• State Senate bill would outlaw food in the subway · Over the past few months, the MTA’s rat problem has drawn headlines as the authority has struggled to clean up its stations and rodents have become comfortable in the confines of the subway. A few State Senators are fighting back now with what promises to be a controversial proposal to ban all food from the subway. Sponsored by Senator Perkins and relying on a constituent survey that laid the blame for subway litter on the shoulders of sloppy straphangers, the bill would carry a fine of up to $250 for those caught eating underground.

    The bill, available here, was referred to the Senate Transportation Committee earlier this week. It has the support of Senators Espaillat, Huntley and Oppenheimer as well and would ban the consumption of food on any subway, station or platform under the control of New York City Transit. Any fine collected under the measure would to Transit for use under a New York Subway Littering Prevention Fund and would cover the costs of publicizing the measure, among other uses.

    It’s unclear exactly what the future holds for this bill right now. Banning food would go a long way toward improving cleanliness under ground, but enforcement, of course, would be problematic. Furthermore, the MTA draws some real estate revenue from newsstands and other businesses that sell food in the subway system. As the authority continues to assess its anti-trash can pilot, I’ll keep an eye on this measure as it winds its way through the legislative process. It is definitely not the worst idea to emerge from Albany. · (0)

Once upon a time, the original IRT stations were short. They didn’t span the distances they do now, and it made some modicum of sense to pack stations into Downtown Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. With rapidly increasing ridership in the 1940s and 1950s though, New York City realized it did not have the capacity to run trains long enough to meet service demands nor did it have platforms long enough to accomodate the maddening crowd. So they expanded.

Throughout the city, a decade or so the IND overbuilt to accommodate everyone who could ever ride the subway, the original IRT platforms were expanded to fit ten-car trains and many more people. As a casualty of the expansion program, some stations — 18th and Worth Sts. on the East Side, 91st St. on the West Side — were shuttered due to their proximity to nearby stops, but with more spacious platforms and long trains, those closures were a necessary trade-off.

Today, ridership has once again approached levels that warranted such an expansion. While the automobile and the general state of decay saw ridership drop from the late 1950s to a nadir in the 1980s, the MTA has seen a steep growth in usage over the recent years. That growth has not been confined to weekdays either, as historical ridership patterns have dictated, and now authority officials are trying to find ways to alleviate overcrowding along certain lines at all times of the day.

Yesterday, MTA Chairman Joe Lhota went to Albany to talk transit funding, and he spoke about a rough idea to expand subway stations in order to keep pace with demand. It is doubtful that trains would be lengthened, but the authority can make some access improvements to stations, particularly along the overcrowded L line, that could improve service. These little changes could go a long way toward improving the transit experience.

Pete Donohue of The Daily News had a bit more:

With the subways bursting at the seams, the MTA needs to expand stations in the century-old system, authority Chairman Joseph Lhota said Thursday. Lhota singled out the L line as an example of an overcrowded route that requires alterations to accommodate a meteoric rise in ridership due to industrial areas transforming into bustling residential neighborhoods. “Today, it’s the fastest growing line,” he said.

Stations in neighborhoods like Williamsburg were built with just one or two entrances, “whereas if we knew it was going to be residential as it is today, we would have three or four entrances,” Lhota said. “So, you’re seeing tremendous crowding on stations that are unbelievably narrow. We’re going to have to spend capital programs to expand those stations.”

It’s fairly easy to see where the MTA could include station entrances along the L. In Manhattan, a back entrance at the First Ave. stop that better serves Avenue A and points east would help alleviate uneven boarding patterns while cutting down commute times to the subway. In Brooklyn, stations east of Lorimer St. generally have but one entrance that leads to passenger bunching along the station. Even outside of the L, I see such behavior at 7th Ave. on the Brighton Line (which has a shuttered second entrance) and Grand Army Plaza. New entrances would help better disperse the crowds.

Of course, there is one giant problem: These types of system expansion plans cost money, and money is something the MTA has little of. The current capital plan doesn’t allow for such construction efforts, and the MTA may have to satisfy ADA requirements if it starts work on some of these stations. Thus, adding new entrances would not come cheap.

