Archive for September, 2011
Sep
09
Under the El: Thoughts on urban development
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One Brooklyn native has proposed building a pedestrian space underneath the Culver Viaduct. Rendering by John McGill.
Thanks to a confluence of history and economics, many of New York City’s streets outside of Manhattan’s Central Business District are lined with elevated train tracks. From Astoria to Woodlawn, from Coney Island to Williamsburg and even through Morningside Heights, elevated train lines soar over city streets. How to incorporate these structures into the urban landscape has long proven to be problematic for New York City planners.
In certain parts of the city, the elevated trains are less intrusive than in others. The 7, as it travels above Queens Boulevard, occupies an elegant structure away from pedestrians and the flow of traffic, but the N and Q tracks through Astoria darken the streets below while impeding the flow of both people and traffic. One area in Brooklyn — the space under the Culver Viaduct — is a particular wasteland of former and current industrial usages mixed with an urban void.
A walk or a drive past the Viaduct on the border between Park Slope, Gowanus, Carroll Gardens and Red Hook isn’t very scenic. The trip passes through row houses overshadowed by the looming structure, a Lowes warehouse store and some industrial spaces that look abandoned. Until the train goes back underground at 4th Ave. and just south of 2nd Place and Smith Street, the area is an odd nothingness of quasi-development. It doesn’t have to be this way.
While digging through some old emails this week, I came across a post from the Architectural League of New York’s Urban Omnibus blog. Written by Brooklyn native John McGill, it explores possible development schemes for the area underneath the Viaduct. While the city has turned a former rail line into a popular public space and burgeoning tourist attraction, they could do something similar to the space under a current rail line.
McGill seems to call his proposal the anti-High Line as it doesn’t rely on deactivating a rail line. Rather, it is, he says, “an opportunistic repurposing of existing, functioning infrastructure to address the need for a vibrant and coherent public realm.” The proposal itself enters into some architecturally technical areas. After all, you can’t redevelop the space in and around the Viaduct in such a way that would threaten the structural integrity of the active train tracks above.
The plan itself would incorporate access to and views of the Gowanus Canal — a Superfund site that will eventually be cleaned — and relies upon the shuttering of a concrete plant, the only active business in the area. With some modifications to the Viaduct itself, McGill then proposes a variety of uses:
Four types of “preservation” emerged as essential to the architectural strategy: preservation of sunlight, of structural stability, of limited footprint at ground level, and of existing (historic) character. Informed by these criteria, Underline offers four potential modes of intervention: the creation of flexible space for public assembly; precast concrete decking hung from above on steel rods as a public landscape “ribbon;” pure infill at ground level; and adaptive reuse of, or interface with, existing adjacent structures…
Preserving this set of desirable existing conditions results in a series of distributed spaces connected by a linear public park. This establishes a sequence of unique visual experiences as one moves along, offering glimpses of unexpected adjacent activities, the regular appearance of moving trains overhead, and the rhythmic discharge and departure of passengers to and from the stations at either end of the project site — not to mention views of the city currently reserved for F and G subway riders.
Despite being distributed, however, the program is arranged in discernible clusters so that points of access to each component of the project are clearly legible from the street. Starting from the south, the first of these might contain an EPA monitoring station and public exhibition space, a café, public outdoor amphitheater, rock-climbing wall, and classrooms. The next section consists of covered outdoor basketball courts and a small public fitness center and lap pool, and in the final group retail and production spaces. Because each element is knit into the whole by the landscape ribbon, a loose affiliation emerges between both related and unrelated events in time and space.
It’s a fascinating plan really and one that New Yorkers do not see too frequently. It takes an underused urban space at the confluence of numerous neighborhoods that also supports key infrastructure and turns it into a potentially popular urban destination. Eleven months after McGill first published the proposal, we can also say that it’s not going to happen, and Brooklyn is worse off for it.
One of the major reasons why subway construction has stalled over the past 60 years is a public aversion to elevated lines. With the noise and dirt and debris that an above-ground subway causes, residents do not want to see these structures — which are much cheaper than a bored tunnel — dominate the landscape any more than they already do. But just maybe it’s possible to develop an elevated train with the neighborhood in mind.
