Author Archive
Mar
16
Transit reports $27 million in fares lost to jumpers
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These turnstiles are not for jumpin’. (Photo by flickr user saitowitz)
For years, New York City Transit assumed that fare-beating with a minor, but containable, problem. Most estimates put the number of people who sneaked into the system at five million, a high number but just a few tenths of one percent of the subway’s annual ridership.
Well, toss that assumption out the window. As the Daily News reported today, a new study by Transit found that the agency lost $27 million to fare-beaters in 2009. The problem runs deeper and is far more widespread than anyone at the MTA had originally suspected. Based on new MTA estimates, riders hop turnstiles or sneak in through emergency exits 19 million times a year. While still just over one percent of annual ridership, that $27 million, as the News notes, would be enough to cover the planned subway service cuts.
Pete Donohue has more on the new methodology for tracking those who avoid paying:
NYC Transit for years arrived at fare-beating figures by using a formula based on the observations of token booth clerks. A one-day count was conducted each month, agency spokesman Paul Fleuranges said. An MTA audit concluded the agency was way off the mark. Clerks weren’t keeping accurate tallies because they had other duties like selling MetroCards, Fleuranges said. Because of staff cuts, there also are fewer clerks to make observations, Fleuranges said.
Despite the cuts in personnel and the massive increase in fare-beating numbers, Fleuranges insisted the system has not seen a spike in actual turnstile-jumping. Instead, he said, an unreliable system of estimating has been replaced with a better method that provides a more realistic picture.
NYC Transit now uses “traffic checkers” who are randomly placed at a sampling of turnstiles to count fare-beaters, Fleuranges said.
Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign issued the obvious comment, and there’s definitely some truth behind it. “The MTA’s only going to make jumping the turnstile more inviting by slashing scores of clerks from subway station entrances,” he said.
But what is the MTA to do? Nearly two years ago, they raised the fare-evading fine to $100. Right now, they need more police enforcement against fare-jumpers. The station agents can sit there and watch people exit and enter, but it’s still exceedingly easy to sneak into a station even with an employee in the booth.
There is, of course, a baseline problem here. No amount of enforcement will stop people from fare-jumping, but at what level of evasion does it become more costly to enforce than it would be to simply chalk up lost fares to an operating expense? After 1.6 billion paid to ride the subways last year, and as long as that 27 million doesn’t creep upward, it could just be a sunk cost.
Mar
16
The impact of overturning the payroll tax
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When Albany approved the MTA funding package last year with the payroll mobility tax as its centerpiece, I called it an imperfect compromise. It was a plan that, as state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli reported a month after enactment, would leave the MTA short some money and did not address long-term institutional problems with the way the state and city fund the authority.
Since last summer, the MTA has seen the payroll mobility tax fall short on its promised receipts by nearly $300 million, and throughout the metropolitan commuter transportation district, suburban legislatures have agitated for its repeal. Now, three Republican Assembly representatives, including New York’s first Tea Party-approved official, have launched a new attack on the payroll mobility tax. As Faith Burkins-Gimzek of LegislativeGazette.com reported yesterday, the three Republicans are just two days removed from taking office, and already, they’re trying to push through a repeal of the tax.
The legislation — currently tagged as A10011 — was presented by Dean Murray, Robert Castelli and Michael Montesano, three representatives from counties service by the MTA. It calls for an immediate repeal of the payroll mobility tax but does not allow for another source of revenue for the MTA. Without the payroll mobility tax, the authority would be out at least $1.2 billion.
While the payroll tax has been a controversial aspect of the funding package since its inception, Gov. David Paterson’s executive budget proposal recently redistributed the burden. Instead of taxing businesses throughout the 12 counties evenly, the new plan would put more of the tax burden on New York City-based businesses while relieving those in the surrounding counties. Still, Murray and his co-sponsors do not believe this proposal goes far enough.
