Throughout the city, a decade or so the IND overbuilt to accommodate everyone who could ever ride the subway, the original IRT platforms were expanded to fit ten-car trains and many more people. As a casualty of the expansion program, some stations — 18th and Worth Sts. on the East Side, 91st St. on the West Side — were shuttered due to their proximity to nearby stops, but with more spacious platforms and long trains, those closures were a necessary trade-off.

Today, ridership has once again approached levels that warranted such an expansion. While the automobile and the general state of decay saw ridership drop from the late 1950s to a nadir in the 1980s, the MTA has seen a steep growth in usage over the recent years. That growth has not been confined to weekdays either, as historical ridership patterns have dictated, and now authority officials are trying to find ways to alleviate overcrowding along certain lines at all times of the day.

Yesterday, MTA Chairman Joe Lhota went to Albany to talk transit funding, and he spoke about a rough idea to expand subway stations in order to keep pace with demand. It is doubtful that trains would be lengthened, but the authority can make some access improvements to stations, particularly along the overcrowded L line, that could improve service. These little changes could go a long way toward improving the transit experience.

Pete Donohue of The Daily News had a bit more:

With the subways bursting at the seams, the MTA needs to expand stations in the century-old system, authority Chairman Joseph Lhota said Thursday. Lhota singled out the L line as an example of an overcrowded route that requires alterations to accommodate a meteoric rise in ridership due to industrial areas transforming into bustling residential neighborhoods. “Today, it’s the fastest growing line,” he said.

Stations in neighborhoods like Williamsburg were built with just one or two entrances, “whereas if we knew it was going to be residential as it is today, we would have three or four entrances,” Lhota said. “So, you’re seeing tremendous crowding on stations that are unbelievably narrow. We’re going to have to spend capital programs to expand those stations.”

It’s fairly easy to see where the MTA could include station entrances along the L. In Manhattan, a back entrance at the First Ave. stop that better serves Avenue A and points east would help alleviate uneven boarding patterns while cutting down commute times to the subway. In Brooklyn, stations east of Lorimer St. generally have but one entrance that leads to passenger bunching along the station. Even outside of the L, I see such behavior at 7th Ave. on the Brighton Line (which has a shuttered second entrance) and Grand Army Plaza. New entrances would help better disperse the crowds.

Of course, there is one giant problem: These types of system expansion plans cost money, and money is something the MTA has little of. The current capital plan doesn’t allow for such construction efforts, and the MTA may have to satisfy ADA requirements if it starts work on some of these stations. Thus, adding new entrances would not come cheap.

Still, it’s an idea worth considering. Better station access won’t help increase the frequency of trains or allow for longer car sets, but straphanger distribution can help ease the loads. Maybe those back cars wouldn’t be so empty if they were closer to the station entrance points.

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

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)

For the millions of New Yorkers who rely on the city’s subway system at all hours of the day, the best time for the MTA to do its work is never. We don’t want weekend slowdowns; we don’t want overnight delays; we don’t want mid-day re-routings. We want the subways to run all the time whenever we need it.

That is, of course, a problem when you’re talking about infrastructure that’s around 80 years old at its youngest spots and over 100 at its oldest. To combat a decline that reached a nadir in the early 1980s, the MTA is, as we know, engaged in a never-ending battle to repair its system. We are stuck with weekend headaches, mid-day, off-peak diversions and overnight work. If the early returns are any indication, we might end up with once-a-quarter FasTrack shutdowns as well.

In a presentation to the Transit Committee earlier this week, MTA officials praised the results from this month’s four-day overnight shutdown of the East Side IRT. They spoke of the productivity gains and the money saved, and while a one-time trial along one subway line isn’t enough to judge a program, officials were optimistic that the program would be a successful one in the long run.

According to the laundry list of accomplishments the authority released, work crews identified and completed 324 tasks over the course of the four nights. This included removal of over 20,000 pounds of debris from subway tracks; installation of new tie blocks, plates and friction pads; 311 signal inspections; grout work at various points along the line; and retiling, repainting and repair work at numerous stations, just to name a few. “We’re able to complete work that we would not normally be able to do in our normal customary way of doing it,” Department of Subways head Carmen Bianco said. “The level of exposure [to danger] went down for employees, because we’re not running trains.”

Overall, the authority says it saved around $673,000 by turning off service. If that’s a projectionable figure, the MTA could save around $10 million annually while improving the physical plant in ways they otherwise wouldn’t be able to. That, at least, is the long-term goal, and it’s going to take a few more pilots to see if FasTrack is a sustainable effort. “This is the first time ever in the history of this organization that we’ve done this,” Transit President Tom Prendergast said. “So we need to actually have three or four more experiences before we can ascertain how successful it is and how we can improve upon it, and what the impacts are.”

