View from Underground

Very quietly last month, the MTA released their 2019 ridership tallies, and last year was a good year for the subways. After three years of declining ridership, annual subway ridership hit 1,697,787,002, a jump of nearly 18 million or a hair over 1 percent above 2018’s total. Usually, the MTA would celebrate increased ridership and increased fare revenue, but with things being as they are right now, the release of these numbers was a muted one.

Ultimately, the L train work that reduced weekend service frequency along the 14th St. corridor likely cost the MTA a shot at 1.7 billion passengers, and if fare evasion was really as prevalent as the MTA has tried to claim it is, the subways last year may have been more crowded than they’ve ever been. I’m not quite sure that passes the smell test, but I digress. All in, 2019 was a positive step forward for the MTA, a rare spot of good news amidst the onslaught of bad these days. Whether the city will ever get back to these lofty subway ridership numbers in the COVID Era depends upon more than just the development of a vaccine.

2019 In Review

As subway ridership has cratered amidst the coronavirus pandemic, it feels weird to talk about crowded trains and increased ridership, but let’s take a look at the numbers. The gains were fairly evenly split between weekdays and weekends, a positive sign for Saturday and Sunday service which had been bleeding riders for years. An average 2019 weekday saw near 5.494 million riders, up from 5.438 million in 2018 while combined weekend ridership was slightly above 5.494 million, up also from 5.438 million a year before. Saturday gains outpaced Sunday with an average Saturday witnessing an increase of 40,000 riders while Sundays saw an increase of just 14,500 riders.

Outside of the way the L train rejiggered ridership across the G, J and M trains, the city’s newest subway stations saw some of the largest gains. The 7 train’s terminal at 34th St. and 11th Ave. saw ridership jump by 75% to 18,875 per day as the Hudson Yards development took shape and the Vessel and mall opened. Total weekday entrances at the three Q stops along Second Ave. increased by around 2500 per day as well, gains that outpaced the overall jump in subway ridership by a few percentage points.

The L train work, meanwhile, cut into the MTA’s push for 1.7 billion riders, but declines weren’t quite as steep as I would have expected. Average weekend ridership for the L train stations at 1st and 3rd Avenues in Manhattan declined by approximately 50% while stops through Williamsburg and Bushwick saw declines between 40-50 percent. Straphanger traffic into Bedford Ave. dipped by only 36 percent, and it was still the 39th busiest weekend stop last year, an impressive showing considering the paltry headways. Meanwhile, the Lorimer/Metropolitan L/G station saw a decline of only 3.7 percent, and G train stops in South Williamsburg and Greenpoint saw increases in weekend ridership of around 25 percent.

Other lines expected to carry the L train’s slack did indeed do so. Nearby station along the J and M lines saw weekend demand in excess of 50% above 2018 levels, and all in, the various mitigation efforts worked. Overall, the subways lost around 20,000 weekend entrances due to the L work, but nearby lines certainly saw an uptick in usage. (The L train worked formally wrapped in late April, and I wrote a postmortem on the L train project.)

2020 In Preview: A Spike Before the Cliff of the Pandemic

After this rosy 2019, things were looking up to start the current year as well. As the MTA reported in its board materials and on the release trumpeting last year’s ridership, “This upward trend in ridership continued in January and February of 2020, with both months outpacing January and February in 2019.” But nature in the form of COVID-19 is having its way with the world right now, and as shelter-in-place orders have slowed down the pace of life in New York City, only around 400,000-500,000 riders per day are using the subways, a 90% drop in ridership hard to contexualize. In a letter released last month calling for an additional $3.9 billion in federal aid, the MTA included a report prepared by consultants at McKinsey & Company detailing expected ridership levels over the remainder of 2020. The chart is an ugly one:

The MTA has yet to release an updated version of this chart, and already, even these pessimistic assumptions look too optimistic. The New York City area isn’t likely to see a loosening of the state’s PAUSE restrictions until early June, and the “delayed containment and recovery” track where ridership reaches 40 percent feels far more likely than the trend line anticipating 60% of riders returning by September. Whether we’ll be back at 5-10 percent of ridership and in another lockdown situation by the end of the year will depend upon a second wave. Even without another wave, the MTA is looking at a lost year of ridership, and even if everything breaks right for the city, the optimistic trend line contemplates only around 55% of riders will return this year. What if, as The Times speculates today, few people go back to work? While I am skeptical of the long-term trend, in the short term, Manhattan offices are going to be empty, and the days of 1.7 billion annual riders are going to be nothing but fond memories for the foreseeable future.

The question lingering over all of this involves the future. What happens next? Even the McKinsey analysis punts on that question as projections include a wide range of options and end in December. Subway ridership isn’t going to come back on January 1, 2021, and after receiving $3.8 billion last month and asking for an additional $3.9 billion, the MTA now says it will need at least $10.4 billion by the end of 2021 to stay afloat. Forget the $51 billion capital plan and the long-desired federal contribution; the MTA needs these dollars to stay solvent during a prolonged period of low ridership. Without it, they – and the city – are sunk as the bills pile up.

“Our request has garnered substantial bipartisan support as it did in the first round,” MTA CEO and Chairman Pat Foye said this week. “This is not a red or blue state issue; it’s a no brainer. The COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the importance of public transportation, during the pandemic and as part of the economic recovery when the pandemic subsides.”

But the recovery isn’t just economic. The MTA has to make people feel that transit is a choice that will not jeopardize public health. Already, the agency has had to contend with spurious claims such as those put forth in an MIT report that the subways spread coronavirus. Both Alon Levy and Aaron Gordon burned plenty of pixels debunking and contextualizing the argument. I don’t buy it either, but while we learn more about the transmission of coronavirus via droplets spread in contained spaces without sufficient ventilation, the subways can seem daunting. That is, in part, why the Governor ordered the end of 24/7 subway service (though we should be skeptical of those claims as well, as I wrote in a Patreon post last week).

Still, making the subways appealing is going to be costly. The MTA will have to maintain the appearances of cleanliness, through an aggressive cleaning and disinfecting program currently underway. This program has no price tag yet, and the agency hasn’t released any sort of scientific assessment indicating how long trains stay clean or disinfected after customers board to touch everything. We’ll have to get used to masks, gloves and a lot less singing on the subways. A contact-less fare payment should help too, but the OMNY rollout is still on pause due to the response to the virus. Until there is a vaccine, most New Yorkers are likely to view transit with skepticism, and I can’t say I blame them. The geometry of cars and the geography of New York City will likely help avoid the carmageddon we fear, but the MTA’s rider-dependent finances won’t improve unless and until ridership climbs and ridership won’t climb if New Yorkers aren’t comfortable on crowded subway trains.

Glimmers Of Hope Down The Line

Left unsaid in my ramblings today about the ridership figures is the impact of New York City’s most popular British import. The 2019 and early 2020 numbers were a testament to Andy Byford and the results he produced. By focusing on improving subway service and by focusing the public conversation on the actual improvements, riders returned to the system. The one percent increase during a prolonged period of L train service diversions is a true success story, and the building blocks are in place for the MTA to build on that success in a post-COVID Era. The problem will be one of revenue, from the feds who can rescue the MTA and save the economic lifeline of the city as the riders start to trickle back, and one of time. A year from now, when the MTA releases the 2020 ridership numbers, the picture will be grim, but we can hope now that things go up from there.

Monday marked the one-month anniversary since my last subway, and it’s been a strange, surreal 33 days since I last took the 4 train from Manhattan to Brooklyn after one final day in the office before I fully embraced my firm’s “work from home” policy. Nothing in particular jumps out about that subway ride. The 4 leaving Grand Central was slightly emptier than normal, and straphangers seemed a bit jumpier than usual. But it was nothing compared with the last bus ride I took two days later, and little did we know what the next month would bring.

The bus ride, for what it’s worth, was much worse. Since my wife and I had to move at the start of a pandemic, I had to take a last-minute trip to Home Depot on Sunday night, and I couldn’t fit the large roll of bubble wrap in a Citi Bike basket for the trip back home. So my last transit trip of 2020 was a B44-SBS on Sunday, March 15. A guy with visibly red eyes and sniffles boarded at Fulton St., and everyone on the bus skirted out of his way while we all collectively visibly flinched.

