting for a long time.) Among the most telling statistic offered was that annual ridership on the L shot up from 26,155,806 in 2000 to 30,452,319 last year, and that ridership on the line has practically doubled since 1994.

OnNYTurf presents the compelling case that Williamsburg waterfront development is a planning disaster in the making and that the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the city government:

When the Department of Planning puts together projects like the Williamsburg Waterfront Redevelopment, the policy is to abdicate all responsibility for transportation to the DOT and MTA...Additionally when it comes to alternative transportation, like bicycle use, the DOT and Michael Bloomberg have stonewalled advocates. It is this abdication, indifference, and hostility that have lead to the growing transportation crisis in Williamsburg.

The item has extensive analysis about the city's consistent unwillingness to heed community concerns about density and the impact that new development is having--and will have--on the transportation infrastructure. The city, OnNYTurf argues, is laying the foundations for a transportation and quality-of-life disaster one or two decades down the road. Then again, by the time the consequences become apparent, dealing with the fallout and trying to fix the problem with be someone else's problem.