Two States, Two Seasons, One Strange October
October produced two BOMA Transportation Reports, (Read New York and New Jersey here.) and somehow both themes became more accurate as the month went along. Also readers, the report gets better as it goes on. USE “CAITON” AHEAD (NJ’s typo, not ours) and read through to the last pages for my secret BOMA recipe and a mystery artifact.
The BOMA NY Codes & Regs Transportation Report celebrated its fourth anniversary. What started in October 2022 as a four-page committee update has now reached 37 editions, with considerably more cartoons, pop culture, odd transportation stories, and Harrison Ford than anyone originally anticipated.
The anniversary issue gave me a chance to express my gratitude. The report exists because the BOMA New York Codes & Regulations Committee sets a high bar. Every month, attorneys, engineers, building professionals, environmental specialists, union representatives and others take complicated subjects and make them useful to the people who own, manage, operate and service buildings.
That raises my game too.
The issue also includes a special thank-you to Lori Raphael for helping make BOMA New York a place where people can pull up a chair, get involved, build relationships and contribute. That sense of community is a big part of why producing these reports remains a labor of love.
The transportation news was serious
October was not short on real stories.
Gateway reached the tunnel-boring stage. Portal North entered its final cutover. Penn Station remained a battle over rebuilding, money and control. High diesel, gasoline and jet-fuel costs continues to ripple through the economy. One severed fiber-optic cable in NJ scrambled flights at six airports and demonstrated just how interconnected and vulnerable our rail, telecommunications, and aviation systems can be.
And New York City buses reached a four-year speed high. 8.5 miles per hour!
Nobody is calling Keanu Reeves yet.
New York also remained New York
Then there was the other news.
Buffalo in Times Square. People emerging from man holes. Jellyfish along West Side walkways. Kayaks on flooded Queens streets. Giant dogs near Central Park. A life-size Monopoly board at Grand Central. Even a Diet Coke shortage.
By the end of September, New York appeared to be drifting into the Ghostbusters universe.
And just when we thought the month could not get stranger, a Brooklyn artist replaced a missing subway-tile “E” with a ceramic tile containing chia seeds.
It sprouted.
We have reached the point where subway maintenance may require watering.
Read the full report here.
Meanwhile, New Jersey is finishing its critical season: Construction
The companion BOMA New Jersey Transportation Report started with the old joke:
New Jersey has two seasons: winter and construction.
When we chose construction as the October theme, it seemed like a good framework for Portal North, Gateway, road work and the NJ Transit construction crew whose work accidentally severed a fiber-optic cable that was serving as backup communications for the FAA.
It turned out to be more prophetic than we realized.
The report’s central point was that construction creates a bargain. Construction done badly can unexpectedly take transportation away. Construction done correctly sometimes has to take transportation away temporarily so that it works better afterward.
Portal North is a perfect example. Commuters are enduring weeks of disruption so a 116-year-old movable bridge can finally leave regular service. Gateway has moved from years of planning and political fights to actually digging a tunnel.
And then October supplied an almost too-perfect punchline.
On my way to BOMA NJ’s October membership meeting, road construction and closed lanes made me late.
The subject of the meeting? Winter weather preparation.
Mother Nature joined the construction crew
The New Jersey report also had its own News of the Weird.
The September nor’easter brought Hells Bells to NJ. It knocked over dinosaurs in Atlantic City, flooded Shore communities, brought sharks into streets, sent portable toilets sliding around the Meadowlands, and delayed AC/DC’s MetLife Stadium tour-ending concert and gave it a giant opening act.
Beaches will be replenished. Dunes will be rebuilt. Damage will be repaired.
Because in New Jersey, apparently even the apocalypse eventually becomes a construction project.
Two states. Two reports. Plenty of serious transportation news.
And enough strange material to remind me why, four years later, these reports are still fun to write.
