Triboro RX

MTA launches Triboro RX feasibility study, 24 years after the initial RPA proposal

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 22, 2020

The MTA has launched a study into restoring passenger service on the Bay Ridge Branch.

Nearly two and a half decades after the Regional Plan Association first proposed a circumferential subway route, the Triboro RX moved one small step closer to reality this week as the MTA announced the start of a feasibility study for part of the proposed line. The $1.3 million study will be run by AECOM and WSP and will examine passenger service on the Bay Ridge Branch, which currently serves as a freight corridor through Brooklyn and Queens.

“This project is hugely exciting,” MTA Chief Development Officer Janno Lieber said in a statement on Wednesday, “partly because it is based on the concept of squeezing more out of our already existing infrastructure so we don’t always have to build new subway lines from scratch. Putting mass transit on the Bay Ridge Branch could allow the MTA to serve more neighborhoods and provide better connections to thousands of people throughout Brooklyn and Queens – all while also creating opportunities for increasing environmentally-friendly freight rail in years to come.”

The study, which Dan Rivoli first reported on for NY1 back in October, has a broad mandate. Per the MTA’s release, it will not be limited to only a subway route but will “evaluate the potential for subway, commuter rail, light rail or bus service that would operate in conjunction with existing and planned freight rail service.” The MTA wants to develop a service that would not cost as much as, say, another phase of the Second Ave. Subway and can help connect job separates in growing neighborhoods while facilitating potential reverse commuting as well. As the MTA notes, the Bay Ridge Branch could provide passenger connections to 19 subway lines and the LIRR.

The Bay Ridge Branch is a current freight route that opened for passenger service in 1876 and last served riders in 1924. It is the Long Island Rail Road’s longest freight-only route and has been the subject of constant future plans since the RPA released its Third Regional Plan in 1996. That document [pdf] first proposed creation of a line running perpendicular to the city’s radial subway and connection to the Bronx via the “lightly-used Hell Gate Bridge.” The Triboro RX trains in that proposal would have served Yankee Stadium and could have helped modernize some of the city’s oldest elevateds around.

The current study omits the Bronx connection, reserving it for future examination and will have to account for the reality that CSX Transportation, a notoriously fickle freight operator, owns the northern half. As the MTA wants to maintain and expand freight capabilities, one potential solution could involve timesharing, and we need to look only to New Jersey Transit’s River Line for a freight/passenger time-sharing model. That, along with many other options, is bound to come up in the AECOM/WSP study.

That the MTA is conducting this study, meanwhile, is notable. The Triboro RX Line has been on the MTA’s radar at least since 2008 when then-MTA Executive Director Lee Sander talked up the circumferential line as part of the agency’s 40-year needs. I wrote up his speech and the plans in a 2008 post. During the 2013 mayoral primary, Christine Quinn wanted to implement a Triboro RX SBS route instead of rail. I wasn’t too keen on the idea then, but it too will get its fair shakedown under the current study.

Over the years, though, the RPA has persisted. Drawing parallels to the London Overground, the RPA has made The Triboro a centerpiece of its Fourth Regional Plan, complete with flashy website and reasonable price estimate. The RPA has maintained that 100,000 riders would use the route initially, and their price tag would put the line within the realm of the possible. “The major capital investments needed to build the line would include signals, new track, rail cars and stations, and possibly power substations,” the RPA has stated. “Initial estimates of costs range between $1 billion and $2 billion.”

Interestingly, this new study comes without a clear political champion, a rarity for the MTA and one that indicates a certain level of internal agency curiosity regarding this plan. The recently-released Rockaway Beach Branch Study, which I thought was designed to put the kibosh on talk of that project, had a political champion, but this one does not. Assembly rep Latrice Walker introduced a bill to mandate a study both this year and last, but that bill hasn’t passed the legislature yet. It appears that the MTA is doing this on its own, and the RPA is quite pleased.

“Regional Plan Association is thrilled that the MTA is moving forward on this study, which is the crucial first step to realize our Triboro vision,” RPA CEO Thomas Wright said. “Transit service on the Bay Ridge Line would not only provide better transit service between the outer boroughs but also cut construction and acquisition costs since the rail tracks are already there. This study will build on our initial concept, and evaluate cost, feasibility, among other issues, to help push the project forward. We are excited to keep working with the MTA and all other partners on this.”

