The Eighth Avenue FASTRACK removes subway service from western Manhattan.

While I’ve mostly viewed the MTA’s FASTRACK program as a necessary evil, next week’s treatment along the 8th Ave. line allows us a glimpse at an interesting “what if” in New York City subway history. What if the city hadn’t built the 8th Ave. tunnels during its subway-building phase?

The 8th Ave. line was one of the main drivers behind Mayor Hylan’s plan to build an independent subway system, and after a groundbreaking in 1925, it opened in 1932. It was the first city-owned route, and the A train, made famous by Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington, has served Harlem and beyond since then. These days, the Eighth Avenue route is one of the longest in the city, running from the Far Rockaways to Inwood. Next week, it will detour.

As part of the FASTRACK maintenance plan that shuts down service on one line during the week from 10-5 p.m., the MTA will tackle that 8th Ave. line beginning on Monday. The C train will shutdown at around 10 p.m. while the A will run along the D and F lines from Columbus Circle to Jay St. It will make local stops as the E does as well along the 6th Ave. line with a southern terminus at 2nd Ave. Once upon a time, IND trains via the 53rd St. tunnel ran either to the Hudson Terminal or 2nd Ave., and that is essentially what the E is doing again.

As FASTRACK goes, this is a relatively easy service change. The 6th Ave. line will be rife with trains, but there will be subway service south of 42nd St. and west of 7th Ave. during the overnights next weekend. It leaves a wide stretch of Manhattan very, very empty, and that’s not something we’re used to seeing. The walk from Hell’s Kitchen or Chelsea to the subway will seem even longer for a few nights.

Meanwhile, future plans for FASTRACK are taking shape. As Pete Donohue reported in Wednesday’s Daily News, the MTA is eying a northern expansion of FASTRACK for 2013. Once the midtown-to-Brooklyn work is completed this year, the authority will look to shutdown service from midtown to 125th St. This is, of course, a tougher routing as the IND routes specifically do not allow for any re-routing, and the West Side IRT isn’t particularly near any other line north of Columbus Circle. Those will be a more onerous set of service changes.

Still, Transit officials say they will charge full steam ahead next year. “The plan is to use 2012 as a period to learn what went right, what went wrong and what we have to improve, and use that as a base when expanding to northern Manhattan and the outer boroughs,” Transit President Tom Prendergast said to The News.

During FASTRACK fourth year, in 2015, the agency hopes to bring it to the Outer Boroughs. As far as I can tell, FASTRACK in the Outer Boroughs will be particular difficult to implement because the authority will have to do away with the notion of alternate service. There is no alternate service for, say, the 4th Ave. line, New Lots-bound trains or folks traveling along the Queens Boulevard line. While these areas are in need of the most work, they also have the least amount of system redundancies. The work must go on, but we don’t have to like it.

On that note, expect a lighter schedule for the rest of the week. I’m out of the city and down in Philly for a few days, but I’ll check back in if any big subway news happens.

The FASTRACK program has allowed workers to perform badly needed repairs. (Photo via Patrick Cashin, MTA)

How do you maintain a 20th century — or in some cases, a 19th century — subway system into and through the 21st century? How do you move forward while making up for years of deferred maintenance? How do you undertake construction work on a subway system that runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year?

In a sense, as I’ve learned over the past five years, those are some impossible questions. They plague every person who takes a position of leadership at the MTA, and the answers from 347 Madison are often those that the customers do not like to hear. Those answers, of course, involve complicated and confusing weekend service diversions, late-night service changes with trains operating at slower speeds or, recently, full line shutdowns for seven hours at a time. Our subway system suffers from decades of neglect, and the MTA is trying to play catch-up.

Lately, New York City straphangers have grown vocally weary of the constant service changes. As we are alerted of weekend service changes only a few days before they are implemented, weekend travel is unpredictable, and that, in and of itself, is a negative for any transit agency that strives on predictable routing and scheduling. Late-night commuters know to add 10 minutes not for waiting but for painfully slow travel through work zones, and the latest perceived slight is FASTRACK. Billed as an efficiency measure, it comes across as a service cut that doesn’t ease the pain of weekend travel.

