http://tribecatrib.com/news/2011/feb...our-buses.html
City Still Uncertain Over Plans for 9/11 Memorial Tour Buses
The Memorial plaza, under construction last month. Below: A rendering of the completed plaza.
Share By Matt Dunning
Feb. 17
Quote:
In less than seven months, millions of visitors will begin flocking to the National Sept. 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site—many of them traveling by tour bus.
That will mean a lot of buses heading for Lower Manhattan, yet the city has only a vague idea what to do with them.
Members of Community Board 1’s World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee on Feb. 14 got a chance to ask transportation and Memorial officials about their plans for all those buses; where they will they drop off tour groups, where they will park, and just how many buses the city’s streets can accommodate, in theory, as they rumble towards Downtown.
Committee members, to their dismay, learned the city is still trying to figure it out.
“There is no concrete plan being presented here tonight,” committee member and Battery Park City resident Tom Goodkind said. “We’d like to know how many buses will be in the area on a daily basis and where they’re going. If we don’t have a plan in place very shortly, we’re going to have problems.”
Indeed, the officials could say only that they were considering several possible drop-off and layover locations, and that they were “working on” placing way-finding signs and doing outreach to tour promoters.
“Our team’s primary objective has been to minimize the footprint, or better yet, the tire tracks of tour buses visiting the memorial and Lower Manhattan,” DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner Luis Sanchez said, adding that tour companies will be strongly encouraged to shuttle passengers to destinations such as Long Island City or Liberty State Park in New Jersey, where visitors can use the subway, PATH train or ferry services to get to the Memorial.
Sanchez showed two maps marked with possible locations for bus drop-offs and interim parking zones. Potential drop locations, he said, could be set up anywhere east or south of the World Trade Center site, between Barclay and Albany Street and from Broadway to the West Side Highway.
Layover zones, which would remain in use until the underground Vehicle Security Center opens in late 2013, are being considered for almost anywhere west of Broadway from Warren Street to Battery Park.
“Nothing has been put on paper,” Sanchez said. “We will need to do a more detailed study once we know what the need will be.”
One possible location for a layover zone, Zuccotti Park, drew criticism from the committee because it would hem in one of the few open spaces in the area.
“It would be a shame to turn over Zucotti Park, which the community fought so hard to prevent from becoming a staging ground for the World Trade Center site, to now have it become a bus depot for three years,” committee chairwoman Catherine McVay Hughes said. She also lamented that the DOT failed to take into account buses, taxis and tour groups bound for Lower Manhattan sites other than the World Trade Center.
“It would be nice to see an overlay to see what those impact will be together,” McVay Hughes said.
Sanchez said it had not been determined how often, if at all, the park’s curb sides would be used to accommodate buses.
“It’s something that will need to be fleshed out,” Sanchez said. “Obviously the first priority is to assign them to Trinity and Church Street.”
City officials and Memorial staff are hoping that a timed reservation system, similar to the one used for the Statue of Liberty, will help lend some order to the deluge of visitors to the site. Joe Daniels, president and CEO of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, announced that passes to the plaza would only be available through advance purchase from the memorial or through select tour companies.
Daniels said companies that disobey city laws would be banned from selling tickets directly to customers.
Daniels also revealed that there would be just one access point to the plaza, requiring visitors to enter at Albany and Greenwich Streets and pass through a welcome center at 90 West Street.
Greenwich Street is still being planned as the primary route for tour buses to reach the Vehicle Security Center at the south end of the site, Sanchez said, though police officials have yet to decide whether security concerns will mean closing the street to vehicular traffic.
The committee also learned that there would be no charge for admission onto the Memorial’s plaza, and that victim’s family members would get first priority for reservations. Special consideration will likely also be given to Lower Manhattan residents, members of the military and first responders, but Daniels said that process has yet to be finalized.
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