Archive for December, 2010
Dec
10
Addressing SAS downtime and weekend service
Posted by: | CommentsYesterday evening from around 4 p.m. until shortly after 9:30 p.m., Second Ave. Sagas was offline, and I wanted to address that for a brief minute. The cause of the outage was a DDoS attack aimed at my server. SAS piggybacks off of the server we own to power River Ave. Blues, and our host accidentally dropped the firewall. Everything is fine now, and that should be the end of that. Thanks for your patience during the outage and thanks for reading.
Now onto the service advisories. As the holiday season progresses, the weekend work has continued to slow. Just a handful of lines are diverted, and the diversions aren’t major. As always, these come to me via New York City Transit and are subject to change without notice. Listen to on-board announcements and check signs in your local station. Subway Weekender has a map, and his map already features the new Jay St.-MetroTech station. The MTA’s online map doesn’t.
From 4 a.m. Saturday, December 11 to 10 p.m. Sunday, December 12, uptown trains operate express from East 180th Street to Gun Hill Road, skipping Bronx Park East, Pelham Parkway, Allerton Avenue and Burke Avenue stations due to track panel and tie installation north of Pelham Parkway. For service to these stations, customers may take the uptown 2 to Gun Hill Road and transfer to a downtown 2.
From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, December 11 and Sunday, December 12, uptown 4 trains skip 176th Street, Mt. Eden Avenue, 170th, 167th and 161st Streets due to rail replacement at 161st Street-Yankee Stadium.
From 4 a.m. Saturday, December 11 to 11 p.m. Sunday, December 12, Flushing-bound 7 trains skip 82nd, 90th, 103rd, and 111th Streets due to switch renewal work at 111th Street. Customers traveling to these stations may take a Flushing-bound 7 to Junction Blvd. or Mets-Willets Point and transfer to a Manhattan-bound 7.
From 11 p.m. Friday, December 10 to 5 a.m. Monday, December 13, D trains run local between DeKalb Avenue and 36th Street, Brooklyn due to switch renewal north of Pacific Street.
From 4 a.m. Saturday, December 11 to 7 p.m. Sunday, December 12, J trains run every 20 minutes between Jamaica Center and 111th Street due to work at the fan plant north of 121st Street. The last stop for some Jamaica Center-bound J trains is 111th Street.
From 11:30 p.m. Friday, December 10 to 5 a.m. Monday, December 13, M trains are replaced by free shuttle buses between Metropolitan Avenue and Myrtle Avenue due to platform edge rehabilitation.
From 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. on Saturday, December 11, Sunday, December 12 and Monday, December 13, Manhattan-bound N trains are rerouted over the Manhattan Bridge from DeKalb Avenue to Canal Street due to Lawrence Street station rehabilitation. (No Manhattan-bound trains at Lawrence Street, Court Street, Whitehall Street, Rector Street, Cortlandt Street or City Hall. Customers may take the 4 train at nearby stations.)
From 11 p.m. Friday, December 10 to 5 a.m. Monday, December 13, N trains run local between DeKalb Avenue and 59th Street, Brooklyn due to switch work north of Pacific Street.
(Rockaway Park Shuttle)
From 10:30 p.m. Friday, December 10 to 5 a.m. Monday, December 13, free shuttle buses replace Rockaway Park Shuttle (S) trains making station stops between Rockaway Park and Beach 60th Street.
Dec
10
At Jay Street, a new connection for thousands
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MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder, with scissors, celebrates the opening of the new station as Brooklyn politicians join in. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
At the ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the completion of the Jay St.-MetroTech station rehab and a new connection between the IND and BMT, MTA officials spoke of the thousands of people who will now enjoy the new station. For the first time since 1933, passenger will enjoy a free in-system transfer between the R and the A, C and F trains. It was a distance of barely more than 100 feet that took nearly eight decades to bridge.
“The work we’ve done here acknowledges this station’s importance to Downtown Brooklyn,” Transit president Thomas Prendergast said to a crowd of contractors, politicians and reporters at the station this morning. “From day one, this is going to be a vital transfer point for our customers, creating another transit hub in Downtown Brooklyn.”