Burkins-Gimzek has more:
Murray says businesses are being hit two-fold, because not only do they pay the MTA tax, but because schools are required to pay the tax as well, districts will have to raise property taxes to account for the revenue loss, they argue.
The bill’s memo states that the fiscal implications of the repeal on the MTA would be an annual loss of $1.2 billion in revenue. The authority recorded a $1.8 billion deficit in 2009 and a recent press release from new MTA Chairman and CEO Jay Walder announced that the authority is laying off 1,000 station agents and administrative employees.
Murray said there would be no need to raise taxes if the MTA eliminated redundant positions, collected on unpaid invoices from advertisers and targeted pension spiking, when employees rack up extra overtime in an attempt to increase their retirement benefits. He said the MTA threatened a “doomsday scenario” that without this tax, fares would be raised and services would be cut. He said that even with the tax, fares have been raised and services have been cut — “a slap to the face” to his constituents…
Castelli said “If the fraud, mismanagement and abuse was corrected they would be able to pay off the deficit with a surplus.”
Besides the sheer absurdity of Castelli’s charge that the MTA is wasting $1.2 billion, other ranking Assembly Republicans proclaimed support for Murray’s measure on more principled grounds. “Nearly a year ago, I publicly called for the establishment of a fiscal oversight control board, along with a comprehensive audit of the MTA, to increase transparency and accountability to taxpayers who paid for a nearly $2 billion bailout of this authority, which is supposed to serve in the public’s interest,” said Kolb. “Unfortunately, the MTA’s finances are still on the wrong track: there is no fiscal control board, no forensic audit, and, as a result, no real reform.”
Still, the MTA defended itself and noted that the state comptroller has been auditing the MTA. While the authority is not a lean organization by any means, it isn’t nearly as corrupt as these representatives would have their constituents believe. “The comptroller audits us on a monthly basis,” authority spokesman Kevin Ortiz said. “The rescue legislation that passed last spring already authorizes a forensic audit, and we welcome it.”
Because Sheldon Silver holds the keys to the Assembly, this legislation is dead in the water, but it shows just how deep the electeds’ distrust of the MTA runs and how little they are willing to support public transit. Repealing the payroll tax would result in losses far greater to the region than the $1.2 billion, and even if the authority shores up its accounting and waste, a repeal would leave the MTA an additional $1.2 billion in the red and effectively bankrupt. At some point, our politicians will let the MTA fail, and it will be ugly indeed. Only then will they begin to see what decades of institutional neglect does to one of the state’s most vital economic movers.
Mar
15
Labor lends a powerful voice to the Student MetroCard fight
Posted by: | CommentsAs the MTA counts down the days to the elimination of the Student MetroCard program, the Transport Workers Union Local 100 is lending its powerful voice to the fight. As Rachel Monahan and Pete Donohue of the Daily News detail, union officials have asked the state to pressure the city to increase its contributions to student transit. “The City of New York has a responsibility to ensure that our children have the means to get to school,” TWU head John Samuelsen said.
Labor is entering this fray because TWU members know that a healthy MTA is will only help them and because many of the union members are parents who will be forced to pay for student transit if the city and state don’t pony up the dough for this program. While a Bloomberg spokesperson defended the city’s $45 million contribution as “doing its part [so] that the program stays in place,” the truth remains that the city pays far more per student for yellow school bus transportation than it does for student MetroCards. The MTA is not a school bus provider, and the city and state should ensure that this program is fully funded. The TWU’s support on this issue could help tip the money the MTA’s way.
Mar
15
A call for wireless access on the commuter rails
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After years of planning, the MTA has taken another step forward in its quest to bring wireless Internet access to hundreds of thousands of daily commuters who use the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North. On Friday afternoon, the agency published a request for proposals (PDF) asking for wireless carriers to submit their plans for installing and operating a wifi system along the commuter rail lines. This move comes slightly over seven months after the MTA issued an RFEI for the project, but despite, according to The Post, looking to get a network off the ground before the end of the year, the MTA faces some high hurdles yet.