At around 9:05 p.m., I got off that bus at Nostrand Ave and St. Johns and haven’t taken a transit ride since then. I’m not an essential worker, and now isn’t the time for subway joy rides. I’ve spotted the Franklin Ave. Shuttle a few times, running without many riders. I’ve heard the IRT locals travel between Grand Army Plaza and Eastern Parkway during my late-night runs through Prospect Park. I’ve seen buses, sometimes empty and sometimes not, continuing to criss-cross the streets of Brooklyn, those blue and yellow lumbering vehicles the unsung workhorses of our transit infrastructure.

It’s profoundly weird, this feeling of disconnect from transit, a part of everyday life in New York City, as it feels to be disconnected from every other part of New York City life. I hear more ambulances than airplanes, even though my new place lines up with one of the approaches to Laguardia, more 7 p.m. applause than traffic. Only when I’m out of the city do I go weeks between subway rides, and I can confidently say I’ve never gone this long in my life without a transit ride. Even when I had a broken bone in my foot a few years ago, I had to hobble to the subway to get to a few doctors appointments. These days, most New Yorkers hardly go anywhere, and the subway feels more like a concept than the lifeblood of the city it was just a few weeks ago.

But the trains must go. In a city of 8 million, hundreds of thousands of people still need the trains to get to their essential jobs everyday, and even during a pandemic, around 500,000 people per day are relying on the MTA to get them to their patients, to their shifts at the post office, to their jobs maintaining the city’s food supplies. These are the folks who are keeping the city going even as everything else has involuntarily ground to a halt, and the transit system is getting them there. It could not be more vital.

It hasn’t been an easy few weeks for our transit system since my last post, and the podcast I recorded with Nicole Gelinas feels like a lifetime ago. At the time, it was clear that the pandemic had shot a multi-billion-dollar hole in the MTA’s budget, and the agency was reeling financially from the hit.

But now the agency is more than reeling in very personal ways. As of Tuesday afternoon, 59 transit employees have died due to COVID-19. These are the front-line workers who move the city, and they have been constantly under attack by the coronavirus since Day One. Toward the end of March, the MTA instituted an “essential service” plan that basically matched up subway service with available crews. With so many MTA workers quarantined after exposure to the virus, the MTA simply couldn’t run full service. With with ridership down approximately 93-95 percent, per MTA Chair Pat Foye’s confirmation on Tuesday, the agency can’t save money cutting service immediately amidst a crisis, and they need to maintain service to adhere to social distancing guidelines. Still, gone for now is the B train and the C, the W and Z and the 42nd St. Shuttle. Even still, these workers have fallen ill.

The MTA hasn’t escaped criticism for these deaths. At the start of the pandemic, the MTA, taking its guidance from the CDC and federal officials, barred the use of face masks, and only recently did the agency finally lift this restriction. MTA officials have defended the early guidance to me and have pointed to the CDC’s words. It’s hard to argue with that; after all, the MTA isn’t known for being ahead of any curve, and the CDC is supposed to be the be-all and end-all of pandemic response in America. But a few weeks later, the words in a recent post on The LIRR Today ring true:

Another point of contention has been MTA’s sluggishness towards the use of face masks (by supplying masks to all employees and strongly recommending/requiring their use by riders on the system) as more became known about the communicability of this virus. After originally not providing or even prohibiting the use of mask by frontline workers, the MTA relented on March 27—weeks into the pandemic—announcing that they would begin distributing tens of thousands of masks to frontline workers. MTA officials have tried to lean significantly on the notion in recent days that CDC guidance did not shift towards recommending asymptomatic people wear masks until very recently, but that doesn’t really pass muster… CDC guidance is just that, guidance—and guidance from the federal government has to be reasonably applicable to the entire country, and doesn’t account that the effects and rate of spread in places like New York might be different than in places like Topeka. Granted, the MTA should [not] be left to determine public health policy all on its own, and state and local health departments should have been more up to speed on this—but the MTA probably should have realized that having a hundred or more people crammed into small metal boxes in an already hostile environment, and then having employees sit in those boxes and breathe the same air for hours a day presented a risk level that is a fair bit beyond the norm and taken stronger precautions. And it was also the MTA who conflated CDC guidance against asymptomatic people wearing masks and turned that into a prohibition on mask use for many frontline employees. The MTA is ultimately responsible to provide a safe workplace, by protecting the health and safety of its employees, in any circumstance.

The MTA this week agreed to a $500,000 family benefit for any transit worker who died due to COVID-19. It’s the right thing to do, and my sympathies go out to every family grieving a loved one these days.

These coronavirus deaths weren’t the only underground tragedies in recent weeks as a fire — suspected as arson — tore through a 2 train near 110th Street a few weeks ago. Seventeen riders were injured and a train operator who helped rescue his passengers succumbed to his injuries. The fire was one of the more horrific intentional subway crimes in recent years, and it added to the sense of chaos and helplessness and detachment that has enveloped New York City. (Garrett Goble was later commemorated in graffiti.)

The fires and the deaths and the detachment from the regular pace of city life seem par for the course these days, and we’re months away from any return to normalcy. The MTA, as Gelinas wrote this week, is going to need a massive infusion of cash to power the city as our rebound occurs, and I’ll have more thoughts on the fiscal edge the MTA is teetering upon shortly. It’s not easy to make sense of much that happens these days, and who knows when any of us who aren’t essential workers will next ride the subway again?

As this surreal week has slipped by and New York’s response to the COVID-19 threat evolves every few hours, a lot of people have asked me the same questions: Will the trains keep running? Is it safe to ride them? I thought it would be useful to summarize where we are right now.

Transit Is Not Shutting Down

Will the trains keep running? That’s the question I’ve been asked the most, and the answer is clear: Right now, there are no plans to stop running subways, buses or commuter rail services. Rumors circulated throughout the day on Thursday that a shutdown — in effect, a quarantine-in-place for the city — was to be implemented, but the MTA and governor’s office vehemently denied this rumor. My sources within the agency did as well. For now, everything is running, and transit is not shutting down.

Could the state order a transit shutdown?

This one is tougher. The answer is yes; we’ve seen Governor Cuomo halt subway service in the face of a serious blizzard forecast. But for now, the monitoring is simply following available guidance. In an appearance on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show on Thursday morning, interim New York City Transit President Sarah Feinberg explained that the MTA is watching the governmental response closely (and of course Gov. Cuomo could order implementation of the agency’s contingency planning). Ultimately, shutting down the transit system means cutting off health care providers from their jobs and patients from medical care so it’s not a decision the MTA and New York will ever make lightly.

“If the CDC or New York City Department of Health at some point tells us to completely change the way we’re operating the system, we will do that. We take our guidance from them,” Feinberg said. “But for now, we’re running a normal service. We have a lot of people who are using the service, obviously. We’ve seen ridership tick down a bit in the last week or so, but for now, a lot of people are using the system, and we will continue to execute on that.”

How is the MTA cleaning the system?

The MTA has upped its cleaning frequencies. Contact points in stations — Metrocard and ticket machines, benches, turnstiles, and handrails — are now being disinfected twice per day. All subways, commuter rail cars and buses are cleaned at terminals, and the entire rolling stock is disinfected every 72 hours. It’s a Herculean task that lays bare the deficiencies in the MTA’s pre-COVID-19 cleaning practices, and that brings me to the next question.

Is it safe to use public transit?

This isn’t an easy question, and there is no easy answer. As Aaron Gordon explored at the start of the outbreak in New York last week, most epidemiologists felt the subways were safe, but we’ve learned more about this novel coronavirus in the past few weeks. The underlying analysis is the same, but right now, to the extent possible, those who can should stay home. Those who have to travel should try to avoid rush hour crowds (though the crowds are getting smaller), and those who are at high risk should absolutely not be waiting on crowded platforms for crowded trains.

Otherwise, the advice is the same for the trains as it is for any other circumstance right now: Do what you feel is best for yourself and those with whom you’re in constant contact. Practice good hygiene and always wash your hands before touching anything else after you’ve ridden transit. Read on for more about the challenges to adding service and some statements from our political leaders that didn’t fill my with confidence last weekend.

What is happening to transit ridership?