During yesterday’s MTA Board meeting, the city’s press corps peppered new MTA head Joe Lhota with questions concerning the MTA’s vast array of work. Must the shutdowns continue? Must weekend service be so painful? Hoping for the best, the reporters were instead offered a dose of clear-cut reality from Lhota. He was blunt in his honesty.

“When you look at how old the system is, I don’t think I can tell you that there is ever going to be a time when we will not be in need of repair and renovation and rehabilitation of our system,” he said. “We will do everything we can to do it as efficiently and effectively as possible.”

What does he consider to be efficient? In response to a question from Christine Haughney of The Times, Lhota noted that weekend work will continue for the foreseeable future and beyond. “We will strive,” he said, “to keep the system in a state of good repair.”

What else can Lhota say that isn’t a bald-faced lie? New York City and later the MTA spent decades ignoring the subway system as it fell into disrepair, and only an aggressive investment and rehabilitation plan has gotten it to where it is today. Still, we suffer through stations that haven’t been modernized in decades and an infrastructure in need of constant investment. Simply maintaining a system that is 108 years old in parts is expensive; growing and adapting it for the 21st Century is even though.

So we suffer, and that seemingly is the best outcome. If we want a system that can continue to work for another 108 years, we have to deal with service changes and weekend diversions. There’s no real way around that. Perhaps the MTA could up the productivity with changes to the work rules, but the work isn’t going away. That’s the sad reality of a system that came into being when the Yankees were the Highlanders and Teddy Roosevelt was president.

As hard as it is to believe, the current slate of MTA megaprojects are, by and large, operating at something akin to autopilot. While the authority still has to worry about construction timelines, budget caps and placating neighbors, the various expansion projects are generally well on their ways toward completion. Thus, it is never too early to talk about the far-off future.

Over the past few months, it’s become clear that, despite some concerns about timeframes and budget figures, the MTA has its projects under control. The 7 line is on pace to open in late 2013, and the Fulton Street Transit Center, after years of delays and a lack of leadership, is set for a 2014 debut. The authority is making progress underneath Second Ave. and continues to stress a 2016 revenue service date. The East Side Access Project’s timeline remains in limbo, but Capital Construction should be coming back with an update within the next few weeks.

So what’s next? We don’t know where the money will come from, but the MTA can’t stop expanding its system. There are too many worthwhile projects that have been years or decades in the making. As the MTA is no longer planning its current slate of projects, the authority could begin to look toward its next round of so-called megaprojects. As I see it, the authority could have four projects ready to go pretty quickly.

1. Second Ave. Subway Phase 2: As far as I’m concerned, this is a no-brainer. While Phase 1 of SAS is supposed to carry 200,000 passengers daily, for the line to be worthwhile, it must fulfill its full potential. Phases 3 and 4, through midtown, will be costly and tricky; after all, Michael Horodniceanu recently guessed the total price tag on the remaining sections to be over $23 billion. But Phase 2 should be the easiest. Much of the tunneling has been completed, and this Phase offers the promise of a connection to the Lexington Ave. IRT at 125th St. Furthermore, it allows the MTA the option to build north or west at a future date.

2. Reactivation of the Staten Island North Shore Rail: Restoring rail to Staten Island’s North Shore has been in the works for some time. At the behest of local politicians, the MTA has been hosted planning open houses for a few years, and they have developed a fairly extensive North Shore Alternatives Analysis website. The city’s Economic Development Corporation appears to be on board, and the authority issued a study last year focusing on the various transit possibilities.

3. Metro-North Access to Penn Station: Again, this is another project that has been percolating within the MTA for some time now, and it is largely dependent upon the East Side Access Project. Once ESA is completed, the MTA could bring some Metro-North trains into Penn Station to provide better access to both sides of Manhattan for residents from Westchester. In fact, this plan first popped up in the early 2000s, and the MTA revived discussions this past fall. The authority plans to release an environmental assessment in 2013 and has up a project website. For some reason, Long Island politicians and residents aren’t yet on board though.