The RFP itself is fairly straightforward. The MTA is looking for a company to install and manage a wifi network that would reach all stations and trains that run along the Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road routes. Additionally, the authority is requesting plans to wire Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal as well. The network must also coexist peacefully with the MTA’s own radio-based operations and with Amtrak’s wireless access points as well. It must be able to support the bandwidth demands of every person who wants to use it, and it must also come with a guarantee of on-time installation and service activation.
If those demands — fairly typical in an RFP — weren’t enough, the MTA has requested that the network be installed at no cost at all to the cash-strapped authority. Considering that the MTA is allowing potential providers to determine whether or not they would charge for the service, by foisting installation costs onto the provider, the MTA is nearly guaranteeing that wireless service will not be free. Meanwhile, as Wi-Fi Net News points out, this proposal comes with a host of other problems. Glenn Fleishman, who doesn’t expect the MTA to receive a single response to this RFP, writes:
The MTA wants a service provider who would operate a network to bear all the expense of installation and operation (including railroad labor costs for same), provide 24×7 customer support, and uninterrupted service. But the proposal is pretty muddled. While digital advertising (changeable signs on board trains and at stations) should be part of a bidder’s thinking to minimize the cost in installing such systems, there’s no spec for those systems. A bidder can build a bid partly around offering such services. The MTA also likes bids in which the authority shares in revenue.
I don’t see how this could fly. No sensible firm would propose taking on all this expense without any assurance of revenue beyond the public Wi-Fi side of the system. Despite the large number of passengers, many of those most likely to pay already have 3G service on smartphones or through laptop cards. There’s no operational services component, and that should be the baseline for any new rail RFP of the last five years…The system described would likely cost many tens of millions of dollars to build to the specifications that the MTA is requiring, without any substantial potential to reclaim that as revenue.
The MTA expects all proposals in by close-of-business on May 17, but as Fleishman does, I too have a hard believing a reliable company will step up to the plate. The RFP discusses the numerous infrastructure issues surrounding installation, and if the MTA wants uninterrupted service from New York to Montauk or the far reaches of Orange and Rockland Counties, these plans simply seem untenable. “Because of the complexity of the system, including overhead catenary electrical systems, buried lines, protected watershed and River view sheds, new WiFi infrastructure/towers along the right of way may prove to be very difficult to approve or implement,” the document says of the Metro-North territories, “so alternative approaches should be considered to make the system operable.”
I’ve long urged the MTA to explore a wireless solution for its commuter rail lines. After all, commuters could become quite efficient if they have uninterrupted high-speed Internet access during long commuters. Yet, with such high demands and high costs associated with installation, this RFP may very well be the closest the MTA comes to a wireless solution for the foreseeable future.
Mar
15
With agents axed, security measures under fire
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An MTA security camera hangs above the BMT platform at 59th St. and Lexington Ave. (Photo by flickr user Vidiot)
Next week, the MTA Board will vote to approve a sweeping package of service cuts in an effort to close a budget gap hundreds of millions of dollars wide. Amongst those cuts are the planned elimination of 620 station agents. While layoff notices have already gone out to these employees and the cuts will leave stations with the fewest number of staffers in decades, politicians are voicing their concerns about the MTA’s willingness to sacrifice station security in a post-Sept. 11 era.
In fact, just last week, three high-ranking House representatives who overseen homeland security matters sent MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder a letter urging him to reconsider the station agent cuts. “Although our domestic transit systems have thus far been spared, deadly terrorist attacks in Spain, Great Britain, India and Russia over the last few years have emphasized the vulnerabilities of public transportation in large urban areas and demonstrated the security challenges unique to these open, passenger-heavy systems,” the letter said. It continued, “These cuts may create gaps in the layered infrastructure of local stations. A human presence is important for securing an open transit environment.”
