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NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

17 shopping. by more different strata of the population. These changes will increase the volume of computation, but not its intrinsic complexity. In working out these applications, some of the difficulties mentioned above can be corrected. This type of analysis will greatly strengthen the ability of RPA and the Region to trace out the implications of alternative plans and public decisions.

The Regional Context The regional context for development of models presented in this Handbook represents the central portion of a vast Tri-State Region served by Regional Plan Association. Radiating outward more than one hundred miles from the Manhattan CBD, the Tri-State Region comprises 31 counties in the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The study area for purposes of this modeling focused primarily on four boroughs of New York City — Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx — while incorporating four other counties in New York State (including Richmond or the borough of Staten Island in New York City) and one county in New Jersey. As such, the study area approximates the New York Metropolitan Area. (See Figure 1.1) The 12-county MTA district in New York State, the Metro North Commuter Rail (MNCR) service area in Connecticut, and the commuter rail and bus territory of NJ Transit are enscribed within the Tri- State Region, each system of which delivers commuters to the Manhattan CBD. The 9-county study area contains a majority of the MTA's systems, including the subway and bus systems operated by the New York City Transit Authority and portions of the Hudson, Harlem and New Haven lines operated by MNCR. Excluded from analysis are MTA's Long Island Railroad operations in Nassau and Suffolk counties. Model zones have been disaggregated below the county level in New York City for Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. (See Figure 1.2) The model extension in process will provide disaggregated zones for suburban counties served in the New York State portion of the MNCR system. Future model extensions will expand the study area's geographic boundaries to the Tri-State Region and provide disaggregated zones for Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey.

In 1990, the 31-county Tri-State Region contained a resident population of 19.8 million persons in 7.3 million households, or 8 percent of the nation's total inhabitants. Nearly three in every five regional inhabitants, or 11.7 million persons in 4.3 million households, resided in the 12-county MTA district of New York State. In 1987, when the Tri-State Region's economy generated one ■4

in every nine dollars of national output, or $502.1 billion Gross ; Regional Product (GRP), the MTA district accounted for $309.3 billion of GRP. Total employment (including self employed) in the 12-county district numbered 6.5 million jobs in 1990, of which 2.6 • I

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