Still, it’s an idea worth considering. Better station access won’t help increase the frequency of trains or allow for longer car sets, but straphanger distribution can help ease the loads. Maybe those back cars wouldn’t be so empty if they were closer to the station entrance points.

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  • MTA looking at debt refinancing options · Debt refinancing is, by no stretch of the imagination, not a particularly sexy issue, but for the MTA, with so much debt on its books and more to come, refinancing could help the cash-starved agency save some dollars. So with borrowing costs nearing a two-decade low, the MTA is looking to refinance in order to save some money, Bloomberg News reported today.

    According to the report, the authority may refinance around $6.7 billion in debt that was sold in 2002 and comes due in 2025. With the average ten-year rate below 2 percent — and over two percentage points lower than it was ten years ago — the MTA says it could realize some cost savings with such a move, but officials could not provide an exact figure. As Larry Littlefield noted at Streetsblog, the authority should proceed carefully here as they do not want to extend their debt obligations too far beyond the original term of the bonds.

    In other financing news, MTA Chairman Joe Lhota asked the State Senate this week to provide the MTA with a debt issuance exemption. Currently, the state levies a charge of $.840 for every $1000 of a debt issued, and by securing an exemption in advance of the MTA’s next round of bond offers, the authority could save over $50 million. · (10)

On my home this evening as my Q train crossed the Manhattan Bridge, we straphangers were bombarded with the endless stream of prerecording messages Transit has seen fit to install in its newest rolling stock. An important message from the NYPD that loses its importance after the 4000th listen played on, and then the courtesy announcement filled the car. Give up your seat for the elderly, handicapped or pregnant, it says. “Courtesy is contagious, and it starts with you.”

As I’m wont to do with this train announcements, I sort of rolled my eyes at it and then went back to chatting with my travel companion. Because of the repetitive nature of the announcements and the way they rarely change over the years, it’s become easy to just tune them out. They won’t be important; those announcements still come from the person driving the train. And they just add to the background noise of taking the subway.

Tonight, though, something about the courtesy announcement made me perk up. On the one hand, it’s a lecture aimed at recalcitrant New Yorkers. We have to be scolded into giving up our seats for straphangers who actually need them. We have to be reminded that it’s the right thing to do. But on the other hand, perhaps it’s a lesson we all could use.

Lately, since 2012 dawned, I’ve noticed a general attitude among straphangers that’s worse than your typical New York brusqueness. Yeah, we’re all trying to get somewhere quickly. Yeah, we want our trains to go faster and come more frequently. Yeah, we want our space and our seats. But why you gotta be so pushy about it?

The behavior I’ve seen has been nothing and everything. It has ranged from folks spreading out over multiple seats and getting upset when you say excuse me to a new breed of door-blockers who will not move no matter the circumstances to people who have never learned to walk on the right side of the staircase and get angry at anyone coming their way. It includes the people who sit down on top of you with nary an excuse me and those pretending to sleep so they don’t have to give ground. I’ve seen seated riders stick their feet out into the aisle so standees have no room, and I’ve seen the typical breed of pole-huggers.

What I haven’t seen though are manners. Try to carve out a space for yourself and you might get your head bitten out. Things seem far more tense under ground lately. Maybe it’s the chill of winter as we all take up more space with our bulky jackets. Maybe it’s general impatience with the MTA. Maybe it’s this fear that the Mayans were right and our world will soon end. Whatever it is, though, it’s out there, this quasi-menacing, full-on passive aggressiveness.

I don’t believe we New Yorkers are inherently rude despite what recent national surveys have said. Throughout my life, I’ve seen New Yorkers be courtesy with their knowledge and time. We don’t tolerate others who don’t play by the rules of the city though. We don’t like tourists who walk four across on the sidewalk or folks who are too buried in their phones to pay attention to the world around them. Maybe that frustration is coming out underground as straphangers try to find a way to protect their space and dignity.

Ultimately then, maybe we need to be reminded more often that courtesy is the right way to go. I’ve heard it’s contagious and that it starts with you.

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  • PATH reports record ridership for 2011 · A walk west down Vesey St. from its intersection at Church St. can be a hazardous undertaking as a seemingly endless amount of people stream into Lower Manhattan from the PATH train terminal at the World Trade Center. If those crowds of people seem to be growing, that’s because PATH ridership is too. In fact, the agency announced this week that ridership is at an all-time high under the Port Authority as 76.6 million commuters took PATH trips in 2011.