Sep
08
Fitch downgrades MTA revenue bonds
Posted by: | CommentsFitch, the investor ratings company, has assigned nearly $100 million in MTA revenue variable rate bonds an A rating and has downgraded over $14 billion in preexisting debt from an A+ to an A, the company announced today. According to the press release, available on Transportation Nation, “the downgrade reflects higher than expected near-to-medium term financial pressure.”
The release explains further:
The downgrade reflects higher than expected near-to-medium term financial pressure stemming from increasing operating costs (projected to moderate in growth in the outer years) and pension obligations and growing annual debt service obligations from expected near-term issuance associated with the capital program. This is exacerbated by the strong likelihood that operating subsides (dedicated tax sources) will not grow as anticipated in the near term leading to wider deficits. The Stable Outlook reflects the authority’s institutional focus on monitoring developments and willingness to take corrective action albeit that the options available are fewer in the current environment.
The downgrade comes following the release of a long-term capital plan that relies heavily on debt-backed bonds and other shaky assumptions. Transit advocates were none too pleased to hear the news. “Just like in Washington, decisions made by our elected officials in Albany caused this downgrade,” Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives, said. “The State’s raids on public transit funding have forced the MTA to pay for subways and buses with debt. Now, it will cost more for the MTA to run the system, and this will hit New Yorkers where it hurts—fare hikes and service cuts; unless our elected officials in Albany find secure revenue for public transit.”
Apparently my talk of debt earlier today was not all that premature.
Sep
08
Chart of the Day: Let’s talk about debt, baby
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Debt payments are making up an ever-increasing amount of the MTA's annual budget. Image via RPA/ESTA.
A few weeks ago, the Regional Plan Association and the Empire State Transportation Alliance dug deep into the MTA’s budget projections and voiced their concerns over the MTA’s ballooning debt balloons. For long-time transit watchers, the agency’s debt isn’t a new storyline, but the numbers are increasingly heading upwards. The system is saddled with more debt than every before, and there’s no sign of relief on the horizon.
Yesterday, Streetsblog excerpted parts of the presentation which I’ve seen as well, and the picture isn’t a pretty one. According to the MTA’s own metrics, debt payments will account for over 17.5 percent of its operating budget by 2014, and according to the RPA and ESTA, the real total based upon the MTA’s sleight-of-hand accounting may be closer to 23 percent. Labor costs will fall to around 53 percent of expenditures.
“Every year,” Noah Kazis wrote, “more and more money that might go toward paying bus drivers, buying fuel, cleaning stations or keeping fares affordable is instead spent on debt service. Even over a period when pension costs will have risen by a billion dollars per year, it’s debt that is chewing up the MTA’s budget.”
Besides the debt, though, the other area of growth concerns pensions. In 2003, pension spending accounting for under five percent of the MTA’s operating budget, but by 2014, that number will rise to around 9.36 percent. That type of growth is unsustainable and worrisome. The MTA cannot become a pension and debt organization while running a subway system, but by 2014, over 30 percent of its operating budget will be tied up in those two areas.
So why so much debt? Kazis explains:
That debt is the outcome of decades of diminishing state support for public transit. After a major infusion of capital under the Hugh Carey administration, Governor Mario Cuomo cut all direct support for the MTA capital program. Though Cuomo found other revenues for the capital plan, notably by repurposing Westway dollars for transit, George Pataki just let those zeroes stand and put the cost of the capital plan on the MTA’s credit card, starting the debt build-up in earnest. Pataki also started using dedicated transit funds to pay the state’s commitments to the MTA, essentially double-dipping on those funds and costing transit almost $200 million a year.
The 2009 passage of the payroll tax helped the MTA’s budgets significantly — it is now the agency’s largest dedicated revenue source – but Albany’s decisions to kill congestion pricing and bridge tolls meant that the MTA still had to borrow heavily to pay for repairs and mega-projects like the Second Avenue Subway.
The result is a massive run-up in debt. Though the MTA spent only $848 million on debt service in 2004, according to RPA, it is projected to spend more than three times as much, $2.67 billion, in 2014. Debt alone will eat up 17.6 percent of the MTA’s operating budget by 2014; worse, RPA says that an alternative calculation shows the 2014 debt load at 23.1 percent of the operating budget.