It’s down and precipitously. Earlier in the week, the MTA had reported a “high single-digits” decline, but by Wednesday, the numbers showed a massive slowdown. Ridership on the subways was down nearly 19% vs. March 11, 2019, and the buses saw a dip of 15%. On Thursday morning, Metro-North and LIRR ridership was down 48% and 31% respectively from a comparable Thursday in March. Again, though, the MTA does not plan to curtail service in response to demand. At some point, all of this extra spending and huge dip in fare revenue will put extreme pressures on the MTA budget, but that is a bridge we will have to cross later once the pandemic has subsided. We may need to discuss an MTA bailout far earlier than anyone expected.

Could the MTA run more service to disperse crowds

This is a question I had considered earlier in the week before the city and state started implementing social distancing by fiat and transit ridership started to nose-dive. It’s an academic question at this point as nearly everyone expects transit ridership to decline steeply over the next few days and weeks.

I started thinking about this question last weekend when both Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio started telling people to avoid crowds. At press conference on Sunday, Cuomo said, “If citizens are taking mass transit, if you can move to a train car that is not as dense, if you see a packed train car, let it go by, wait for the next train, same with if you’re taking a bus. It’s the density to proximity that we’re trying to reduce.”

The mayor echoed the governor’s sentiments. “If you are traveling by subway and the train that comes up is all packed and you can possibly wait for the next train in the hopes it might be less packed,” Bill de Blasio said, “please do.”

At first, I didn’t really know what to make of these statements. At their roots, the advice — try to take trains when they aren’t as crowded — is sound, but practically, it’s foolish. Rush hour platforms would be as crowded as trains and thus just as likely to be hot spots for transmission and contagion. On Tuesday night, before the worst of the week settled in, Feinberg went on NY1 to add some much-needed context to these remarks. It’s not, she said, “not possible for everyone” to change their commuting patterns. “People have different schedules, she said. “The thing to know is.. avoid crowded trains when possible…So if you can telecommute, fantastic. If you can walk to work great. Now is a great time to do that. But most people can’t. Most people depend on the subways and the buses. We’re here to provide safe and efficient transportation for them.”

Feinberg’s point is the right one; most people can’t simply change their commuting patterns. Telling people to do something is far different than creating incentives for them to do so. And so, as I said, before many companies started enforcing work-from-home policies on Wednesday, this got me thinking about ways to mitigate crowds. Could the MTA extend service during rush hour? Could the agency create a longer period of peak-hour service frequency in an effort to spread out rush hour commutes and reduce crowding?

In an ideal world, the answer would be yes, but we live in a less-than-deal world with real-world constraints. While not every train line is at capacity, due to the availability of rolling stock, some key bottlenecks and crew availability, the MTA can’t add rush hour service. In the post-peak periods, adding service runs up against FRA requirements limiting the number of hours train operators can work and union regulations. As much as we would love to snap our fingers and add a few hours of frequent service after 10 a.m. or 7 p.m., it just isn’t that easy.

So to avoid crowding underground, we’ll have to again listen to the mayor. “If you have the option of walking to work or taking a bike to work,” he said, “please do.” That, of course, would be far easier and safer had the mayor shown a true commitment to building out a bike lane network or if the mayor had immediately ordered DOT to implement temporary bike priority lanes covering popular commuting routes. It took until Thursday night for the mayor to order city workers to stay at home or come in later, a move that should remove around 100,000 people from the subways at rush hour. This should have happened on Sunday, but better now than later.

Do you have anything to comfort us through this stressful time?

Absolutely. The Cardvaark is always here for you.

The end of a decade comes around only once every ten years, and despite what some folks on the Internet would have you believe, the 2010s are drawing to a close this week. No one considered 1920 part of any decade other than The Twenties, but I digress. Despite a lot of frustration surrounding the state of transit investment and expansion efforts in NYC as the 2010s end, the past ten years have seen a plethora of transit and transportation happenings and some real progress. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing, and city leadership over the past six years has been sorely lacking. But it hasn’t been a quiet decade.

So as 2019 and the Twenty Teens wraps up, I thought I would run down the biggest stories of the decade and a sneak peek at what’s on tap for the early 2020s. Some stories were good; some were bad; and some have yet to draw to a conclusion. So without further ado, it’s the official Second Ave. Sagas non-comprehensive review of transit and transportation in the 2010s.

Most Anticipated Subway Opening: The Second Ave. Subway

On December 31, 2016, Gov. Andrew Cuomo opened the Second Ave. Subway after over 85 years of anticipation. Cuomo stepped in late in the game to push forward on an opening, and his streamrolling the opening showed what an engaged state executive could accomplish. Little did we realize how Cuomo’s MTA involvement would evolve over the subsequent three years, but after decades of stops and starts, New York City had its first three stations along Second Ave. A transit tourist attraction from Day One, it was and remains the most expensive subway construction project in the world. Phase 2, the northern extension connecting to 125th St. and Lexington Ave., is scheduled to open before 2030, but the $6 billion cost remains a key concern. (Fire code excuses, anyone?)

A Decade of Ribbon-Cutting: Fulton Street and the 7 Line Extension

The Second Ave. Subway wasn’t the only high-profile opening of the 2010s. In 2014, the Fulton St. Transit Center, a post-9-/11 recovery project, finally opened, and in 2015, the city-funded 7 line opened with a celebratory ribbon cutting. The city though still yearns for a station at 41st St. and 10th Avenue.

Worst of the Decade: Superstorm Sandy

A 2010 blizzard stranded some A train passengers overnight as snow built up in the subway’s open trenches, but that was nothing compared to the underground devastation wrought by 2012’s Superstorm Sandy. The storm surge flooded eight subway tunnels and destroyed the recently-opened South Ferry station. Billions of dollars and seven years later, repair work is still ongoing (and the L train’s not-a-shutdown shutdown is the latest in recovery work), and it’s not clear if all of the preventative work is sufficient to avoid another catastrophic flood. Water, after all, seeks the lowest ground, and the subways, with thousands of access points in low-lying areas, are New York City’s lowest ground.

Most Effective Use of Gov. Cuomo’s Lapels: The L Train Shutdown That Wasn’t

No one really knows why Governor Cuomo took an interest in the L train shutdown a few weeks before it was scheduled to begin. He has claimed multiple times that someone — he won’t say who — approached him on the street, grabbed him by the lapels, and begged the governor to find a better way. This mysterious lapel-grabbing New Yorker has never been identified nor, as far as we know, has Cuomo dismissed members of his security detail who failed to protect the governor from some guy threatening him with physical harm. But Cuomo took a coterie of academics into the L train tunnel three weeks before a shutdown that was years in the works was set to begin, and he just canceled the dang thing. The MTA’s careful planning and mitigation coordination with NYC DOT were thrown out in the window in a crisis of confidence. Instead, the L train kept running while the scope of work was scaled back and new technologies and approaches to construction attempted.

It’s hard to call this good, and it’s hard to call this bad. We won’t know for decades if encasing a collapsing concrete benchwall in polymers is a better solution than just rebuilding the thing, but the governor forced the MTA to try something new. So far it’s worked, and New York can thank or scorn the apocryphal lapel-grabbing constituent whoever he is.

Worst of the Decade: Mayoral Disengagement

A few other entries on this list focus on Bill de Blasio’s lack of vision on transit, but he has truly been MIA since 2014. He doesn’t ride the subways or buses or understand what they mean for the people of New York City. Thus, despite his Vision Zero rhetoric, progress on limiting private vehicle use on busy city streets has stalled, and measures designed to promote a more livable city for people have stalled. He hasn’t been a forceful advocate for his constituents on matters relating to the MTA and has been played like a fiddle by the governor. His signature transit initiative is a low-capacity ferry system, and he hasn’t used his powers to help speed up buses or improve surface transit. The next mayor will be able to set a different agenda for the 2020s.

Best 1990s Technology Installed In The 2010s: Subway Countdown Clocks

Though the rollout started with a trial along the 6 train in late 2009, countdown clocks were a child of the 2010s as the MTA finally caught up to its peers. The numbered lines of the A Division came first, and it seemed as though the lettered lines would never get their countdown clocks. But after some prodding by the governor, the last of the B Division countdown clocks went online in very early 2018, thus providing real-time train information (or something close to it) across the entire subway system. Sure, the B Division clocks relying on Bluetooth beacons aren’t as accurate as we’d all hope, and some clocks are notoriously blocked by other signs. But gone are the days of peering into dark tunnels hoping for a glimpse of an arriving train, and the app-based offerings mean New Yorkers have access to city-wide train arrival information at the tap of a button, something we could not say ten years ago.