For those of us who love to draw on subway maps with crayons, this study is a tantalizing glimpse into a potential future. Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess.

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Subway Security

New York Attorney General to lead inquiry into subway policing practices

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 20, 2020

After a year of debate about cops in the subway, NY Attorney General Letitia James is investigating NYPD fare evasion enforcement.

Following a year of increased attention focused on the way the NYPD and MTA police patrol the subways, New York State Attorney General Leticia James announced an investigation into those policing practices last week. James said her office will examine whether the NYPD had been specifically targeting New York City’s “communities of color through its enforcement of the ‘theft of services’ law and the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s (MTA) ‘fare evasion’ regulations,” according to a release her office sent out.

“We’ve all read the stories and seen the disturbing videos of men, women, and children being harassed, dragged away, and arrested by officers in our city’s subway system, which is why we are launching an investigation into this deeply troublesome conduct,” James said in a statement. “If groups of New Yorkers have been unfairly targeted because of the color of their skin, my office will not hesitate to take legal action. While we are hopeful that the NYPD will cooperate thoroughly with this investigation, we will not hesitate to use every investigative tool at our disposal to protect subway riders and the people of this city.”

James’ investigation caps off a year of an increased focus on the role of policing in the subway systems as the MTA Board grappled with a call by politicians to add 500 more cops to the subways and buses. Last fall, I examined the shifting rationale and tense debate, and in late December, the MTA Board approved the budget that included funding for the additional police. These officers will fall under the MTA umbrella, and not the NYPD, but this is a distinction lost on all but the most attuned New Yorkers. Thus, while MTA sources tell me they feel MTA officers will be more accountable and better managed by the transit agency, community activists fear that state (rather than city) oversight and a lack of body cameras on the officers will lead to different kinds of abuses.

With this discussion looming large, James’ office’s involvement also grew out of a recent New York Times article that explored how NYPD claimed in sworn affidavits that they had been pressured to target minority groups for low-level violations in the subway. Although NYPD officers claim they stopped this practice, James alleges otherwise. “Newly-published data indicates that this alleged policy may still continue today,” her office noted. “Between October 2017 and June 2019, black and Hispanic New Yorkers received almost 70-percent of all civil summonses for fare evasion, even though they only account for slightly more than half of the city’s population. During that same period, they made up nearly 90-percent of arrests for fare evasion.”

In announcing the investigation, James also released a letter she sent to the new police commissioner Dermot Shea asking for data the NYPD was supposed to make public [pdf]. Among other things, the letter requests accounting for all officers assigned to the subway, records and agreements with the MTA on fare evasion enforcement and detailed demographics break downs on fare evasion summonses and arrests. This is information the MTA Board has long requested of the NYPD and information the NYPD has been reluctant to release. James expects all documents by February 10.

The Attorney General’s press release contains a veritable who’s-who of New York politicians angling for higher office expressing support for the investigation. Scott Stringer, Corey Johnson and Eric Adams, all potential contenders in the 2021 mayoral race, lent their voices to the release, as did Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and State Senators Alessandra Biaggi and Julie Salazar. (Adams, though, seems to want to have his cake and eat it too as the former cop-turned-Brooklyn Borough President recently endorsed the decision to add 500 additional officers to the 2500 who already patrol the subways.)

Sources within the MTA have told me they welcome James’ intervention and that it does not undercut the argument for hiring more officers. The MTA has, as I mentioned, long pressed the NYPD to provide more detailed accounting of their fare enforcement activities, but as with many city-state divides, the local cops have resisted these requests. As the 500 new cops will be MTA officers, MTA sources feel they can better manage deployment practices and enforcement without being beholden to NYPD practices. As focus has shifted from fare evasion to misdemeanor numbers, some MTA officials are hoping the new officers will focus on stations and trains rather than simply congregating en masse at fare control. Whether this type of cultural shift can happen effectively will be something to watch as hiring increases over the next few weeks and months.

