Archive for June, 2011
Jun
17
Improving the way we find the way
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The MTA's latest wayfinding sign on the downtown platform at Union Square. Click to enlarge. (Photo courtesy of David Sims)
Everything old is new again. As the MTA looks to improve the way straphangers get around — an important aspect of the service the authority must provide to its customers — it has turned to something familiar to those who know their subway history.
At certain stops along the East Side IRT, Transit testing new strip maps that show riders where the subway go. The new signs, similar to the one atop this post sent to me by David Sims, a SAS reader and reporter for The Chief-Ledger, are evocative of the strip maps that used to adorn the subway map back in the 1980s. By showing riders where the train that will arrive on that track will next go, the authority helps those without an encyclopedic knowledge of the subway system find their ways around.
I asked the MTA about the new signs yesterday, and an agency spokesman had this to say:
The subway system has been around for more than 100 years, and we are constantly looking for ways to improve the way it works for our customers. Similar to our mid-2010 redesigned service change posters, we’re taking a fresh new approach to increase the availability of easy-to-read maps throughout the system. While every station already has a subway map, customers don’t always have time to locate the map or sort through all of the information it provides. We’re trying out a few ways of doing this as a pilot and we’ll decide how to move forward based on customer feedback.
The strip maps are the first part of the pilot program, and it’s hard to dispute their usefulness or visual appeal. They may be limited in that they represent peak-hour subway service only, but that’s when most people are riding. I’ll be curious to see what the next step of this pilot program resembles.
Meanwhile, as part of a more long-term effort to deliver customer service upgrades, Transit is toying with the idea of retrofitting older rolling stock with digital signs. Michael Grynbaum has the deets:
New York City Transit is looking for a way to bring some of its older subway cars into the digital age. The upgrade, if put into effect, would bring automated station announcements and digital route displays to more than 1,700 aging subway cars, including the entirety of the B, D, and Nos. 1, 3 and 7 lines.
Those amenities come standard on the system’s blue-hued modern trains. Currently, the most high-tech signage on a B train is a plastic roll sign operated via hand-crank. To subway officials, intent on improving the passenger experience, the change would bring clearer, real-time travel information to riders tired of screechy intercoms and static maps. But the end of live announcements could signal another step in the creeping dehumanization of a subway system already shedding station agents and, on some cars, train operators…
Neither a timeline nor an estimated cost for the upgrade was available on Thursday, mostly because the transit agency still needs to determine if the idea is feasible.
I don’t put much weight into the nostalgia of live announcements. While Grynbaum spoke to Harry Nugent about the more colorful conductors, I side with Andrew Albert. “I haven’t heard the robot make a mistake,” the chairman of the New York City Transit Riders Council said. “I have heard the human make a mistake.” (Of course, the robotic announcements can be loud and annoying, but we covered that complaint recently.)
If the MTA can find a cost-efficient way to upgrade rolling stock that won’t be due for replacement for the next 15 years, they should. After all, it’s all about improving the customer experience. I would have to believe, though, that it might be easier to upgrade the static route signs on the R142s and R143s to the dynamic FIND displays. Too many times do I board a 2 train with the map for a 5 train and a note saying that the route-finder isn’t in service.
Essentially, these upgrades are minor ones that can make a big difference in the way New Yorkers and visitors commute. It can take a lot of the guesswork out of finding the way around, and that focus on the customer has been sorely missing for the MTA for quite a while now.
Jun
16
MTA ‘moving to fire’ bus driver after 15 suspensions
Posted by: | CommentsThere’s no job security quite like working for the MTA. Take, for instance, this tale from today’s Daily News. Edward Meehan, an express bus driver on Staten Island who lives in New Jersey, just earned himself his 15th suspension for violating MTA rules. This time, the authority placed on leave without pay when he used his express bus as, in the words of Pete Donohue and Kerry Wills, “as a private lounge to meet a lady friend while on duty.” His previous suspensions were for speeding, running red lights and various other traffic infractions.
Meehan claims nothing illicit happened in the bus. He says he’s happily married and was just meeting his friend to talk. But he isn’t denying that he said his X22 was delayed an hour because of traffic. He also filed for overtime pay for the time he spent sitting in his bus with his lady friend. “He claims they were just talking,” one source said. “He said he was going through a hard time and she’s a friend.” According to a report by Barry Kluger, the MTA Inspector General, Meehan met with this woman in his bus at least three times in April.