Honorable Mention: BusTime. Though the city’s bus stations do not have real-time arrival displays, the MTA’s in-house app-based BusTime service allows bus riders to glimpse the location of every bus on the road at any time. Taking the mystery out of waiting for the bus removes a huge source of rider frustration.

Best 2010s Technology Installed In, Well, The 2010s (And Beyond): OMNY

After a decade of talking about replacing the MetroCard, the MTA finally committed to an open payments, tap-based system called OMNY or One Metro New York. You can pay with your phone; you can pay with your credit card; you can pay with a proprietary MTA card. The OMNY rollout started in 2019, but it won’t be until the early part of the next decade when we see how and if OMNY unites fare payment across subways and buses and the commuter rails; how all-door bus boarding succeeds in NYC; and if fare-capping and other benefits are introduced. For more on OMNY, check out my podcast interview with Al Putre, the very New York personality pushing forward on OMNY.

Best Sign NYC Can Exist With Less Space For Cars: Times Square Pedestrian Plazas

Though installed in 2009 as well, the Times Square pedestrian plazas were made permanent in the 2010s, and it’s now hard to imagine the crossroads of New York without them. The Times Square sidewalks were always too flooded with people, and the plazas showed that the city wouldn’t grind to a halt if a few lanes of traffic were repurposed for people. The plazas proved spectacularly popular, and though a few more have opened in isolated spots around the borough, a city leader with a true vision for people in NYC should be able to bring a rapid expansion of the program to all five boroughs.

Best New Advocacy Group of the Decade: Riders Alliance

As Gene Russianoff, the godfather of transit activism in NYC, has dealt with increasingly serious health concerns over the past few years, the Riders Alliance has filled the void. Overseen by former Daniel Squadron staffer John Raskin, the group uses grassroots organizing to pressure politicians to support transit and has been instrumental in pushing for the governor’s support for transit, congestion pricing, and Fare Fairs. Raskin is leaving the organization soon, but the Riders Alliance will be a loud voice for better transit throughout the next decade as well. Disclaimer: I am a board member of the organization and have consulted with John Raskin since before the group’s founding.

Best British Import of the Decade: Andy Byford

It’s been nearly two years since Andy Byford arrived in NYC with a mandate to fix the subways after a steep decline, and he remains the best thing brought to the U.S. from Britain this year. His tenure has a rocky one politically as he’s faced meddling by a governor who can’t share the stage (or credit) with anyone, and he did threaten to resign at least once. But under his leadership, the subways are getting better. If Cuomo and Byford can co-exist into the next decade, and if Byford is allowed to see the job through, the hiring of Andy Byford will be viewed as a seminal transit moment of the 2010s.

Best Political Victory The Mayor Barely Acknowledges: Fair Fares

After a decade of constant fare hikes, anti-poverty advocates in NYC secured the passage of Fair Fares, a subsidized subway rate for city residents below the poverty line. The program launched in early 2019, but despite his rhetoric regarding the two New Yorks, the mayor never really embraced the campaign. It’s part of his larger disinterest in transit, but Fair Fares should be treated as an unqualified success for the Community Service Society of New York and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson. In early 2020, the program will expand so that a total of approximately 700,000 will be eligible for the discounted rate.

Best Sign That NYC Is In Fact Amsterdam: Citi Bike

More daily users than the ferry gets in a month, and neighborhoods are clamoring for docks. Now if only the e-bikes would return.

The Lawsuits We Won Along The Way: Prospect Park West bike lane; 14th Street Busway

It’s fitting that the decade was book-ended by two of the more impactful lawsuits regarding street space allocation in recent NYC history. In 2011, Prospect Park West bike lane opponents lost in court, and in 2019, Arthur Schwartz and his motley band of obstructionist NIMBYs saw their efforts at stopping the 14th St. busway thrown out. (I wrote about 14th Street and its impact in a piece for Curbed New York this past summer.) While the city still spends too much time and effort placating NIMBYs who will never be placated, these lawsuits paved the way for a reimagining of city streets that prioritizes pedestrians, bus riders, bikers and safety above the demands of private car owners.

Biggest Waste of Taxpayer Money on Water: NYC Ferry

Mayor de Blasio’s boats are one of the bigger stories of the 2010s, but I haven’t been a fan. Despite the mayor’s myriad boat-based press conferences, the low-capacity ferries are not, as I wrote for Curbed New York last year, a true transit option for NYC, and with ridership on par with the 55th busiest bus route in the city but a subsidy of $10 per rider, they’re a heavily-subsidized giveaway to New Yorkers wealthier than average. While the boats have their fans, the city should stop subsidizing the fares so heavily during the next decades.

Biggest Waste of Taxpayer Money on Land: The Santiago Calatrava-designed WTC Transportation Hub

The $4 billion mall with a subway stop in its basement was a lesson in infrastructure failure. Costs ballooned from a starting price tag of $1.4 billion, and a devastatingly brutal New York Magazine deep-dive was just one of many articles highlighting the inept process and poor Port Authority oversight. In fact, when all was said and done, the Port Authority didn’t even bother with an opening ceremony when the PATH station/mall opened in 2016.

Best Vaporware of the Decade:The BQX

In early 2016, the mayor announced a waterfront streetcar connecting Red Hook to Astoria, and since then, nothing has happened. Sure, we’ve all burned a lot of pixels debating the relative merits of a project that won’t be self-funded as initially proposed and provides dubious transit benefits, but it doesn’t actually exist and likely never will. In its current form, the BQX won’t be ready for passengers until 2028, and the next mayor is likely to pull the plug on a project that remains on life support. Whether the mayor even remembers its part of his city transportation platform is an open question, and as of my writing of this post, BQX.nyc, the website for Friends of the BQX, the only group fighting for the project, was offline*. While the city needs a way to control its transit destiny and a surface light-rail network is long overdue, the BQX’s legacy will be simply as this past decade’s transit vaporware.

*The Friends’ website was available approximately 20 hours after I published this post. A spokesperson told me the site was offline “temporarily…for maintenance.”

(Hopefully) The Best of the 2020s:Congestion pricing, busways, free parking and a streets master plan

A handful of stories began their sagas during the waning years of the 2010s, but we won’t know how these tales play out until well into the 2020s. Chief among these is congestion pricing which finally passed in 2019 but won’t be implemented until early 2021. Advocates are worried about the lack of transparent planning as the clock ticks closer to implementation…The 14th St. Busway has been an unqualified success, and politicians throughout the city are clamoring for more. Hopefully, in ten years, I’ll write about how the 2020s were the decade of busways as the the city finally got serious about combatting declining bus ridership and slow travel speeds. For now, though, the mayor hasn’t committed to more busways…I wrote an ode to Corey Johnson’s Streets Master Plan for Curbed New York this fall. The next mayor, whether Johnson or one of his competitors, should take this plan and run with it, turning NYC into a city that prioritizes people over cars…And finally, will NYC start to eliminate free on-street parking during the 2020s? I sure hope so.

Dishonorable Mention: The fares kept going up and up and up

The fare on January 1, 2010 was $2.25 with a pay-per-ride discount of 15%, and a 30-day card cost $89. New Yorkers could buy a one-day unlimited ride “fun” pass. Today, the one-day card is a relic of history, and the pay-per-ride discount are gone too. The per-swipe fare is $2.75, and a 30-day card costs a whopping $127. The biennial increases from the past decade have helped the MTA close an inflation-based fare gap left over from the mid-1990s, but the hikes throughout the 2010s outpaced inflation.

Dishonorable Mention: Who’s The Boss?

Turnover atop the MTA lead to an unsteady course. Jay Walder, Joe Lhota, Tom Prendergast, Jay Lhota (again) and Pat Foye all served as MTA Chair over the course of the decade, and a hiring freeze has led to a talent drain within the MTA. The constant turnover is a symptom of the tenuous relationship between the MTA Chair and Andrew Cuomo, and the leadership churn creates continuity problems that make true MTA reform nearly impossible.