Talk about debt often causes other people’s eyes to glaze over. They just want to know that trains will run frequently and on time, that the fare won’t go up and that there will be a seat for them on the next train. But these debt payments will impact the MTA’s ability to provide service. The authority can cut employees; they can cut trains and buses; they can raise; but they cannot cut debt. Without better and more concrete investment in the system, debt will balloon, and the rest of us — the riders and commuters who depend upon the subways — will lose out.
Sep
08
The MTA’s brain-drain problem at the top
Posted by: | CommentsA few weeks ago, word got out of a few new FTA reports concerning the MTA’s ongoing big-ticket capital items. Initially, we learned that the Federal Transit Administration believed the MTA’s current launch dates for the Second Ave. Subway and East Side Access project were premature. Instead of a 2016 revenue service date, the FTA expects SAS and ESA to open in 2018. That was not, apparently, the only key finding in the reports.
As The Post details, turnover at the top of the management structure for these projects has become a major issue for the MTA. Brain drain, it seems, isn’t just limited to the Chairman’s spot. Jennifer Fermino has more:
Top managers on mega-MTA projects — who haven’t had raises in four years — are bolting at an alarmingly high rate, leaving crucial positions vacant and prompting concern from federal regulators. The Federal Transit Administration is so disturbed by the high turnover that in two separate reports, they’ve cautioned the cash-strapped agency to quickly bring in experienced managers to fill current and future vacancies on such massive projects as the Second Avenue Subway, according to government reports obtained by The Post. But that likely will be easier said than done. Unlike unionized workers — whose contracts ensure they get annual cost-of-living increases — members of MTA management haven’t had a salary hike in four years.
“There are obviously issues with MTA employees and staffing levels and pay scales,” said MTA board member Mitch Pally, who is on the committee that monitors the agency’s big-ticket projects. “I can assure you that management doesn’t make enough money, especially for people who are experienced,” he said. “These are complicated jobs.”
…Federal regulators lamented the “substantial turnover” among contract and MTA staff managers over the past year in their monthly report on the Second Avenue Subway. The agency “remains concerned that the continued staff shortage may impair proper functioning of the project quality processes,” the FTA said in another report, which suggests they hire more managers. In one area of quality management on the Second Avenue Subway, two of the MTA’s three agency consultants are new. Another outside consulting position in the same division also is vacant, according to the report.
This is what we call a vicious cycle. As unionized workers — those who weren’t dismissed, that is — earned raises and will fight for more, the MTA’s management minds have gotten none, and they’re starting to leave. They can get higher paying jobs at organizations that enjoy greater political and fiscal support than the MTA. So then why shouldn’t they leave? If that story sounds similar, it’s because that’s basically what Jay Walder is doing at the end of October.
The solution, of course, is a politically dangerous one. The MTA must be allowed to raise salaries to remain competitive in a global market. The authority can’t afford to see its projects completed slowly, haphazardly or not at all because its salaries aren’t high enough to attract and retain the leaders they need. Ultimately, this isn’t some great insight into the state of things at the MTA, but it’s a lesson few people in Albany and elsewhere have learned. Now it’s starting to get too late.
Sep
07
TA, Straphangers: Next MTA head should know the transit
Posted by: | CommentsNew York’s straphangers want the next MTA head to be well versed in public transit, according to a Transportation Alternatives poll. With current MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder’s looming departure, Trans Alt and the Straphangers asked 600 New Yorkers their views on the next MTA head, and the results show that riders want someone to advocate for the bus and subway systems. “New Yorkers know first-hand the city’s public transit needs,” Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, said. “Over the last three years, the state legislature has raided a total of $260 million in dedicated funds from transit riders. It’s no surprise that people want the next MTA chair to ensure that elected officials protect the public transit funding needed to prevent further fare hikes and service cuts. They want serious leadership for these challenging financial times.”
