- Target:
- Elected Officials, NYPD
- Region:
- United States of America
As many as 33,000 Staten Island and Brooklyn daily express bus commuters, who have some of the longest commutes in the country, travel via the Gowanus Expressway to access work, school, doctor's appointments and other important matters in Manhattan.
These commuters take express buses because they either live in subway deserts, or have very limited transit options, meaning that their express bus trips are a necessity and not a luxury. Due to ongoing abuse by single-occupancy vehicles of the Gowanus Expressway HOV lane and a lack of enforcement, travel times have ballooned two to three hours some days in each direction, making this a serious quality of life issue. Furthermore, we have seen a significant uptick in delays and congestion on weekends, where some trips take over an hour alone just to travel a stretch of roughly five to six miles on the Gowanus Expressway to the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel.
Over the years, numerous solutions have been discussed with elected officials about how to mitigate the aforementioned abuse. Supposedly, camera enforcement is not accurate enough and there isn't adequate manpower for regular enforcement.
We, the undersigned, are requesting the following:
1. A re-assessment of the implementation of existing camera technologies for regular enforcement of the Gowanus HOV lane.
2. Should camera technologies not be feasible, legislation passed at the State level to require that the New York State DOT make the Gowanus HOV lane a bus-only lane until more advanced technologies can be implemented to enforce the three occupants to a vehicle rule (HOV-3+) rule.
3. An expansion of the HOV lane's operation to seven days a week to encourage more use of the express bus service and allow more New Yorkers who work at off-peak hours to benefit from faster commutes.
The aforementioned actions will serve to allow New Yorkers to spend more time at home with their families and also mean greater worker productivity, which in turn will improve New York City's economic standing.
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The Gowanus HOV Lane Abuse petition to Elected Officials, NYPD was written by VITTORIO BUGATTI and is in the category Roads & Transport at GoPetition.