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PANYNJ

Guest Post: Dispatches from the FAA’s LaGuardia AirTrain public information sessions

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 16, 2020

Late in the process, the LGA AirTrain has suddenly attracted a lot of attention. Can opposition push through a better transit proposal?

Hell froze over this week when The New York Post’s editorial board agreed with AOC. The topic, of course, was the suddenly-controversial LaGuardia AirTrain. The latest chapters in this saga began when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes penned a letter to the FAA earlier this week asking to understand why some common-sense transit options, including dedicate bus infrastructure, a subway from Astoria and an AirTrain from Jackson Heights. The Post’s editorial board followed suit, calling the Port Authority’s plan a “worthless white elephant” while The Daily News also spoke out against the plan. Whether it’s too late in the process as too many powerful state interests have lined up behind the Willets Point plan remains to be seen, but these are welcome voices in the fight for a better, more useful transit connection to LaGuardia Airport.

Meanwhile, the FAA is moving forward with the process and hosted two public information sessions at the LaGuardia Marriott, a hotel that’s one of the least transit-accessible in the city. It’s nearly two miles from the nearest subway stop and across the street from the airport. You could be forgiven for thinking the session was planned to minimize comments from those who need and want a more holistic transit option. Yet, some intrepid New Yorkers made the trek, and one of those was Rich Mintz.

Rich posted a very comprehensive Twitter thread from the first meeting on Tuesday night, and I asked him to turn his experiences into a guest post. You’ll find some similarities between Rich’s experience and my post on the Port Authority Alternatives Analysis report, but one key difference involves the host. The FAA has yet to release its own Alternatives Analysis report, and the agency told me this week that they “intend to release the alternatives report documenting the alternatives evaluation process shortly after the public information sessions.” Mintz gives us a glimpse at the process, and it’s just as flawed as the Port Authority’s. I’ll let him take over from here.

Rich Mintz trekked out to the LGA Marriott and offers his overview of the FAA’s public information session.

The Federal Aviation Administration, stewards of the LGA Access Improvement Project on behalf of the Port Authority, is steering the outcome toward Governor Andrew Cuomo’s desired conclusion: the $2 billion dollar AirTrain to Willets Point with a $7.75 fare and a trip in the wrong direction away from Manhattan. While those trying to reach the eastern of the 7 train or LIRR’s infrequent Port Washington Branch are in luck, this route does next to nothing for people bound elsewhere. This week, in two public information sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at a hotel next to the Grand Central Parkway, the FAA tried to defend this plan. I attended to see how the case was being made.

I think the Willets Point AirTrain is the wrong solution, and I’m not the only one. But it seemingly doesn’t matter what I or anyone else thinks as the FAA made clear no other solution was taken seriously in their “study,” which was designed to ensure every other plan was to fall out of consideration during the two stages of evaluation.

Ben Kabak’s review of the Port Authority’s own alternatives analysis, published last week, makes this point; and it was validated by the materials the FAA (or more precisely its contractor, Ricondo) presented this week.

Getting to the public information session was harder than it sounds, given that you can see LaGuardia’s Terminal C out the window of the hotel. M60-SBS and Q70-SBS buses are in plain view, but they don’t stop here. I had to take the Q33 from 74 St/Roosevelt Avenue, which dropped me half a mile from the venue; other buses run closer, but they also run less frequently or approach from the wrong direction. To get to the meeting from Manhattan’s East 30s took me almost 90 minutes. Ideally, a meeting about building transit to an airport would be held in a transit-accessible venue, but the FAA and the Port Authority are looking to influence people who care more about validated parking (which was freely offered) than transit. It’s possible I was the only person in the room who arrived by transit from more than a mile away.