4. Third-Tracking the LIRR Mainline: In 2005, the MTA to began to discuss plans to improve service along the LIRR Mainline, and those plans included a highly controversial third track. Long Island politicians and transit advocates feel that this is an entirely project that will help the LIRR adapt to a planned jump in ridership that a completed ESA will bring. Yet, NIMBYs along the route have long spoken out against it. Four years ago, some LI representatives stressed how this project would happen, but it’ll take a battle to see this one through.

These aren’t particularly out-of-the-box ideas for the MTA’s next big expansion push, but reading the tea leaves here is not challenging. The authority appears to have its sites set on these projects, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them become the focus of MTA Capital Construction as its current works wind down over the next few years. The key to all of them however will be the costs. The authority must figure out a way to get construction costs down to reasonable levels or else these projects won’t move from beyond the drawing board.

Maintenance workers conduct a track and signal inspection during this week’s FASTRACK shut down. (Photo via MTA)

After four nights of work along the West Side IRT line, Transit has called the latest FASTRACK treatment “a success.” In a statement released this afternoon, the authority said that, after two lines have been fastracked, “it remains clear that the FASTRACK program is both a safer and more efficient way to maintain and clean a 24/7 subway system.”

“Looking at what we have accomplished during our first two rounds of FASTRACK,” New York City Transit President Thomas Prendergast said, “makes me even more enthusiastic about this new way of conducting business. Workers can now perform tasks without being interrupted by passing trains and we are able to get to areas that would not be possible under normal train traffic. One of the more visible things we are able to accomplish is the scraping and painting of station ceilings, something that cannot be done when trains are running.”

During this week’s shutdown, 800 workers completed more than 400 tasks. Had trains been running, this work would have taken months, Transit said. The following is a glimpse of the work completed:

• 15,000 bags of rubbish removed;
• 17,000 pounds of scrap material removed;
• Muck and mud scraped from 19,000 feet of concrete roadbed;
• 2,500 light bulbs changed in subway tunnels and station platforms;
• Several stations received spot painting and the ceilings of others, including Nevins Street, were scraped and painted;
• Station drains cleaned;
• Maintenance and inspection of eight elevators and three escalators performed at Chambers Street, Clark Street and Borough Hall;
• Serviced and inspected smoke detectors and alarms;
• Serviced 17 track switches, 53 signals;
• Repaired 315 feet of platform edge and;
• Cleaned and tested 34 CCTV cameras and 20 monitors.

“Prior to FASTRACK,” Carmen Bianco, Transit’s senior vice president for subways, said, “workers would have to pick up their tools make certain the area was safe and then move out of the way every time a train moved through. Now, workers can continue performing their tasks in an uninterrupted manner.”

Despite the praise and the recognition that decades of deferred maintenance has ultimately left the MTA with few viable alternatives for performing this work, I still have a nagging feeling that this is a service cut wrapped in an efficiency program. While FASTRACK impacts only sections of lines with nearby alternatives, it still represents less overnight service. As Transit prepares to continue this program through at least the end of 2012, riders will have to get used to these types of outages.

The next FASTRACK closure will impact the Sixth Ave. lines from Feb. 27-March 2. The Eighth Ave. lines were get their own treatment from March 12-16.

Every week, GE releases an online-only magazine called Txchnologist, focusing on the intersection among science, technology and infrastructure. In this week issue’s, reporter Matthew Van Dusen sat down for a talk with MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu, and the good doctor’s responses to Van Dusen’s questions provide some interesting fodder for thoughts on the MTA’s future. Take a read:

Txch: What happens if Second Avenue isn’t completed?

MH: It will be a train that starts at 96th and services the East Side between 96th and 63rd streets. It resolves some of the issues that existed on the Upper East Side. I think that, to go further north would be easy. We have tail tracks that go all the way to 105th street. Then we have a five-block gap. Then from 110th to 120th streets we have a tunnel. If you build a station at 105th to 110th streets you now will have another station. So you can come from 110th Street all the way down. We will also provide the ability to go south from 63rd street.

It’s going to be the political will, the people’s will. The same way that No. 7 could go further south. Right now it stops at 34th but we have tail tracks down to 26th street. There are opportunities to expand the system to make it better. It’s just a matter of people’s desire to do that.

