Crippled NY subways spark infrastructure, climate questions
updated 5:06 PM EDT, Sat November 3, 2012
Inside damaged NYC train station
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- An estimated 5.5 million people ride New York's subway system each day
- New York shut down all 468 subway stations for the second time ever for Superstorm Sandy
- If it were laid out in a single line, the tracks would extend from Manhattan to Detroit, Michigan
- Scientists cite rising sea levels and climate change as contributors to dangerous flooding
But in the aftermath of
Superstorm Sandy, millions across the New York metropolitan region who
depend on the nation's busiest transit system are still waiting for
their subway system to be fully restored.
"There is no precedent
for this," said Clifton Hood, author of "722 Miles: The Building of the
Subways and How They Transformed New York."
Dubbed New York's
"life-blood," an estimated 5.5 million people ride the city's subway
system each day in the country's most densely populated region.
Most New York City residents don't have cars to fall back on. Less than half own cars, according to the New York City Economic Development Corporation,
which cites the latest census data on car ownership. That's a stark
contrast with the rest of the nation, where 92% of all households own at
least one car.
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Staten Island residents angry, cold
So when Gotham launched
into emergency mode this week ahead of Sandy, shutting down all of its
468 stations for the second time ever, the effect was crippling on
commuters and the places they work.
At a corner Midtown
market, where the Manhattan bustle continued in spite of Sandy, Edward
Greenwald, 49, struggled to fill scheduling gaps left by stranded
employees despite his own commute from storm-battered New Jersey.
"I've got employees
coming in from all across the Tri-State area," he said. "It's been
really hard for them to get in, almost impossible. I've been coming in
at 6 a.m. everyday and leaving at 10 p.m. just to help out."
Dating back to 1904, New
York's century-old subway system is so extensive that if it were laid
out in a single line, the tracks would extend from Manhattan to Detroit.
Defending it and the
city's power grid from storms that whip along New York's low-lying
neighborhoods could be a concern that gains momentum beyond the week's
recovery effort.
"We going to have to find some long-term, or longer-term solutions to this," Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters this week.
And yet there were some
indications that this kind of crisis was coming. Just 14 months ago,
Hurricane Irene prompted New York's first-ever total subway closure.
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Obstacles and challenges after Sandy
"Rising sea level and
climate change are likely to cause dangerous flooding in the coming
decades," according to a 2004 report produced by the Marine Sciences
Research Center for New York's Department of Environmental Protection.
That report said much of
the region is less than three meters above sea level -- which is slowly
rising -- and therefore at risk from a so-called "100-year flood," a
term often used to describe its relative probability.
New York "has a 100-year
flood every two years now," Gov. Andrew Cuomo quipped this week to
President Barack Obama, who briefly cut off campaign stops to tour the
region and assess the billions of dollars in damages along New York and
New Jersey's coastal plains.
"Our climate is
changing," the mayor wrote in an editorial this week. "And while the
increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and
around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it
might be -- given this week's devastation -- should compel all elected
leaders to take immediate action."
Broader questions about
climate change, infrastructure and how cities like New York will respond
to storms like Sandy will likely continue to loom large.
"New York might have to
take the Netherlands model, where they have all their power systems
elevated," said Kenneth Button, a professor of public policy at George
Mason University.
"This is really not just a New York problem, it's a problem that exists in many places."
The Dutch flood
protection model employs large-scale flood gates, as well as a series of
low-lying drainage canals and pumping stations.
In Japan, engineers have
devised a $3 billion system called a "Water Discharge Tunnel" that
essentially works as a floodwater diversion facility to protect Tokyo's
13 million residents during rain and typhoon season.
Still, making New York's
subways watertight would be an "engineering feat equal to the scale and
creativity of the original construction (of the system itself)," said
Lucius Riccio, New York City's former Transportation Commissioner and
lecturer at Columbia University.
"Our engineers are up to it, if given the resources and the free hand."
In the days ahead, New
York faces at least two big challenges, according to Ben Orlove, senior
climate scientist at Columbia University.
First, the city must
cope with its immediate problems -- power outages, stranded residents,
suspended subway lines, flooding and fire damage. Then it needs to deal
with long-term infrastructure.
"We need to be
innovative," said Orlove. "And we should consider things like putting up
flood gates at the mouth of the Hudson (River) and other vulnerable
points that could help hold back the tide."
An army of municipal
workers and private contractors is addressing the more immediate
concerns, working around the clock in New York to pump out sea water and
wipe down salt-caked machinery like underground transformers, circuit
switches and generators.
As workers scrambled to
restore equipment, thousands of otherwise stranded commuters defiantly
walked to work this week, often abandoning taxi cabs in the city's
traffic-clogged streets.
"I left my house at 6:45
a.m. and I'm still walking," said Elizabeth Gorman, a 40-year-old
Queens resident who crossed the Queensboro Bridge at around 10 a.m. "I
don't know what (else) to do. I have to get to work."
New York's buses, trains
and subways are all slowly coming back online. But for many residents
across the region where full transit service has yet to be restored, the
slog to work continues.
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