Archive for January, 2010
Jan
19
MTA to appeal year three of TWU arbitration award
Posted by: | CommentsAccording to the Daily News, the MTA is giving up on part of its appeal of the TWU arbitration award while keeping another part of it — the third year of raises — alive. Pete Donohue reports that the MTA will honor two-thirds of the arbitration award, and TWU workers will now enjoy a retroactive four percent raise for 2009 and a four percent raise in 2010. The agency, however, will seek to have an appeals court overturn the third year of raises which guarantee a 3.5 percent increase in 2011. The agency will also seek to quash part of the award that lowers employee contributions to health care and raises the MTA’s obligations. According to Donohue, this decision to pay will cost the agency approximately $100 million this year.
As expected, labor union leaders were none too pleased with this development. John Samuelsen contined to bluster about this appeal and said that workers, who are getting eight percent in raises in a bad economy and at a time when few private-sector employees are enjoying raises, aren’t happy with the news. Still, if MTA Chair and CEO Jay Walder is serious about cutting costs, addressing the MTA’s rising tide of labor and pension obligations must be a part of that effort. The workers won’t like it, but the agency will continue to be hindered by those costs without some sort of compensation reform. More on that later.
Jan
19
Fare-collection at SIR’s Tompkinsville starts Wed.
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Since the MTA eliminated fare-collection agents on the Staten Island Railway as a cost-measure in the 1990s, the agency has seen its SIR-related revenues dry up. That will change tomorrow when the agency begins collecting fares at Tompkinsville as part of a $6.9 million program designed to turn around the SIR’s money-losing ways.
For years, the SIR has been unique among the city’s transit options. The MTA has collected fares at only the St. George Ferry Terminal and the Staten Island Yankees’ ballpark stops. Tompkinsville is but a half-mile away from the northern end of the line, and many customers are more than happy to hoof to avoid paying the fare. The MTA launched this project in 2008 with an eye toward completing it during the summer of 2009, but tomorrow — a few months late — the free ride will end.
As part of the Fare Collection Project, the agency has beefed up the Tompkinsville stop. Riders will now have a station house in which to wait as well as turnstiles to serve as the fare gates, cameras for safety and enforcement efforts, and fare vending and communications equipment. The agency says this move is expected to bring in approximately $702,000 annually, a 15 percent increase in total SIR fare revenue and will cut the estimated $3.4 million in operating losses incurred on Staten Island by more than 20 percent.
Staten Island residents looking to evade the fare could still choose to walk yet another three-quarters of a mile to the Stapleton stop. If a 25-minute walk from the ferry terminal is a better use of your time than simply paying a fare that is, at most, a $2.25 MetroCard swipe, then, time isn’t always money.
Jan
19
Dreams of taking the N to LaGuardia
Posted by: | CommentsThe Fiorello H. LaGuardia Airport in Queens is one of the nation’s most infuriating urban airports. It is so close to midtown and Manhattan’s Central Business District that a commuter in a hurry could make the trip in 30 minutes. Yet, it’s so far away because congestion frequently creates trips to Queens that last an hour and 30 minutes. The only public transit option to the airport is a packed and slow bus that, on a good day, goes from 125th St. and Lexington to the airport in a half an hour.
Over the last few decades, city officials have become quite intimate with the problems plaguing LaGuardia, and many have tried to fix it. The N train, whose northern terminus is less than three miles away from the LaGuardia terminals, is so tantalizing close to the airport and yet so far away.
Last week, in his “Why Train” segment, NBC 4′s Andrew Siff posted just this question. “What about the train to LGA?” asks Siff. In a one-minute piece, he mentioned how, 12 years ago, city and MTA officials were heavily invested in a plan to extend the N to LaGuardia, but in the face of other pressing transit needs and widespread community opposition, the agency eventually shelved this much needed link to LaGuardia.
So what then were the plans that engendered widespread community outrage and still cause politicians to chime in now and then, nearly a decade after the MTA discarded the idea? Let’s hop in the Wayback Machine and explore some Giuliani-Era transit developments.
The plans to extend the N to LaGuardia first came to light in 1998 as city officials recognized the need to build better access to the airports. As part of a $1.2 billion package with funding coming from the MTA, the Port Authority and the city, Giuiliani put forth a plan to build an airtrain to JFK and extend the subway to LaGuardia. The JFK line — built over preexisting rights-of-way — survived. The LaGuardia plans, obviously, did not.
