Following passage of bipartisan infrastructure bill, Community Board 9 advocates for neighborhood infrastructure priorities

Upper West Side NY

17 December, 2021

2:17 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY VICTOR SWEZEY DECEMBER 14, 2021 With billions of federal dollars on their way to city and state governments thanks to the recent bipartisan infrastructure bill, Community Board 9 is championing solutions for what it sees as pressing infrastructure problems facing the Morningside Heights and West Harlem communities. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden on Nov. 15, allocates over $1 trillion toward repairing and updating America's roads and bridges, as well as airports, railways, and high-speed Internet capacity. New York state is projected to receive $26.92 billion from the bill. Community leaders feel that the bill has the potential to bring a significant increase in the standard of living for residents of Morningside Heights and West Harlem, but only if the area's needs are effectively advocated for. "You can't just [say], 'This is a good thing, and a good thing should be done,'" Laura Friedman said. She is the president of the Morningside Heights Community Coalition and has been a Morningside Heights resident for 45 years. "You have to … work with the people and form the coalition that can bring it to a successful conclusion." Barry Weinberg, chair of the board of CB9, is leading the push to ensure that the neighborhoods of Morningside Heights, Manhattanville, and Hamilton Heights are represented as negotiations begin over how funding should be allocated. Weinberg made it clear that he is negotiating with officials at all levels of government, as CB9's initiative to address the infrastructure needs of the community overlap multiple jurisdictions and agencies. "We're working with Congressman Espaillat and Congressman Nadler's offices. We'll be working with our state elected officials … and the governor's office to advocate at the MTA that these projects should be prioritized," Weinberg said. "And at the city level, we have to advocate with our city electeds to make the case that … we should address this issue on the city level." Weinberg outlined six major initiatives that CB9 hopes will be accomplished using funding from the infrastructure bill. He described an approach that balanced "priority" and "feasibility," examining what would have the greatest potential impact on the community and then tempering it with concerns over which projects were the furthest along and could be most easily implemented. One initiative that Weinberg believes the community could see approved soonest is the extension of ferry service to the dock on West 125th Street. NYC Ferry's St. George line currently extends as far north as 39th Street in Midtown West, with additional stops at Battery Park City and Staten Island. The opening of a stop at 125th Street would provide Morningside Heights and West Harlem with access to this affordable alternative mode of transportation to Lower Manhattan. "Ferry access might make it easier for working people from Harlem to commute to where their jobs are, and [would] certainly make it more pleasant," Steve Cohen, senior vice dean of Columbia's School of Professional Studies and former executive director of the Earth Institute, said. However, others have doubts about whether ferry service is the most effective use of city funds. "Almost all mass transit needs a subsidy, but ferries need a lot more than others," Thomas Abdallah, deputy vice president and chief engineer for MTA New York City Transit, said. "I'm a little concerned about the cost because at the moment it's not practical." The ferry requires a government subsidy of $10.73 per rider, while the subway costs the city just $1.05. Both cost $2.75 to ride. CB9 has been pushing for expanded ferry access for years. According to Weinberg, the piers necessary to create a ferry stop at 125th Street are included in the Community Benefits Agreement that was negotiated between Columbia and New York state in 2009. Another priority for Weinberg is accessibility upgrades for subway stations, especially along the 1 train. Currently, not a single 1 train stop in Upper Manhattan is compliant with Americans with Disabilities Acts standards for accessibility. CB9 hopes to add elevators on the 1 train at every stop between 110th Street and 157th Street, and on the A, B, C, and D Train at 135th Street, 145th Street, and 155th Street. "Right now what they have are escalators which break down all the time, and they only go from the street to where you pay your [fare]," Friedman said. "So anybody with a disability of any kind, or a senior, or a mom or dad with kids, really has trouble accessing that station." Friedman is one of the founding members of a group she calls the Elevator Lobby, which brings together individuals from various organizations to advocate for increased accessibility in Morningside Heights' subway stations. Its campaign is already seeing results. As recently as October, the New York City Council adopted the "Zoning for Accessibility" amendment to the city's zoning ordinance, requiring developers near train stations to consult with the MTA to set aside easement space for construction of elevators. In addition, an elevator installation is already planned for the 137th Street-City College station, an example Weinberg hopes the city will be eager to follow using the new funding from the infrastructure bill. As a long-term project, CB9 is also pushing for the addition of a Metro-North station on West 125th Street along what is currently an Amtrak line, expanding the community's access to New York City's suburbs by saving the trip to either Grand Central Station or the Harlem-125th Street Station that is currently required for residents of the west side of Upper Manhattan to take the Metro-North. The other priorities on CB9's list—stormwater runoff, low-emission buses, and a resilient electrical grid—are crucial upgrades to New York City's basic anatomy that will help shift the city toward more sustainable infrastructure. They are also particularly salient issues for West Harlem because of the history of environmental injustice in the community. In the creation of its environmental priorities, CB9 has worked in close contact with local environmental activism group WE ACT for Environmental Justice, which has been working for years to call attention to issues of water and air pollution in West Harlem. "We have this wastewater treatment plant in our district. Whenever there are heavy rains that overload the wastewater system, combined sewage stormwater runoff gets injected into the Hudson in our neighborhood, which is incredibly unsanitary for the environment," Weinberg said. In its report "Green Renaissance," WE ACT suggested that the city "use green street designs such as street trees, landscaped swales and special paving materials that allow infiltration and limit runoff." CB9's second sustainability priority is strongly supported by Abdallah, who believes that Columbia's electric bus fleet could serve as a valuable example as New York City tries to pivot toward more sustainable infrastructure. "I'd love to see more interest in inner-neighborhood mobility but using electric vehicles, dedicated bus lanes," Abdallah said. "We've got to figure out how to manage climate change." The third environmentally focused project, the grid upgrade, would link the local subgrid centered at 110th Street and Amsterdam Avenue with an energy-producing wastewater treatment plant and cogeneration plant. This would allow the grid to draw extra electricity from these sources when the grid is facing heavy usage. Beyond the infrastructure itself, other neighborhood leaders have concerns about making sure the construction process yields sufficient benefits for the community. "If there's going to be building going on, how do we get residents looking for employment involved?" Victor Edwards, first vice chair of CB9, chair of CB9's strategic planning committee, and a resident of West Harlem for over 35 years, said. "What can we do to prepare ourselves [for] any major construction that involves construction work?" Edwards sees the lack of employment brought to the community by the CBA as a cautionary tale. "In the [Community] Benefits Agreement there [are] clauses about employment, but when employment is talked about as far as construction, they said, 'Well, you have to be union' or 'You have to be qualified.'" Edwards said. "Most of the community residents at that time didn't fit that, so they were kind of left out." Regardless, Weinberg is confident that if allocated efficiently, funding for the aforementioned projects will have a major impact on the lives of people in the community. "Ask a mother trying to get a stroller down the stairs to the subway, the impact on her life by an elevator to that subway," Weinberg said. "If we had had these sewer and stormwater upgrades before [Hurricane] Ida, think about the amount of people that were caught in those very quickly rushing surface waters who wouldn't have been. Or the children whose asthma [will no longer be] set off by fumes emitted by buses." Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.