As part of my series of posts questioning the current state of subway advocacy and news coverage, earlier this week, I, with an assist from Chris O’Leary at the fledgling site On Transport, questioned the effectiveness of the Straphangers Campaign in organizing against the most recent fare hikes and advocating for sensible funding solutions for mass transit in New York City.

The gist piece focused around how the Straphangers were seemingly a non-entity, content to release their annual State of the Subway and Subway Shmutz reports while not making their voices heard enough on the fare hikes. The comments to the post have turned into a lively debate with many readers taking my side and advocates from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and Transportation Alternatives speaking out in defense of the Straphangers.

Late yesterday afternoon, Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, responded, and I wanted to reproduce his comment in full. It was never my intention to criticize Mr. Russianoff himself. He has been a tireless subway champion for decades, but as the most vocal face of the Straphangers, he bore the brunt of my critique. Below is his response, and following that, my comments:

In the Second Avenues Saga blog for June 30th, you say the Straphangers Campaign was not “a force” in the recent fare hike. You quote someone who says “we sat on our hands.” That’s just not true. Below I lay out what we did and how it shaped the final outcome.

In December 2008, a State commission headed by former MTA Chairman Richard Ravitch issued a report laying out a program to provide the MTA with long-term stable funding, as well as providing incentives to use transit. The specific program called for $5 tolls on the currently “free” East and Harlem River Bridges, a far more modest fare hike than proposed by the MTA and a broad-based payroll tax imposed in the 12-county region served by the MTA. The message of the plan was simple: In a tough economy, transit needed help from those who benefited from the system: riders, drivers and businesses.

Also in December, the MTA proposed massive fare hikes – with the base fare going from $2.00 to $2.50 and the 30-day unlimited-ride MetroCard going from $81 to $103 – along with severe service cuts, including eliminating several subway lines and 20 bus routes.

Given the need for action, the Straphangers Campaign directed its efforts to educating the public on the need for new transit funding for the MTA. We did this in coalition, working with many other groups, including the Regional Plan Association, Tri-State Transportation Campaign, Transportation Alternatives, Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resource Defense Council and General Contractors Association.

The Fight

We did a great deal of work, as described in this list below. We think it worked. One State Senator – Bill Perkins of Harlem – said he had never received so many letters and calls on one issue as he had on the fare hike. We:

1. Helped raise widespread public awareness of what we called “the mother of all fare hikes” and the proposed service cuts. For example, we asked the New York City Independent Budget Office to review the original MTA proposals. The IBO concluded (correctly) that a 30-day unlimited-ride MetroCard would go from $81 to a shocking $103. In addition, we convinced MTA to release numbers of what the fare box ratio (the percentage of expenses borne by riders) would be if “Doomsday” budget were adopted. It turned out that the fare box burden on subway riders would grow from 68% to 83% of expenses; in comparison the national average for large systems is 37%, according to the Federal Transit Administration. Our fact sheets on the MTA’s finances our web site, http://www.straphangers.org/fare.

2. Distributed 150,000 education leaflets to subway and bus riders and commuters between November and May, educating riders about the MTA financial crisis, including both its operating and capital needs. Published two fact sheets, one on proposed service cuts, one on the proposed fare hike; distributed at fare increase hearings.

3. Organized turnout for five MTA fare increase/service cut hearings in winter, 2009, with a strong emphasis on specific cuts in service. MTA officials reported a doubling in attendance and testimony from the 2007 fare hearings. Distributed talking points fact sheet at hearing.

4. Held three mock “funerals,” protesting MTA proposal to kill G, M, W and Z lines; public officials participated. The funerals included a bagpipe player, a wreath and eulogies.

5. Sent out 20 global e-mails to Straphangers e-mail list of 18,000. Posted breaking events and news clippings on Campaign website. Global emails were also send to our “fans” on Facebook.

6. Helped direct several events, including a rally in Union Square conducted with a group mounting a transit funding campaign on Facebook.

7. Talked with dozens of decision-makers and spent many days in Albany. Testified at hearing on Ravitch plan held by New York State Senate members Martin Malave Dilan and Bill Perkins.