A new escalator leads the way up from the old Lawrence St. station on the R. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
With the new connection comes a new name, and while the signs across the complex now say Jay St.-MetroTech, it might be tough for the locals to forget about Lawrence St. and Borough Hall. Still, a new moniker is nothing compared with the overall enhancements at the station. Jay St. is now fully ADA-compliant with three elevators and two new escalators. The fare control areas have been reorganized to better facilitate passenger flow, and a massive Arts for Transit installation adorns the mezzanine level.
“We don’t just do the bare minimum,” MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder said. “We put in the work, effort and art that will allow us to walk in here and smile when we enter the station.”
For the MTA, this connection is, as Walder says, part of an effort to “correct[] a mistake that was made back in 1933.” As the original tripartite subway system went up, lines operated by different companies crossed, but because of the competition between the IRT, BMT and IND operators, transfers were often omitted. Now, with various projects around the city, the MTA is working to integrate an old system. “The opening of this link as well as two other new transfers to be placed into service next year continues the physical consolidation of a subway originall built and operated as three separate systems,” Prendergast said.
The politicians who took part in the ceremony echoed this drive and pushed for more. Letitia James, City Council representative for the area, called upon the MTA to connect the G with the IRT. Both Borough President Marty Markowitz and Joan Millman, while praising the MTA for finishing the $164 million rehab on time and under budget, urged the authority to address the issues surrounding the former Transit headquarters above. “370 Jay Street,” Markowitz said. “That’s our next chore.”
This morning, they celebrated. This afternoon, they went back to work. “Finally,” Markowitz said, “we have a station worth of Downtown Brooklyn and all Brooklynites.”
Departures and Arrivals fills an artistic gap
Departures and Arrivals (2009), Ben Snead, Jay Street-Metro Tech Station, A, C, F, R lines, MTA New York City Transit. Commissioned and owned by Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts for Transit. (Photo: Collin LaFleche. Click to enlarge.)
As part of the station rehab, the MTA’s Arts for Transit division has installed a 103-foot-long mural along the newly renovated mezzanine. Designed by Ben Snead, the piece is called Departures and Arrivals, and it is a metaphor for the melting pot of the Borough of Kings. It features species of animals that have migrated to Brooklyn and one that is departing.
Snead, who works extensively with animals, had applied to design an installation for two other stations in the Bronx, but the MTA finally came knocking for the space at Jay Street. It is, Lester Burg of Arts for Transit told me, one of the largest installations in the system. It is made out of glass mosaic and ceramic title, and it undulates as the wall does. The art adds another welcoming touch to a station much improved.
After the jump, a slideshow from the unveiling. Read More→
Dec
10
Another day, another new station name
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In around 90 minutes, the Jay St.-MetroTech station that serves the A, C, F and R trains will open to the public, but it’s not the only new station name in the system. Also coming to us via Jeffrey from Twitter is this photo taken on the lower level of the Fulton St. complex. That tunnel, which serves as the final stop in Manhattan for the A and C, had long been called Broadway/Nassau St., leading to countless confused tourists (and more than a few lost locals).
Now, as part of the overall redesign at Fulton St., Broadway/Nassau is no more. The A and the C stop at Fulton St., and the system in Lower Manhattan is that much easier to navigate. As the sign says, “One Name, Many Connections.”
Dec
10
Labor lawyer replaces Seabrook on MTA Board
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Norman Seabrook, head of the New York City Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association and one of the MTA Board’s most vocal pro-labor advocates, has not bee reappointed to his position. Instead, Gov. David Paterson, in the waning days of his time in Albany, Charles G. Moerdler, a partner the lawfirm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan with no transportation background and extensive real estate experience to the board. It is a move that seemingly speaks volumes of the short-term future of the MTA’s relationship with labor.
To get a sense of this story, let’s start with some testimony Jay Walder to the New York State Assembly. The MTA CEO and Chair came to talk about his relationship with labor unions, and it seems as though things might grow contentious soon. As Transportation Nation’s Jim O’Grady reported, “Walder says unions have to agree to freeze their wages–or straphangers will have to pay more.”