The MTA will now try to fire Meehan, but they have gone down this road before. In 2008, after the MTA moved to fire him for “gross negligence” following numerous speeding incidents, an arbitrator reduced the penalty to 25 days without pay. That’s a slap on the wrists, and it certainly makes me think that there’s no job security quite like having a gig with the authority.
Jun
16
Photo of the Day: The 7 Line moves onward
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Photo by Patrick Cashin/MTA
It’s a pretty good gig being the MTA’s official photographer. After taking us into Fulton St. yesterday, today, Patrick Cashin toted his camera down into the 7 line extension to snap some shots of the city’s newest subway expansion project. The one-stop extension to 34th St. and 11th Ave. is set to open in around 30 months, and work is progressing quickly.
The shots from inside the project are stunning. Above, workers are laying the foundation for what will eventually be the track bed. Cashin also provides some great shots of the station cavern (1, 2). I can’t quite figure out what this one is, but that’s quite a curve. I’ve embedded the rest of the photos as a slide show after the jump.
For the MTA, the 7 line extension will be the first new segment of subway to open since 2000 when the 63rd St. tunnel finally connected through to the rest of the Queens Boulevard line, but it is not without its own controversy. The city, which is footing the bill for this extension, opted to torpedo a badly-needed station at 41st St. and 10th Ave. when costs grew too high, and the MTA didn’t have the money for it either. The feds then failed to fund a study that would have assessed the feasibility of building out a station after the extension is complete, and no provisioning for future work there has been built into the project. Only in New York can a subway extension completely fail in such spectacular fashion. At least the Far West Side will finally have transit access though.
After the jump, a full set of photos from Patrick Cashin. Read More→
Jun
16
The Senate plays politics with the MTA
Posted by: | CommentsDean Skelos and the Republican Senate majority up in Albany know they have it good right now. As the Assembly is still controlled by Sheldon Silver and a Democrat sits in the Governor’s Mansion, the Republicans can pass a series of measures designed to fulfill promises made to constituents and interest groups without actually delivering on the policies. Lopsided bills will pass one house and not the other as State Senators can go back to their constituents to point out faux-accomplishments.
Of course, if either party or both parties in Albany are going to play politics with anything, it will be with the MTA, and the Republicans in the Senate did not disappoint. We first start with S04637. This is a fun bit of legislation in that it mandates that the MTA contract and pay out of pocket for a forensic audit with results delivered by January 1, 2013. If anything, it shows that the State Senators are learning.
Now, for much of the past few years, we’ve heard repeated calls for a forensic audit, and the term is a vague one. While Thomas DiNapoli as State Comptroller has the authority to straight-up audit the MTA, a forensic audit is one usually conducted at the target’s expense designed to root out not just wasteful practices but criminal expenditures. For example, a forensic audit would search for examples of embezzlement, fraudulently procured contracts and other types of criminal waste.
Within the past few months, a group of Independent Democrats have put out a call for a forensic audit. Citing the ever-popular “two sets of books” charge and begrudgingly admitting that the MTA’s budgeting process is far more transparent than it was eight years ago, the IDC claimed that the MTA should spend the $10 million because it might find evidence of improper spending practices that could lead to criminal charges, and it might find savings to cover the expenditures. It (perhaps rightly) doesn’t seem to trust the MTA, but as the politicians are the ones arguing for a forensic audit, shouldn’t they fund it too?
The point is largely a moot one; the Assembly isn’t likely to approve the forensic audit bill. In fact, the last time it did so, it expressly included language that required the state to pay for the audit, and the funds never materialized. Here, at least, the GOP in the Senate can say they tried as Jay Walder has continued to push for internal financial reform and a streamlined process of expenditures.
The forensic audit though is hardly the worst of the bills. The one that came out of the Senate concerning the payroll tax is. I briefly touched upon this bill yesterday, but it bears another look. Essentially, Lee Zeldin’s plan to repeal the payroll tax for the suburban counties while shifting the tax burden onto the city without identifying other equitable sources of revenue for the MTA cleared the Senate.
And, boy, was Zeldin pleased with himself. “I am very pleased to announce to my constituents, residents of Long Island and the rest of the 12-county MTA region that the state Senate has passed legislation to repeal the job-killing MTA Payroll Tax,” he said. “There is absolutely no doubt that the MTA, without increasing fares or cutting services, can balance its books after this legislation is implemented. One must question the motives and veracity of any individual or group that attempts to dispute this fact going forward.”
