Archive for January, 2010
Jan
11
Exacerbating the impact of the service cuts
Posted by: | CommentsWhen the MTA gets around to cutting service later this year, many New Yorkers — particularly those who rely on late-night bus service and off-peak transit options — will find themselves facing fewer options and longer commutes. In The Times this weekend, Ariel Kaminer tried to find out just how long these new commutes will take, and her article takes this experiment to an extreme. Kaminer asked HopStop’s CEO to find her a long route made longer by the death of the X32, and he routes her from “DeKalb Avenue in the Bronx, up near Woodland [sic] Cemetery, to 26th Avenue in Queens, not far from Fort Totten and Little Neck Bay.” As the crow flies, this is an 11.7-mile trip over the Throgs Neck Bridge, but for transit riders generally, it is now a one-transfer ride that involves a 4 or a D and the QM2A express bus.
Ultimately, Kaminer’s convoluted alternate route took her on a bus, a Metro-North train, a subway and a Long Island Rail Road train. It took nearly three hours and was designed to highlight what might happen if the X32, a route designed to ferry Bronx Sciences students to and from Queens is eliminated. The problem is that this route isn’t really indicative of anything. The MTA hasn’t yet determined if it will eliminate an important school route, and the vast majority of New Yorkers will be impacted in other, less absurdist ways by the transit cuts. Anyway, Kaminer’s route is well beyond that of the X32.
Articles such as this one make me question the “why” of it all. Is picking an obscure route that few use from one area of the Bronx to an already transit-poor area of Queens get the point across? Didn’t the piece highlighting late-night bus riders do so more effectively? There are far more tangible ways to highlight the impact of the service cuts particularly for those who do not commute into and out of Manhattan at peak hours. This was just an extreme travel stunt.
Jan
11
Walder reiterates need for bus lane enforcement
Posted by: | Comments
Kicking and screaming, the New York City bus network will be dragged into, well, the present. The 34th St. route features countdown clocks for buses, and the MTA and the city’s Department of Transportation are working together to plot the rollout of Select Bus Service throughout the five boroughs. None of this will work, though, without proper bus lane enforcement.
Last week, while speaking with Richard Brodsky and the Assembly Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder started beating the drum again for bus lane enforcement. In interviews shortly after he received the MTA nomination, Walder stressed the need for these cameras, and he was at it again last week.
“I simply don’t think that the MTA ever made bus lane cameras a priority. In fact, I don’t think the MTA has made buses a priority quite the way that we’re doing today,” he said. “One of the things that I’ve tried to say from day one is that buses are an under-utilized, untapped resource in New York. We can do much more with it, and we’re making it our priority to do that.”
Of course, the State Assembly has long been a reason why the city has not yet implemented bus lane cameras. Back in 2008, David Gantt, a Rochester Democrat, torpedoed a home rule measure that would have allowed the city to use cameras to enforce the bus lanes. Since then, however, the Assembly has ceded ground on red-light cameras, among others, and Walder is optimistic that they will allow for proper bus lane enforcement as well. “I recognize the issues about privacy,” Walder said. “The Assembly, the legislature, has gotten over those issues with red light cameras. There’s no reason why we can’t get over those issues with the bus lane enforcement cameras.”
Meanwhile, a City Council measure could slow down the DOT/MTA bus lane efforts as well. At the end of the year, according to a recent Streetsblog report, the City Council passed a bill mandated a 65-day review period for all “‘major realignments of the roadway,’ particularly the addition or removal of a lane of traffic or parking on more than four blocks or ’1,000 consecutive feet of street.’”
This move is one designed to allow for more community input in DOT roadway planning, but DOT is not bound to alter plans in the face of community reaction. On the one hand, this law should eliminate any sense of paternalism that may stem from DOT unilaterally deciding how the streets should be laid out without consulting businesses and community boards. On the other, vocal minorities who seem to obsess more about parking than they should may earn too much of a say in the process. Streetsblog isn’t concerned that this measure will materially impact too many DOT plans.
In the end, these two efforts — camera enforcement and the need for dedicated lanes — highlight what is missing from the Select Bus Service plan and what the city needs to have a truly effective higher-speed bus network. I’ve seen cars driving down the 34th St. in the new bus-only lanes, and I’ve seen buses stall traffic when they have to navigate around double-parkers and other vehicles idling in bus lanes. Without dedicated lanes and without an effective enforcement means for those lanes, buses will be subject to the whims of New York City’s painfully slow surface traffic.