With the work accomplishments in hand, what of the impact on customers? Some praised the idea as a way to combat decrepit station conditions; others did not. ““This a bad plan that you have decided,” Thanisha Mitchell said to the MTA. “I have to open a gym at 6 am and I have to punch in by 5:30. I actually have to be to work before 5. This Fastrack plan is garbage and effects everyone’s schedule. Your ad says you are reliable, and I don’t believe so.”

Interestingly, the MTA claims that it did not notice increased use of parallel lines either. While the authority halted work on those parallel lines — in this case, the BMT Broadway trains — so as not to further inconvenience customers, the authority noted that extra shuttle service and the so-called gap trains on the Na and R “were not well utilized.” Transit is waiting for a full analysis on adjacent routes and bus lines until more data has been collected.

So now, we wait. In February and March, FasTrack moves to the West Side as the 7th, 6th and 8th Avenue lines get their treatment over the span of five weeks. Then we’ll reassess what it means to lose subway service from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. four nights a week for one week every three months. With the right results, it should be worth it, but the jury is still out on what those right results should be.

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

NYU wants to bring the Center for Urban Science and Progress to 370 Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn. (Rendering via NYU and The Real Deal)

For the past decade or so, every Brooklyn politician has called upon the MTA to do something with the former NYC Transit HQ building at 370 Jay St. while the MTA has been waiting out the $150 million in capital funds they need to renovate the Downtown Brooklyn eyesore. Even as Kings County has enjoyed a renaissance of late, the big building atop the Jay St. subway stop has remained untouched but shrouded in scaffolding. NYU, we learned in October, wants to convert it into a Center for Urban Sciences and Progress, and the deal might just be moving forward as long as the price is right.

According to a report in Crain’s New York from New Year’s Day, the three stakeholders — NYC, the building’s owner, the MTA, its leaseholder, and NYU — all want to see the plan realized, but for the cash-strapped authority, the kicker will be the dollars. Daniel Massey writes:

All three parties to an NYU deal seem amenable to the idea, but money is the sticking point. The MTA controls the site via a master lease and has the right to stay in the building as long as it is using it. The 459,000-square-foot property contains vital communications equipment, and the negotiations hinge on just how much it would cost to move or replace it.

“The real question becomes, what does the MTA want?” said a source close to the talks.

NYU has asked the city for $20 million to help buy out the MTA, based largely on numbers thrown around during previous attempts to revive the beleaguered building, sources familiar with the proposal said. But the MTA’s asking price has now ballooned to $50 million to $60 million. “We are working with the city to provide a facility that better serves the needs of the community and to ensure that the MTA receives fair value for the building,” an MTA spokesman said.

As Massey notes, it’s unclear how much money the city has leftover after delivering Roosevelt Island to Cornell. NYU, on the other hand, is not hurting for bucks and will have to contribute something to this project. The Crain’s story also notes that NYU’s new CUSP center will be working with the MTA by “giving university researchers access to scientific and engineering challenges it faces in coming years.”

As a Brooklynite, I’d like to see something happen with 370 Jay St. sooner rather than later. The borough has seemingly moved on while this building has been stuck in limbo. Yet, I recognize that the MTA needs to protect its bottom line. As both Columbia University and Carnegie Mellon University remain interested in the space, I have to believe something will happen sooner rather than later. Someone will blink first, but will it by the city or the MTA? Urban development history isn’t really on the authority’s side.

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

According to numbers released today by Transit, the systemwide weeknight ridership is only approximately 250,000, and the shutdowns — one per Manhattan trunk line per quarter — will affect between 10-15 percent of riders. Those riders are expected to see a 20-minute jump in late-night commute times, and the MTA expects to realize productivity savings of $10-$15 million annually. Transit says, that in order to minimize disruptions to travel patterns, it has targeted lines where “there are substantial subway alternatives have been selected for the overnight shutdowns.”

Meanwhile, the agency stressed again that these weeknight shutdowns are “not a replacement for weekend work.” While workers can target critical maintenance and upgrades during the week, the capital work will continue to lead to massive weekend service changes. The next Fastrack shutdown will occur along the Seventh Ave. line between Penn Station and Atlantic Ave. from February 13-17.

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

In a decision (pdf) released yesterday, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, writing for a unanimous Court of Appeals, said that selling a swipe is not a felony because the MTA does not have a valid property interest in the swipe-buyer’s fare. The decision, which reports characterized as a “surprise,” represents a bit of a legal tap dance through state precedent on classifying felonies.