Except there is doubt. It’s impossible for the MTA to find $1.5 billion in annual savings without significantly curtailing services or jacking up the fares. In a classic political twist, he blames those who would dare defend transit subsidies or the MTA’s budget. Now, I don’t care much for the payroll tax, but I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the MTA’s budget documents. This is not an agency that can cut an additional $1.5 billion out of its $12 billion budget. Between debt payments, fixed operating costs and employee costs, the savings just aren’t there, no matter how stridently Zeldin claims them to be.
Another State Senator issued an equally laughable claim. “It’s time for the MTA to stop balancing its budget on the backs of hard-working New Yorkers,” Senator Greg Ball said. Does he think by raising the fares the MTA won’t also be balancing the budget on actual hard-working New Yorkers who can’t afford automobiles and soon won’t be able to afford monthly rail passes? Does Ball think only non-hard-working New Yorkers would suffer from service cuts or fare hikes? Do politicians in Albany doubt our ability to think critically?
To make matters worse, the Republicans tied in the payroll tax repeal with a measure for which advocates have been pushing: a transit lockbox. In the same bill as the repeal, the lockbox, which I discussed in May, cleared the Senate. So with one hand, the State Senate is supporting transit while with the other hand and in the same piece of legislation, they are robbing transit.
Ultimately, this piece of legislation doesn’t matter much in the short term. Sheldon Silver has said that the payroll mobility tax isn’t going anywhere. He at least recognizes that to remove the tax revenue would require a different source of funds, albeit congestion pricing, bridge tolls or much higher fares, and that’s not a conversation he’s ready or willing to have right now. But the moves tonight provide a glimpse into the thinking of those in charge, and it’s clear that no one is willing to lead on transit with good, sound, practical policy ideas. It’s only about scoring points with constituents while the millions of people who need the buses and subways and commuter rail lines are looked down upon and ignored.
Jun
15
Photo of the Day: A glimpse inside Fulton St.
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Photo by Patrick Cashin/MTA
Where:Inside the construction of the Fulton St. Transit Hub
When: June 8, 2011
The MTA recently sent staff photographer Patrick Cashin inside the Fulton St. Transit Center to snap a series of photos of the hub in progress. The results are now up on Flickr, and we see, after years of stops and stops, that the project is moving ahead quickly. Relocated murals are in place; walkways have been built; and currently shuttered platforms are undergoing renovations.
The authority still maintains the Transit Center will be fully operational by the end of 2014, and various segments are opening up as work finishes up. By the time of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in a few months, the southbound Cortlandt St. station along the R should finally reopen, and Lower Manhattan’s transit center, albeit it with a very steep price tag, will untangle one of the more confusing subway stations around.
Jun
15
Payroll tax likely sticking around for now
Posted by: | CommentsWith the state legislature’s term rapidly expiring, Republicans in Albany cannot scrounge up enough bicameral support to overturn the controversial MTA payroll mobility tax, Judy Rife reported today. Despite the fact that State Republicans will vote for repeal today as a symbolic gesture to curry favor with their constituents, the Assembly will not be following suit. “We have several bills pending in the Senate, but we don’t yet have a partner for any of them in the Assembly,” a spokesman for Dean Skelos said to the Albany-based reporter.
Assembly Democrats, well aware of the GOP’s repeal efforts, are not inclined to address MTA funding over the next few days. “We have no plans to change the MTA payroll tax,” a Sheldon Silver spokesman said.
Over the past few weeks suburban representatives who campaigned on anti-payroll tax platforms have ramped up the call for a repeal, but to me, their arguments seem spurious at best. Lee Zeldin, for instance, claims that the MTA can generate over $1 billion in cost savings through internal efficiency improvements, but the numbers just aren’t there to support this charge. Without another source of funding then – be it congestion pricing or bridge tolls – the MTA can ill afford to lose the payroll mobility tax revenue. As flawed as it is whet tax must remain.
Interestingly, Rife notes too that while politicians have called for a forensic audit of the MTA, they have also refused to pass a bill that would fund such an audit. Good ol’ grandstanding, ain’t it grand?
Jun
15
On 181st St. and being afraid of bus lanes
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The DOT plan for 181st Street leaves much to desired.
For three years, the New York City Department of Transportation has been working with the Washington Heights community to address 181st St. Spanning from one bridge to another, the upper Manhattan thoroughfare plays host to two subway stations, five bus routes and a Hudson River Greenway entrance. A few blocks north of the cross-Bronx, this street would be ripe for a transit- and pedestrian-focused overhaul, and yet it’s not getting one.