Walder knows that better bus service is both cheaper and more immediate than building out new subway lines. He knows that buses can be deployed to bring people into the city’s central business districts or to subway hubs. Right now, we view the buses are an inconvenience that can sometimes get us where we need to go but are mostly utilized by the aged and infirm who can’t negotiate subway staircases. In a few years, buses can be an accepted part of the city’s transit network, and with true bus lanes and enforcement measures, that vision could be one step closer to reality.
Jan
11
MTA to unveil website redesign on Wednesday
Posted by: | Comments
Forget CBTC subway cars with air brakes and automated announcements. Forget countdown clocks and contactless fare payment cards. This news tonight — news that the MTA will unveil a redesigned and updated website on Wednesday — is, ladies and gentlemen, the surest sign that the agency is starting to get serious about technology.
Since 2003, the MTA’s website has received nary an update. Web 2.0 with all of its interactivity and customer interaction took over the Internet, and the MTA’s site remained materially similar to its late-1990s iterations. Since I’ve started blogging in November 2006, we’ve seen the MTA’s site suffer through some growing pains. A July 2007 power outage that curtailed service along the East Side IRT and sent users to the agency’s site led to an outage, and the August 2007 flood and subsequent traffic spike knocked out the agency’s site as well.
Meanwhile, the agency’s regional and national competitors have recently unveiled new site designs. In Washington, the WMATA’s site redesign earned rave reviews, and recent NJ Transit and Port Authority site overhauls have also been well received. Still, the MTA’s site, a mish-mash of boxes and links and agencies, lumbered ever forward.
When new MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder assumed the reins in October, he knew he wanted to overhaul the agency’s site, and this week, in conjunction with his first 100 days in office, Walder will flip the switch on a new site. “We’re not cutting-edge; let’s not kid ourselves. But we’re getting closer,” Walder said to The Times today. “The idea here was not to break new ground; the point was to provide good service to our customers. Customers want to be able to find out how to get from point A to point B; they want to see right away whether or not the train or the buses they’re looking to get on are on schedule.”
The MTA’s site is popular, second only to Amtrak among the nation’s transit providers. At its peak, the agency sees 1.8 million unique users per month and over 25 million page views. Now, it will be better, and Michael Grynbaum offers a first look:
Real-time information on delays and service interruptions — difficult if not impossible to find on the current site — is the first thing that catches a viewer’s eye. A widget on the home page compiles continually updated service status for every subway, bus and commuter rail line in the region, along with nine of the bridges and tunnels operated by the authority.
The information is color coded (red for delays, green for good service) and divided into categories (subway, rail, bus) by tabs, similar to a Web browser that allows users to toggle through multiple pages. At a glance, readers get a sense of whether the F train back to Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, for instance, will be smooth sailing or an underground maelstrom.
Also prominent on the new home page is a feature called “Plan & Ride,” which lets users find door-to-door directions across several modes of transportation. The feature is similar to HopStop.com and the authority’s own TripPlanner application, although entering a search sends users directly to a Google Maps page…
The authority already licenses its scheduling data to Google, and Mr. Walder said that it made more financial sense to take advantage of an already popular outside service rather than to continue investing in a proprietary application.
The new site, says The Times, will also “make it easier for outside software designers to get free access to system timetables and routes.” The MTA has long been criticized for its approach to scheduling data and other route information, and I recently wondered when the authority would catch the open information bug. The answer, it seems, is soon.
When it goes live, the new site will still be a work in progress, and some web designers wish it could be “sexier.” Still, mobile versions for Blackberry and iPhone are in the works, and Transit has embraced Twitter. I’ll have a full review of the new site when it goes live, but I’m very encouraged by this news. A website redesign has been a long time coming for the MTA, and it shows a commitment to communication and customer service that had been, for a few years, lacking. Hopefully, this new site design is a sign of things to come.
Jan
10
Riding the subway, with no pants
Posted by: | Comments
Ah, January. It’s a brisk time of year for New York. The temperatures are hovering in the low 20s, and people ride the trains bundled up in layers of coats and sweaters. Yet, for one group of fun-loving New Yorkers, January is also the time for the No Pants Subway Ride.
