Archive for August, 2007
Aug
31
The 7 is ‘C-’imply mediocre, riders say
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Back in May, New York City Transit President Howard Roberts announced his plans to have riders grade the subway lines. When the first report cards came out, I was underwhelmed. They offered little in terms of creativity and a lot in terms of your standard subway gripes.
Now, it looks like the first set of results — an underwhelming C- for the purple 7 trains — are proving that, yes, the subways have problems we all know about.
Late this afternoon, conveniently on the day before the start of a three-day weekend during which approximately no one will read this news, the MTA issued a press released discussing the findings of the rider report card for the 7 train. The results, linked in the previous paragraph, are less than stellar for the popular IRT Flushing line.
Before we delve into the complaints, let’s start out with some good news. The MTA received a high rate of response to their surveys. They handed out 88,000 report cards over a three-day period in July, and they received back 16,000 responses. Statistically, an 18 percent response rate is stellar. People want their voices heard when it comes to subway issues.
MTA CEO Elliot “Lee” Sander recognized the people’s voices as well. “The response to the Rider Report Card was phenomenal,” Sander said. “Clearly, riders wanted to express their opinions and we will respond with several initiatives to improve service in the areas where they feel we’re lacking.”
But the reality of the situation is a bit grim. Riders want their voices heard because they’re less than thrilled with the level of service. A C- is barely passing. The MTA asked the straphangers to rate what they see are areas in which the MTA needs to improve. The results please:
- "Adequate room on board at rush hour"
- "Minimal delays during trips"
- "Reasonable wait time for trains"
- "Train announcements that are easy to hear"
- "Station announcements that are easy to hear"
- "Cleanliness of stations"
- "Working elevators and escalators"
- "Sense of security on trains."
- "Cleanliness of subway cars"
- "Sense of security in stations"
To anyone who rides the overcrowded, oft-delayed, somewhat dirty subways, these results tell us nothing new. We know the subways are overcrowded; that’s why the MTA is trying to build the Second Ave. Subway. We know train announcements are unintelligible. We know the subway’s aren’t the safest things in the city.
Now, we also know that Joe and Jane Straphanger are thinking along the same wavelengths as those of us that read and write about the subways on the Internet. Of course, with this all in mind, the MTA has to address these concerns, and I think they’re working on it. With limited financial flexibility and few miles of unused tracks, the Authority can only do so much.
Of course, my 15-minute wait at 11:40 p.m. tonight for any downtown train on the BMT platform at Union Square is hardly comforting. But at least the MTA and NYCT are listening, and hopefully Sander and Roberts mean business when they say service will improve. Time will be the judge of that.
Update: I missed this link last night: Howard Roberts has released the full results of the survey. While the C- sounds mediocre, the overall results are not pretty to say the least. Take a look:
| Minimal delays during trips | C- |
| Reasonable wait times for trains | C |
| Adequate room on board at rush hour | D |
| Sense of security in stations | C |
| Sense of security on trains | C |
| Working elevators and escalators in stations | C- |
| Signs in stations that help riders find their way | C+ |
| Signs in subway cars that help riders find their way | C |
| Cleanliness of stations | C- |
| Cleanliness of subway cars | C- |
| Station announcements that are easy to hear | D+ |
| Station announcements that are informative | D+ |
| Train announcements that are easy to hear | D+ |
| Train announcements that are informative | D+ |
| Lack of graffiti in stations | C+ |
| Lack of graffiti in subway cars | C+ |
| Lack of scratchitti in subway cars | C- |
| Courtesy and helpfulness of station personnel | C |
| Comfortable temperature in subway cars | C |
| Ease of use of subway turnstiles | C+ |
| Availability of MetroCard Vending Machines | B- |
| Overall performance | C- |
Aug
30
Getting to the root of the Culver Viaduct Rehabilitation plan
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For some time now, I’ve been pushing hard for the F Express Plan. Taking a cue from Gary who originated the idea, the F Express plan has gone from a pipe dream to a proposal that enjoys the support of a few MTA board members. In fact, it even landed my name in the pages of Metro.