The polls, unfortunately, are somewhat self-selection as the two groups hosted them on their websites and Facebook pages. The respondents therefore are more attuned to transit issues than a typical subway rider may be. Still, the answers are telling. Riders want someone who has experience running other large and complext transit systems, and they want someone with the political skills to raise support for transit in Washington, Albany and City Hall. Those traits represent the Holy Grail amongst transit advocates, and finding the right person who is both willing to stick around and enjoys support from Albany has been a challenge.
“Riders most want an MTA chair experienced in running other large, complex transit systems,” Cate Catino of the Straphangers Campaign said. “With a public transit system that runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, riders need the next MTA chair to be able to step into our complex system and hit the ground rolling at full speed. Riders want it all, and we deserve it.”
Sep
07
Guest Post: A tablet for your subway commute
Posted by: | CommentsWith the attention recently on tablet computers in the subway — perhaps for some of the wrong reasons — I have a guest post today from my friend Joseph Pawlikowksi. In addition to writing with me at River Ave. Blues, Joe also keeps up with everything BlackBerry at BBGeeks, and today, he offers up this primer on the best tablet for your commute. I’m an iPad guy myself. It makes reading the papers in the morning on the subway far easier.
Since the introduction of the transistor radio, people have used electronic devices for entertainment on the subway. Think about how many people you see using one on the subway. On some days you might be better off counting the people who don’t have an iPod, a Kindle, or some form of electronic entertainment. The latest trend has involved the tablet PC. The iPad got everything started, and now it seems there are dozens of different tablets making subway appearances. There are dozens of tablets on the market, and each one provides a different experience on the subway. Here are your best bets.
Apple iPad
Pros: It is the standard bearer of the tablet computer. More people own an iPad than any other tablet, so it’s easy to get recommendations on apps and cases from people who already own one. It also has the largest selection of apps, so you’ll have plenty of choices for your entertainment. The big screen makes for great video watching, and there is plenty of storage for your music, videos, and apps.
Cons: The size and weight can be a problem. If you have to stand up, your arms can get tired holding up the iPad while you watch, read, or listen. It’s also an obvious target for any subway theft.
Android tablets
Pros: They come in many sizes, so you can find one that fits your specifications. There are even some that have keyboard attachments, so you can get some work done if you find a seat. There are also tons of apps in the Android Market. Best of all, many of them are free where iPad apps cost money.
Cons: The app environment on Android is not as regulated as on the iPad, so there’s a lot more crap to sift through. While the variety of Android tablets makes it likely you’ll find one you want, there is an abundance of low-quality Android tablets on the market that will break with reasonable wear and tear. That is, in order to find a high quality Android tablet you have to do some homework. The software also isn’t up to par with Android smartphones.
BlackBerry PlayBook
Pros: It’s one of the most compact tablets, measuring 7.6 inches wide by 5.1 inches high. That can fit in the back pocket of some jeans. The video quality is on par with the iPad, even if the screen is a few inches smaller. It ranks among the more durable tablets as well, so if you drop it while sitting you might be able to avoid damage you would incur with an inferior tablet.
Cons: There still aren’t many apps for it, though the addition of the Android player, which gives users access to Android apps, will help. That should come in the fall 2011. There is also no native email and calendar, staples of the BlackBerry platform, though again those are due to hit the PlayBook in the fall. It works best when tethered to a BlackBerry device, so BlackBerry owners will benefit more than non-owners.
A note to subway tablet PC users
If you’re going to carry your tablet on the subway, the first thing you need to do is buy a case. It’s amazing how little of a drop it takes to damage them. As these guys demonstrate, even a waist high drop can ruin your tablet if you don’t have a proper case for it. If you’re on the subway, it’s the No. 1 essential thing you need.
Sep
07
Ten years later, better security or just theater?
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Signs for the September 11 memorial have appeared in the subway lately. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
It’s impossible to escape the spectre of September 11 right now. As much as I would rather not dwell on the uncertainty and emotion from that terrible day, it is now pervading New York life. New signs at Cortlandt St. point the way to the 9/11 momument, and news outlets of all stripes are covering the decade from every angle.
New York City’s subways were, of course, not at all immune from the impact of 9/11. Physically, the city’s subways were altered. Trains had to be re-routed and stations rebuilt as the falling towers crashed into the subway tubes below. Those weren’t, however, the only changes as security underground became a renewed focus.