The legal eagles among us can read through the double-spaced nine-page decision. For the rest of you, Michael Grynbaum offers up a succinct summary in plain English:

This decision came as some surprise, not only to the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which routinely prosecutes this type of scheme as petty larceny, but also to senior subway officials, who for years had assumed that profiting off the unauthorized sale of a subway trip was a clear-cut case of theft of fare.

But Jonathan Lippman, the chief judge of the Court of Appeals, wrote in an opinion that the fraud, “although decidedly criminal in nature,” did not amount to an unlawful taking of property from New York City Transit because the transit agency never actually possessed the fare that it would have otherwise been paid. The transportation authority, Judge Lippman wrote, “never acquired a sufficient interest in the money to become an ‘owner,’ ” which the judge deemed a necessary condition for a charge of larceny to be filed.

Instead, the opinion said, the scammer could be charged with other infractions, like the unlawful sale of transportation services. New York City Transit, for instance, forbids an owner of an unlimited MetroCard from accepting money in exchange for a swipe.

New York City Transit would not let the good judge deter them. Armed with various other laws under which they could prosecute and ticket offenders, a spokesman stressed that selling swipes remains against the law. “No matter how you classify it, selling swipes is illegal and makes the fare more expensive for all law-abiding transit riders,” Kevin Ortiz said to The Times. “If you see someone selling swipes, we urge you to report it to a police officer or MTA employee immediately.”

Even as selling a swipe is no longer a felony, the scam will likely remain a misdemeanor under theft of services laws, and criminals can be charged with unauthorized sales of transportation services and with illegal access to Transit Authority services. It remains legal to give away swipes from a MetroCard out of the generosity of your heart.

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

“Last winter’s weather was tough for New York and the MTA, but we’ve made improvements to our service protocols, equipment and communications to provide the best possible service this year,” MTA Executive Director Joseph Lhota said. “We’re prepared to clear more snow and ice than ever before and we’ll be working hard to keep service running, but we won’t hesitate to suspend service on parts of our system when it’s necessary to protect the safety of our riders, employees and equipment.”

For the subways, Transit says it is “preparing an impressive fleet of snow and ice-fighting equipment” that will be dispatched in the event of a winter weather plan. The authority has also adopted “procedures for preemptive curtailment of service” in the event of a massive storm. It has also changed its storm response protocols to allow for a Level V response which would be implemented in the face of a massive storm. According to Transit officials, Level V would involve “an orderly and temporary suspension in service on select line segments to allow for snow and ice removal.”

“Our goal has always been to keep our services up and running so that our customers can get to where they need to be no matter what the weather,” Carmen Bianco, senior vice president of subways, said. “We have a tremendous investment in machinery, manpower and experience. But when we performed our review of how we performed during the Christmas weekend blizzard, we determined that there was a point where we should no longer send trains onto the nearly 220 miles of outdoor track of certain lines.”

With respect to buses, Transit and the Department of Sanitation will better align their services to prioritize bus route plowing. Last year, numerous buses were stranded in Brooklyn and Queens for days as plows failed to remove the snow drifts and often trapped buses behind accumulating mounds of snow. The MTA will also be prepared to curtail bus service and remove most articulated buses from the roads as well.

In a way, the MTA had the opportunity to dry-run their winter shutdown plans when Hurricane Irene threatened New York. Although the direst of storm surges did not flood out the subways and the city itself was spared the brunt of the storm, Transit learned what it had to do to get both employees and passengers off the roads and rails safely. Avoiding another winter debacle has now taken center stage.

“The most important shift in agency thinking was moving away from the philosophy that we will deliver service until we can’t,” Transit head Tom Prendergast said. “We learned from last year’s storm that at some point, it was safer and more prudent to temporarily suspend service.”

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

As both The Daily News reported yesterday, the MTA may temporarily cease service in areas prone to vandalism. According to Transit officials, bus service along the Bx 8 in Edgewater Park, the Bx 24 in Country Club and the B31 in Gerritsen Beach could all be reduced tonight. Teenagers in Gerritsen Beach, in particular, sparked a controversy last year when they were outed by a local blogger. “These areas have notoriously been problem areas,” Kevin Ortiz, a Transit spokesman, told The News. “It’s definitely a safety concern. We deploy this action plan to ensure employees and customers are provided with a safe environment when working or using our buses.”