But along the way, we’ve hit a roadblock, and last week, the frustrations boiled over when two members of the City Council announced that they wouldn’t vote for the fare hike without the F Express Plan. They questioned the Gowanus Viaduct Rehabilitation project, the MTA’s repeated excuse that express service along the Culver Line wouldn’t be possible until 2012. None of us — not Gary, not Kensington (Brooklyn), not the councilmembers — had really received an adequate explanation. But I think that’s changed.
I’ve been in touch with Jeremy Soffin, the MTA’s deputy director of media relations, in an effort to get the bottom of the Culver Viaduct Rehabilitation project and its effects on the express tracks. Here’s what Soffin said to me in an e-mail:
The Culver Viaduct Rehabilitation project requires the reconstruction of the viaduct and all four tracks on the viaduct. During the project, two of the four tracks will be taken out of service at any given time for a period of four years, precluding the implementation of any express service on this segment of the F line. The project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2012. As part of this project, G service, which currently terminates at Smith-9 Sts, will be extended to Church Av Station.
It’s my understanding that crews will be working not only on the tracks but around and underneath them too. With the recent attention to track worker safety, the MTA isn’t, rightly so, about to start screwing around with train bottlenecks on a large viaduct. With the current F and G trains relying on just two tracks for their routes and turnarounds, the tracks simply cannot support adding more trains.
To me, it sounds like the folks along the Culver Line are in for a rough ride. The project is scheduled to take four years, and it will probably result in delays and trains crawling over the Gowanus Canal.
I’m not too happy to hear that we are probably at a temporary dead end on this plan, but I won’t give up. I have to hope that those who are in a position to be heard by the MTA can give it the old college try. Maybe something can be worked out; maybe it can’t. But now we know why the F probably can’t run express until 2012. But we certainly don’t have to like it.
Aug
29
MTA stalls on onNYturf’s FOIL request
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With Google Transit’s plan to map the New York public transportation system still very much in its infancy, among the best places to which to turn for Google-compatible transit information is onNYTurf.com’s NYC Subway Google Map Hack. It uses a variety of information — including staircase locations on stations in Manhattan — to provide a comprehensive overview of the subway and PATH systems.
Recently, the site’s owner Will announced his plans to update the map. This update will include more user customization as well as stairwell locations for stations in the Bronx, Brooklyn and most of Queens. What it won’t include is detailed schedule information about the subways because the MTA is taking its sweet time in responding to Will’s Freedom of Information request for this information.
According to Will, he has been trying for two months to procure the information — schedules and travel times between stations — that the MTA is reportedly willing to give over to Google. Rightfully so, he’s a bit irked by this news:
The question this begs is will Google be the only party getting the data, or map artwork, or anything else from the MTA? Anything the MTA gives Google should also be available to the public.
The MTA schedule data should be made available to the public at large in an easy to use structured data format, so that anyone interested in developing a web service based on it can do so. To work with Google’s Transit directions sytem, the MTA will have to create just such a data feed. When they do, they should make access to it completely public. After all we all pay for it with taxes and fares.
Will goes on to note that the MTA claims they don’t keep the information on hand. Meanwhile, New York City Transit is supposedly researching whether or not they have a data dump, and the city’s other agencies have engaged in similar stall tactics.
Now, I know what you must be thinking: Why would onNYTurf really want the scheduling data for the MTA when everyone knows it’s unreliable? Well, au contraire, mon frere. I’ve noticed that New York City Transit does adhere to a set schedule. If there are no train delays, the same trains arrive at the same stops at the same time every morning. During peak hours, when trains are bunched and subject to delays caused by passengers, the time difference may be a minute or two, but the trains run like clockwork. I’ve even timed my commute to them.
This suggests to me that the MTA knows the schedule and that they probably have it in a form that Will would be able to use for his map. Will wants this data for a very rational purpose. “One thing you can do with schedule data is you can analyze the reach of a transit system. You can make maps that show what area can reach a target destination in say 30 min or 1 hr,” he said. “It is also vital to modeling expansions or changes to transit services. Put in the public’s hands anyone can explore where might be the best places to build a new downtown, or how effective a new rapid bus service might be relieving congestion on existing subway services.”