The letter’s authors make it tough to ignore their message. It came from Bernie G. Thompson, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and co-signed by Sheila Jackson Lee, chair of the transportation security subcommittee, and Brooklyn’s own Yvette Clark, chair of the subcommittee on emerging threats, and the three noted that the recent guilty plea by Najibullah Zazi thrust domestic terrorism concerns back into the spotlight, a point made last month on one of my recent appearances on the WCBS local news. “The case of Najibullah Zazi is a chilling reminder that our transit systems are targets of Al Qaeda and its affiliates,” they wrote.
For its part, the MTA defended both the planned cuts and the current state of subway security. “The subway system is the safest it’s been in years, thanks to the vigilance and dedication of the N.Y.P.D.,” agency spokesman Aaron Donovan said. “There will continue to be a strong presence of M.T.A. employees throughout the subway system.”
Yet, another story about the MTA’s security cameras betrays the authority’s assurances. According to a report in today’s amNew York, half of the subway system’s 4313 security cameras aren’t working properly. According to Heather Haddon, these cameras “are unable to power up or are suffering from software glitches.”
In the past decade, the MTA has installed cameras across the system at subway turnstiles, platforms and tunnels to combat crime and fare beating. But of the 2,000 cameras that only records footage and are placed around the turnstiles, nearly half aren’t working because they were never fully rigged, MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said…
Another 1,100 cameras located throughout the system that would send live feeds and allow officials to monitor activity in real time are not working because of a software glitch, Ortiz said. The MTA is in a legal dispute with the contractor, Lockheed Martin, but the agency is working with another contractor to make them live. Ortiz couldn’t say when the work will be finished.
Considering that the MTA just added closed-circuit cameras to their new R160s, this is a dismaying development. One of the reasons for this security problem is the MTA’s on-going legal fight with Lockheed Martin, most recently highlighted by a state comptroller’s report on subway security. The truth remains, however, that if the MTA is going to get rid of station agents, they have to make sure something else is making the system secure and user friendly.
I’ve doubted the station agents’ ultimate impact as a deterrent because they don’t leave the booths and are under no legal obligation to stop a crime in progress, but people may be deterred just by their simple presence, and as the MTA urges people to say something if they see something, someone has to be there to receive the complaint. The intercoms don’t work; the cameras don’t work; and now the the MTA has politicians concerned with homeland security breathing down its back. For better or worse, the authority can’t sacrifice the safety of its system for the demands of its tenuous budget. The agency needs money, and if the feds are so concerned, they could start to funnel more security dollars to the MTA. It would be a start for sure.
Mar
12
An Upper East Side BRT update and the weekend advisories
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Last night, NYC DOT and the MTA gave its most recent Select Bus Service presentation to Manhattan’s Community Board 8. Since I was on an airplane, I couldn’t attend, but Michael Auerbach from Upper Green Side filed a report for me from the event. I’ll have more about the DOT presentation next week. In the meantime, check out Michael’s take on how Select Bus Service will coexist with the Second Ave. Subway construction along the Upper East Side. The weekend service alerts follow.
After a rather tame affair downtown at Community Board 3 on Wednesday night, the DOT and MTA headed north to present details of the City’s highly anticipated (albeit watered down) version of Bus Rapid Transit, or as it is known, Select Bus Service, to Community Board 8’s Transportation Public Forum. The start of the forum was actually delayed because City officials themselves were held up due to the tragic accident on the 6 train last night where a woman was killed at the 77th Street station as she tried to retrieve her bag from the tracks.