The first and biggest problem the city faced in Queens came about because of the proposed routes. The preferred route would have extended the N along 31st St. north onto Con Edison’s property at the edge of Astoria and then east along 19th Ave. to the Marine Air Terminal. The MTA also considered an eastward extension along Ditmars Boulevard, a plan to reroute LaGuardia-bound N trains from Queensboro Plaza through the Sunnyside rail yard and along the eastern edge of St. Michael’s Cemetary to what Newsday called “elevated tracks parallel to the Grand Central Parkway.” A barely-acknowledged fourth route would have seen trains head east via Astoria Boulevard.
On the surface, these plans seem no worse than building the Second Ave. Subway through densely populated neighborhoods on the East Side. In Queens, however, the MTA would have had to build a spur line off a pre-existing elevated structure, and all of the plans called for the train to LaGuardia to run above ground through significant portions of Astoria. So while airport access ranked tops amongst Queens residents transit expansion wishlist, no one wanted to see Astoria further scarred by elevated structures.
The Daily News termed the opposition response NAMBYism — Not Above My Backyard — and nearly every single Queens politician opposed the idea. Some preferred the Sunnyside alternative, but at the time, NYCDOT said plans to widen the Grand Central Parkway would interfere with the train proposal. Others called upon an extension from Long Island City to skirt the borough from 21st St. along the East River to the airport. Still others preferred a longer Willets Point extension of the LIRR to the airport.
Peter Vallone exemplified the opposition. “Extending the elevated track will cause unnecessary hardship to residents and businesses in the area,” the City Council member said in 1999. “The MTA wants to go their way, not our way.”
In the end, despite opposition, political support for the plan from City Hall continued well into the 21st Century. With the backing of Mayor Guiliani and Queens Borough President Clare Shulman, the MTA’s 2000-2004 Five-Year Capital Plan included $645 million for the LaGuardia subway link, and even though a $17 million planning study was the project’s only expense, in late 2002, Mayor Bloomberg threw his weight behind the LaGuardia extension as a key post-9/11 revitalization plan.
Finally, in mid-2003, the Queens communities won the battle as the MTA announced plans to shelve the airport extension. With money tight after 9/11 and Lower Manhattan on the radar, then-MTA Chair Peter Kalikow said that the agency’s attention had turned to the JFK Raillink from Lower Manhattan, another plan that never materialized, and that the agency was prioritizing the 7 Line Extension, the East Side Access Plan and the Second Ave. Subway over the LaGuardia N train extension. “LaGuardia is a good project, but you have to prioritize,” Elliot Sander, then at NYU, said. “In terms of political support from City Hall, Albany and Washington, it’s moved back in the queue.”
And so in the end, we sit here in 2010 with the same travel options to LaGuardia as we have always enjoyed (or suffered through). The M60 remains the best public transportation option, and the MTA is in no position to take another crack at sending the subway to the airport. Oh, what could have been.
Jan
18
At Hudson Yards, waiting for Related
Posted by: | CommentsAs workers continue to forge ahead with the 7 line extension, the new stop at 34th St. and 11th Ave. remais on target to open in 2013, but will there be anything above ground besides the Javits Center? That’s long been the hot button question surrounding the city’s efforts at developing the Hudson Yards land. This weekend, Crain’s New York tried to answer it. The business trade took a look at six key projects, and among them are many transit-related developments. Moynihan Station and Atlantic Yards have garnered the headlines, but what of the Far West Side?
As Crain’s reminds us, February should witness a major milestone in the future of this project. That month, Related’s first $43.5 million payment of its $1 billion deal with the MTA is due after the two sides agreed on a one-year extension in 2009. “We’re working diligently with the MTA and expect to meet the deadline,” a company spokeswoman said to Andrew Marks. Meanwhile, others with vested interests in the area believe something will happen but not until after the 7 line opens. “The opening of the subway means that something will get built there,” Jon McMillan, whose company TF Cornerstone Inc. owns development rights along West 37th St., said. “Once we’ve got the 7 line here, it will be, ‘If you build it, they will come.’”
In the past, I’ve called the 7 line work the Subway to Nowhere because of the costs and nature of the project. The city dropped plans — which factored heavily into Mayor Bloomberg’s PLANYC proposal — to build a stop at 41st St. and 10th Ave. where residents actually need subway access and are banking on substantial development to make this costly subway extension worthwhile. Still, if developers in the area are optimistic, that’s reason for hope for Manhattan’s last frontier.