The MTA, a public benefit corporation, would be doing the public — which supports the corporation through taxes (look at your gas bill) and other fees — a favor. If the agency has the wherewithal to work with Google, they should good Will what he needs. It’s plain as that.
Aug
28
‘It just ain’t that big…’
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That Guy, right, just doesn’t need that much space to air out his crotch. (Photo by flickr user strohchop)
Everyone can tell a story about the time that guy on the subway had his legs spread. You know that guy. He’s the one taking up space for three people because he either can’t close his legs or feels a special compulsion to share his crotch with a trainload of commuters.
No one elicits more groans than that guy. Boarding a train during rush hour in search of a seat, you run into that guy, and your commute home is ruined. You glare at him without making eye contract. You try to nudge your way into a seat with no success. It’s happened to us all.
Well, one more in Melbourne, Australia, is sick of this rude behavior and won’t stand for it anymore. Martin Merton, an American expert on subway etiquette, will soon be publishing a book in Australia called There’s No I in Carriage. The book, according to Dr. Merton’s Website, covers topics ranging from the obnoxiously loud cell phone user or iPod-headphones wearer, the rider unable to hold in a fart for the duration of the trip and of course the perennial favorite, the seat hog.
Now, I know what you must be thinking: Who in their right mind would write a book about subway etiquette? This can’t be real, right? O ye of little faith. Of course it’s real. Or at least that’s what Connex Melbourne, the company in charge of Melbourne’s subways, wants you to believe.
Connex is relying on viral videos produced with maximum kitsch featuring a fake psychology to drive home points relating to real-life subway etiquette. And they’re pretty funny. In the video relating to leg spreaders, embedded below, Dr. Murtin recommends releasing live chickens to attack the offending crotch.
I have to wonder if this could work in New York too. The subways could use a little more humility and etiquette and a little less pushiness. But considering that only 5.3 people a day see and say something, this viral campaign would probably just fall flat in New York. But the next time you see a crotch where three people should be sitting, just think chicken.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLBX35ERHq8]
For more of Dr. Merton’s videos, check out the good doctor’s YouTube page.
Aug
28
At least we’re not in Montreal
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The McGill Metro stop in Montreal was literally falling down this weekend (Photo by flickr user blork)
Subways all over the globe had issues this weekend, and after yesterday’s post noting the problems in China and Washington, DC, my readers were more than happy to share their experiences in subway systems that just can’t measure up to New York’s.
The best tip came from Greg who e-mailed me about the problems in Montreal. On Friday, officials shut down the McGill Metro stop in Montreal when two large cracks were discovered in the tunnels linking the subway station to a nearby mall. That sounds like fun. CBC News had more:
Police emptied buildings and sealed off a large section of Montreal’s downtown core for the weekend, and service was cancelled on part of one subway line after two fissures in a tunnel linking the McGill station to malls were discovered Friday…
Fearing that roads could collapse, Montreal police cleared several city blocks of people in an area bordered by Sherbrooke, St. Catherine and Bleury streets and University Avenue, and shut the streets to traffic.
With a major university laying claim to this subway stop, New Yorkers can imagine this infrastructure issue happening right here in the playground that is the West Village. Imagine if deep fissures appeared in the ceiling at the West 4th St. stop (which is not hard to picture if you’ve looked closely at that station lately). Not only would the city be collectively flipping out, but service on up to 8 subway lines would be messed up.
So as the week rolls on and the State Comptroller tells us that the MTA doesn’t really need that fare hike, we can yet again be grateful that the tracks aren’t catching fire as they are in Washington, D.C., and that the sky — or ceiling — isn’t falling like it is in Montreal. Yet.
Aug
27
The Comptroller will have none of that fare hike
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The Comptrollers are revolting. (Well, then, maybe they should shower. I’ll be here all week.)