Dishonorable Mention: The MTA’s construction cost crisis

When The Times ran a big expose on the MTA’s cost problems in late 2017, I had hoped politically-motivated reform would follow. Instead, Albany has largely steered clear of an examination of the MTA’s capital cost crisis, and no one from, say, the state DA or the DOJ has looked into possible corruption. Although the agency claims to be working on reducing costs, the next phase of the Second Ave. Subway will, as I mentioned, cost $6 billion, a figure so far out of line with international standards that it nearly defies belief. Janno Lieber recently pointed to the fire code as one driver of costs, but no one really bought that excuse.

Dishonorable Mention: Where have all the bus riders gone?

In early 2010, around 2.45 million New Yorkers rode local buses on a daily basis. Today, that figure has fallen all the way to around 1.95 million per day. This 25 percent decline in ridership should be spurring on some serious soul-searching, but neither the MTA nor the city appears to be in a rush to stem this tide. With Uber and Lyft flooding the streets with cars, bus speeds are slow and service unreliable, leading to a death spiral of cuts and worsening service. Hopefully, congestion pricing and more busways can return New Yorkers to the bus and the bus to New Yorkers.

Dishonorable Mention: The Churro Lady goes viral

The debate over increased police presence in the subway came to a head when a video of a Churro Lady getting arrested went viral. The arrest spurred a mass protest and increase resentment aimed at the MTA and its attitude toward adding cops in the subway. It wasn’t, as I wrote, only about the Churro Lady, and this is one debate that will not end any time soon.

Dishonorable Mention: The Governor absolutely controls the MTA

Transit activists and commentators had to spend far too much time in the mid-2010s reminding Gov. Andrew Cuomo that he was in charge of the MTA. He still tries to hide this fact behind obfuscations, half-truths and lies, manipulating the political structure of the MTA to suit his whims. But Gov. Cuomo is very much in charge, and as MTA transformation takes off, the agency carries his fingerprints from top to bottom.

I’m sure I forgot a few things along the way, but what a ride it’s been.

With apologies to Bob Dylan for the headline, the wildest subway story in months kicked off innocuously enough with a Tweet from the MTA on Tuesday night. A recent spate of trains delayed because someone pulled the emergency brake seemed to be intentional.

We suspect someone has intentionally disrupted thousands of commutes on the 2/3 lines today by activating multiple trains’ emergency brakes. If you see any suspicious behavior, please @ or DM us details ASAP, including car #, so we can get trains back on schedule.

— NYCT Subway (@NYCTSubway) May 21, 2019

Since then, we’ve learned, thanks to reporting by Aaron Gordon that this targeted attack has been happening for months and has delayed more than 740 trains since March. We’ve heard MTA officials speak out forcefully against this behavior during yesterday’s Board meeting while admitting they’re not sure what criminal penalties the culprit (or culprits) may face. We’ve learned about near-misses, and we’ve heard from a few passengers who may have unknowingly spotted the culprit in the act.

I got a video of a dude hopping on the back of the Q train, undoing the security lines… train pulled off before I could see more. Could this be him? pic.twitter.com/WP1onB9iK5

— Kristin Myers (@KristinReports) May 22, 2019

It’s possible, in fact, that one person in New York is single-handedly responsible for the subway’s just missing out on Andy Byford’s performance improvement metrics for the past few months. So even as subway service slowly but noticeably improves, one New Yorker has taken to intentionally disabling trains and disrupting the commutes of thousands of people. It’s straight out of a movie.

Here’s the story as Gordon succinctly summarized on Wednesday:

This person has an established M.O., the source said, and Jalopnik confirmed this by reviewing internal incident reports. There are at least three so far.

The suspect disrupts service primarily on the 2 and 5 lines from Flatbush Avenue in central Brooklyn to midtown Manhattan. He climbs aboard the rear of the train as it departs a station, unlocks the safety chains, somehow gets into the rear cab, and triggers the emergency brakes. Then, he disappears, most likely through the subway tunnels and out an emergency exit.

Despite striking on average once a week for several months, the person has not been caught.

On Thursday, we learned that a culprit — it’s not clear if there are more than one — was nearly caught. Gordon reports:

Jerrylee Heath almost caught him. He was standing right there. It was 3:51 p.m. last Sunday. Heath, a train supervisor on duty at Times Square, got a call from Rail Control Center, the operational brain of the New York City subway system, according to an incident report from that day. Someone waiting for a Brooklyn-bound train at Fulton Street in lower Manhattan alerted staff that they had seen someone riding along the back of a departing uptown express train. Maybe Heath could make it to the platform in time, if the person was still clinging to the back of the train.

Two minutes later, Heath was on the platform. As the train edged into the station, he spotted someone just inside the rear cab. The safety cables were detached, and the rear door to the train was open. It was him, the person who had been nefariously triggering emergency brakes for months with the sole intention, apparently, of being a pain in thousands upon thousands of butts.

Before Heath could take any action, the person pulled the emergency brake—even though by that time the train would have been either barely in motion or at a complete stop—jumped onto the track, and dashed from the direction the train came, back towards 34th Street. Without police present and Rail Control Center’s approval, Heath was not allowed to follow him, per New York City Transit work rules. For the next 18 minutes, Heath rode downtown, then uptown again, to see if he could spot the culprit. But at 4:11 p.m., he radioed to Rail Control Center to deliver the bad news. “The unruly person,” as he was called throughout the incident report, got away. Again.

I’ve seen the incident report from an April 19 occurrence. For around 30 minutes starting at 4:17, the culprit rode on the backs of a variety of northbound 4 and 6 trains before triggering the emergency brakes of a northbound 4 train near 59th st at 4:48. The person, the MTA has said, did not just pull a rip cord in a car, but rather cut the safety chains on the back of a train, used a key to open the doors to the operator room and set off the brake valve before running down the tracks. This is someone with knowledge of train operations, and some have speculated this person is halting service in order to tag the tunnels. The April incident alone resulting in 75 delayed trains along the IRT lines.

It’s hard to write fiction this wild, and while it’s not the first time vandals have pulled subway emergency brakes for sport, this is a specifically targeted attack by someone with some expertise in train operations. What happens is anyone’s guess, but subway riders know to look out for someone riding the backs of trains. It’s only a matter of time before he’s caught, and we’ll find out exactly why what Jalopnik is calling a subway supervillain is targeting our commutes. It’s a special kind of New York crime designed to inflict maximum annoyance on a lot of people; crowd justice for this culprit seems almost too kind.

Help us find this guy- he’s wanted for reckless endangerment after riding on the outside of a subway car then activating the emergency brakes on the 2 train at 14th St & 7th Ave- Recognize him? ? @NYPDTips at 800-577-TIPS with any info pic.twitter.com/TLDgLuPr0k

— NYPD Transit (@NYPDTransit) May 23, 2019

When New York City Transit embarked on the 29-stop station renewal program in 2011 targeting decrepit subway platforms outside of Manhattan, little did anyone realize how momentous this work would become. Last week, more than five years since starting the renovation that spurred a lawsuit — and after many more years of what many advocates have called a clear flouting of ADA requirements — the MTA lost the first round of this ongoing lawsuit as a federal judge ruled that the agency’s component-based repair work at Middletown Road, including replacement of a staircase without the addition of an elevator, was performed in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The ruling is a sweeping one, as Judge Edgardo Ramos held that the MTA must install elevators when renovating subway stations unless an installation would be “technically infeasible,” rather, as the MTA has argued over the years, too costly, and it is one I and many disabilities advocates saw coming last year when federal prosecutors joined the lawsuit. Even with this ruling on the books, the court battle is far from over as the MTA plans to argue that, in this case, installing an elevator at Middletown Road was indeed technically infeasible, but the decision opens the MTA to significant liability and may require the agency to pursue an aggressive uptick in increasing the number of accessible stations throughout the city.

For its part, the U.S. Attorney’s office took a victory lap. “The MTA is now on notice that whenever it renovates a subway station throughout its system so as to affect the station’s usability, the MTA is obligated to install an elevator, regardless of the cost, unless it is technically infeasible,” Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement last week. “Individuals with disabilities have the same rights to use the New York City subway system as every other person. The Court’s decision marks the end of the MTA treating people with disabilities as second-class citizens.”

The MTA, meanwhile, stressed the new philosophy pushed aggressively by Andy Byford: Accessibility is a new top priority. “The MTA is steadfastly committed to improving access throughout the subway, with a hard and fast goal of making 50 additional stations accessible over five years. We’re not wavering from that commitment,” MTA Chief External Affairs Officer Max Young said in a statement.