Inside, the FAA used a series of posters to present their study, describing the 47 other ideas they considered and rejected in favor of the Willets Point AirTrain. You can read more about the approaches and the selection criteria in the scoping materials at the FAA’s project website. Generally, the FAA argued as follows:

  • Given the goal of improving access to the airport, the consultants examined alternatives in nine categories, ranging from buzzwordy nonsense like “reducing air traffic at LGA” (not happening) and “use autonomous vehicles” (nothing to do with the problem at hand) to bus, subway, rail, and fixed-guideway (or AirTrain) infrastructure.
  • As a first test, the FAA (borrowing from the Port Authority) determined that any solution would have to create “time-certain” trips to the airport, create a new mode of access to the airport, reduce vehicle trips into the airport without creating congestion, and create 175,000 square feet of employee parking (an entirely separate issue).
  • Any solution that made it through the first test would then have to clear a second test by establishing that it would be “reasonable” to construct and operate. This second test, of course, depends on how “reasonable” is defined, and as it happens, it was defined to exclude virtually anything that might have impact on any existing infrastructure or services.

Based on the posters presented (and summarized in a November presentation [pdf]), here are how these tests played out in practice:

  1. All alternatives not involving new infrastructure were rejected, mostly based on the first test: they wouldn’t solve the problem.
  2. Addressing the problem via bus priority was rejected out of hand because buses wouldn’t produce “time-certain” travel to the airport. Why is that? Well, because the FAA claims they can’t control what happens after a bus reaches the entrance to the airport. The Port Authority can, of course; after all, they own all the roads near the terminals and have the power to control how lanes are used. But the consultants assumed they won’t bother, and in this circular manner, buses were rejected without even being considered. Additionally, the FAA further claimed buses would “cause congestion” in the airport, and according to the criteria, any solution that impacts the experience of people who use private cars to get to the airport is rejected out of hand, never mind that a fundamental aim of this initiative is to dissuade people from driving to the airport.
  3. All the conventional rail options were rejected, based on the second test. Rail to Sunnyside Yard doesn’t solve the connectivity problem, and a new East River rail tunnel would cost three or four times as much as an AirTrain (despite, one could argue, far more utility).
  4. Subway extension options were rejected based on the second test: Construction would require temporary closing of traffic lanes in Astoria, relocating underground utilities, interrupting LIRR or Amtrak service, or making physical improvements to the Hell Gate Bridge. Apparently any plan that requires any disruption to any existing service is disqualified, and God forbid we temporarily put construction equipment in a traffic lane in order to build a major item of public infrastructure.
  5. That leaves more than a dozen fixed-guideway options, including various routes connecting to subway and rail in Jamaica, Willets Point, Woodside, Jackson Heights, and Astoria. All were rejected for similar reasons: water and sewer lines can’t be affected; the BQE, GCP, and Van Wyck can’t be affected, existing LIRR and Amtrak services can’t be affected; the Hell Gate Bridge can’t be affected.

Posters at the FAA’s information session offered preliminary designs for the AirTrain terminal atop the Willets Point subway and LIRR stops. (Photo by Rich Mintz)

It is, of course, nonsense to claim that we can build infrastructure with no disruptions to anything or anyone and equally nonsense to claim that a Willets Point AirTrain wouldn’t also do that. Given its route adjacent to Flushing Bay, it’s also objectively more environmentally impactful than many of the other choices. But when you game the process, you get the outcome you want, and in the end, of 49 alternatives, only two survived both the first and the second test: Cuomo’s Willets Point AirTrain, and the “do nothing” option, which is required by law to be considered.

All in all, the experience of attending this meeting was bleak. I’m not a stranger to the public engagement process; As a Community Board member, I’ve been to dozens of public meetings. But it was hard not to come away from the FAA’s defense of the Willets Point AirTrain without feeling like I was being railroaded. If we’re going to spend $2 billion dollars on airport mobility, there are many more useful ways to do it than a big piece of infrastructure that connects to an overcrowded subway line and a second-string LIRR platform for a fare of $7.75.
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Rich Mintz is a safe streets and transportation activist and member of Manhattan Community Board 6. He’s the author of Hey! We’re Walking Here, a resource website for people concerned about pedestrian safety and street design in the five boroughs.

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Rolling Stock

The R179 Saga: Transit yanks Bombardier’s lemons over door safety concerns

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 10, 2020

The R179, seen here at Ozone Park, has been plagued with problems from the start. (Via DJ_Hammers76)

In a nearly unprecedented move, the New York City Transit Authority pulled all of their new R179 cars out of service on Wednesday morning amidst safety concerns related to the new subway cars’ doors. Transit President Andy Byford revealed on Thursday that a door on a C train popped open mid-route and that Bombardier, the trouble-plagued manufacturer, found the incident to be “representative of a more systemic problem,” as Byford said. For Bombardier and the R179s, this move is the culmination of years of problems across the manufacture, testing and performance of these cars, and the $600 million, 318-car R179 order, awarded in 2012 and delivered three years behind schedule, looks more and more like a set of lemons with each passing problem.