For the last eight years, the instant-comedy group Improv Everywhere has hosted the No Pants Subway Ride in New York City, and this afternoon, unsuspecting straphangers will witness the ninth No Pants Ride. Last year, 1200 people dropped trou on the trains, and even more are expected later today.
So here are the details for this year’s event. For the first time in the history of this voyeuristic event, Improv Everywhere will tackle the outer boroughs. Those who wish to participate should meet at the following locations at 3 p.m.:
Astoria: Meet at Hoyt Playground
Downtown Brooklyn: Meet at Prospect Park
Downtown Manhattan: Meet at Foley Square
Queens: Meet at the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Park
strong>Uptown Manhattan: Meet at the Great Hill in Central Park
Williamsburg / Bushwick: Meet at Bushwick Park (AKA Maria Hernandez Park)
The event will culminate in a pants-less gather at Union Square shortly after. At around 4 p.m., the Union Square area should be teeming with too many people wearing only underwear and exiting the subway.
I won’t be participating this year. Two years ago, I joined my one and only No Pants Subway Ride at a time when around 900 other people joined me. At that point, enough New Yorkers didn’t know what was happening for the ride to be a gimmicky and funny and novel. Now, though, at least 1500 people will arrive, and nearly everyone is expecting someone to take his or her pants off this afternoon.
If you’re riding the rails and see it happening, enjoy the absurdity. If you’re participating, good luck. For the rest of us who may just be trying to get from Poitnt A to Point B, well, good luck with that too.
Jan
08
As a Transit Center grows at Fulton St., service changes abound
Posted by: | Comments
Scenes from above the construction at the Fulton St. Transit Center. (Photos by Peter Kaufman/Ink Lake Blog)
Charitably, the MTA is three years away from wrapping up construction at the Fulton St. Transit Center complex, and as the agency moves ahead with the work at a fairly brisk pace, weekend travel into and out of Brooklyn gets snarled at the new hub. This week, as a lead-in to our service advisories, we have some good stuff out of the construction site.
First, we have some pictures of the Hub. Peter Kaufman of the Ink Lake Blog works above the construction site and has been snapping some pictures as work crews raise a building there. The three thumbnails open larger versions in new windows, and the building is slowly coming together. I look forward to watching the progress via Peter’s camera, and I thank him for the photos.
Underground, things are about to get very, very messy. The MTA is on the verge of replacing a ramp and two staircases that connect the lower-level Broadway/Nassau St. stop with the rest of the complex. Per the press release:
In this current phase of construction, the AC mezzanine, a ramp and two staircases will be removed and replaced over the course of two weekends: January 9-11 and January 16-18. In addition, other subway work taking place on those weekends will affect travel in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. Effective Monday, January 18, a new temporary stair will replace the ramp that connects AC trains to the uptown 45 trains.
Also, the remaining platform stairs will each lead to a specific transfer or street exit. Riders are encouraged to consult way-finding signs and brochures that are available at station booths in midtown and lower Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn. Transit personnel will be on hand both weekends and on Monday, January 18 and Tuesday, January 19, to help direct customers.
One of the aforementioned brochures — detailing the various weekend work and its impact on those traveling through Fulton St. — is available here as a PDF.
To get users through the mess of service advisories, Transit has produced what they call a Life Sized Map of the change. These maps — three feet by four feet — are hanging up stations along the IRT lines that are affected by the Fulton St. work, and they help visualize the various reroutings plaguing popular subway lines. Riders, says Transit, are more apt to notice these maps than they are the oft-ignored service advisory signs that decorate subway stations every weekend. The LSM is embedded below, and you can click on it for a larger image. After the map — and the jump — this weekend’s service changes.
For the rest of this weekend’s service advisories, click here.
Jan
08
Report: Vacca chosen to head Council transportation committee
Posted by: | CommentsThe New York Observer’s Azi Paybarah is reporting that James Vacca will be the new head of the City Council’s Transportation Committee. For transit advocates hoping for a strong transportation committee, Vacca’s appointment is a disappointment. As I wrote earlier this week, Vacca is a car-friendly representative who has shown no love for transit. After eight years of John Liu’s know-nothing blustering, it looks for now as though we’re getting more of the same, and instead of a transit ally in the council heading this committee, those fighting for transit in the city are left with the prospects of another impotent Transportation Committee.