To me, a few weeks ago, Walder confirmed that the MTA will try to keep labor spending steady. On the other hand, the unions will be pushing for higher wages or higher benefits. To maintain a net-zero in the labor spending column, the authority will have to institute more layoffs or dig in against its workers. In any event, it will be a tough negotiation.
Enter Norman Seabrook. His appointment to the board expired this past summer, and for the last few months, he was a holdover board member. WPIX’s Greg Mocker — yes, that Greg Mocker — caught up with Seabrook and Gov. David Paterson today. The video is available here, and in it, Seabrook talks about his departure.
The outgoing MTA Board member seems to believe his own politics played a roll in this. “It could have been for my endorsements of another candidate. It could have been because I wasn’t a yes man,” he said, later critiquing the board. “They will continue to vote yes on fare increases,” he said. “They will continue to yes on service reductions. They will continue to vote yes on layoffs. They will continue to vote yes on anything that is put in front of them.”
Gov. Paterson, who said he won’t “get into conversations about particular appointees,” talked about what he wants in an MTA board member. “We’re looking for people who will make the tough choices,” he said, “and even though they may not be popular, they will hopefully be the ones that will spare the public authority as we are trying to spare the state from going into insolvency.”
So just who is Charles Moerdler? The veteran lawyer has extensive public service on his resume. He currently serves on both the New York City Housing Development Corporation and the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York. Throughout his professional career, he has “represented many of New York’s leading real estate developers and owners, as well as real estate trade organizations.” He has also served as the lead negotiator for municipal unions, including the United Federation of Teachers and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. In other words, he’s a labor guy replacing a labor guy but with a different focus.
Whereas Seabrook is the president of a union, Moerdler, as Pete Donohue points out in the Daily News, is the guy who can lean on his extensive contract negotiating experience as the TWU’s pact comes due. With experience serving on state authorities, he can recognize what the MTA needs to do to survive and knows what the unions will be after. These upcoming negotiations could get quite interesting indeed.
Dec
09
Photo of the Day: Jay St – Metrotech
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Where: On the platform at the station currently known as Jay St. – Borough Hall
Via loyal SAS reader Jeffrey, who sent this photo in via his Twitter account, comes a snapshot of things to come in Downtown Brooklyn. As I reported over the weekend, the connection between the Jay St. – Borough Hall stop on the A/C/F and the Lawrence St.-MetroTech station on the R will open at 1 p.m. tomorrow, and the MTA wants everyone to know about the station’s new name. I’ll be at the ribbon-cutting in the morning, and I’ll try to take some photos of the new passageway. So far, all we’ve seen is a video. The changes should be reflected on the subway map in the upcoming weeks.
Dec
09
Once more unto the Student MetroCard breach
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The Straphangers Campaign does not think 2010 was a banner year for public transit in New York City. The rider advocacy group released their annual list of Top Tens today, and while they managed to put together a list of the top ten best stories of the year, their top ten worst are more sobering. The list includes fare hikes, service cuts and ever-increasing budget gaps, and it portends rough seas ahead for the MTA.
“There’s no way around it: 2010 was an awful year for subway and bus riders, filled with fare hikes, service cuts and a $900 million MTA deficit,” Gene Russianoff said. “But even in a rotten year, there are some things to celebrate, and, of course, to curse the fates.”
By and large, I don’t disagree with their lists. After all, fare hikes, service cuts and unfunded capital plans are bad news for everyone, and we all appreciate faster bus service, countdown clocks and real-time information available online. But where I think the Straphangers’ list misses the marks is, again, with Student MetroCards. They have proclaimed that saving student MetroCards is the number one best transit story of the year. Says their release:
1. Student MetroCards saved (June 2010). Subways and buses move 550,000 students for free or at half-fare. For months an MTA proposal to end student MetroCards was a serious threat that roiled the public. At one point, a Facebook page set up by two high school students to fight the proposal attracted 102,000 members.