8. Helped lead the effort for a $125,000 media outreach campaign with an ad on 3,000 subway cars for one month. (The ad can be found at: http://www.mrss.com/clients/kn…..300ppi.pdf )

9. Testified during 17 public comments periods at MTA Board and committee meetings; held a dozen protests at MTA Board meetings.

10. Collected over 1,000 handwritten letters addressed to State Senators, Assembly Members and other State leaders.

The Outcome

In early May, the State adopted an MTA “bailout” program worth $1.8 billion annually. In many ways, it tracked the Ravitch program. Both plans called for $1.5 billion in a new payroll “mobility” tax; both called for a moderate fare increase; and both called for new taxes and fees on automobile use.

It is in this last part of the adopted plan that it differs from the Ravitch Commission proposal. Ravitch had called for a $5 toll on the East and Harlem River Bridges, although he had stated his support for a subsequent proposal for $2 tolls, which would have produced about $300 million annually. The final State bailout called for a similar amount of revenue from four sources: increased drivers license and registration fees, an increased automobile rental tax and a 50-cent taxicab drop off fee.

The impact on motor vehicle use of the tolls as opposed to the adopted measures is not fully known. That said, it is likely that it is not significant. In addition, the original plan for improved bus service – which included 300 new buses – was eliminated in the final plan.

Lastly, the final plan fully funds the MTA’s five-year capital program for only its first two years out of five. The issue will be back before the State, although the hope is that the economy will improve and that already-dedicated existing transit taxes will yield added revenues.

So there is a lot more transit work to do. And, as in the past, we – and others – will continue to do it.

Chris at On Transport received the same reply, and what he said in response rings true. “The issue here is not what was done (and I will gladly eat crow for being a bit dramatic in saying they “sat on their hands”), but what could have been done,” he writes.

O’Leary continued: “It’s fantastic that a State Senator received such an overwhelming number of letters. That’s proof that there is strength in numbers. But there are millions of transit riders each day in New York. When only a tiny fraction sign a petition or join a Facebook group, there is more that can be done. And that aside, there were a lot of people who were a little lost about what to do other than signing a petition or joining a Facebook group. ”

From personally experience, it took me five tries to get on the Straphangers’ press release distribution list. Their Web site doesn’t feature an updated selection of releases. In fact, it hasn’t been materially updated since the early 2000s. Outside of a Rider’s Diary forum, there is no interactivity, and in today’s world of powerful and positive online advocacy, the lack of a blog or similar social networking/social media component is a detriment.

As Lindsey Lusher Shute said in the comments to my earlier post, we could support the Straphangers by advocating with our check books. I appreciate the precarious financial position these small groups are in, but we need more than just money. We — Chris at On Transport and I here — are just two of the many people who, if asked, would contribute our time and energy to the cause.

Right now, we need groups that can reach more than just 18,000 of the 5.2 million subway riders a day. Maybe that beings with us; maybe it begins with the behind-the-scenes work the Straphangers are doing. Either way, the public face of transportation advocacy needs to be more vocal and wide-reaching than it is today for us to make headway against stubborn politicians and a willingly ignorant voter base.

Waiting for a subway to show up underground can be a very fleeting experience. The lucky among us arrive on the platform just as the train arrives. The unlucky may have to wait ten or fifteen minutes at the worst of times. Still, subway platforms are among the dirtiest parts of the city, and with Transit planning a reduction in the number of cleaners, they won’t look much better any time soon.

But what of the train cars themselves? We spend far more time riding the cars. We sit on them; we stand on them; we doze off on them; and some among us even cut their nails or eat on them. Clean subway cars then should be a goal shared by all, and yet, I see people leave trash on a train that they probably wouldn’t just drop on their living room floors.

Today, the Straphangers Campaign has unveiled its annual Shmutz Survey. Every year, the rider advocacy organization surveys our subway lines to find out just how clean — or how dirty — the cars really are. Their release has the details:

Campaign surveyors rated 57% of subway cars as “clean” in a survey conducted in the fall and winter of 2008, which was a statistical improvement from 50% of cars rated clean in a survey conducted in the winter of 2007.

The best performing line in our survey was the 7 in the second half of 2008, with 84% of its cars rated clean, up from 78% in 2007. The worst performing line in our survey was the R, with the smallest number of clean cars at 25%.