When DOT unveiled its designs for the street less week, it presented what Streetsblog called a plan “far less ambitious than what could have been.” What was a road once under consideration for a fully protected bus lane has turned into yet another compromise in which a loud but vocal minority with trumped up concerns over access have triumphed over the safety and mobility of pedestrians and transit riders.
Noah Kazis has more:
For bus riders, the curbside parking on the south side of 181st Street would be replaced with a dedicated eastbound bus lane from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., improving reliability by clearing the way for Bronx-bound buses at the very beginning of their routes. On the block between Audobon and Amsterdam Avenues, which a DOT spokesperson said was where buses suffered the biggest delays from congestion, the bus lane would be in effect from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
The entire project is part of DOT’s Congested Corridors program, and the plan includes left-turn bays to help traffic move more smoothly. Curb parking will be replaced with loading zones during designated times, intended to minimize the rampant double parking along 181st. By keeping the through lanes clear, said the DOT spokesperson, these features will also keep buses moving smoothly…
That’s a fair number of changes to a stretch barely over half a mile long, but it’s much less than what was on the table in October. One option, for example, would have built New York City’s first physically separated bus lanes on 181st. With one in each direction and a raised bus stop mid-street, that plan would have provided one fewer traffic lane and one fewer parking lane than the current plan, but done much more for transit riders.
Another option was an approach that would have made 181st a real multi-modal street. With large sidewalk extensions on the whole corridor, a buffered bike lane and a bus lane, this discarded option would have redistributed space from drivers to every other user of the street.
A glimpse at what should have been.
So why did DOT compromise at the expense of the many? According to Kazis, Denny Farrell, an Assembly representative known for his personal collection of convertibles and corresponding windshield perspective, but the heat on the Department of Transportation. He claims some locals expressed concerns over a one-way street while others wondered how buses would turn into a protected lane — a concern that doesn’t exist in the myriad locations around the world with dedicated and physically separated bus lanes.
To make an omelet, one must break eggs, but unfortunately, NYC DOT has pulled back from that approach. Instead of angering small but powerful people who don’t represent the demographics and needs of the community, DOT has decided to build slowly on the status quo. There’s no harm in incremental improvements, but at some point, those incremental improvements need to take the next step. The 34th Street plan, more ambitious than this one, fell to NIMBYs, and the 181st St. plan has seemingly fallen to those who live to drive around Upper Manhattan in their cars.
For New York City to become a more mobile area, buses will need to become a priority. Someone will be inconvenienced; someone else won’t like the buses. But more commuters and more New Yorkers will benefit from faster surface transit and travel. After all, cities are about people, not their cars, and while cars do have a place in an urban environment, road space should be prioritized appropriately. Right now, the people are losing the fight.
Jun
14
An online solution for lost or damaged MetroCards
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As the MTA has struggled over the years to fit technology into their offerings, their online customer support has lagged far behind the technology we see in the system. Countdown clocks and FIND displays are incongruous with the way the MTA had, up until recently, treated its web presence. Take, for example, a MetroCard.
If a straphanger loses or damages his or her MetroCard, he or she must call a phone number or mail in their card or, if lost, a claim for a replacement. It is a clunky process filled with vague questionnaires that often ask for too much unnecessary information, and I know more than a few people who sacrificed the errant swipe rather than deal with the confusion.
Now, though, the MTA is working to address that problem. The agency has unveiled a new MetroCard eFix website. Now when a straphanger has a problem with a MetroCard, he or she can fill out an online form and set the dispute-resolution process in motion digitally. “The introduction of eFIX is yet another example of how the MTA is working to make things more convenient for our customers. From countdown clocks, to BusTime, to a website filled with real information that our customers can use, we are constantly working to be responsive to the needs of our customers.” NYC Transit President Thomas F. Prendergast said in a statement.
The eFix site allows users to select one of six categories: lost or stolen reduced fare cards; Select Bus Service errors; MetroCard not returned from the bus farebox; MetroCard Vending Machine problem; or a transfer problem.
Overcharged. The eFix system, designed in house, will verify claims as they are entered which results in increased speed and accuracy. The MTA is also planning future enhancements to the system as well.
I haven’t yet had the opportunity to test out the system, but just its mere introduction is a step in the right technological direction for the 1400 folks who submit claims on a daily basis. Making it easier for the customer to recapture lost money is a good move.