Jan
18
Inside a new terminal, an ‘Overlook’ to evoke the outdoors
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At ground level at the new Atlantic Ave. Terminal, Allen and Ellen Wexler’s “Overlook” inspires an outdoor pause. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak.
Grand train terminals have long been prime people-watching areas. The buildings are alive with those who scurry to and from trains, those who are waiting for friends and loved ones to arrive, those counting down the minutes until they can head home and those simply enjoying a public space. Stepping back to observe the pace of life in motion is one of the pleasures of commuting life.
A few weeks ago, the MTA finally cut the ribbon on its new terminal building at Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn. Over budget and past deadline, the new building garnered praise for its airy inside and state-of-the-art facilities. Inside the terminal, at ground level but overlooking the lower level is the MTA’s latest Arts for Transit installation, and it is evocative of that people-watching tradition of train terminals.]
Early last week, I took a tour of the building and spoke to the artists behind the “Overlook,” a granite-and-glass installation that brings a sense of calm and tranquility to an otherwise busy building. It is, in the words of Allen Wexler, half of the husband-and-wife team behind the piece, supposed to represent “the intersection between nature and city” in an urban environment.
The artists, pictured above, talked to me about their design process and the inspiration for the piece. The two of them worked closely with John di Domenico, the architect behind the new terminal building, to construct something that would seem both natural for the terminal but also unique for the space. It is a site-specific installation meant to evoke a scenic overlook at a national park, and it transforms the upper level into a spot for simply watching urban nature.
The Wexlers took images of national park overlooks and came up with a fractal computerized design. Each granite panel is connected to the others via straight lines to turn this into what the artists called “a pxilated iconic scenic overlook.”
“We sought to create the experience of viewing an urban public space as if it were a nature setting, using granite tiles mathematically pixilated to create nooks and crannies similar to those found in rock walls,” Allan Wexler said. “Our public work seeks to engage the people who use the space, creating a rich experience that resonates over time.”
In the end, the MTA hopes that their new installation creates a meeting space at the station as well. With over 25,000 LIRR passengers and 31,000 subway travelers passing through the new terminal each day, the “Overlook” is ready to become a local landmark. “This vantage point was created as a collaborative effort combining our design that placed the wall between two sweeping stairways and the artists’ vision of morphing that structural wall into an outcropping of rocks,” di Domenico said.
Hanging above the ticket area, the waiting room and two grand staircases, it’s bound to become the terminal’s prime people-watching spot as well.
After the jump, a slideshow of scenes from the new Atlantic Ave. Terminal. Click on any of the photos in the post to enlarge. Read More→
Jan
15
Service changes, some more temporary than others
Posted by: | CommentsFor the weekend, there’s a lot going on, but before we jump in, there are a whole slew of major advisories that deserver our attention. Here we go.
First up, the G train. For the next four weekends, there is no G train service. Instead, free shuttle buses will operate between Queens Plaza and Jay St. Transit is urging customers to take the R or E instead. The work: switch replacement at Bedford-Nostrand, asbestos removal at Greenpoint Ave., fan plant replacement at Jackson Ave. and various other track maintenance projects.
Next up, the Rockaways. The first part of the Rockaways rehab project was supposed to start wrapping up this week. But delays! The Far Rockaway-bound A platforms at Beach 67th and Beach 44th Streets are scheduled to reopen as planned on Monday, January 18, 2010, but the Manhattan-bound platforms at Beach 105th and Beach 90th Sts. and the Far Rockaway-bound platform at Beach 25th St. won’t open until Monday, January 25.
On the other side, the project is delayed a week as well. The Manhattan-bound A platforms at Beach 25th, Beach 44th and Beach 67th Sts. will close for rehabilitation on Monday, February 1, 2010. The Rockaway-bound platform at Beach 90th and Beach 105th Sts. are still on schedule to close on February 15. Despite this complicated timeline, this work affects relatively few commuters as the Beach stops on the Rockaways are among the least used stations in the system.
Finally, the Brighton Line. This work affects the Q as well. Anyway, on Monday at 5 a.m., the Brighton Beach/Coney Island-bound platforms at Ave. U and Neck Road will reopen. The Manhattan-bound platforms will close for a year. Trains will continue to bypass Aves. H and M until the Fall, and all Brighton Beach-bound B trains will make all local stops.
And now the weekly stuff. As always, these weekend changes come to me via the MTA. They are subject to change without notice. Remember to listen to on-board announcements and check the signs at your local subway station. The Subway Weekender map is available here. Click through for the full list of planned changes.