Seasoned from weeks of practice in front of boards across the City, the DOT came to CB8 with their SBS schpiel ready to go. The presentation began with DOT identifying station locations and describing exactly where each design choice will be implemented along the corridor and why. In areas of “intense traffic,” particularly around the 59th Street Bridge entrances and exits, Design C (curbside bus lane, shared bike lane) would be used. whereas in areas of lighter traffic further up 1st and 2nd Avenues, Design A (offset bus lane and protected bike lane) would be utilized. For the most part, no real bombshells were dropped last night save for the small shocker that when M15 SBS service is up and running, all M15 buses (including locals) will terminate at South Ferry. That means no more M15’s making they’re last stop at City Hall. However, DOT did mention that customers wishing to travel to City Hall will still be able to take the M103.
Of particular interest (and long a burning question to the readership of this blog) has been exactly how SBS will co-exist with the ongoing construction for the Second Avenue Subway. Last night we finally got some answers: As per DOT officials, the City does not intend to paint the bus lanes or install any physical infrastructure in the roadway on 2nd Avenue from 100th to around 67th Street until SAS construction is complete. DOT does plan however to install two temporary SBS stations on 2nd avenue at 88-89th streets and 67-68th streets, respectively. Both stations will have fare collection machines installed so people can pay the SBS fare before they board, enabling DOT to realize some of the promised SBS time-saving goals in the short-term.
Once construction of the SAS is complete (or better yet, when conditions on the roadway allow) the DOT will then implement full SBS on 2nd avenue, which includes painting the bus lane, installing a physically separated bike way on segments of the avenue, relocating the temporary stations, and adding additional ones. According to last night’s presentation, it still appears that SBS will be somewhat hampered in the SAS zone due to construction crews that take up lanes of traffic on the avenue. DOT regulations require the MTA to maintain 4 lanes of moving traffic through the SAS zone at all times. A DOT official even went as far as to say that the current curb side lane (once a fully functional bus lane back in the day) is now NOT in fact a bus lane, but simply a lane for buses. Which also means it’s a lane for cars, and a lane for trucks…The statement makes one really wonder whether or not SBS will be able to truly achieve its stated goal of speeding bus trips along the corridor.
* * *
I’d like to thank Michael for this report. Definitely check out Upper Green Side for more livable streets analysis about the areas impacted by the Second Ave. Subway. In the meantime, below are your weekly service advisories. Subway Weekender has the map, and it’s worth repeating that work on the 7 line has wrapped three weeks early. As always, these comes to me via the MTA and are subject to change without notice. Listen to announcements and check signs in your local station.
Please note: From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, there are no transfers between A, 23, and 45 trains at Fulton Street-Broadway-Nassau. Manhattan-bound A trains are running on the F line from Jay Street to West 4th Street. Queens-bound A trains run local from West 4th to Jay Streets, bypassing Fulton Street-Broadway Nassau. In Manhattan, free transfers are available between 45 trains at Fulton Street and AE23 trains at the World Trade Center/Chambers Street/Park Place station. Customers must exit and re-enter the system when making this free connection. In Brooklyn, customers may transfer at Nevins Street between 23 and 4 trains.
From 11 p.m. Friday, March 12 to 7 a.m. Saturday, March 13, from 11 p.m. Saturday, March 13 to 8 a.m. Sunday, March 14 and from 11 p.m. Sunday, March 14 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, 2 and 3 trains run local between 96th Street and Times Square-42nd Street due to a track dig-out near 50th Street.
From 12:01 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. Saturday, March 13 and Sunday, March 14 and from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, 3 train service is extended to/from 34th Street-Penn Station due to a track dig-out near 50th Street.
From 11 p.m. Friday, March 12 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, Manhattan-bound 4 trains run express from Burnside Avenue to 125th Street due to a concrete pour at 149th Street-Grand Concourse.
At all times until September 2010, the Whitlock Avenue and Morrison-Sound View Avs. stations are closed for rehabilitation. Customers should use the Elder Avenue 6 station or the Simpson Street 25 station instead. The Bx4 bus provides alternate connecting service between stations.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, A trains run local between 168th Street and 145th Street, between 59th Street and West 4th Street, and between Jay Street and Euclid Avenue due to the Chambers Street Signal Modernization project and station rehabilitation at 59th Street-Columbus Circle.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, Manhattan-bound A trains run on the F line from Jay Street to West 4th Street due to the Chambers Street Signal Modernization project.