Around the world, other cities have seen their subways come under attack. Since September 11, Moscow, Madrid, London and Tokyo have all suffered terrorism-related bombings in their subway systems, but New York’s has so far remain unscathed. That isn’t to say it’s a relatively protected system though. While the MTA has focused its security efforts on high-volume stations and train lines that pass under key infrastructure, the system is porous. Anyone can board a train anywhere and ride it to another destination for the simple swipe of a MetroCard.
With 9/11 looming, the MTA’s security efforts have creeped back into the news lately. New York 1 today offers up a few pieces. One looks at the authority’s increased security efforts while another praises the MTA’s seemingly successful “See Something, Say Something” campaign. According to that report, over 10,000 people called the NYPD to say something in 2010, an increase of over 7000 over 2009. The constant reminders to notice every suspicious plastic bag has at least given the police something to do.
“If there is an event in the the news, people will call more, they’ll see more, they’re paying more attention,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said. “If you don’t have any recent events, terrorist events, it’ll seem to fall off some. But generally speaking, I think it’s working well. People are aware of their changed situation.”
Now, the New York 1 pieces are designed to make us feel safer. The MTA, they say, is monitoring thousands of points throughout the system with cameras while some in high-traffic areas — Grand Central, Times Square, Penn Station — provide real-time streams to the NYPD’s high-tech monitoring system. These are necessary measures, but I sometimes wonder if it’s only for show. After all, someone intent on attacking the city’s transit network might know that the busiest stations are also the ones most heavily guarded.
Outside of the city, suburban dwellers are less comfortable with their security. The Daily New Canaan recently questioned Metro-North’s preparedness. As some riders noted, if cops had difficulty locating a stalled train a few weeks ago, how will they respond to a terrorism-related emergency?
Of course, these types of stories simply inspire more theater. People talk about bag inspections for commuter rail passengers, increased police patrols and on-board K-9 units. By stroking fears, lawmakers can push toward an increased police state in our rail network. No one really wants to experience that reality either.
Ultimately, it’s a balancing act. The NYPD and the MTA have to strike a balance between security and theater. They have to project an air of protection without seeming overbearing while working behind the scenes to ensure that the system is protected. We don’t like to think about subway security because we don’t want to think that the subways aren’t safe. We need them; we ride on them; we don’t want to fear them. But this week, security and terrorism are in the news, and subway security remains as it often is — a work very much in progress.
Sep
06
Before 9/11, Cortlandt St.’s southbound side opens
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Sheldon Silver thanks the MTA for opening up the Cortlandt Street station before the anniversary of the September 11th attacks. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
Flanked by the usual array of politicians and authority officials, MTA Chairman and CEO Jay Walder cut the ribbon on the southbound platform of the R train stop at Cortlandt St. in Lower Manhattan this afternoon. By opening the station today, the MTA fulfilled a promise made to the Lower Manhattan community to restore service to the station prior to the 10th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. As the southbound platform right now has no direct access to the street, straphangers must use the open par tof the Dey St. underpass to exit on the northern side, and the MTA will restore the southbound exit once construction aboveground is complete.
“We made a commitment to have this platform open before the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and today we are here to fulfill that commitment,” Walder said. “I’m so proud that the MTA is able to participate in another vital milestone in the revitalization of Lower Manhattan. Our employees were first responders on that tragic day; we worked tirelessly to bring the subway back just months after the attack and every day since we have been rebuilding and helping the city come back stronger than ever.”
For the past ten years, the Cortlandt Street BMT station has been amidst a construction zone. The station was badly damaged during the attacks, and station was shuttered until September 15, 2002. It remained opened until August 20, 2005 when work on the Dey Street Passageway forced its closure. Right now, the underpass linking the northbound and southbound platforms is open but bounded by a false wall. Once the Dey St. Passageway is fully complete, that wall will be removed.
The other Cortlandt St. station impacted by the September 11 attacks will remain closed for now. The 1 train hasn’t stopped at its Cortlandt St. in ten years, but due to ongoing Port Authority work at the World Trade Center site, that station will remain closed indefinitely.