The Straphangers had been influential in pushing to save the Student MetroCard program. They put out faulty math that overestimated the costs of paid transit by $300-$400 a year. They staged rallies. They held protests. They petitioned. But to me — a daily commuter with no children who saw Student MetroCard abuse run rampant in high school — one chart seals the deal:
This chart shows how MTA contributions to student transit have risen over the last 10 years while city contributions have stayed stagnant and state contributions decreased. I have never understood why the MTA should be expected to pay for student transit when the state and city aren’t doing their jobs.
Even when the Student MetroCards were “saved” earlier this year, the solution that emerged from the compromise was not an ideal one. The state simply restored the funding that it cut for 2009. Instead of promising to fund student travel, the state is contributing $45 million, the city is contributing $45 million, and the MTA is on the hook for well over $100 million. At a time when the service cuts package totaled less than what the MTA loses to student travel, I have to wonder why we’re making concessions to what amounts to a failure of government.
When the Student MetroCard program started in 1995, the MTA, city and state were to split the bill evenly with each side contributing $45 million. Unfortunately, the enabling compromise didn’t include adjustments for inflation, increased costs of providing the service or an explosion in the number of eligible. Perhaps, we should return to a scenario where the MTA contributes only $45 million as well, and if that total package of $135 million isn’t enough to provide free travel, then students will have to pay reduced-priced cards. The MTA is a transit agency, not a school bus, and the rest of us shouldn’t have to pay even more so students can ride for free.
Dec
09
Automating the MetroCard replacement process
Posted by: | CommentsTo replace a damaged MetroCard involves, as with many things at the MTA, a process. A rider has to get a form from a station agent, figure out how to fill it out and mail it back to the MTA in a postage-paid envelope. Over the course of a year, Transit processes 170,000 for demagnetized cards or for those scanned twice, and the average turnaround time is 7-11 days.
Lately, though, this cumbersome process has been slowed because the envelopes have become a scarce commodity. As the New York City Transit Riders Council President’s Forum a few weeks ago, a station agent spoke on how the postage-paid envelopes hadn’t been restocked in months, and Pete Donohue noted earlier this week that the envelopes were in short supply.
Today, the News reports that the MTA is going to use a nascent technology called the Internet to improve the MetroCard trade-in process. Beginning in the second quarter of 2011, when customers encounter a faulty card, they can fill out an online form to process an exchange. That move online should allow the MTA to cut down on administrative and mailing costs and should also speed up the exchange. The online upgrade, reportedly in the works since 2009, has been a long time coming, but what’s taken so long?
Dec
09
What’s in a name, anyway?
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The 59th St. Bridge isn't feelin' too groovy these days. (Photo by flickr user wallyg)
Immortalized in song by Simon and Garfunkel in the mid-1960s, the 59th St. Bridge will soon have a new name. As part of an effort to honor former New York politicos, the Bloomberg Administration announced yesterday that the Queensboro Bridge will be renamed for Ed Koch and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel for Hugh Carey. So now if there’s too much traffic on the RFK, you can jet down the Koch to get to Queens.
The former mayor was quick to embrace the honor that sees a 101-year-old bridge deprived of its rightful name. “It’s a workhorse bridge,” Koch said of the landmark. “And that’s what I am, I’m a workhorse. Always have been. I feel very compatible with it.”
Koch also praised former Governor Carey as well. “I’ve been trying to get something named for Governor Carey,” he said. “I think he was the best governor of the modern era and saved both the city and the state from default and from bankruptcy.
The current mayor was equally as magnanimous as the old. In a statement issued yesterday, he said that the Queesnboro Bridge, like Koch, is “icon of the city that’s been bringing people together for a long time.” It was a day for humility it seems.
Over the past few years, the state legislature has gone on a naming binge. We have the Joe DiMaggio Highway, the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, the Ed Koch Bridge, the Hugh Carey Tunnel and the Jackie Robinson Parkway. Unfortunately, as famous names are appended to iconic and familiar roads, the names lose all meaning. It’s much easier to figure out where the West Side Highway, Triborough Bridge, Queensboro Bridge, Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and Interboro Parkway are than it is to give directions to these location-less named parts of town.