Beginning on December 10, 2007, a new “line general manager” – Lou Brusati – was appointed with greater authority to run the 7. However, another line with a line general manager – the L – had fewer clean cars, declining from 88% in our 2007 survey to 62% in the current survey. Both lines originally had additional cleaning resources.

Unfortunately for the city’s subway riders, this year’s increased cleanliness may be a high-water mark. The MTA plans to reduce its car-cleaning staff by around four percent, according to the Straphangers. In 2009, the agency employed 1181 cleaners with 155 supervisors but next year will have just 1138 cleaners and 146 supervisors. “It is encouraging to find an increase in clean cars,” Gene Russianoff, Straphangers attorney, said. “But we are very concerned that cuts in cleaners will result in dirtier cars.”

The biggest piece of news to come out of this report is its disparity with regards to the MTA’s cleanliness ratings. As Michael Grynbaum notes in the City Room piece on the survey, the MTA’s internal survey pronounced 91 percent of the cars clean. The Straphangers release their methodology (here as a PDF) while the MTA does not.

In the end, it is what it is. While we want to see the MTA maintain its cleaning staff, cleanliness underground begins and ends with the riders. If people abuse the system, if they drop trash on the ground and spill drinks on the cars, everyone suffers.

After the jump, some bullet-point findings from the Straphangers. You can find the table of clean cars per line here as a PDF and one chart showing the year-to-year comparison here as a PDF.

Read More→

What do you do with poll results from a self-selected group of New Yorkers who opt to receive e-mails from the Straphangers Campaign? These poll results aren’t really indicative of the pulse of New York. They simply show what the more transit-aware are thinking, and even that’s up for debate.

The question has risen to the forefront in the Great Station Agent Debate of 2009. (More here, here and here.) The Straphangers Campaign has released results of a poll asking its members the following question: “Station Customer Agents (SCA) are the maroon vested employees of the MTA that provide customer assistance to the public, services like: providing travel information to riders, assisting riders with fare purchases at MetroCard vending machines, as well as contacting the proper authorities in the case of an emergency. Do you feel safer traveling on the subway with a station agent present?”

Of course, the answer was yes and not by a small margin. Per the press release from Straphangers attorney Gene Russianoff, 63 percent of the 627 members who voted said yes while 16 percent said no and 21 percent didn’t care. The group used these results to protest the cuts. “Riders want a human presence at the entrances to the subways,” Russianoff said.

There are a few things going on here that warrant a closer look. First, the MTA is not eliminating full-time staffing in its entirety from any station. At some locations — a planned 36 stations — the only person working will be in a booth that is across the street from one of the entrances, but every station will have at least one full-time employee. Furthermore, emergency contact points will be in place at every platform, according to The Post. The illusion of safety may lessen, but actual safety should not suffer.

Second, the Straphangers are seemingly protesting the loss of the red-vested station agents. These are people who work in high-traffic stations during high-traffic times. I see one of these workers at the 47th St. side of the Rockefeller Center station every day, and when he retires — the MTA is cutting jobs through attrition, not dismissals — I won’t even notice that he is gone. Late-night concerns are mostly unfounded. (N.B.: That’s a high-traffic, tourist-heavy station that won’t actually lose it’s agent, but you get the point.)

In the end, these cuts will save the MTA $16 million annually. As the budget plan enacted by Albany requires the MTA to shave $200 million off of its own books, the station agents will go. I’d rather see an illusion of safety disappear than train frequency and maintenance plans rolled back. Wouldn’t you?

Tuesday afternoon saw more bad news, in the form of two surveys, head the MTA’s way.

The Straphangers Campaign published the first one — a rigorous scientific survey focusing on the State of the Subways. As I mentioned yesterday afternoon, the L and 7 trains — the two trains operating as guinea pigs for the line manager program — walked away with the top honors. More on that shortly.

The second report, issued by Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind and based on system-wide observations, found the subways to be structurally unsound, poorly maintained and largely unhygienic. Hikind and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer stop short of charging the MTA with system-wide neglect and are not pleased with the state of the subways.