The news first broke via a Subchat thread shortly after midnight on Wednesday, and as rush hour dawned, the R42s, which had been retired just last month, were back in service. The MTA had to increase headways on the J/Z on Wednesday by about two minutes but was able to run a full rush hour service Thursday using older rolling stock. Meanwhile, the finger-pointing began in earnest nearly immediately.

“Bombardier Transportation alerted the MTA [on Tuesday] that its analysis of two recent incidents, in which all passengers were safe, raised questions about the reliable operation of a door mechanism on their newly-delivered R179 cars. Out of an abundance of caution, NYCT removed all R179 train cars from service overnight for thorough inspection and re-deployed other spare cars to continue service for this morning’s rush and ensure minimal impacts to customers,” Byford said in an initial statement. “NYCT has brought on expert LTK Engineering Services for an independent third-party review of inspections of the cars…As documented, the MTA has identified repeated issues with Bombardier’s performance and finds this latest development unacceptable. We intend to hold the company fully accountable.

Bombardier put out its own statement a few hours later, blaming one of its own suppliers for the issues. “Recently, two doors on cars in the R179 fleet at New York City Transit failed to function as intended. Our investigation shows that the doors were not properly calibrated by Kangni, the door operator supplier. We are now inspecting all of the R179 cars and, where necessary, making adjustments to ensure the safe and reliable performance of the doors for the entire fleet,” Maryanne Roberts, a spokesperson for Bombardier Transportation, said.

On Thursday, in lengthy comments to the press, Byford expanded on the problems. One occurred on December 24 when a door indicator issue brought the train to a halt. That was the incident in which a door popped open while the train was en route. A January 3rd incident caused Bombardier to identify the “more systemic problem” with the reliability of the doors (among other things). “Upon learning this,” Byford said, “we took immediate careful, but immediate, action to ground the fleet. And as I said earlier, that action was consistent our overriding priority and philosophy, namely that our customers’ safety is the number one priority and always will be.” On Friday, The City’s Jose Martinez reported that the R179s had been flagged with 16 incidents between December 1 and the day they were pulled out of the service.

With the fleet on the shelf, Bombardier and the MTA, along with Kangni and LTK, are all inspecting each car. Byford explained the process:

Bombardier originally informed us that they believed the complete full inspections of every 179 car, all 298 of them, could be completed within a matter of days. At this point, LTK, Bombardier and Kangni have been inspecting the cars since Tuesday evening and they have performed initial inspections on 3 trains for a total of 24 cars. So clearly this is taking longer, much longer in fact than Bombardier initially expected and to be frank, that NYC Transit would like. We have directed Bombardier to dedicate all possible resources to these inspections and we still want to see more from them. But, and this is a key point, we will not rush any cars back into service until we are wholly satisfied that it is safe to do so. So it will take as long as it safely takes because we want to ensure this process is completed as quickly and safely as possible. But we are also looking at the systemic and procedural issues revealed in this process and Bombardier has agreed on our direction to a software upgrade to provide an additional level of assurance to the door condition on all R-179s. So that’s additional work, and that explains why the process is taking longer than we initially thought it would.

For Byford and the MTA, this grounding sounds like it will be the last straw in a problem-plagued relationship. Bombardier has not yet been subject to the MTA’s new (and draconian) debarment rules, though the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA called for just that outcome on Thursday. Meanwhile, the agency is going to try to wrest something out of the rail car manufacturer. “The MTA finds Bombardier’s latest and repeated failures with these cars to be wholly unacceptable. We intend to hold Bombardier fully accountable for this issue, and for the other issues we have experienced over the course of this contract,” Byford said, later adding, “We are evaluating all legal options against Bombardier, including the best way to recover costs incurred as a result of this matter.”