Nearly three weeks after New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., issued a report on how the MTA could avoid a fare hike, the State Comptroller Thomas P. Napoli has issued a similar finding. He says that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should hold off on its fare hike until the agency can huddle with city and state legislatures to develop a cohesive plan to financing public transportation that doesn’t unfairly burden the riders.
Citing the need to wait until after the congestion pricing panel issues its findings and recommendations, Napoli was fairly critical of the MTA’s willingness to move forward with a fare hike. From his office’s press release:
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority should hold off on its fare hike plans until after the City and the State have fully considered the recommendations of the recently established congestion pricing commission and the MTA’s proposed five-year capital program, New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said in a report released today. The MTA has proposed raising fares and tolls in early 2008 and again in 2010 to help address sizeable looming budget gaps.
“The MTA should put New York’s commuters first,” DiNapoli said. “Before the MTA asks for more money from straphangers, it should develop a coordinated strategy with the State and City to balance its operating budget and to finance the next five-year capital program. The MTA has taken some good first steps to develop a long-term plan for its future fiscal health. But talk of a fare hike is premature. The City is trying to reduce congestion and encourage greater use of mass transit. Any fare increase should be the last piece of a comprehensive plan, not the first.”
Napoli noted that, as many have observed said lately, the MTA doesn’t need the fare hike to run a balanced budget in 2008; the agency itself forecasts a net balance of $323 million.
MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin issued his own press release (not yet available at the MTA’s own press site):
We are grateful that Comptroller DiNapoli has acknowledged both the M.T.A.’s record ridership and the $6 billion in projected deficits we face over the next four years. These two factors dictate the fiscally responsible path we have proposed, which calls for internal belt tightening and contributions from all of our funding partners to address these deficits before they threaten service. The plan introduces stability and predictability to the fare structure by calling for biannual cost-of-living increases instead of much larger increases in crisis situations. The proposed financial plan accepts the M.T.A. responsibility to provide improved service to a rapidly growing city and region and acts immediately to put the agency on sound financial footing. Deferring the proposed 2008 fare and toll increase will only lead to more drastic increases and unacceptable service cuts in 2009.
In my view, the MTA’s release dances around the fact that both Comptroller’s have now told the MTA to ask for more money from the City and State. While Soffin cannot come out and lay the blame at the feet of politicians who have long stifled the MTA and have deprived the agency of its rightful funds, I hope the MTA is at least pursuing this course as well. It’s better to beg hat-in-hand in Albany than it is to stick the straphangers with another fare hike.
The full Comptroller report can be access here as a PDF or here as an audio file. Key bullet points after the jump:
Aug
27
At least we’re not in China. Or Washington, D.C.
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On Sunday afternoon, I headed off from Brooklyn to the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival in Alphabet City’s Tompkins Square Park. Generally, the best way for to go is via the F train to 2nd Ave. It’s a short walk from 1st Ave. and Houston to Tompkins Square.
But it’s the weekend, and things never go as planned on the weekends. Manhattan-bound F trains were running along the A tracks from Jay St./Borough Hall to West 4th. So I had to take the F to West 4th and then switch to a Brooklyn-bound F train making the stops in Manhattan. That Brooklyn-bound train showed up right away, and this weekend service advisory cost me just a few minutes of extra travel.
In New York, we tend to grumble and groan about the myriad service changes. We never know which train is running when and where. But as I silently bemoaned the endless service changes, I realized things aren’t much better elsewhere.
Take China. As The Times pointed out on Sunday, it’s a different — and dirtier — world across the Pacific. With the Olympics headed their way in just under a year, China is panicking. For the largest nation in the world, the Olympics will serve as a coming out party. After years of following an isolationist foreign policy, China will welcome emissaries from all over the globe.
As part of the Olympics, the Chinese are constructing a new subway line at breakneck speed. But they’re also have problems with customer service on the current rail systems, Reuters reported last week:
China is trying to stamp out protests over rail delays ahead of the Beijing Olympics, threatening passengers with legal action if they stay aboard their train once it has reached its destination. “Refusing to leave the train will be regarded as an illegal act endangering train safety,” the China News said, citing a long list of unlawful measures proscribed by central authorities.