We start with the Straphangers’ State of the Subways Report Card. This survey has become an annual rite of passage for the Straphangers, and the findings stay fairly consistent on a year-to-year basis. The L line — populated with some of the newest cars in the fleet — pulled in top honors because the trains run frequently, are generally on time, don’t break down too often, are clean and have audible in-car announcements. The 7 followed suit, earning higher marks on seat availability but lower scores on in-car announcements.

These line rankings are well and good, but as Julia noted yesterday, the methodology does not account for overlapping lines. Sure, the W may be the worst stand-alone line in the city, but at no point does it stop at a station where it is the only train servicing that stop. Discounting for this vital fact lessens the overall impact of the results. (For a comprehensive overview of the results, this PDF chart shows the category breakdown, and this one shows the overall rankings.)

The Straphangers’ more important findings came from their overall analysis of the system. According to their findings, subway cars are breaking down every 149,646 miles (down from 156,624 the year before), and only 85 percent of subway announcements are audible, down from 90 percent. That 85 percent seems rather generous to me. At a time when the MTA has less money than ever to reinvest in the systems, these findings do not project to improve next year.

Meanwhile, originally spurred on by rider complains, Hikind and Stringer released their findings today as well (PDF available here). Their results — while expected — are not encouraging:

Surveyors found that subway stations throughout New York City, regardless of their size (large, small) or location (underground, outdoors, elevated) had platform conditions that were unsafe, deteriorating and easily recognizable by surveyors. A pattern of neglect, lack of maintenance, shoddy workmanship and seeming indifference has led to system wide safety hazards at station platforms…

Station platforms are cracked, have significant gaps in many locations, and represent serious safety hazards to riders, especially to the most vulnerable, the young and the elderly. Cement fillings and lifted
wooden and concrete beams on the station platforms are poorly connected to the platforms and represent tripping hazards to unsuspecting riders. Rubbing boards placed on the edges of the platforms are deteriorating as well. Riders’ footwear is liable to get caught in the holes of the rubbing boards and many have corroded to the extent that any pressure on them could result in riders falling onto the tracks below.

What is disconcerting is the fact that MTA employees failed to recognize these corrosive conditions when they were readily apparent to surveyors. It is apparent that safety issues at stations are not being taken seriously by the MTA. Each hazard documented was observed visually by surveyors and was easily recognizable as conditions that threatened the safety of subway riders. Additionally, in the rare situations that these safety hazards were recognized, MTA employees performed shoddy work in repairing them and in many instances, these partial repairs created even more dangerous conditions than beforehand. It is most shocking that these conditions are still prevalent throughout New York City after having been pointed out to MTA officials.

While the MTA has not yet issued a statement in response to either of these two reports, these findings highlight the funding problem facing the transit agency. Riders are nervous about their physical safety while stations are decaying and subway cars are breaking down more frequently. As the MTA’s deficit continues to grow, more and more maintenance projects and “state of good repair” renovations have been delayed or postponed until the money materializes.

These reports just remind us that the MTA is facing a crisis both in its wallet and in its system. Hikind is an elected official. Will he do something about it? Will he help deliver more money to the MTA? Someone has to step up. Who knows who it will be?

The subways, the Straphangers Campaign would like you to know, are not that clean. While the number shows improvement, only 50 percent of all subway cars are clean, according to the advocacy group’s 2007 Subway Smutz survey. The MTA, meanwhile, counters that 87 percent of all subway cars are clean. Who do you believe?

To assess the cleanliness of subway cars, Straphangers trained 45 people to survey 100 subway cars on each of the 22 subway lines. They used a similar scale to the one employed internally by the MTA, but as the MTA notes, the Straphangers perform their surveys during the a.m. and p.m. rush hours as well as evenings, overnights and weekends while the MTA conducts its surveys between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. The MTA would have us believe that subway cars are a lot messier during those overnight and weekend time periods.

According to the Straphangers’ findings, the L and 7, the two pilot lines for the line manager program were the cleanest, clocking in with cleanliness levels of 88 percent and 78 percent, respectively. The E and the Q with 29 percent of their cars rated as clean tied for last. A full table complete with comparisons between now and the most recent survey from 2005 is available on the Straphangers’ website.