Scott Stringer’s R179 Report: A Preview of Problems to Come

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer’s December audit of the problem-plagued R179s portended the fleet’s grounding.

Byford’s promise must be music to Scott Stringer’s ears as the New York City Comptroller recently published a scathing report about the MTA’s experiences with Bombardier and the R179 order. I didn’t have an opportunity to write up Stringer’s report before the R179s were yanked from service, but the potential 2021 mayoral hopeful had recently issued a scathing indictment of both Bombardier’s performance and the MTA’s lax oversight with regards to the R179 order. You can read his report right here as a PDF.

The gist of the report was unsurprising to rail fans and MTA watchdogs, and Stringer summarized at a high level:

The audit found that throughout the seven-year extended contract term Bombardier consistently failed to timely meet project milestones, comply with technical requirements, produce acceptable work, and promptly correct serious defects in critical structural components of the subway cars. In addition, the Comptroller’s audit shows that the MTA failed to adequately oversee Bombardier’s contract performance and timeliness and failed to complete required annual contractual evaluations to hold Bombardier accountable.

According to Stringer’s analysis, Bombardier missed 19 milestones (or essentially all of them), including well-documented problems relating to welding and failure to meet testing obligations. Since delivery, the cars have constantly broken down at higher rates than any other new MTA rolling stock, and Stringer did not spare the agency either. Stringer felt the agency should have explored terminating the contract and must institute harsher penalties for late and sub-par performance in the future. In that regard, we’ll see what legal options the MTA pursues over the next few weeks and months.

Stringer took both the MTA and Bombardier to task this week. “The New York City subway riders who foot the bill for the MTA’s $600 million contract with Bombardier were promised new, state-of-the-art train cars to help modernize our ailing transit system. Now, all the cars that were delivered so far have been pulled from service due to critical defects. It is completely unacceptable,” he said, citing his December audit. “Bombardier sold us lemons. Straphangers need the MTA to manage these contracts from the beginning — before the trains go off the rails.”

What Comes Next

The MTA and Bombardier are going to work to get these new cars in order, and eventually, the two parties will head toward some sort of dispute resolution process. With so much attention on the faulty nature of these cars, Bombardier will be under public pressure to provide some compensation. Interestingly, working out a compromise will fall to a familiar face as one-time MTA Executive Director Lee Sander was tabbed to head up Bombardier Transportation’s floundering Americas operation in late 2018. He’s been in charge of dealing with delivery and performance issues in Toronto, and he’ll have to clean up this mess in New York as well.

During comments this week, the MTA has repeatedly stressed the “preliminary” nature of all the publicly available information, and as internal investigations continue, the agency almost seems to be expecting more problems to surface. For now, the old Budd-built cars will roll for a few more miles as the MTA and Bombardier try to make lemonade out of the R179 lemons.

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How the Port Authority rigged its Alternative Analysis in favor of Cuomo’s AirTrain

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 8, 2020

After years of lingering in limbo as costs increased fourfold, the Willets Point-based Laguardia Airtrain is rushing toward approval while community groups, transit activists and good governance watchdogs cry foul over a process heavily weighted to favor only Cuomo’s favored proposal even as evidence strongly supports better and more comprehensive transit solutions. Can this plan, a brainchild of Gov. Andrew Cuomo I have not-so-affectionately dubbed the Backwards Airtrain, be stopped?

We’ll find out soon if anything can be done to take full advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime chance to improve transit access to Laguardia, but the process Cuomo wants is rushing along. Next week, the FAA and Port Authority are hosting a pair of public information sessions, and while they claim they haven’t selected a preferred alternative yet, the only option to which the government has given support is conveniently Cuomo’s. As Queens residents and transit activists alike realize chances to stop this $2 billion boondoggle are running out, the opposition has called on Cuomo to put the brakes on the AirTrain and plan it properly. For Streetsblog last week, I penned an op-ed questioning the transit value of this route and making the transit case for a better option.

That piece and the neighborhood opposition seemed to have struck a nerve with someone in Albany or at the Port Authority, and the PA’s Executive Director responded with his own defense of the Cuomo AirTrain on Monday. I wanted to respond in depth to Cotton’s claims, but I also want to take a step back and conduct a deeper dive into the state of the Laguardia Airtrain than I was able to for the Streetsblog piece. So let’s go for a journey.