Jun
14
Today in endless escalator outages: 181st St.
Posted by: | CommentsFor years, the MTA has struggled with its escalators. At stations that are deep underground, the moving staircases — which operate for 24 hours and take quite a beating — break regularly, and when they do, repairs are often slow to come. Today, we arrive at 181st St. where one of the the lengthy escalators has been broken since February. Then earlier this week, the second escalator broke, and suddenly straphangers had to hike up and down the staircases.
For residents of the area, broken escalators in Washington Heights are, in fact, the norm. NY1 reports that the MTA says these escalators work less than half of the time. “I moved to this neighborhood in 2006, and it’s been going on since,” one subway rider said. The first escalator was repaired fairly quickly, but the one out since February remains entombed in a wooden box.
The MTA offered up an array of excuses. As Tina Redwine reports, “MTA officials said the problem with the 181st Street escalator is that workers needed to disassemble heavy equipment, one piece weighing up to 2500 pounds, in order to send the escalator out for repair. Then it has to be reinstalled and tested.” It will be another 10 weeks at least, and the authority said that this timeline is “not good enough.” Still, as we’ve seen at Lexington at 53rd St. and countless stations around the system, broken escalators are the norm far more often than they should be.
Jun
14
Still waiting for action from the feds
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s clear from their words that officials within the Obama Administration are well aware of the funding crisis facing local transit authorities. Across the country, vital agencies are short billions of dollars for necessary maintenance, repairs and upgrades, and yet, dollars trickle out of Washington at a snail’s pace. It’s easier and more palatable for the government to spend billions bailing out the auto industry than it is for them to invest in transit operations.
If the Obama Administration has its way — a long shot for sure — that tied could turn. In comments yesterday at the American Public Transportation Association meeting, Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff said that he wants to see transit agencies stem their economic tide. “We are trying to deal with all those challenges at once,” he said. “Not just maintenance but also on expansion, also to provide increased formula funds.”
Rogoff spoke at length about the age of American transit networks and the need to modernize. “There are power substation facilities serving the SEPTA system that have equipment in it dating from the 19-teens and 20’s. Thank heaven they overbuilt those systems back in the 20’s because they actually have been able to endure and serve the service,” he said. “But it is, sometimes it is rather spooky when you see how many tens of thousands of daily commuters that are dependent on the continuing reliability of systems that are approaching 50, 60, 70 years-old in some of these cities. That’s why we really want to surge forward with the investment because some of those systems are going to have to be replaced you cannot keep milking them along another half century.”
Transportation Nation offers more from Rogoff’s press conference:
The tension between just fixing everything that’s broken — or about to break — and all the new transit that’s needed to really give Americans mobility options was fully on display at an APTA press conference at its annual rail conference Monday. Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff argued: “We want to provide the American public in the maximum number of communities with real transit choices, and give them the opportunity to keep more money in their wallet rather than hand it over at the gas pump, but in order to do that the transit service has to be available, it has to be safe and clean. It has to be reliable and desirable.”
…But before thinking about making transit a real option for most, if not all Americans, Rogoff said, there’s a $50 billion hole that needs filling. In the seven largest systems, which carry 80 percent of the rail transit passenger load in the U.S. – including New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington and Los Angeles — there is a $50 billion backlog of major maintenance needs. Rogoff said the FTA has proposed combing funding streams to “rifle shot” resources to where they are most needed.
“Reliable transit is really the difference between getting home in time to have dinner as a family, or not getting home in time to supervise homework, or not being able to pick your kid up on time from day care, all of these core quality of life issue, which are critical if we are going to entice more people on transit. But for for the millions of transit riders who do not have an automobile option these investments are critical to maintaining a viable transit system,” Rogoff said.
Now, this push to convince Congress to approve billions in transit assistance is one we’ve heard before. Senator Chuck Schumer has worked to wring dollars out of DC while Obama’s officials have spoken about it for years. The money, of course, never materializes. Despite Rogoff’s strident words, I can’t get my hopes up. We’ve seen no amount of leadership on federal assistance.
Meanwhile, on a local level, transit funding is under attack. A growing chorus of voices wants to remove $1.3 billion in the form of the payroll mobility tax from the MTA’s budget. The money to replace those lost funds won’t just materialize, and eventually, we’ll have a transit funding crisis — that is, if we don’t already. The time for talk is over. Where’s the action, from D.C., Albany or even City Hall?