The campaign used the survey results to urge the MTA to implement the following procedures:

• Devote more resources to cleaning subway cars, as they are now applying to station and track cleaning.
• Produce more detailed and timely information on cleanliness. The MTA does not publish the results of its cleanliness ratings by line, even though it maintains such information internally.
• Post the results of its surveys where riders can see them.

In defense of their rolling stock, the MTA noted the discrepancies between the Straphangers’ numbers and their internal surveys. Using New York City Transit’s Passenger Environment Survey, the MTA noted a few key differences:

As examples of contradictions in survey results, the E train continues to be the Straphangers’ worst performing line (29%), while the L train is their best performing line (88%). In contrast, the M train is the worst performing PES line (70%) while the 3 train is the best performing line (97%). Although the Straphangers use the same standards as PES, the overall results demonstrate that these indicators are not comparable, given that the PES result was 87% versus 50% for the Straphangers.

The agency also promoted the seemingly positive effects of the line manager program. “We are pleased to note that the Straphangers Campaign has recognized our efforts along the 7 and L, the two lines that have been the focus of a shift in management philosophy that places a high priority on the customer concerns of cleanliness by making certain that cars are cleaned at both terminals,” the agency’s press release said.

In my view, subway cars are, by and large, dingy but clean enough. The 3 train and the E I find to be the dirtiest, but otherwise, for the most part, I can’t complain. Outside of shutting down the system entirely, and cleaning everything at once, the MTA has managed to keep its train cars relatively clean. The stations are another matter entirely.

When speaking about the best subway line in the city, it’s all relative. Which line arrives generally on time, is fairly clean and features mostly audible announcements?

The winner this year, according to the Straphangers Campaign newest State of the Subways Report Cardin the race to mediocrity is the 1 train. The worst trains are the C and W, a fact to which anyone who ever tries to take either of those trains can attest. Here’s what the report had to say:

• The best subway line in the city is the 1 for the first time since we began these rankings, with a “MetroCard Rating” of $1.25. The previous top-rated line – the 6 – dropped to a third-place tie. The 1 ranked highest because it performs above average on four of six measures: frequently scheduled service, arriving with more regularity, fewer dirty cars, and better announcements. The line did not get a higher rating because it performed below average on: a chance of getting a seat during rush hours, and delays caused by mechanical breakdowns…
• The C and W were ranked the worst subway lines, with a MetroCard Rating of 65 cents. The C and W lines both have a low level of scheduled service, and each performs below average on three additional measures: car breakdowns, chance of getting a seat during rush hours and announcements…
• Overall, we found a mixed picture for subway service. On the plus side, the cleanliness of the interior of cars improved form 79% rated clean in the second half of 2005 to 87% for the same time period in 2006. But car breakdowns worsened from a mechanical failure from every 178,085 miles in 2005 to one every 156,624 miles.

The report itself is a labor of love. The Straphangers use MTA data to grade the subway lines. As SUBWAYblogger noted earlier today, isn’t it a little fishy that the MTA is grading itself? The Straphangers say the MTA has signed off on their methodology. Well, of course, they have. It’s their own data being manipulated to grade the subways.

Of concern to me are the overall trends found in this year’s report card. The subway system is, in the words of the report, “a stalled system.” Cars — even the newer, supposedly more reliable ones — are breaking down more frequently. The timeliness of the system hasn’t improved and neither has the PA system. While cars are cleaner, this is a small victory as the entire city seems to be clamoring for more service.

The Straphangers’ conclusion is rather dire too. “Continued progress will be a challenge,” the report reads. “The MTA is struggling to obtain all the planned funding for its current rebuilding program, including rising construction costs, a weak dollar and realizing $1 billion dollars from the sale of its assets, such as its valuable Manhattan rail yards.”

It certainly makes it sound like the MTA could really use that money from the congestion fee and that upcoming fare hike. But at what cost to the riders?

For all of that fun stuff like cleanest lines and most often on time, check out either this post at amNY’s Tracker blog or this one at The Times’ CityRoom blog. The individual breakdowns are fun to peruse but not as interesting as the overall trends seen in a system staggering under its popularity.

The Straphangers Campaign has released their annual State of the Subways Report Card, and the 1 train is their number 1 train. I’ll have a rundown of the survey results later on tonight.