The promised 30-minute travel time seems guaranteed only for those near a Manhattan LIRR hub.

Previously on “Backwards AirTrain”…

To recap how we’ve gotten here, the governor proposed the idea out of nowhere in 2015. As transit experts delved into his plan, a consensus emerged that the Willets Point route would save very few people any time at all, and with an initial price tag of $450 million, the no-build option appeared to be the best. After all, why sink half a billion dollars from a limited pot of transit funds into a line with no real benefits?

Cuomo’s plan spurred on dreams of a revival of a true subway extension to the airport instead, but nothing really happened. After a 2016 release on the redevelopment of Laguardia including just one mention of the airtrain, I thought the plan transit vaporware on life support. By 2017, costs had more than doubled to $1 billion, but it kept chugging along. Cuomo wanted the train despite the cost and utility, and he was going to get his train.

This past summer, costs doubled again, as the Port Authority budgeted over $2 billion for the Laguardia AirTrain before any alternatives analysis had been published. I called for the governor to cancel the project then, and I repeated that call in the Streetsblog piece last week. It is, of course, falling on deaf ears as the Port Authority and the FAA are pushing forward with the Willets Point proposal.

Inside the LGA AirTrain Alternatives Screening

Behind the scenes, the Port Authority has been hard at work attempting to justify Cuomo’s proposal while giving short shrift to options that improve transit through neighborhoods in Queens and to the airport. At some point since October of 2018, the Port Authority quietly released a series of comprehensive planning reports all available midway down their AirTrain page. I want to focus on key parts of the alternatives analysis, conducted in 2018 and available as a PDF. The FAA has recently adopted this analysis for a community presentation, and it appears to have definitively eliminated any other option other than the Backwards AirTrain despite what I believe is a flawed analysis.

For the Alternatives Analysis, the Port Authority considered ferry service, improving bus service, extending the subway from Astoria or implementing an airtrain from Woodside in addition to Cuomo’s proposal. They assessed each along eight criteria, but I want to focus on two — Criteria 4 (Reduce the use of on-road vehicles to move passengers to, from, and within the Airport) and Criteria 8 (Design and construct a project that avoids substantial disruption to the neighborhoods where it is located). These were the two criteria used to bounce better bus service and subway or other airtrain routings preferred by transit experts.

When it come to buses, the Port Authority essentially gave up. Noting that buses are subject to variable and unpredictable surface traffic conditions and relying on data from the current SBS Q70 implementation, the Port Authority determined that buses wouldn’t fulfill criteria 4. Other bus improvements and busways got the kibosh too:

The conversion of general-purpose traffic lanes to restricted bus lanes would substantially reduce vehicular volume along this corridor and eliminate parking, which would negatively affect businesses and likely be opposed by local businesses and residents. Dedicated bus infrastructure on the BQE, GCP, or RFK Bridge would substantially reduce these roadways’ capacities for general traffic, exacerbating delays on these already congested roadways. It is also unlikely that dedicated lanes could be implemented on these highways without capital enhancements to manage traffic flow and safety. The other types of bus enhancements, such as signal priority, have limited utility without dedicated bus lanes.

Considering all we know about improving bus service and getting people out of cars and into buses, the claim that buses wouldn’t fulfill Criteria 4 because the Port Authority doesn’t want to upset a few people doesn’t pass muster. The analysis seemed to be a convenient excuse to hand-wave away a low-cost solution to Laguardia traffic woes that could be implemented tomorrow and wouldn’t preclude building other high-capacity transit connections to the airport. But buses weren’t what Cuomo and the PA leadership wanted to accomplish.

The Port Authority claims subway construction would be too disruptive, a claim not usually used to evaluate transit construction.

Moving to rail, the report relied upon the MTA’s 1998 LaGuardia Airport Subway Access (LASA) Study, which determined that only three potential subway routes to the airport were feasible: an elevated branch line from the Astoria Boulevard station via the Grand Central Parkway; an elevated extension from Astoria–Ditmars Boulevard via 19th Avenue; and an extension from Astoria–Ditmars Boulevard via a tunnel beneath 19th Avenue.