    The previous high had been 74.9 in 2008, and the 2011 jump in ridership amounted to a 3.6 percent increase over 2010. Port Authority officials credited an investment program amounting to over $1 billion in upgrades as a main driver behind the increase. Steep fare hikes in New Jersey likely played a role as well. “Our multi-billion-dollar commitment to transform PATH into a 21st century rail system has paid dividends,” Port Authority Chairman David Samson said. “More people are taking notice of what PATH has to offer and are choosing it as their preferred mode of travel between New York and New Jersey.”

    With an entirely new fleet of rolling stock already on hand, the PATH system will soon enjoy more station renovations and a fully computerized signal system. The WTC-Newark line is also undergoing a transformation that will allow for 10-car sets, and of course, the Calatrava-designed hub in Lower Manhattan will open eventually as well. Now if only PATH and New York City Transit would integrate their fare payment mechanisms. · (25)

As part of the MTA's public information campaign, MetroCard Vending Machines will soon be programmed with the above screen saver.

Every 30 days, I, like nearly 33 percent of subway riders, purchase a brand new MetroCard. My unlimited ride card is good for a month, but unless I have an EasyPayXpress card, at the end of 30 days, I have to discard my well-loved MetroCard and purchase a new one. Starting February 1, though, no longer will we have to go through the practice of wasting plastic as the MTA will be introducing the ability to refill unlimited ride cards.

While at Grand Army Plaza this morning for my silver chariot to whisk me away toward Manhattan, my eyes happened upon a new poster. “New!” the sign said, “7-day and 30-day Unlimited Ride MetroCards can now be refilled.” As with pay-per-ride cards, a straphanger can use his or her unlimited ride card over and over again until the magnetic strip wears out or until the expiration date on the back. So how does it work?

Beginning next Wednesday, the unlimited ride cards come with a twist: You can essentially store an extra month on them. Any time after you begin to use an unlimited ride card, you have the option to purchase a refill, but that refill must be for the same time period. In other words, you can refill a 7-day card only with another 7-day period, and you can refill a 30-day card with only another 30-day card. You also do not need to wait until your current time period is over to refill the card as each card will store one refill at a time.

For those folks wary of keeping two months on one card — no one wants to misplace $208 in transit rides — you can also refill it after the expiration of your 7- or 30-day period as long as the card hasn’t reached its ultimate expiration date. According to Transit, the new refill option is “part of our continuing effort to provide customers with new options and added conveniences for paying fares.”

In a sense, this move has been a long-awaited one. Since the MTA announced plans to institute a $1 surcharge for all new MetroCard purchases, the authority had to adapt its system to allow for refillable unlimited ride cards. Despite the February 1 launch date, though, the MTA’s plan to institute such a surcharge will not be implemented until 2013. Still, for riders wary of going through 12 or more cards a year, this new option is both convenient and environmentally friendly. As I figure it, the MTA should save some money on fare collection costs as well as the refill option should reduce the number of cards they need to stock.

For more information, Transit says brochures are available at subway stations near you. After the jump, a glimpse at the poster I saw this morning. Read More→

Categories : MetroCard
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Workers at 23rd Street were able to give the track bed a thorough scrubbing with no trains zooming by. (Photo by Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Patrick Cashin)

For the millions of New Yorkers who rely on the city’s subway system at all hours of the day, the best time for the MTA to do its work is never. We don’t want weekend slowdowns; we don’t want overnight delays; we don’t want mid-day re-routings. We want the subways to run all the time whenever we need it.

That is, of course, a problem when you’re talking about infrastructure that’s around 80 years old at its youngest spots and over 100 at its oldest. To combat a decline that reached a nadir in the early 1980s, the MTA is, as we know, engaged in a never-ending battle to repair its system. We are stuck with weekend headaches, mid-day, off-peak diversions and overnight work. If the early returns are any indication, we might end up with once-a-quarter FasTrack shutdowns as well.

In a presentation to the Transit Committee earlier this week, MTA officials praised the results from this month’s four-day overnight shutdown of the East Side IRT. They spoke of the productivity gains and the money saved, and while a one-time trial along one subway line isn’t enough to judge a program, officials were optimistic that the program would be a successful one in the long run.