Update 4:02 p.m.: After reflecting on the above paragraph for a few minutes, I realize it is a harsh assessment of a council member who was largely out of the spotlight during his first term in the Council. I’m willing to give Vacca a chance to proof his transit allegiance, but early comments on the congestion pricing debate leave me a little wary. Hopefully, Vacca will be a surprise, but his early council history suggests otherwise.
Jan
08
With good reason, Walder shoots down stimulus spending on deficit
Posted by: | CommentsWhile the big stories out of yesterday’s Richard Brodsky’s committee hearing with Jay Walder focused around the Assembly rep’s pledge to help fund student transit, another comment by Jay Walder gave me hope for the MTA’s long-term capital plan. As Christine Quinn and Gene Russianoff’s Straphangers Campaign are pushing using stimulus spending to cover the MTA’s operating deficit, the MTA CEO and Chairman rejected this plan yesterday. Comparing this plan with Abe Beame’s 1970s decision to use capital funds to avert a fare hike, Walder explained why we need to continue investing in the long-term growth and maintenance of the system during times of temporary operating budget crunches. “I think the result of that [1970s move] was to drive the transit system into the ground,” Walder said.
Meanwhile, Crossroads, a Lehigh Valley-based smart growth blog, featured a recent report that explained why capital investment in transit makes economic sense. The a new study from Smart Growth America (PDF here) notes that spending on public transit produces twice as many jobs per dollar spent than investing in highway construction does. To remove stimulus funds from the capital plan and shuffle it to the operating deficit would both unnecessarily drain the capital budget and impact job creation at a time of economic uncertainty.
In the end, if the MTA can’t avert cuts and has to either reduce service to unacceptable levels or fire more people than they would hire through capital spending, I would begrudgingly support shifting stimulus dollars to the operating deficit. Until all other funding avenues are exhausted, though, Walder is right to reject this plan.
Jan
08
Brodsky promises funding for student fares
Posted by: | Comments
The politicking surrounding the threatened cuts to the MTA’s student MetroCard program were in full swing yesterday as MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder made an appearance before Richard Brodsky’s Assembly Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions. While Walder spoke about his aversion toward using stimulus funds to cover the MTA’s operating gap, Brodsky reassured the MTA head that he and the Assembly would work hard to find money for student rides.
“There is no reason in God’s Earth to make young kids pay the price of the MTA’s fiscal crisis,” Brodsky said. “I think parents should be hopeful if not confident that we’re going to solve this before next September.”
Of course, promises from Brodsky may not be enough. The MTA is threatening to end the student MetroCard program not because of the recent reduction in state subsidies from $45 million annually to just $6 million but because neither the state or city have upped their contributions to the program. At one point, as I’ve explained in the past, the city, state and MTA split the funding for student rides evenly with each body covering approximately a third of the costs. As school enrollment levels and the cost of free rides have increased, the state and city have never upped their contributions, and the MTA has been saddled with covering nearly $170 million of student rides per year.
“We’re going to deal with that in a timely way,” Brodsky said of the MTA’s threats to end free rides for the city’s students, “and we’re very confident there’s going to be a good outcome.” Brodsky, reports amNew York, said that he will be “pushing” to restore the state’s contributions to the student program.
Brodsky’s words, if we parse them, seem to indicate that, on the one hand, he will find a way to fund student travel but, on the other, he will “push” simply to restore the state’s $45 million grant, but the MTA needs more. The authority needs both New York City — as Christine Quinn noted earlier this week — and New York State to up its student subsidies significantly in order to safe the program.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is in the business of running a transit system. It isn’t in the business of providing free transportation for students because the city and state are too broke to do so and found a good scapegoat/transit out in the MTA’s largess. As Walder goes to Albany to lobby for money, he should make this reality quite clear to those who are listening.