For city too, these changes aren’t free. At a time when municipal dollars are stretched thin, New York is going to have to come up with money for new signs. It cost the city $4 million to rebrand the RFK Bridge, and everyone stills just calls it the Triborogh Bridge. This time, the city is going to look for private donations to cover the costs. Perhaps Mr. Koch can fund his own bridge.
While the City Council seemed enthusiastic about the new names — “Over 40 years ago, the Queensboro Bridge had Simon and Garfunkel feelin’ groovy and today there is no one in our city groovier than Ed Koch,” Christine Quinn said — not everyone shared the joy. “To glibly rename things is very sad,” Bob Singleton, a Queensboro Bridge historian, said.
But tongue-in-cheek sarcasm aside, watching the state simply give away the names to these iconic structures raises some questions. Just a few days ago, the Wall Street Journal pondered the role naming rights will play as cities look to close budget gaps. Public schools and parks may soon carry corporate names while transit systems in Philadelphia, New York and Chicago have begun to auction of the names of subway stations.
While it’s undeniable that naming rights can lead to dollars, many across the country have not been keen to embrace the intrusion of the corporate into the realm of the public. Do we sacrifice convenience and usability for the sake of money? In New York, we’re sacrificing instant name-and-place recognition for the sake of honoring historical figures, most of whom aren’t alive to appreciate the honor.
Maybe, then, naming rights aren’t the way to go without stringent guidelines. I’ve long believed that subway stations can append corporate names but shouldn’t replace geographical identifiers with place-less sponsorships. If Disney wants to buy the Times Square station’s naming rights, it shouldn’t be called Walt Disney Station; rather, it should be called Disney-Times Square. People need to know where they’re going.
But it’s too much to ask of our state legislature to keep convenience in mind. New Yorkers will still give directions to the Battery Tunnel and the Queensboro Bridge because those are the landmarks we know and that’s where the roads lead. When someone asks “How you doin’?” the answer shouldn’t be “lost trying to find my way to the Ed Koch Bridge.”
Dec
08
Photo of the Day: Pay phone as trash can
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When: Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at around 1:30 p.m.
Where: The back end of the Manhattan-bound platform at the 7th Ave. stop along the Brighton Line
This sad, neglected — and broken — pay phone has become a de facto trash receptacle. Someone, perhaps angry that they missed the train or annoyed with the caller on the other end of the line, smashed the earpiece off the headset, and the phone now dangles to the side. On top of the now-useless pay phone is an empty coffee cup, discarded earlier in the day because there are no nearby garbage cans. The pay phone is bound to remain broken for longer than the coffee cup will stay there, but at least the broken relic of another era had its morning joe.
Dec
08
A hearing for 2nd Ave. businesses, but what response?
Posted by: | CommentsSince construction fences, noise and debris descended upon Second Ave. in mid-2007, businesses along the future subway route have struggled to survive. Fewer Upper East Siders are walking the work-clogged strip and restaurants who have had to sacrifice their outdoor cafes due to lost sidewalk space have seen revenues drop precipitously. Business owners have routinely asked for state or MTA hand-outs, but these requests have been met with a resounding no.
Last week, the Second Ave. Business Association again went hat-in-hand to the New York Senate, Dan Rivoli reported in Our Town. During a hearing on the status of the Second Ave. Subway construction, Joe Pecora asked for two intertwined things: “Promote foot traffic that has gone down 50 percent. Make Second Avenue a sales tax-free zone.” In the past, the Senate had failed to act on a grant fund or a property tax abatement, and the city has not responded to these requests either.
For its part, the MTA vowed again to make sure its work site is cleaned up. The authority will ensure that garbage isn’t left to rot — and breed rats — overnight, and capital construction has engaged in an effort to beautify the construction area. They are considering a call to minimize the number of empty construction containers left in front of storefronts as well. Yet, from politicians and from the MTA the message was the same: There’s only so much they can do, and the business disruptions are just the cost of constructing a subway line that will lead to a neighborhood boom when it’s completed. “Our options,” City Councilman Dan Garodnick said, “are limited.”
