Impact and Benefits

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ONE REGION UNITED BY A SEAMLESS TRANSIT NETWORK 

RUN will allow faster and more efficient transfers between different scales and modes of transportation throughout the region. 

The Regional Unified Network will provide tangible benefits to every single resident of the Tri-State area. 

This one project could be the key to unlocking the full potential of our regional transportation network and make it almost as easy to travel within the suburbs via mass transit as it is in the Manhattan core today.

Population, development, and transit are interconnected, and if one suffers, the other two suffer. By addressing the region’s transit problems, RUN can alleviate some of New York’s most pressing economic and social problems. 

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OVERVIEW OF BENEFITS

Midtown only surpassed Downtown as New York’s premier business district after that unparalleled access was created in the early 20th Century. Before the opening of Grand Central and Penn Station, most major businesses had no special desire to locate in Midtown; that changed the moment Midtown offered profound mobility advantages over any other point in the region.

RUN will have a measurable, transformative impact on every community in the New York Metropolitan Area. 

The key advantage Midtown Manhattan has over every other potential business district in the New York City region is its unparalleled access to all three sets of the New York suburbs. In no other location do businesses have equivalent access to:

• New Jersey and every point on the mainland United States West of the Hudson

• The Bronx, Connecticut, Westchester, and the Hudson Valley East of the Hudson

• Long Island, including Brooklyn and Queens.

RUN provides the same level of regional accessibility to a far wider swath of the New York Metropolitan Region. It unlocks a world of possibilities that residents and businesses outside of Midtown can’t even consider today because of the limitations of our present mass transit system. By providing this opportunity, we give more areas the ability to naturally grow, just as Midtown did a century ago.

Jobs (Direct Construction)

RUN will necessitate major rail construction, creating thousands of new jobs throughout the metropolitan region. 

Housing

Establishing better transportation connections throughout the New York region will open up the housing market beyond Manhattan. Living in the Bronx, Long Island, and New Jersey will be more viable with accessibility to regional transit lines.

Office Space (Long Term Jobs)

A unified regional transportation system will spur development outside of Manhattan. People will be able to work in business districts in the other boroughs, and New Jersey.

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BENEFITS PHASE I

For more information on RUN Phase I, click below:

1. Dramatic improvements to the passenger experience in Penn Station.

RUN is the only plan that addresses the causes of platform and concourse crowding at Penn Station, and addresses the source of train delays. Penn South would exacerbate both those problems.

2. Connect the Moynihan Station Concourse to every platform.

Under current plans, most of the platforms at Penn Station would not have access to the new concourse and entrances in Moynihan Station. RUN fixes that by lengthening and widening platforms.

Pairing-Through-Running-

3. Compatible with “paired” and “unpaired” through-running.

Penn South makes it harder to through-run trains at Penn Station. RUN would allow full through-running on Day One while also maintaining the option for some service to terminate.

4. Connects all 26 suburban transit lines, creates new hubs.

In addition to direct through-running, we create three new multimodal transit hubs outside of Manhattan to open up the whole region. RUN really would let anyone go “From Anywhere to Everywhere.”

5. Compatible with a wide variety of future choices.

While we include a number of possible options for future development in our proposal, RUN is, at its heart, a framework rather than a prescription. It creates the flexibility for future policymakers to add on new features as needed.

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BENEFITS PHASE II

CHANGING THE TRAVEL EXPERIENCE 

For more information on RUN Phase II, click below:

By thinking holistically about the New York Metropolitan Region, we have designed a system that answers the questions that travelers actually ask themselves when they’re deciding whether to take mass transit to their destination.

A unique feature of RUN is how it seamlessly integrates transit options at both the local scale and the regional scale into one cohesive network, where each part adds value to every other element of the system. By creating outlying, multi-modal transit hubs in the Bronx, Queens, and New Jersey, we allow riders on RUN to have easy access to any location that connects to those hubs. We have brought together long- and medium-distance transit options with short-range ones.

1. Does the system take me from where I am to where I want to go?

Today, simple connections and easy journeys simply don’t exist for many potential trips – except those heading to the Manhattan core. If the trip isn’t possible, or requires precise transfers, it just won’t happen. By joining every regional transit line together at key hubs, with access to local service, we have dramatically expanded the number of one-seat and simple two-seat rides available, i.e. those possible with a quick cross-platform transfer like the ones between express and local subway services that currently exist.

2. Will this get me where I’m going quickly and reliably?

People are less likely to use transit if it takes much longer than commuting via car, or if they can’t count on it to get them to work on time. We have added resiliency and reliability to the system as it exists now, and the Regional Unified Network will significantly cut travel time for mass transit users.

3. Will this get me where I’m going cheaply and comfortably?

Mass transit trips between the city and the suburbs – or between suburbs – often require multiple fares, and can be highly stressful. The Regional Unified Network creates an affordable, frictionless, and pleasant rider experience.

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FIRST AND LAST-MILE PROBLEM 

One of the major challenges for mass transit is getting people from their origin point to a station, or from a station to their final destination, known as the first and last mile problem. This is particularly true for regional-and national-scale mass transit. While centrally locating stations near important destinations can alleviate this problem, not every trip will start or end adjacent to a major hub. That is why seamless connections at a hub to local-scale networks like the subway or bus are so important. The easier, cheaper, and quicker it is to transfer to a local network, the more people will use the regional and national mass transit networks for a variety of trips instead of driving. 

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POSSIBLE SERVICE PATTERNS 

RUN will allow far easier transfers, making destinations currently out of reach by public transit much more accessible. The following examples show travel time and number of transfers for a number of destinations in the region both as they currently exist and as they could operate under RUN.

Example 1: Commuting from Long Island to New Jersey

Esther lives in Lynbrook, Long Island and is offered a job in New Brunswick, New Jersey. What would the daily commute from her Long Island home to New Brunswick look like? 

Example 2: Commuting from New Jersey to Westchester

Paul lives in Summit, New Jersey and is offered a job in White Plains, NY. What would the daily commute from his Union County home to his job in Westchester look like? 

Example 3: Reverse Commute to Long Island

Jamie lives in Fordham in the Bronx and is offered a job in Mineola, Long Island. What would the daily commute from his Bronx home to Long Island look like?