Elloss

Here is a mock-up of a light rail that could run along the west shore. I made it using Enmodal and a paint application. I chose light rail because parts of the right-of-way are on busy urban roads and there wasn't much room to create a new path for heavy rail to pass through. The line starts in Tottenville and shares rail tracks with the SIR until Richmond Valley where it will now have new tracks laid out for it to run on. It follows the West Shore Expressway up until it reaches Arden Ave and goes east towards Richmond Ave. Then for a while it goes on it's own reserved road on Richmond Ave until it turns left on Forest Ave and goes on the Bayonne Bridge. The line terminates on 8th St in the same place as the HBLR starts. I think this proposal is solid because it crosses over most major shopping centers and business areas on the west shore, it provides connections to multiple other transit options such as the SIR, many local and express buses, and even the HBLR to continue your commute into New Jersey and Manhattan. Looking at the map, both the WSLR and the SIR cover a large portion of Staten Island and final give residents in the west shore some better and faster transit options. I would like some opinions on this mock-up if anyone thinks a better path could be chosen.

Should have chosen HRT. Why go through the effort of uprooting tracks and worsening the parking situation in St. George when they can build heavy rail that has much better capacity than a bus and is much faster as well.

Give me a bus connection to Perth Amboy. It is ridiculous that we have four bridges and only one gets regular non-express bus transit going on it. Right now, only way for me to go to New Jersey would be to either take the limited service S89 or go through Manhattan which is a huge detour. I live in Princes Bay and it's stupid that I have to make a huge circle through the city, spend more than 3 hours commuting, and spend nearly $20 just to get to somewhere that's only 5 miles away. Even a bus or light rail connection to Elizabeth over the Goethals Bridge would be better than the current state of a transit desert that Staten Island is. Besides this, I think heavy rail would be the best option because the west shore has plenty of unused space for building a right-of-way, the west shore currently doesn't have access to the SIR, and heavy rail is faster, greater capacity, and would even merge with the existing SIR branch to allow people to transfer to it with connection to St. George and the ferry to Manhattan. Or even better, how about finishing that tunnel under the Verrazano-Narrows bridge and finally connecting Staten Island to the subway as it's currently the only borough without it?

Could we finally get the West Shore Light Rail or BRT on the north shore? Maybe something good will come from it.