Now, the MTA should make sure its riders and employees are safe throughout Halloween, but something about this plan to scale back service bothers me. Shouldn’t police presence be increased to ensure that public is maintained before Transit throws in the towel? Should we cut off bus service to those in some of the least transit-accessible areas in the city due to some bad eggs? Giving in isn’t the precedent I’d like to see established.

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

NYU wants to bring the Center for Urban Science and Progress to 370 Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn. (Rendering via NYU and The Real Deal)

As the MTA gears up to offload the long-idle Transit building at 370 Jay St., a familiar player in the New York City real estate market has emerged as a leading contender for the space. As The Daily News reports today, New York University is targeting 370 Jay St. as the future home for its Center for Urban Science and Progress. The plan, which would rely on significant contributions from the city, would help push forward an academic revival in Downtown Brooklyn.

Instead of competing with Stanford and Cornell for space on Roosevelt Island, NYU would prefer to overhaul the MTA’s former headquarters across from its Polytechnic campus. “It would make Brooklyn the urban center of the universe,” NYU Senior Vice Provost for Research Paul Horn said to The News. “There’s nothing anywhere near it on this scale.”

Erin Durkin has more:

Mayor Bloomberg is offering a powerhouse academic institution $100 million in construction costs, plus free land, to open the high-tech school. Horn said NYU would forego the land the city is offering on Roosevelt Island or other sites in favor of downtown Brooklyn. “It’s a terrific entrepreneurial center,” Horn said. “There are a lot of advantages to being there as opposed to isolated somewhere.”

[Horn] said NYU could build the center with $20-$25 million of the city money for infrastructure fixes and moving the MTA’s old equipment out of 370 Jay, and spend $450 million overall on a 200,000-square-foot project. It would launch CUSP in space at nearby MetroTech, with classes starting in 2013, then move into 370 Jay after a major overhaul.

The NYU plan calls for 50 faculty members – from civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, computer science and other fields – would teach 400 master’s students and 100 Ph.D. students at CUSP. “Improving security, dealing with disasters, a variety of problems that are absolutely critical and things the city will be worrying about anyway – this will have our institute focusing on creating solutions to those problems,” Horn said.

NYU has a reputation for utterly consuming neighborhoods it targets. This plan, though, would remove a blight from the streets of Downtown Brooklyn while delivering dollars to the MTA for its abandoned headquarters. The building will be subjected to an RFP process. I doubt, however, that this is the last we’re hearing of NYU’s interest.

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

According to the MTA, its riders are quite satisfied with service. (Source: Customer Satisfaction Survey)

Here’s the $64,000 question for all 5.3 million subway-riding New Yorkers: Are you satisfied with service? Are you happy with your commute? Do you think the MTA is doing a good job? For the second year in row, the authority claims that nearly three-fourths of all riders are satisfied with subway service, but I remain skeptical.

The MTA last year revealed its customer satisfaction survey, and astute SAS readers questioned the methodology. The survey is now back for a second year, and although the MTA is trumpeting across-the-board improvements, problems remain. The sampling is appropriately random, but the scale remains skewed. Whether or not riders are truly satisfied is a question we could debate.

On a top-line level, the results are promising. Overall, 74 percent of riders are satisfied with subway service, and that total is up from 71 percent last year. Furthermore, 78 percent of riders are satisfied with the overall station environment, and that figure too is up from 71 percent next year. If anything, I’m personally less satisfied with station environment these days. I’ve found subway stations to be dirtier and less well maintained recently that at any time in the recent past.

So what then does it mean to be satisfied? In the presentation of findings, the MTA discusses its sample. From June 20-30, the authority conducted 1200 adults who had taken at least one subway trip in the past 30 days. These sample was culled from landlines (86%) and cell phones (14%). The margin of error is +/- 3 percent, and it seems as though the respondents represent a valid survey sample.

The results, though, are skewed to make the MTA look good. The MTA asked respondents to rate over 50 attributes on a scale of 1-10 where 1 and 2 represented very dissatisfied, 3-5 represented just dissatisfied, 6-8 meant riders were satisfied and 9-10 were very satisfied. Generally, anything less than 8 isn’t usually considered “satisfactory,” but the MTA stretched the scale. Thus, 74 percent of riders are willing to give the authority at least a 6 on a 10-point scale. Only 13 percent of riders said the MTA’s subway service was very satisfactory.

By and large, every major metric improved this year over last. According to the MTA, 84 percent of respondents find the MTA comfortable and convenient while 80 percent are satisfied with the courtesy and helpfulness of subway conductors and 79 percent are satisfied with service frequency. Those totals were at 78 percent, 77 percent and 72 percent last year, and yet, those seem to be the topics of more complaints than anything else.