The question now though is whether that the MTA can perform any substantive work at any subway station without triggering the requirement to include elevators. In fact, I believe the ruling now requires the MTA to build elevators during any rehabilitation work. Let’s dive in.

Nuances in the ADA

The cruz of this case and in fact the long-time basis for the MTA’s antagonism toward installing elevators rests within two paragraphs of federal regulations relating alteration of transportation facilities by public entities. The governing regulation is 49 CFR § 37.43, and paragraphs (1) and (2) of section (a) form the basis for the legal dispute:

(1) When a public entity alters an existing facility or a part of an existing facility used in providing designated public transportation services in a way that affects or could affect the usability of the facility or part of the facility, the entity shall make the alterations (or ensure that the alterations are made) in such a manner, to the maximum extent feasible, that the altered portions of the facility are readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities, including individuals who use wheelchairs, upon the completion of such alterations.

(2) When a public entity undertakes an alteration that affects or could affect the usability of or access to an area of a facility containing a primary function, the entity shall make the alteration in such a manner that, to the maximum extent feasible, the path of travel to the altered area and the bathrooms, telephones, and drinking fountains serving the altered area are readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities, including individuals who use wheelchairs, upon completion of the alterations. Provided, that alterations to the path of travel, drinking fountains, telephones and bathrooms are not required to be made readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities, including individuals who use wheelchairs, if the cost and scope of doing so would be disproportionate.

As you can see, these two paragraphs are very similar and rely on rather arcane legal nuances. Paragraph (1) mandates public entities to make accessibility alterations “to the maximum extent feasible” when altering “an existing facility or a part of an existing facility used in providing” transit “in a way that affects or could affect the usability of the facility.” The only limiting factor is thus the “feasibility” standard.

Paragraph (2) includes a carve-out the MTA has relied upon for years. If a public entity is undertaking an alteration that could affect usability of or access to a transit facility containing a “primary function,” the accessibility alterations may not be required “if the cost and scope of doing so would be disproportionate.” Whenever the MTA has argued that elevators would be too expensive to install, say, for example at Smith/9th Sts., this is the legal provision the agency cites in avoiding the ADA obligation.

What, though, you may be wondering, does it mean to “affect the usability” of a transit facility? And what does it mean for an area to “contain a primary function”? The feds describe a primary function as “a major activity for which the facility is intended” and lists a broad array of examples including fare collection areas and platforms. It seems then that nearly any alteration to a subway station would affect an area containing a primary function, and perhaps, you may think, the MTA has a legal basis for avoiding spending on high-cost elevators. Judge Ramos however does not agree.

The Court’s View

As part of the lawsuit, the MTA had argued that Paragraph (2), rather than Paragraph (1), contained the proper standard. Ramos’ decision essentially asks, “Why not both?” and holds that any time a public entity alters a station in a way that affects the usability in any sense, Paragraph (1), and the obligation to ensure wheelchair access unless technically infeasible, applies. Thus, even if the installation of an elevator would be expensive, the MTA still must include one.

Ramos’ decision rests on his interpretation of “usability.” Relying on previous 2nd Circuit precedence, Ramos determined that alterations that replace something as basic as a staircase with a functionally equivalent staircase do indeed impact the usability of the station:

The Second Circuit found replacements of kitchen floors and bathroom light fixtures to be “alterations” that changed the “usability” of condominium units under Title III provisions analogous to 42 U.S.C. § 12147. See
Roberts, 542 F.3d at 369. Defendants’ replacement of the stairways at Middletown Road Station was clearly an alteration that affected the station’s usability under Roberts. The alteration thus triggered accessibility obligations under § 37.43(a)(1).

Defendants argue that § 37.43(a)(2), not (a)(1), applies to the alteration because the renovations were to areas of the station that contained a “primary function.” But (a)(1) and (a)(2) are not mutually exclusive. Under § 37.43(a)(2), accessibility obligations are triggered when “a public entity undertakes an alteration that affects or could affect the usability of or access to an area of a facility containing a primary function.” An alteration can both affect the usability of a facility, which triggers (a)(1), and affect the usability of or access to an area of a facility containing a primary function, which triggers (a)(2). In addition to replacing the stairways, Defendants made extensive alterations to the mezzanine and platform floors of the station. Since these floors are where tickets are bought and trains are boarded, they clearly contain primary functions. Therefore, the Court agrees with Defendants that § 37.43(a)(2) also arguably applies to the renovations made at Middletown Road Station.

The MTA’s request for the court to determine that Paragraph (1) did not apply to Middletown Road was rejected, and at this point, by nature of this lawsuit, the MTA cannot argue elevators are too expensive. Rather, the agency must rely on the argument that doing so is “technically infeasible.” The court will hear arguments on just that very question regarding Middletown Road in the coming months.

What Does This All Mean

Now, all of these regulations and legal analysis may make your eyes gloss over, but it’s important. For all practical purposes, based on this ruling, whenever the MTA does anything substantive to a subway station, the Paragraph (1) obligations to install elevators will apply. Thus, any of the stations that were recently renovated via the ESI program are likely in violation of the ADA, and any other component-based stations that were renovated without full accessibility are likely in violation of the ADA as well unless the MTA can prove elevator installation would be technically infeasible and not just cost-prohibitive.

As you can imagine, this will cause some consternation for station rehabs going forward. While the MTA has pledged to meet an obligation to make 100 Key Stations fully accessible by the end of 2020, any minor work to spruce up stations could be thrown in doubt. I believe the MTA could craft an appeal as the analogy Ramos made between renovations of a condo — which sees a true increase in value due to new floors and bathroom lighting — is a weak one and the crux of the legal decision. After all, the idea that a like-for-like replacement of a staircase affects or otherwise alters the usability of a subway station seems to be a stretch.

But the feds have long been clear that any post-1991 renovation to old structures grandfathered into the ADA were supposed to include full accessibility work, and even with a basis for appeal, the MTA will face an uphill battle to overturn this case. Whether the court will require the MTA to install elevators at all stations they’ve renovated in recent years remains an open question.

Meanwhile, since the component-based station rehab project kicked off, the MTA has significantly changed its thinking on accessibility. Andy Byford has expressed public displeasure that only 24 percent of stations are accessible and has promised 50 additional accessible stations within the next five years as part of his unfunded Fast Forward plan. That’s a laudable goal and one that may be accelerated as any work of substance the MTA performs on subway stations will now trigger ADA obligations.

Still, as always, without cost control, this lawsuit could carry a steep price tag for an agency that can’t figure out how to install elevators for a reasonable price. If it takes the full weight of the judiciary to force the MTA to cut costs, so be it. We’ll all be better off for it as accessible stations improves transit access for anyone who has to carry bags, push strollers, deal with injuries or grow too old to climb stairs. It’s high time for the MTA to work toward fully accessible stations throughout the city, judicial opinion or otherwise.

“This ruling highlights why the New York City subway system remains overwhelmingly inaccessible to people who cannot use stairs,” Michelle Caiola, Managing Director at Disability Rights Advocates and one of the parties to the case, said. “If MTA had been complying with the ADA over the past twenty-five years by installing elevators when it performs station renovations, we would be closer to full accessibility today. Clearly, MTA must change its practices related to accessibility as soon as possible.”

Here’s the MTA solution, via NYPD edict, on how to fix the “crisis” of fare evasion: constant siren wailing from exiting with no one there to do anything about it.

This is one random minute at 14th.

cc: @MTA @Gothamist @NY1 @JMartinezNYC @errollouis @NYCMayorsOffice @NYPDnews pic.twitter.com/IlZMLP0U7s

— Jeremy Wilcox (@jwilcox79) January 16, 2019

New York City, they say, is a cyclical town. Neighborhoods wax and wane; popular restaurants open and close; the city rises and falls; and even the Mets may be good again one day. Not everything that comes back is welcome, and four years after finally silencing emergency alarms, the MTA has turned some back on, at the request of the NYPD, in an effort to fight fare evasion. That ear-splitting sound, the subject of much consternation a decade ago, is back.

I first wrote about the debate over emergency exits back in 2009 when the conversation focused around the the ethics of opening doors knowing an ear-splitting siren would follow. In 2010, the New City Transit Riders Council issued a damning report on the ineffectiveness of the alarms. With the alarms still armed, Riders Council observers witnessed thousands of riders streaming out of the doors (and a handful entering without paying through the doors). In 2014, The New York Times created an op-doc on the doors, and when 2015 dawned, the MTA silenced the alarms, seemingly for good.