According to the laundry list of accomplishments the authority released, work crews identified and completed 324 tasks over the course of the four nights. This included removal of over 20,000 pounds of debris from subway tracks; installation of new tie blocks, plates and friction pads; 311 signal inspections; grout work at various points along the line; and retiling, repainting and repair work at numerous stations, just to name a few. “We’re able to complete work that we would not normally be able to do in our normal customary way of doing it,” Department of Subways head Carmen Bianco said. “The level of exposure [to danger] went down for employees, because we’re not running trains.”

Overall, the authority says it saved around $673,000 by turning off service. If that’s a projectionable figure, the MTA could save around $10 million annually while improving the physical plant in ways they otherwise wouldn’t be able to. That, at least, is the long-term goal, and it’s going to take a few more pilots to see if FasTrack is a sustainable effort. “This is the first time ever in the history of this organization that we’ve done this,” Transit President Tom Prendergast said. “So we need to actually have three or four more experiences before we can ascertain how successful it is and how we can improve upon it, and what the impacts are.”

With the work accomplishments in hand, what of the impact on customers? Some praised the idea as a way to combat decrepit station conditions; others did not. ““This a bad plan that you have decided,” Thanisha Mitchell said to the MTA. “I have to open a gym at 6 am and I have to punch in by 5:30. I actually have to be to work before 5. This Fastrack plan is garbage and effects everyone’s schedule. Your ad says you are reliable, and I don’t believe so.”

Interestingly, the MTA claims that it did not notice increased use of parallel lines either. While the authority halted work on those parallel lines — in this case, the BMT Broadway trains — so as not to further inconvenience customers, the authority noted that extra shuttle service and the so-called gap trains on the Na and R “were not well utilized.” Transit is waiting for a full analysis on adjacent routes and bus lines until more data has been collected.

So now, we wait. In February and March, FasTrack moves to the West Side as the 7th, 6th and 8th Avenue lines get their treatment over the span of five weeks. Then we’ll reassess what it means to lose subway service from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. four nights a week for one week every three months. With the right results, it should be worth it, but the jury is still out on what those right results should be.

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  • Horodniceanu: 7 line extension may be delayed until early 2014 · If all goes according to plan, the 7 line extension to the Far West Side is set to enter revenue service in 23 months, long before the Hudson Yards development sees the light of day. Yet, as with many MTA construction projects, all does not often go according to plan, and the extension that was once promised as part of a 2012 Olympics bid may not be ready until early 2014, MTA Capital Construction chief Michael Horodniceanu said yesterday.

    As amNew York reports, Horodniceanu spoke at yesterday’s MTA Board committee meetings and explained that a few undisclosed problems may delay the project two or three months into 2014. Instead of being revenue-ready by December 2013, the project could be ready only for testing by then. The full extent of the delays will be revealed at next month’s meeting, but Horodniceanu did promise that the project’s funding partner “will ride a train” to Hudson Yards.

    For the MTA, these delays are old hat even as Horodniceanu has vowed to keep the megaprojects on target. For what it’s worth, though, the 7 line extension, despite this delay, is still under budget by “tens of millions” of dollars. It’s also short a station, but that is a well-beaten dead horse at this point. · (23)

Spurred on by numerous articles this past fall detailing the money the MTA loses to fare-baiting, the State Senate on Monday approved a bill that could hike fines to $500 for those who do not pay their fares. Sponsored by Charles J. Fuschillo of Merrick, the measure increases the cap on civil fines for violations of NYC Transit’s Rules of Conduct from $100 to $500 and could go into effect if the state Assembly and Gov. Andrew Cuomo approve of the measure. The bill also raises the penalty for failing to pay a fine from $50 to $100.

“The MTA and its fare-paying riders shouldn’t have to spend tens of millions of dollars more each year paying for other people’s illegal free rides. At a time when every dollar counts, the MTA needs stronger tools to discourage fare-evasion. Higher fines would create a stronger deterrent and remove the incentive which actually encourages people to try and beat the system. I’m pleased that the Senate has passed this legislation and I urge the Assembly to join us,” Senator Fuschillo, Chairman of the Senate’s Transportation Committee, said in a statement.