Along the BMT, the northbound platform opened in November of 2009, and the MTA and Port Authority spent another $20 million to reopen the southbound platform. Included in the reopened station are a variety of murals by Margie Hughto entitled “Trade, Treasure and Travel.” The murals were added to the station in 1997 and were undamaged in the attacks. Many of them have been restored to Cortlandt St., and the remaining panels will appear in the Dey St. Passageway.
For more scenes from the opening, click through to view the slideshow. Read More→
Sep
06
At Columbus Circle, the system’s most popular turnstile
Posted by: | CommentsAs the MTA’s trove of daily data dumps pile up, the Daily News has crunched some numbers to determine the system’s most heavily used turnstile. The winner: one machine at Columbus Circle. According to their research, through August 19, 1,402,766 straphangers had swiped through the turnstile that’s first in row near the entrance by the escalators on the west side of 59th St. That’s over 4000 swipes more than a pair of popular turnstiles at Jamaica Center. A few machines at Times Square and Grand Central round out the top five.
It’s interesting to see how the system’s most popular turnstile is at a station that in 2010 was Transit’s seventh busiest. After all, Times Square sees nearly three times the annual ridership as Columbus Circle. Yet, Times Square has far more entrances and turnstiles than the 59th St. station does. That discrepancy probably explains why this Columbus Circle turnstile has been the 2011 leader in swipes. “This turnstile is situated in a pivotal location in a station complex that supports a high customer volume,” MTA spokesman Charles Seaton said to The News.
Sep
06
Subway etiquette in three easy parts
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A 2010 stunt from Jason Shellowitz failed to bring courteous behavior underground. (Courtesy of Animal New York)
On a multiple occasions at random times of the day in recent weeks, I’ve found myself on a few different trains with bench seating. When I ride those lines, I try to be mindful of the space between me and others next to me. I prefer not to sit on top of my neighbors when train cars are half empty, but I also like to make sure I’m not hogging more than my fair share of the space. If there’s room, someone should be able to sit next to me.
What really grinds my gears, though, is when the person sitting down doesn’t take the same precaution. Recently, I’ve had people stumble over me, bumping into me and then sitting on top of me as they’ve attempted to take a seat on the train. Only after I glance, glare or raise an eyebrow at them do they mutter a half-hearted apology or finally utter excuse me. In any other setting — a movie theater, a sports stadium, an airplane — this behavior would be considered rude, but on the subways, it seems to be de rigueur as straphangers do everything humanly possible to avoid interacting with their fellow subway riders.
In the grand scheme of the way we ride, these seat-bumpers are but a minor inconvenience. They pale in comparison with the pole-huggers, door-blockers and iPod headphone abusers, but they’re still a part of the great dance of the subway system. They set the tone for the way we view people sitting next to us and for the way we all interact during our short or not-so-short subway rides.
Before the long weekend, Jen Doll at The Village Voice’s website offered up a primer on subway etiquette. Over the years, I’ve covered various approaches to politeness underground. Some have come in the form of a laundry list of dos and don’ts. Other pieces have examined single-issues topics (including the ever-controversial pregnant lady conundrum). Doll’s list though is short, sweet and to the point.
Picking up from a video of people doing something in the subway that isn’t normally done in the subway — for instance, yoga — Doll distills subway etiquette into three simple points: 1. Pay attention to yourself, and to other people; 2. The subway is for getting you to where you want to go; and point three, which I’ll quote at length:
?3. Get on the subway train of your choice. Sit down or stand up in an area that seems convenient, and is not massively in the way of or on top of other people. Stay there until you reach your stop, reading, listening to music, staring into the ether, counting the minutes until you’ve arrived. Get off the subway. Carry on.
In other words, be a good person and don’t use the subway for things that would annoy you if someone else did it or aren’t appropriate for the subway. Don’t eat; don’t fight; don’t host dinner parties; don’t take up more than your own seat. It’s all common sense to me, but when I watch the way we ride, I’m always shocked by how many New Yorkers can’t seem to grasp these simple concepts. The Golden Rule doesn’t always exist underground, but if it did, the subways would be a far more pleasant place for a commute.