There have been several instances of Chinese passengers refusing to leave their trains after serious delays, demanding compensation and an apology from state-run railway operators…In the report, jointly released by the ministry and the Public Security Bureau, passengers must conform in order to ensure a safe and orderly environment before the Games taking place in the capital in August next year.
Yikes. I’d hate to end up in a Chinese prison over a train protest.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., a city with just five subways lines, every single line had a problem on Sunday. According to the WMATA, five different incidents of smoke and fire on the tracks or in equipment rooms led to rampant delays all day. This is of course analogous to the subway floods from a few weeks ago that knocked out nearly all of the subway lines.
So as another week begins — the last one before the Labor Day holiday — we should take comfort in knowing that New York is not alone in dealing with subway problems. But more importantly, the MTA is listening to its riders and subway bloggers. They’re using report cards to grade lines, and they’re keeping their eyes and ears on the pulse of the riders. We have a great subway system with room for improvement and a whole bunch of leaders willing to take the steps to improve it. And that is always a good thing.
Photo: Firefighters in DC work to restore order to the Metro. (Courtesy of WUSA 9)
Aug
24
Google Transit may come to New York
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Bringing Google Transit to New York would be an ambitious undertaking.
Google Transit, part of Google’s plan to take over the world laboratory of experimental services, is pretty nifty. Using, as Google puts it, all available public transportation schedules and information, the service supposedly plots out the most efficient route from point to point. It includes the option to view various routes and has a cost comparison tool.
The only problem for us in New York is that the service is available only in a few regions of the country right now. All of that, however, could change. This post on Read/WriteWeb points to an article on Bloomberg.com announcing that Google is looking to take on a Transit map for the entire New York Metropolitan area.
Chris Dolmetsch and Ari Levy from Bloomberg News have more:
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and New Jersey Transit, which together carry more than 9 million people a day, are working with [Google] to give users one place to go for maps, schedules and trip planners. The agencies serve the five New York City boroughs and suburbs in New Jersey, Connecticut, Westchester County and Long Island.
“We are always looking for ways to incorporate technology in what we do,” Jim Redeker, assistant executive director of New Jersey Transit, said in a telephone interview from Newark. Google has “good experience at making this work.”
According to the article, New Jersey Transit will share its route map and schedule information with the search company, and the MTA is in talks to do the same. Furthermore, this would be, by far, the most ambitious undertaking for Google Transit as New York City alone has 468 subway stops, just 35 fewer than the rest of the nation combined. When one factors in the Long Island Railroad, Metro-North, PATH and New Jersey Transit, the number of stations just keeps on growing.
While the article notes that public transportation use in Duluth, Minnesota, increased by 12 percent after Google Transit took on the city’s public transportation system, I would find it hard to believe New York would be in line for a similar increase. First, the city’s public transportation system is so pervasive that it is already an ingrained part of life in New York City. I wonder if Duluth can say the same?
Additionally, we already have many of the services that a New York-oriented Google Transit service would provide. From the MTA Trip Planner and the NJ Transit Itinerary Planner to Hopstop, OnNYTurf’s Subway map and GypsyMaps, New Yorkers aren’t lacking for direction-minded Websites.
None of those sites, however, provide information for all of the city’s transit services (bus, regional rail, subway) in one place, and Google, who, according to Bloomberg, hopes to make a pretty penny from a New York-oriented transit site, would fulfill that need. And as Allison L. C. de Cerreño, director of New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management, said to Bloomberg, “Most people know Google. That’s actually a very powerful way to get the information in one place, in a way that most people are familiar with.”
A hat tip to Brian for this story.
Aug
24
Planned taxi strike will lead to crowded subways
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This Prius taxi may be off the streets for a few days in early September. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak).
