Monday, November 07, 2005

DEIS: Summary of alternatives; No action alternative

NO ACTION ALTERNATIVE

Draft EIS states:


Lots 12 and 13D would be removed with the construction of Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market, resulting in a loss of parking as compared to today.

Unlike the proposed project, the No Action Alternative would not displace parkland, nor would it cause a temporary loss of recreational facilities in the project area during construction. However, the No Action Alternative would not result in a 4.63-acre net increase in accessible open space, including 5.82 new acres of recreational waterfront parks and esplanade that would be provided as part of the proposed project. Therefore, although the No Action Alternative would not result in significant adverse impacts on open space, it would not provide new and enhanced recreational facilities and would, therefore, not have the benefits to parklands that
would be realized with the proposed project.

The No Action Alternative would result in the same volume of auto trips being generated to and from Yankee Stadium as would the proposed project.

The No Action Alternative would not result in an increase in parking facilities or parklands in the vicinity of Yankee Stadium. The waterfront would not be developed under the No Action Alternative, so that approximately 261,000 square feet of retail space would be constructed on this site, as proposed in the Bronx Terminal Market Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

New York City would continue to collect rent on the existing stadium, but would spend money for stadium upkeep, leading to a direct deficit of $77 million over a 30 year period under the No Action Alternative.

However, since the No Action Alternative would not provide new public open space along the Harlem River, it would not provide for the new visual resources that would be realized with the proposed project.

The No Action Alternative would not result in the removal of mature street trees or the alteration of existing parkland, Yankees fans driving to the stadium would continue to circulate excessively through the area in search of hard-to-find parking spaces on-street would not be expected to generate new traffic.


Response:

The “no action” alternative reads like it is the best alternative for the community. The community would get to keep all of its well-used and well-loved parkland. Plus certain already programmed parks improvements would get built anyway. No mature trees will get chopped down. There would be no adverse neighborhood or business impacts. Traffic would probably not get any worse than it already is.

The only bad impacts would be to the Yankees. They would lose some parking because of the Gateway Center project at the Bronx Terminal Market site. This would probably make it harder for some fans to find parking for the game, so they’d have to either carpool with other fans or take public transit to the site, which is what they should be encouraged to do anyway.

The existing, cramped conditions at the stadium would continue. The Yankees would have to share a weight room with the opposing team. The press would have to sit with the fans. Expensive luxury seating, restaurants and parking couldn’t be added to the stadium to generate more revenue for the team. How could the community (one of the poorest zip codes in the country) be so insensitive to the needs of the wealthiest team in baseball? It smacks of injustice.

4 Comments:

At 2:54 PM, Blogger * said...

Lukas Herbert is right: the “no action” alternative reads like it is the best alternative for the community. And while Save Our Parks is not against the Yankees updating their present stadium, or even building a new one (BUT ONLY IF IT IS SOUTH OF 161st STREET!) if it is a choice of "no action" or stealing our parks, we will take "no action" any day.

But as we have said, the DEIS is an extremely dishonest document. And as 157th Street, south of the present stadium, is a pedestrian street already, and Ruppert Place is little more than an underused driveway, it is obvious to anyone who has spent more than a couple minutes investigating that area of the stadium that there exists an obvious solution to the Yankee's stadium woes: add your 65 foot wide concourse to these two facades of the stadium.

This type of renovation work could even be done with the Bronx Bombers hosting games throughout the reconstruction. If they completely rebuilt the Triborough Bridge without shutting it down, I am sure a solution can be found for Steinbrenner to have his cake and eat it too.

They are doing wonderful things with engineering and construction these days!

Adding a Metro North station will alleviate a lot of demand for parking. And a more developed ferry service from Jersey will also relieve a lot of the traffic pressure from Jersey fans. So we could probably give up parking and not be worse off!

But to take a well loved and well used park from a quite impoverished community to give to a billionare convicted criminal so he can build his private enterprise on it, doubling his net worth, is nothing less than perverse. Anyone involved in enabling this plan should be disgusted with himself.

Or herself, naturally.

 
At 11:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Now that you have your victory (the noted news above), I now await to see if you will follow on your word and support a reconstruction of Yankee Stadium at the current site. I like to see the excuses that would come out this day.

 
At 8:24 AM, Blogger * said...

"Now that you have your victory (the noted news above), I now await to see if you will follow on your word and support a reconstruction of Yankee Stadium at the current site. I like to see the excuses that would come out this day."

Absolutely. But we still have to defeat THIS plan. Last night was the first battle. There will be others. And they will be more important.

 
At 10:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The No Action Alternative would result in the same volume of auto trips being generated to and from Yankee Stadium as would the proposed project."

When does bullshit become an outright lie?

How can the DEIS say that the proposed project will result in the same number of auto trips as the present stadium, when the plan calls for the construction of THOUSANDS of parking spaces.

This throws the credibility of the DEIS's authors into serious doubt. And the DEIS has these types of inaccuracies littered throughout.

Garbage in, garbage out.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home