At West 4th Street, customers may transfer to a:
- Brooklyn-bound A to reach Canal, Chambers or High Streets or
- World Trade Center-bound E to reach Spring Street.
Note: A trains do not stop at Broadway-Nassau Street in either direction.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, there is no C train service due to the Chambers Street Signal Modernization project. Customers may take the A or D instead. Note: D trains run local between 145th Street and 59th Street. A trains run local with exceptions.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, D trains run local between 145th Street and 59th Street due to station rehabilitation at 59th Street-Columbus Circle.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, there are no D trains between Pacific and 34th Streets due to the Broadway-Lafayette to Bleecker Street transfer construction. The N and free shuttle buses provide alternate service.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, E trains run local between Forest Hills-71st Avenue and Queens Plaza due to track maintenance.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, F trains run local between Forest Hills-71st Avenue and 21st St-Queensbridge due to track maintenance.
From 8:30 p.m. Friday, March 12 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, there are no G trains between Forest Hills-71st Avenue and Court Square due to track maintenance. Customers may take the E or R instead.
From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, March 13, Manhattan-bound J trains skip Flushing Avenue, Lorimer Street and Hewes Street due to track repairs.
From 12:01 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. Saturday, March 13 and Sunday, March 14, and from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m., Monday, March 15, N trains are rerouted over the Manhattan Bridge between DeKalb Avenue and Canal Street due to Jay Street station rehabilitation and construction of the underground connector to Lawrence Street.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, N trains run local between Pacific Street and 59th Street in Brooklyn due to Broadway-Lafayette to Bleecker Street transfer construction.
From 11 p.m. Friday, March 12 to 7 a.m. Saturday, March 13, from 11 p.m. Saturday, March 13 to 8 a.m. Sunday, March 14 and from 11 p.m. Sunday, March 14 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, uptown Q trains run local from Times Square-42nd Street to 57th Street/7th Avenue due to a track dig-out north of 42nd Street-Times Square.
From 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Saturday, March 13, downtown Q trains run local from 57th Street/7th Avenue to Times Square-42nd Street due to track cleaning.
From 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Sunday, March 14, downtown Q trains run local from 34th Street-Herald Square to Canal Street due to track cleaning.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, Q train service is extended to/from Ditmars Blvd.
From 12:01 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. Saturday, March 13 and Sunday, March 14 and from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, there are no R shuttle trains between 36th Street and 59th Street in Brooklyn due to Broadway-Lafayette to Bleecker Street transfer construction. Customers may take the N instead.
From 6:30 a.m. to midnight Saturday, March 13 and Sunday, March 14, R trains are rerouted over the Manhattan Bridge between DeKalb Avenue and Canal Street due to Jay Street Station Rehabilitation and Construction of Underground Connector to Lawrence Street.
From 10:30 p.m. Friday, March 12 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 15, free shuttle buses replace S trains between Rockaway Park and Beach 67th Street due to station rehabilitations at Beach 98th and Beach 90th Streets.
Mar
12
Report: No pay cuts for MTA admins
Posted by: | CommentsAlthough the MTA is still planning on laying off 680 administrative workers later this year in an effort to save $65 million annually, a report in amNew York today alleges that the authority will not be enacting a 10 percent pay cut as was originally planned. Heather Haddon reports that the MTA was able to “cut expenses to avoid the $49 million pay reduction.” While union officials responded as union officials will to this news, I’m left wondering about the accounting. The total package of service cuts will, for instance, save New York City Transit $77.6 million in annual reductions. As much as I don’t like to advocate for cutting salaries, I’d much rather see Transit enact just $28.6 million worth of cuts and have those administrators take their pay cuts than suffer through the upcoming service cuts.