While the initial cost projections for Phase 2 of SAS aren’t much less than the Phase 1 price tag, I’ve long believed Phase 2 will happen. There’s simply too much preexisting infrastructure to forego this opportunity, and the need is too great. South of 63rd St. is another question though as the MTA would have to forge ahead through some very densely populated areas of Manhattan. Money, of course, remains an issue.

The more intriguing statement here though concerns the 7 line. Will the 7 line head to New Jersey? Will it loop over to Chelsea Piers or 14th St. to offer some sort of connection with the L? In the realm of the possible, the new extension is built to provide that hope for future. That discussion though should involve finding money for a station at 41st St. and 10th Ave. as well.

Anyway, check out the rest of the short piece. Horodniceanu talks about working with the community and how underappreciated the MTA’s services are in New York City. Unfortunately, the interviewer didn’t ask about onerous work rules that cause a spike in construction prices in the city, and until that part of the equation is reduced, these future projects will just remain good ideas that live on paper.

Workers at 23rd Street were able to give the track bed a thorough scrubbing with no trains zooming by. (Photo by Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Patrick Cashin)

“State of Good Repair” isn’t a term used much by the MTA these days. Half a decade ago, it was the nearly unattainable Holy Grail of the status of the city’s infrastructure. We had fancy new rolling stock, but the tracks, signals, switches, shops and stations weren’t up to par. A never-ending cycle of multi-decade investment and work was designed to bring the system into a state of good repair, but as Transit came to learn the Sisyphean nature of their quest, the phrase slowly left the MTA lexicon.

This week, New York City Transit debuted its FastTrack program. For four nights — the last of which is tonight — from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., there is no service along the East Side IRT from Grand Central to Atlantic Ave. as work crews blitz the stations along that route. In a few weeks, the West Side lines will undergo a similar experience as the authority is piloting with a potential once-a-quarter plan to spiffy up the subways.

The origins of this idea remain a bit hazy. Jay Walder had spoken of full line shut-downs as early as May of 2010, and the MTA finally unveiled the current iteration of its FastTrack plan in mid-November. At the time, the authority explained that it could save at least $10-$15 million doing this week all at once rather than piecemeal over night and during weekends.

At the time, it was kinda sorta billed as an alternative to weekend work, but that was seemingly an optimistic interpretation of the MTA’s plans. They had always maintained that weekend work would go on as planned; after all, the capital investment projects never end. But by shutting the stations for a few days, they can get much-needed repairs out of the way quicker and more efficiently than they otherwise would. “This is not a replacement for weekend work,” Transit spokesman Kevin Ortiz clarified to me earlier this week. It does though add up to more inconvenience for many over the course of the week on top of endless weekend diversions.

Overall, the the MTA says these closures impact around 10-15 percent of the 250,000 people who ride the subway each weeknight, and so far, things have gone off smoothly. While a few newspaper reporters drummed up some ill-informed and irate straphangers and Transportation Nation ran a hilariously self-aware series of photo interviews with a balance of viewpoints, riders I’ve spoken with have found it annoying but hardly Earth-shattering. As New York’s subways enjoy an abundance of redundant service, most have found easy alternate routes to connect from Manhattan to Brooklyn. One compared this work to alternate side parking: It just happens, we deal with it and it’s not a major life event.

So what exactly is the MTA doing as they inconvenience 25,000 every weeknight? According to authority’s materials, crews have inspected repaired signals and switches and have replaced third-rail defects. They have cleaned stations, repaired broken tiles and replaced light bulbs. They have cleared the tracks of litter, debris and mud. They have repaired platform edges at various stations and have installed ADA warning strips at others. These aren’t particularly sexy repairs, but station components will look and work better because of it.

Yet, I can’t help but think that we shouldn’t need to cut off all service to make these repairs. Some of the track work requires shut downs, and concentrated access to the tracks requires alternate routing. Yet, by allowing the system to deteriorate, the MTA is forced to fast track its repairs. We still have a 24-hour system, and the MTA has always faced neighborhood opposition when it has threatened to shutter stations and reroute trains during the wee hours of the night. Here we are, though, with less weekend night service for 16 weeks a year. We still won’t enjoy that state of good repair.