Meanwhile, Brodsky noted that the state would not provide another funding plan — or in his words, a bailout — for the MTA. Every agency, he said, has to make “painful” cuts as funding is tight. Left unsaid is the quick fix for the city and the MTA. East River Bridge Tolls would solve many of the MTA’s current fiscal woes and would simply be good for New York City. Walder won’t lobby for those because to do so now would be political folly, but free bridges remain a reminder to the way state and city representatives view the MTA and our subways as second-rate transportation options when they are truly the economic drivers of the region.
Jan
07
Behind the Voices: Transit announcements
Posted by: | CommentsAs new rolling stock replaces the old cars, the era of the conductor in the subway system is coming to an end. Automated pre-recorded announcements that are easier to hear are replacing individual conductors’ efforts at announcing the next stops. Some people bemoan the loss of individuality underground while others prefer the crisper and over-enunciated sounds of the new announcements. Either way, those disembodied voices have become ubiquitous underground, and earlier this week, the voice recognition blogged Whose Voice is That? explored the personalities behind the voices. Did you know that the female voices usually provide information while the male voice provides instructions and commands? Since 2000 Charlie Pellett, Jessica Ettinger Gottesman, Dianne Thompson and Catherine Cowdery have been ordering us around underground, and WViT has the goods on them.
Jan
07
Quinn’s Council proposal: Almost getting it right
Posted by: | Comments
After spending the early part of this week highlighting politicians who do not seem to care enough about transit to educate themselves, we find ourselves faced with a high-ranking New York official who nearly gets it. Christine Quinn, speaker of the City Council, has engaged in a very public campaign to support the student MetroCard program and to speak out against the MTA’s proposed service cuts. She’s nearly on the right track with some of her words, but I am wary of fully supporting her plan.
At a rally on Tuesday to protest cuts to the student MetroCard program, Quinn spoke about throwing Council support behind the student rides. More importantly, she stressed how the City Council would consider more funding for student transportation during the spring budgeting sessions and how she would prioritize this item. “I recognize there is a city responsibility in this funding, and we are willing to have that conversation and see what can be done,” Quinn said.
For this, I applaud Speaker Quinn. She is doing what a politician should be doing. She is promising to explore how the city can fulfill its funding obligations to the both the MTA and the New York’s students, many of whom rely upon free transit to get to and from school. She recognizes that these cuts aren’t something the MTA would choose to do but that years of financial neglect from the city and state have backed the MTA into a corner.
But beyond this proposal, Quinn’s actions get a little murky. In addition to her vow to find more money for student rides, she calls upon the MTA to take four actions immediately to stave off the cuts. Those are, according to her action center, as follows:
- Reallocating 10 percent of direct stimulus aid to MTA operating expenses ($91.5 million);
- Using budgeted PAYGO capital funds for operating ($50 million); and
- Reallocating 10 percent of additional stimulus transit aid to State to operating ($30 million).
- Do not implement any actions without a full set of public hearings.
First, let’s dispose of the last item. Numerous politicians have tried to criticize the MTA for passing a budget a week after it was unveiled and with no input for the public. This ignores the reality that the MTA Board was, by law, required to pass a balanced budget before the end of the 2009 calendar year and had just three weeks from the time the budget crisis was announced to do so. The agency has pledged to hold hearings this year and will reevaluate the proposed cuts before they need to be implemented in June.
The other three are, in effect, the Gene Russianoff Plan, and I’ve already voiced my reticence over using capital funds for operating deficits. In a nutshell, my fears concern the precedent such a financial move would set and the MTA’s dire need to continue investing in system maintenance and expansion even in the face of a short-term operating deficit.
If the agency is to reshuffle its budgets to cover its operating gap with capital funds, such a move will become the lazy legislature’s fallback every time a hole opens up in the MTA budget. Albany will begin reducing capital expenditures in order to meet operating budget projections, and the agency’s capital budget will empty faster than a raided piggy bank. If this is the last-gasp proposal to stave service cuts, I would support it, but until every other available long-term funding option has been exhausted, we cannot fund the MTA through a short-term reshuffling of its two separate balance sheet.
Right now, Quinn is an ally of transit, and she should remain so. I won’t sign her petition yet, but I won’t begrudge those who do. Until we know that other options — bridge tolls and congestion pricing — simply will not work, we cannot rob from the future for a short-term fix today. It won’t solve the systemic problems with the way the MTA is funded and will only exacerbate these shortcomings in the future.