Get ready for some crowded subway cars when September 5th and 6th roll around. Just two days after vacation season and Labor Day weekend draw to close, the Taxi Workers Alliance union members plan to strike over Taxi and Limousine Commission plans to install GPS technology in the city’s 13,000 taxis.
Bobby Cuza, NY1 transit guru and local TV heartthrob, has more:
The Taxi Workers Alliance says that at 5 a.m. on Wednesday, September 5th its members will go on a 48-hour strike…At issue is a new GPS system, a satellite-tracking technology the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission is requiring in all 13,000 of the city’s yellow cabs. It’s just one in a package of technology improvements that also includes a credit card reader and a video screen in every backseat.
The TLC says GPS will allow riders to track their trip on an electronic map, and make it easier to recover lost property. But the Taxi Workers Alliance calls it an invasion of privacy, arguing drivers’ movements could be tracked even while off-duty – and that any technological snafu will cost them.
As I see it, there are two separate issues of varying importance here. Let’s deal with what I consider to be the lesser of the two problems. Taxi drivers are concerned that the GPS system will enable the Taxi and Limousine Commission to track their every move as they drive around the city.
I don’t see this is a legitimate concern. For a while, the city has been able to employ various tracking methods for drivers: E-ZPass records could chart speeds, traffic cameras could watch for transgressions. But it doesn’t happen. In short, no city agency has the money or manpower to monitor every GPS record, and when we’re talking about 13,000 cabs running around the city, the monitoring issue is compounded. GPS systems would allow riders to get fair treatment; taxi drivers wouldn’t and shouldn’t have to worry about Big Brother.
The second issue is neatly summarized by Taxi Workers Alliance Executive Director Bhairavi Desai. “The technology, if it shuts down, the meter shuts down,” Desai said to Cuza. “If the meter shuts down, the drivers cannot pick up a fare.”
This is a legitimate concern and one the city and T&LC should address. Taxi drivers, who barely eke out a living as it is, shouldn’t have to bare the brunt of the costs if the city-mandated technology fails. Here, I side with the taxi drivers.
Meanwhile, how will this affect those of us who avoid taxis and take the subway? Well, for two days at a time when the city’s population is swelling with vacationers returning home and college students checking in for the year, 13,000 taxis will be off the roads. Expect crowded trains and grumpy people who usually think they’re too good for the subway stooping to the level of a common straphanger. Oh, joy. I can’t wait.
Aug
23
The subways are in ur facebook, updatin’ ur transit alerts
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A screenshot of the Facebook Subway Status application. The Seventh Ave. Express is definitely running local on the weekends for now until the end of time, it seems.
This afternoon, SUBWAYBlogger pointed its loyal readers in the direction of a nifty new Facebook application. The application — which you can find here — is called Subway Status. And that, folks, is the genius of Facebook and the orgy of (mostly) crap they unleashed with the application roll-out a few months ago.
(For all of you who don’t know Facebook, it’s a social networking site that started with colleges, expanded to high schools and has ended up open to everyone. It’s more addictive than crack if you were born in the 1980s or later.)
Anyway, the application, as you can imagine, brings subway information to the Facebooking masses. Using information readily available to the public as well as input from readers, Subway Status keeps subscribers attuned to the latest service alerts. To use this informative application, a Facebook user installs it on his or her profile and selects a favorite or oft-used subway line. That person can then view the alerts in that line and contribute. While nearly everyone in New York takes more than one subway, the application limits users to just one line, but it’s very easy to “transfer lines,” as the application so aptly puts it. I like where this is going.
Now, while SUBWAYBlogger and this Daily Intel post took care of the preliminaries, I decided to use Facebook for its true purpose: stalking your friends making new connections. I contacted Amos Bloomberg, the application’s creator, via Facebook, and he graciously answered some questions about this app. As Bloomberg mentioned, he’s worked on an idea such as this for a while, and it all stems from the lack of communication from the MTA, something with which we are quite familiar after recent events.
So take a read through the interview. And if you want to Facebook me, do it here. I’ll be your friend.
Second Ave. Sagas: Is Subway Status an independent application or was it developed in conjunction with the MTA?