“Our customers,” then-agency spokesman Kevin Ortiz said, “have been quite clear in displaying their annoyance and letting us know that the alarms really were the number one annoyance for them as they travel through the system.”

Well, sounds that were annoying have been forgotten, and as the MTA and NYPD look to combat what they claim is a real increase in fare evasion, alarms at certain key stations have been turned back on. I first got wind of the unwelcome return of these alarms in mid-January when Twitter reports came in of alarms at Union Square, Columbus Circle, Jay St.-Metrotech and Times Square, among other stations. The alarms are not, as I can attest, back on at every station, and it seems that only a few fare evasion hotspots have been tagged for activation.

After some tense back-and-forth on Twitter over the need for the alarms, the MTA provided me a statement on the emergency exits. The NYPD, it seems, asked the agency re-arm some doors as part of a test. They noted to me:

NYPD is working to combat fare evasion and recently we complied with their request to re-activate alarms at several high traffic stations. This is a test for them to determine the alarms’ effectiveness in deterrence. At the same time, NYC Transit is working with NYPD to evaluate ways to reduce the inconvenience of the alarms for our paying customers and employees, looking into techniques such as enabling timed shutoffs. Nobody wants to hear an alarm going off, but revenue lost to fare evasion is revenue that can’t be used for running and maintaining the system, so we’re working with the NYPD to find the right balance.

Sarah Meyer, Transit’s Chief Customer Officer, also noted that the MTA should have an update on the effectiveness of the alarms “in a couple of weeks.”

The problems New Yorkers had with emergency exits haven’t gone away in the past decade, but the MTA’s priorities have shifted. Right now, the agency wants to fight fare evasion at certain key hot spots, and the gate sirens are one way to do so. The problem, of course, is one of action and reaction. As in the past, when the alarms go off, nothing happens other than lots and lots of noise. Cops or MTA employees (if any are even around) rarely, if ever, investigate, and the alarms serve as a clear signal to anyone nearby that a door that may be locked is now wide open. It’s almost an invite to potential fare evaders.

Outside of the noise pollution, the other problem with these alarms is how they stigmatize certain subway riders. Not everyone can get through NYC’s relatively narrow turnstiles (narrow to fight fare evasion in the first place, I should add). Parents or caretakers pushing strollers and people in wheelchairs who already confront a hostile system and those with large packages or suitcases simply can’t navigate the turnstiles. With stations including fewer and fewer employees, these folks are forced to enter through exits, and if the exits are now alarmed, the simple act of opening the day at the least inconveniences everyone and at the worst draws a crowd. I said this years ago, but the MTA could combat this problem by redesigning turnstiles to include wider, accessible entry gates that can fit wheelchairs and suitcases, as are standard in metro and subway systems throughout the world.

In fact, Meyer told me those gates are on the way as part of the MTA’s push toward more system accessibility, and I’m looking forward to them.

Ben, Alex Elegudin, Andy and I are indeed looking at wider, accessible fare gates. Hoping to bring them to the system soon.

— Sarah Meyer (@SarahMeyerNYC) January 15, 2019

For now, though, we left once again with subway alarms and a familiar debate. Can the NYPD respond to alarms in high-volume stations fast enough for them to serve as a fare evasion deterrent while the MTA responds to requests to open them fast enough to ensure people who need and have properly paid for access get it without causing an ear-splitting ruckus? That’s under review, and we’ll find out soon what end of the emergency exit alarm cycle we’re living through. Will it be the continuation of a quiet one or the dawn of a new, louder, siren-filled era?

Earlier this summer, as the MTA was busy confusing cause and effect by blaming for-hire vehicle services for the city’s transit ridership drop, certain members on the MTA Board got a bug in their ear that fare evasion could be a reason why transit ridership has dropped over the past few years. It was never quite clear where this idea came from. Perhaps a few board members were irked by the Manhattan DA’s decision to stop prosecuting fare evaders as criminals; perhaps the few board members who do ride the subways regularly were basing their complaints on the lived experiences of watching people hop turnstiles or stream through emergency exits; perhaps the agency is just trying to avoid responsibility for the ongoing slow-motion death spiral driven by declining service reliability. Whatever the reason, fare evasion has dominated the conversation for the past month, and while I think this is largely a distraction, let’s try to unpack what’s happening here.

In a nutshell, the MTA is facing a large budget deficit that will result in some combination of fare hikes and cuts to service. At the same time, ridership is declining, leading the MTA to miss its revenue projections, and the MTA needs to account for all of its dollars to make its budget projections, already based on fantasy, work even just a little bit. So fare evasion has come under the microscope. A few weeks back, the MTA released a special report [pdf] on fare evasion that alleges with flimsy evidence that subway fare evasion has nearly doubled since mid-2013 to over 200,000 passengers per day and that bus riders who do not pay for their rides count for around 350,000 riders per day or over 16 percent of daily ridership. “It is an increasing problem,” Transit president Andy Byford said in December.

All told, the MTA estimates it lost $215 million to fare evasion in 2018 and is responsible for over a third of the subway ridership drop. According to the MTA’s report, the increases in 2018 are nearly all attributable to an increase in people entering through the emergency exits, and the DA’s decision to cease criminal prosecutions of fare evaders – a common-sense progressive position that doesn’t negate other effective fare enforcement techniques – is shouldering the blame as well. MTA officials meanwhile have been commenting on the issue to no end, as acting MTA Chair Fernando Ferrer did after a recent MTA Board meeting: “You cannot deny the evidence of your own eyes. You see this all the time. This is a growing problem. It’s worrisome, and it’s having a financial impact.”

In response to the MTA’s hand-wringing, the subway story of late 2018 has shifted nearly completely from one of bad service getting worse to one focusing heavily on instances of fare evasion. The Times stationed a few reporters at Times Square, the busiest station of the system, and observed nearly a person per minute entering through exits. Gothamist ran a video of various forms of fare evasion. Even Andy Byford’s promise to remove or fix faulty signal timers seemed to fall by the wayside in favor of more coverage of fare-hoppers.

There’s only one problem: The MTA’s report, all seven pages of it, draws sweeping conclusions based on a questionable methodology as the agency fails to grappled with the complexitites of its allegations, and even those promoting fare evasion as a significant problem have raised some questions that should cast doubt on the thoroughness report. As Byford himself said to The Times, “Is it some sort of protest vote? Is it because you can’t afford it? Is it because you fundamentally disagree that you should pay for transit in the first place? Is it more of an opportunist thing — you didn’t set out that day to evade the fare, but because the gate happened to be open, you followed a bunch of people through?”

First, the methodology: The MTA sent staff to 180 fare control areas (not, mind you, 180 stations) for quarterly observations and then extrapolated system-wide data based on ridership numbers. The MTA alleges this methodology could lead to an undercount of fare evasion, but I believe it could also lead to a significant overcount. It’s not a secret that certain stations have higher observed rates of fare evasion than others, and the MTA has not said which station fare control areas they assessed for this study. They haven’t said if they picked certain hot pockets of evasion, and they haven’t said if they picked fare control areas that are staffed 24/7 or areas that are staffed only for some hours or not at all. Even anecdotally, riders know where fare evasion is negligible and where it isn’t, and the MTA’s data makes no distinction. At the least, the data should be based on a rigorous study of video evidence from all available fare control areas.

Second, as the MTA itself has made clear, they don’t know who is evading paying the fare or why, and thus, their conclusions that everyone avoiding a swipe counts as a lost dollar (or a lost $2.75) is unfounded and likely wrong. As recent news coverage and Byford’s own remarks make clear, people skip out on fares for a variety of reasons. It’s true that some people don’t want to pay, but others may have gotten swipe-read errors from the old MetroCard technology and can’t find a station agent to help correct problems. (Those that do find a station agent may find the agent unwilling or unable to help.) Others may have left their unlimited ride cards at home. There are numerous reasons why people at one time or another do not pay, and it’s highly unlikely that if fare enforcement led to a 100% pay rate, everyone skipping out on fares today would pay tomorrow. The $215 million figure is, in other words, wishful thinking.