Mar
12
Is a fare hike on the table for 2010?
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For the last three months, the MTA has firmly insisted that they would not raise fares for 2010. When faced with an initial deficit of under $400 million, Board members said the authority would become a leaner one with more streamlined service options and fewer costly and underutilized runs. When the deficit ballooned to $751 million, they began to dance around the issue, but CEO and Chairman Jay Walder repeatedly said he preferred to stick with the scheduled 2011 fare hike. Well, the best laid plans…
Today, the Post reports that the MTA is considering a fare hike in 2010, not least of all because most people at last week’s hearings expressed a strong preference for a hike over a service cut. I’ve touched on this topic in a few posts since December, and I too prefer a hike over the cuts. Tom Namako has more:
Increasing the cost of a ride on subways, buses and commuter rails in 2010 is just one option out of many that officials have put on the table to overcome the staggering deficit, management sources said.
“I think there is a set of options. And the fare is one of those as we try to get to the bottom line,” a board member said.
“In view of the reaction we got to the service reductions we have out there, I think that asking most board members if they’d rather see more service cuts or a fare increase, I think, at the moment, many would pick a fare increase.”
In a statement to the Post, the MTA denied exploring the hikes. “Our position has not changed. It remains our intention to raise the fare in 2011 as agreed upon last year,” spokesman Jeremy Soffin said.
Yet, the truth remains that to cut $751 million worth of services would cripple the MTA and the New York City economy. Without massive layoffs and an agency-wide restructuring, it is nearly impossible to cut that much while meeting ridership demands.
Meanwhile, Bill Henderson of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Council to the MTA raised some interesting points about the fare hike. He first noted that a hike this year could be viewed as an acceleration of the 2011 hike, but it is my understanding that the MTA’s fare hike in 2011 is a foregone conclusion whether they raise fares this year or not. Henderson noted, however, that if the MTA were to announce a fare hike within the next few weeks, it would go into effect right around Election Day. Hopefully, straphangers would be angry enough at the way Albany robs from the MTA to vote the anti-transit representatives out of office.
And so we are where I expected us to be. The MTA is broke, and it needs to offer transit service to the millions of New Yorkers who rely on it a day. It doesn’t enjoy any sort of political support in Albany and has become a scapegoat for the politicians’ inabilities to defend their constituent interests. Soon, we’ll be paying more for, hopefully, the same amount of service. Cutting service and raising fare would lead to a dark day for New Yorkers indeed.
Mar
12
A night off
Posted by: | CommentsI had grand plans to travel to West Palm Beach to spend some time with my grandparnets this weekend. In the last four hours, however, my second computer in as many months died, and my flight was diverted to Orlando due to storms in the Palm Beach area. So I’m hanging out in the Orlando airport with nothing to do. I’ll get some posts up during the day. For now, I’ve got nothing for you.
Mar
11
A groundbreaking at Atlantic Yards
Posted by: | CommentsEarlier this afternoon, Bruce Ratner and a bunch of New York politicos celebrated the groundbreaking of the Barclays Center at the Atlantic Yards. The ceremony was filled with all of the pomp and circumstance one would expect from an oft-delayed groundbreaking, but I can’t help thinking about how the MTA has voluntarily allowed itself to get screwed over by Ratner at a time when it most needs the money.
Less than nine months ago, the Board agreed to sweeten their sweetheart deal for the land rights above the Vanderbilt Yards. Instead of a $100 million payment, the agency agreed to accept $20 million now and $80 million deferred over the next 22 years. Without reappraising the land and without considering other offers, the cash-strapped agency simply forewent money it badly needs.
Over the last few months, a few who pay more attention to the Atlantic Yards happenings than I do have written about this decision. Norman Oder at Atlantic Yards Report tackled it in December, and Noticing New York wrote an extensive post on the topic as well. Today, the Daily Intel calls everyone involved with the deal losers, and the MTA’s fiscal woes march ever onward.