Jan
15
A plan for the East Side SBS, but the wrong one
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Here come the Select Bus Service route plans. Here comes the BRT controversy. As MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder pledges to speed up the city’s buses, the two transportation agencies have seemingly settled on a design that, while progressive for New York City, leaves much to be desired.
DOT unveiled the new plans last night at a meeting of the First Avenue/Second Avenue SBS Community Advisory Committee, and the agency’s presentation is available here as a PDF. The story I want to tell is best express through the liberal use of pictures and excerpts from the slides. Click any picture for a larger image. Let’s dive in.
The basic premise of the 1st Ave./2nd Ave. Select Bus Service is one of adaptation to changing neighborhoods. The route starts in the cramped and densely populated Lower Manhattan area, shoots up past residential neighborhoods in the East Village and Murray Hill, navigates its way through an overly congestion midtown and settles in for a ride up through the Upper East Side and Harlem. Along the way down Second Ave., it must also contend with some massive subway construction efforts, and DOT has included bike lanes in any street overhaul as well.
To combat these problems, the simple and best solution would involve physically separated bus and bike lanes from South Ferry to 125th St. Cars would lose a lane, and businesses would have to get creative with deliveries. But travel times would be markedly improved, and buses would no longer be subject to the whims of surface traffic and dense midtown congestion. Instead, DOT and the MTA have proposed three different alignments for the various neighborhoods, and each will require major enforcement efforts to keep bus lanes free and buses moving.
Jan
15
After 100 days, a plan for ‘Making Every Dollar Count’
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One hundred and three days ago, Jay Walder assumed control of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. As an incoming CEO and Chairman with a career’s worth of experience in transit, Walder set about to figure out a way to improve the MTA. As he worked to figure out how to streamline the MTA and improve services, the authority ran headlong into budget problems, and his review shifted to focus on cost cutting measures and efficient spending.
This week, as promised, Walder released his 100 days report and earlier today, he spoke at the ABNY breakfast about the plan. On the surface, his report — available here as a PDF — sweeps broadly. It highlights bus lane improvements and newer fare collection technologies. The only major new development to come out of it is a plan to eliminate tollbooths and replace them with high-speed tolling technologies to cut down on congestion. The Times covered that angle this morning.
But on the other hand, Walder’s speech drove home some points about how the MTA will be searching to improve services while cutting down on organizational efficiencies during a period of economic distress both for society at large and the agency specifically. Instead of rehashing the platitudes set forward in the report, I’ll leave it up for you to read the short, 20-page document or the even shorter press release. Here, I want to focus on what Walder said this morning.
After the obligatory introductions about the current state of the system as compared to that of the 1970s and 1980s, Walder landed on his main theme: improving the customer experience through efficient spending. Starting with the countdown clocks in the subways, he talked about how in London, train riders “had a sense that someone was in control, that your commute was not in chaos” because the clocks told riders when the next train was coming, and the train would then arrive as scheduled.
In New York, the system is different, and straphangers are naturally skeptical of the MTA because of the inherent uncertainties of riding the train. “We lean over the edge in hopes of seeing a white light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “What comes across is a sense of angst and anxiety.”
Buses too are plagued by these same uncertainties. “It’s difficult to go more than a block or two without seeing a car or a delivery truck in the bus lane,” Walder noted. “We must convince people that, if they’re in a bus lane, they will get a ticket. If we can, the bus can become a reliable mode of transportation in New York.”
Now, these words seem to ring true every time an MTA head starts speaking in public, but Walder, with a background at McKinsey, seemed to recognize that improving the system starts with efficient spending and ends with cutting out the fat. He listed numbers: The MTA has 92 different public numbers and five call centers to handle complaints. The authority has 5000 employees doing administrative tasks. “There will be layoffs,” he said.
In terms of fiscal responsibility, though, Walder is prepared to tackle the MTA’s problems as any good consultant would. Right now, for instance, it costs the agency 15 cents to collect $1 in fare revenue. Even a savings of 2-3 cents would increase the MTA’s revenue streams by tens of millions of dollars. That, he said, is one of the driving forces behind replacing the MetroCard.
He also highlighted the need to cut wasteful services. In highlight express buses, an area I tackled this week, Walder picked on the X25, a little used route from Grand Central to Wall Street. “A grand total of 20 take this bus each day, and it costs the MTA $80 per person to run this service,” he said. “I can assure you that we won’t be running the X25 much longer.”