Meanwhile, if the MTA is concerned with fare evasion, the agency should do a better job pointing fingers at the right culprits. Rightly so, the Manhattan DA’s office has pushed back hard on the idea that decriminalizing fare evasion, usually a “crime” of poverty anyway, is a cause for an increase in fare-jumpers. The office has pointed out that enforcement continues, through summonses and arrests (but not criminal prosecution) which in fact frees up officers to spend more time patrolling the system. In a statement in November, Danny Frost, the director of communications for Cy Vance, did not hold back. “The MTA is running out of people to blame for its monumental failures,” he said. “Transit experts uniformly agree that the MTA’s own performance has driven this decline in ridership. My Byford should fix the subway.”

Even if a rather technical change in enforcement policy with regards to criminal prosecutions has driven people’s attitudes, the MTA’s own actions deserve scrutiny as well. Over the last decade, the MTA has eliminated station agents from various entrances, thus leaving stations completely un-staffed at all hours of the day, and the agency (thankfully) turned off the piercing alarms on emergency exits. Both of these moves could create an environment more conducive to fare evasion as well. Meanwhile, even something as simple as turnstile design and placement could lead to fare evasion. The MTA does not have any wide turnstiles for people with larger packages or strollers, and at many stations, emergency doors are closer to staircases to street level than the block of turnstiles are. The MTA could imitate European and Asians systems that have taller (and wider) fare gates that are harder to jump and can be pushed open in an emergency, obviating the need for side doors that may facilitate fare jumping.

But ultimately, if you still have the nagging feeling that none of this matters, you’re probably right. Two elements the MTA glossed over suggest just how little this matters. First, with regards to international comparisons, fare evasion in New York City was historically and globally low and remains at or even under the average for comparable subway systems. Fare evasion generally ranges from around 1-7 percent of daily ridership, and the MTA’s figure of around 3.8% is right in the middle. With around 96-97 percent of riders routinely and regularly paying the fare, a small amount of fare evasion isn’t just expected but normal the world over. Meanwhile, the agency doesn’t contemplate the costs of increased enforcement. We know about the social costs of criminalizing fare jumping and how this crime of poverty is disproportionately enforced across race and class lines. We don’t know how much it would cost the MTA to drive down this rate of evasion. Does spending $80 million on enforcement to generate $100 million more in revenue (for a net of only $20 million) benefit New York in the long run? How better could those enforcement dollars be spent to, say, improve service so people don’t respond with a shrug and a leap over the turnstile. After all, many people told The Times they don’t feel bad fare-jumping considering the MTA doesn’t seem to feel bad about how poor subway service has become. (This is of course a different story on buses where all fares should be based on proof of payment, and one could make the case that most NYC buses should be free or at a significantly lower fare anyway.)

In the end, as Ross Barkan recently wrote for City & State NY, the hand-wringing over fare evasion is a distraction from the real story: Ridership is down because service reliability is down and travel times are up. Again, fare evasion may be an effect of a confluence of factors, but it’s not the cause or even the problem. Once the MTA’s houses of cards are in order with respect to subway service, we can try to drill down on the whys and wherefores of fare jumping. With the transit system facing various problems few are willing to solve, fare evasion should truly be the least of everyone’s concerns.

As long time readers of mine know, I am a bit of a skeptic when it comes to ferries. After all, we built a bunch of bridges and a subway system between the boroughs of New York City in part because the ferry system just couldn’t cut it as far as mass transit went. Ferries are, by their nature, a niche mode of travel offering low capacity and high operating costs, and in a city of millions, most of whom are landlocked miles away from the nearest ferry dock, a ferry shouldn’t be a political priority for public investment.

Yet, on Thursday, for what was at least the eighth time since the beginning of 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio was behind a lectern hosting a press conference about ferries. This time, he was in Bay Ridge to announce that, due to ridership projections that exceeded expectations, the city would be investing an additional $300 million in ferries over the next few years for bigger boats, better docks and a new maintenance facility. Total capital expenditures are now in the realm of around $500 million, and the city continues to expect to maintain a $6.60 per ride subsidy for all ferry riders.

On the one hand, this news about ferries could be interpreted as a positive development. The ferries are popular! People who ride them — whoever they are — love them! What could be better than a nice day on the water in New York harbor?

But let’s temper our enthusiasm a bit. The popularity is a function of expectations. Here’s a glimpse at the numbers, per the city’s press release. The New York City Economic Development Corporation, the agency in charge of the NYC Ferry system, hasn’t released ridership data publicly so we’ll just have to take the city’s word for it:

NYC Ferry launched on May 1, 2017. Original projections predicted 4.6 million riders once all six routes are operational and fully rolled-out. However, NYC Ferry carried 3.7 million passengers in its first year, with only four routes operating—and only two of them running for the entire 12 months. Updated projections based on the first year of service now show that demand could reach as high as 9 million riders per year by 2023.

As a comparison, Citi Bike carries the same ridership as the ferry system over the span of around four or 4.5 months depending on the time of year, and a random bus line with 4.6 million riders annually is good for around the 38th or 39th busiest in the city. Bill de Blasio has held no press conferences on the B9 lately and notably isn’t investing an additional $300 million in buses even if the opportunity is right there for him.

And even with this new investment, the 350-passenger ferries are still expected to operate only every 25-35 minutes. As the mayor said, “On a really crazy beautiful day in the summer when it seems like everyone in the city wants to go to the beach at the exact same time, there’s still going to be lines but we are going to be serving a lot more people and we’re going to be getting them where they want to go faster.” This seems problematic to say the least for something de Blasio has trumpeted as recently as this week as “the key to a future of New Yorkers being able to get around more easily.” More on this shortly.

Lately, as ferry fatigue has set in, de Blasio has faced some skeptical questions from the city press corps as the transcript from Thursday’s event shows. When asked about the lack of subsidy for Citi Bike, a significantly more popular mode of transit, de Blasio showed his hand and lack of holistic thinking on transportation. “I would argue that each element of our mass transit planning has to be seen individually,” he said. “I felt very strongly that the Citi Bike model could work without subsidy and I’m supposed to be the steward of the tax payer’s money. And if it could keep achieving its goals without it, of course that was the optimum reality and I still believe that.”

Toward the end of this question, de Blasio rambled his way to an interesting observation about the ferry system. “Private sector was out there for quite a while with ferries,” he said, “and some impact was seen. But nowhere near the potential, and we knew there had to be a public investment to actually achieve what was possible in one of the greatest coastal cities in the world.”

And here is where I want to pick up the thread. The mayor is correct that the ferry system worked good enough but has been far more popular with public investment, but that’s because we the taxpayers of New York city are subsidizing each and every ferry ride to the tune of around $6.60 per ride. We’re not subsidizing buses or subways to this degree, and Citi Bike pays for its space on the street.

Perhaps this is a good use of public money, but I’m skeptical. I’m not opposed to the idea of a ferry system that serves New York’s waterfront, but let’s take a deep dive into the people who may be taking the ferry. We don’t know for sure who these folks are because, again, NYCEDC hasn’t released a lick of ridership data. But I pulled some census data last week, and if you look at all of the census tracts that have a least one address within 0.5 miles of a ferry terminal in Queens and Brooklyn, median household income is around $18,000 more than city average, and if you exclude Astoria, the only dock truly amidst low-income housing, that median bumps even more.

Already, then, this generous subsidy is going toward wealthier-than-average New Yorkers, and since the ferries operate on a separate fare system, my quasi-educated guess is that ferry ridership skews even wealthier than census tract medians. After all, those riders who need to transfer to a bus or subway after their ferry rides would have to pay a second fare, and lower income workers are less likely to be able to do so. So as buses struggle and the mayor resists the Fair Fares initiative, does it make sense to subsidize rich New Yorkers who live in waterfront condos and work close to Pier 11 near Wall Street? This is a conversation we should be having about ferries but have not, as the mayor likes to pat himself on the back over boats without understanding how transit planning should be seen in totality rather than individually.

Ultimately, we may decide that having a robust ferry network is a net positive. Maybe we should subsidize these 9 million rides per year. Maybe we should do so while also investing similarly in buses and subways. After all, transit planning should be holistic. But for now, we should be aware that we are subsidizing a niche, low capacity transit mode with a ridership that skews rich. That is not a particularly good use of taxpayer money. Someone should tell the self-proclaimed steward.