Throughout the survey, the MTA reports increased satisfaction with nearly everything. Riders are more content with station cleanliness this year than they were last, and rush hour crowding on platforms and trains isn’t as bad it was in 2010 before the service cuts and fare hikes. Despite a bump in crime and fewer station gents, riders say they feel more secure on platforms and find platforms cleaner. If you too raised your eyebrow skeptically at this news, well, the MTA thinks it has an answer.

Countdown clocks are driving the bump in customer satisfaction. (Source: MTA)

As the authority notes, the bump in satisfaction may not be due to better service or cleaner platforms. Rather, the countdown clocks are driving the perception of better service. As the authority noted in the survey presentation, “All 54 subway service and station attributes were rated higher by those with countdown clocks in their station than those without a countdown clock in station.”

With countdown clocks, customers are far more satisfied with wait times and predictability of travel time and even seem to appreciate frequency and reliability of subway service even more. By taking the surprise out of wait times, the MTA can create the perception of better control over one’s commute, and thus, riders are predisposed to be more relaxed about their rides. Overall, 96 percent of riders were satisfied with countdown clocks; the other 4 percent are probably annoyed that they don’t work sometimes.

So what then can we conclude from these results? The MTA says that “continued investments in information technology, station maintenance and cleaning, and maintaining reliable service will continue to address customer concerns into the future.” Right now, though, the money seems to be in place to improve only information technology. Is the authority then essentially tricking us all into thinking our commutes are better? I personally like the countdown clocks and find myself less anxious over my waits. But when all is said and done, I’d rather have more train service. Personally, I’m satisfied with my daily commute but barely so. Are you?

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.

On the surface, one whole train between 9 and 9:30 a.m. doesn’t sound like much. Here you go, guys. Enjoy your one extra train. Plus, the L line is generally crowded throughout rush hour. For now, though, it could be the difference between trains at 101 percent of capacity and those at 90 percent of capacity. Even with the adjustments in load guidelines last year to consider trains full with a quarter of the passengers standing, that extra train could make some unpleasant rides slightly more tolerable.

The announcement of one extra train — with more to come in another year or so — stems from the summer flurry of news about subway crowds. After The Times reported that weekend ridership was on the rise, politicians took note. Armed with the news that weekend ridership at some L train stops was a shocking 80 percent of weekday ridership, Daniel Squadron called upon the MTA to review service along the L line, and this week, the agency’s internal report has hit the proverbial airwaves.

The document is a 13-pager, and it’s available here as a PDF. A lot of it, though, is extraneous as it is a report that the MTA has had at the ready for a while. They’ve spent a lot of time studying the L line and know the ridership inside and out. It’s going to be the first CBTC route in the city, and if that technology is ready in 14 months, as Transit says it will be, capacity on the L could be bumped up significantly.

First, the numbers: Since 1998, daily ridership along the L has spiked from just over 68,000 to just under 130,000. The MTA has maxed out the line at 17 trains per hour, up from 12 just 13 years ago, and is now running 444 daily L train trips, up from 292 in 1998. As ridership has gone up, the MTA has tried to use the L line — one of two that doesn’t have to share trackage with another route — as a testing ground, and thus, we’ve been hearing about CBTC since before I started this site in late 2006.

With CBTC and ATO, the MTA says it can decrease headways to allow for upwards of 24 trains per hour. The system was plagued by some bad testing results as well as a need to purchase more equipment. After being put on hold in 2006 and then resuming a few years ago, Transit anticipates rolling out a full implementation of CBTC in late 2012, and the authority aims to increase capacity to around 20 trains per hour at peak times, thus lessening the crowds. Those are of course the best laid plans, and we know how that goes.

In the meantime, though, weekend travel will remain problematic. Because of the switching limitations along the Canarsie Line, the MTA usually has to knock out large sections of the route to make sure work is completed. It can’t single-track L trains because that would hinder weekend productivity. Furthermore, with CBTC tests needed before the MTA can move forward with its plan, weekend L service may be cut now and then over the next few months. It might get worse before it gets better.

So L riders looking for space right now should walk to the back. The report details how cars in the front of Manhattan-bound trains — those that open right at the entrances at Lorimer St. and Bedford, 1st and 3rd Aves. — are far more crowded that the last car on the L trains. Loads in the front are at 130 percent while loads in the back are at 99 percent. It’s not much but it’s better than nothing. Take heart though, L train riders: Changes are coming ever so slowly.

©2012 Second Ave. Sagas. All Rights Reserved.