In the end, Walder focused on the need now during lean economic times to turn around the MTA’s internal structure. He said he’s already been working with agency heads and labor leaders to “address outdated processes and work rules that drive up the costs and hurt the credibility of the MTA and its unions.” He discussed the “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to “change how the MTA does business.”
Of course, Walder’s actions this year will speak louder than words, but Walder seems to understand the challenges he and the MTA face in the eyes of a skeptical public. With the speech behind him, the tough parts — the cost-cutting, the realization of savings, the service improvements, the move toward an efficient transit organization — have only just begun.
Jan
15
DiNapoli highlights economy’s impact on MTA ridership, revenue
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Thomas DiNapoli, the New York State Comptroller, issued a brief report on the state of the MTA ridership levels yesterday. The report is written in a way to draw headlines. “Ridership declines cost MTA $100 million,” screams his press release, but behind the figures is another story about the MTA’s precarious economic position.
First, the news, as DiNapoli’s office put it:
State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli today released a report [PDF] showing 75 million fewer customers used the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) system through October 2009 than during the same period in 2008, costing the MTA more than $100 million in lost fare and toll revenue. DiNapoli attributes the sharp decline to the 110,000 jobs lost in New York City between October 2008 and October 2009.
“The MTA is vital to the strength of the regional economy – and the health of the economy has a huge impact on ridership,” DiNapoli said. “People don’t commute when they’re unemployed.”
In 2008, more than 2.6 billion riders used the MTA’s buses, subways, and commuter railroads and about 300 million vehicles crossed the MTA’s bridges and tunnels. Subway ridership, which had grown by 242 million trips between 2000 and the peak year of 2008, accounted for the biggest decline in 2009, with about 44 million fewer riders from January 2009 through October 2009 than during the same period in 2008.
As far as the facts go, nothing DiNapoli says is wrong. As the MTA’s own internal indicators show subway ridership is down in 2009 over the same period in 2008. DiNapoli is right to blame job loss figures and the overall state of the economy as well. Those out of work are taking fewer rides into Manhattan’s central business district, and fewer people are taking extraneous subway trips.
His conclusion though — that the decline in ridership has cost the MTA over $100 million — isn’t quite right. It is certainly headline-grabbing. Nearly all of the articles about the report lead with that news. But that’s now how the MTA’s budget calculations work.
The MTA each year calculates ridership revenue based on their expected ridership figures. When the authority issued its 2009 budget at the end of 2008, it allowed for the economic downtown and projected lower ridership figures and lower farebox revenues. Through November, subway ridership totals were just 3.9 million passengers lower than projected while Bridge & Tunnel and bus ridership totals were higher than expected. In the end, the MTA hasn’t really lost revenue, but as with any business, in a better economy, the authority would draw in more money. That seems to be the more obvious point DiNapoli is trying to make. Charging the MTA with a $100 million loss when it wasn’t expecting that $100 million in the first place is a bit misleading.
DiNapoli’s report brings up an interesting quandary about the MTA and the city’s subway system. It’s clear that the subways are a part of everyone’s daily life, and the ridership and revenue totals hew closely to the state of the economy. To me — and to many urban policy experts — the subways are a public good then. The city exists on a large geographical scale with a highly concentrated business district in Manhattan because people can get from the Rockaways and Coney Island to the Bronx for a MetroCard swipe. The public good aspect of the subways are also why the fares are so low. For the subways to serve their purpose, fares must remain affordable and, in a sense, artificially low.
Yet, when it comes to funding, politicians prefer to treat the transportation network as a luxury good. It takes political arm-twisting and threats of “Doomsday budgets” to gain even modest concessions and half-hearted funding plans. The MTA is a creature of the state. It was established by the state to serve the public in a vital role, and the people in power refuse to recognize it.
DiNapoli’s report underscores why the MTA shouldn’t have to rely heavily on farebox recovery for its primary source of funding. When will the politicians realize this as well?
Jan
14
SAS utilities work forces UES street closures
Posted by: | CommentsI learned a few hours ago that utilities work along Second Ave. will result in some street closures until the end of February. An official with E.E. Cruz & Tully, the joint venture working on Contract 2A of the Second Ave. Subway, sent Community Board 8 a letter this afternoon detailing the closure. From 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. every weekday until February 26, East 95th St. between 1st and 2nd Aves. will be closed to through traffic. Businesses along the street will still be able to receive deliveries, and pedestrian traffic will not be affected. As an westbound street that feeds off of an FDR Drive exit, this street closure will force more traffic onto 96th St., and it serves as another reminder that subway construction in a densely-populated city is not without its headaches.