In his statement touting the bill’s passage, Fuschillo references the Daily News reports that noted 50,000 straphangers a day entered the subway system without paying in 2010. Ostensibly, the MTA lost out on $31 million in revenue, and the News found that a scofflaw could come out ahead by receiving a $100 ticket every six to eight weeks rather than ponying up for a $104 monthly pass.

I have to wonder though if Fuschillo’s measure won’t get to the root of the problem (or if there’s even a problem). Those 50,000 straphangers per day represent approximately 1 percent of the MTA’s daily ridership. Thus, the authority’s bleed rate is exceedingly low for any business. Without cops stationed at every station at any hour — a terrible use of NYPD manhours — people will find a way to ride the rails without paying. The new fines are certainly high enough to serve as a deterrent, and yet, a $500 fine for a fare jumper strikes me as just a wee bit excessive.

Categories : MTA Politics
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This past weekend marked the first of many a circular ride for Queens commuters as the 11-weekend 7-line shutdown commenced. Due to work in the Steinway Tubes and on the communications-based train control system, the MTA isn’t running 7 trains between Queensboro Plaza and Times Square until baseball season. Instead, straphangers are urged to take the N or Q or find alternate routes. There will be no shuttle buses.

That shuttle bus piece, you see, ended up becoming something of an explosive issue today. MTA refuses free money! MTA turns down shuttle buses! Outrage! Drama! That, in a nutshell, is what this teeny tiny article from The Post hath wrought.

To summarize, Jimmy Van Bramer, a Queens City Councilman, offered to give the MTA $250,000 out of his discretionary funds while the MTA engaged in this 11-week project. The authority turned him down, and thus Queens commuters who are bound for Grand Central must take the 7 to Queensboro Plaza, the N or Q trains to 59th St. and the East Side IRT to 42nd St. It is a roundabout way to go all of four stops on the 7.

Queens residents weren’t too pleased with the MTA for turning down the free bucks, and after numerous inquiries, Transit released a statement late in the day on Monday: “While we understand the Councilman’s attempts to mitigate the effects of work on the No. 7 line, the proposal to run a bus shuttle between Long Island City and Grand Central would be operationally inefficient, requiring long lines of idling buses and limited curb space to stage them. E, N, Q and R train service all link LIC with midtown Manhattan and these subway trips promise to be faster than a bus ride, which would be subject to traffic congestion and would still require a transfer to the subway for destinations beyond Grand Central.”

So what’s really going on here? Essentially, the MTA is turning down the money for a variety of interrelated measures. First, the MTA has learned over the years that, due to surface congestion, running a bus from Queensboro Plaza to Grand Central via the tunnel doesn’t save on travel time. They claim that due to traffic, the three-train route is just as efficient (or inefficient) as a shuttle bus.

Second, the MTA points to the 42nd Street area as one not geared for such an influx of automobiles. There isn’t enough available street space around 42nd St. on the East or West Sides to serve as the staging grounds for 5-10 buses that are required for a given run of a shuttle. That is the so-called operational inefficiency.

Third, it has long been MTA policy to provide shuttle buses to the nearest station in service, and it is my understanding that the MTA does not wish to break that policy every time a City Council member dangles a few bucks for a few weekends of buses. Fourth, and similarly, Transit seems to recognize that work on the 7 line is going to last longer than through early April. The CBTC project will require numerous segment shutdowns over the next few years, and the authority is concerned that Van Bramer’s well of discretionary funds may dry up. Furthermore, selective shuttle busing based on the whims of the area’s council representative could create inequities as other areas suffering from weekend outages do not enjoy such bonus shuttle service.

Some transit advocates in Queens have not been satisfied with the MTA’s answers. Ahead of the 7 line work, Angus Grieve-Smith urged the MTA to run buses to 34th Street instead. This, he claimed, would solve the staging problem while improving traffic times and providing the necessary subway connections. Service though would be fairly redundant, and the MTA has been hesitant to embrace this idea.

So I live it to you, dear reader: How do you solve this problem? Is the MTA acting foolishly as it rejects free money? Are these concerns valid? Such are the questions of a 24-7 transit system with an aging and technologically out-of-date infrastructure.

Categories : Queens
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