Here, Criteria 8 comes into play, and even without delving into the extensive analysis in the Port Authority’s document, you can see where this is going. The PA talks about “extensive, complex construction on the Astoria Line and within and directly adjacent to a residential neighborhood and the GCP.” It mentions that “heavy construction would occur over a long period of time, with activities such as pile driving, jack hammering, the placement of beams and ties, and welding.” And it discussions “large new ventilation structures (in many cases taller than the nearby development)” required for the tunneling option. None of these are new to the fabric of infrastructure in New York City, but each are cited as reasons to avoid pursuing a subway extension. In each case, the Port Authority determined the subway options did not meet Criteria 8, concluding “construction of this alternative would require extensive and lengthy disruption directly within and near a densely developed residential neighborhood.”

A similar analysis bounced potential airtrains from Astoria and Woodside as well, with the Port Authority also bemoaning the need to purchase around 40 total residential and commercial properties for either option. Despite bringing most riders toward their destination (as opposed to away) and still providing connections to the subway and an LIRR station on the Main Line, the Port Authority against used claims of disruption to eliminate the Woodside AirTrain, a proposal that deserves far more consideration. Criteria 8 struck again, and it was a key part in the argument Rick Cotton made in his Streetsblog piece earlier this week. I don’t buy it (as a I explained in a Streetsblog rebuttal).

‘Avoiding disruption’ should not preclude a better transit outcome

But why did the Port Authority decide that one of its goals was to “design and construct a project that avoids substantial disruption to the neighborhoods where it is located”? This isn’t a goal of any other transit project in the region. After all, the Second Ave. Subway tore up the Upper East Side, a neighborhood far denser than any between the subway and LaGuardia in Queens, and the Port Authority’s own World Trade Center site still fences off the Lower Manhattan neighborhood and street grid while disrupting over the years two states’ subway systems. Gov. Cuomo’s plan to use eminent domain to acquire properties to build Penn Station South won’t be disruption-free either, and the concern that eminent domain takings will “substantially alter the character of adjacent blocks” seems to apply only to LaGuardia options but not to a Penn Station expansion.

Usually these are issues an agency mitigates when picking the highest and best transit option, when it came to the airport, avoiding disruption was suddenly grounds to follow a different path away from people, neighborhoods or thorny choices that strong leaders can make. Again, I ask why?

And so let me answer my own question: Why? Because that way, the Port Authority could credibly (or incredibly) eliminate every other option that provides a better connection to existing transit and better transit for under-served neighborhoods while bolstering Cuomo’s proposal. From the day Cuomo announce the Willets Point AirTrain in 2015, it has always seemed as though the fix was in, and sources have long told me Cuomo presented this routing and essentially ordered the PA and MTA to make it work. The Alternatives Analysis and its prickly criteria bear that out.

The Woodside AirTrain is a better proposal than Willets Point service, but the Port Authority claims construction would be too disruptive.

Now that the FAA has essentially endorsed the PA’s work in its own Alternatives Analysis summary (pdf) while also adding gondolas and helicopters to the mix ahead of bus improvements, the Backwards AirTrain is on the precipice of reality. People will use it it and when it’s built (though the PA’s projections [pdf] of Year 1 ridership in excess of the JFK AirTrain’s current annual total defies belief).

I’m not advocating for no transit to LaGuardia, but I’m advocating for doing it right. We’re making a mistake if we spend $2 billion on AirTrain that’s out of the way and projected to increase travel times for most airport-bound riders. Instead, the governor should use his considerable political capital to urge communities to prepare the disruption of construction of a true transit network that decreases travel times and adds ancillary benefits in the form of new subway stops through subway deserts. An extension of the N would be best, but a connection from Woodside would be a fine reality too. If only the governor saw it this way as well.

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View from Underground

The Official Second Ave. Sagas Non-Comprehensive Review of Transit and Transportation in the 2010s

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 29, 2019

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

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and then-MTA Chair Tom Prendergast celebrate the December 2016 opening of 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 7 line extension to Hudson Yards opened in September of 2015. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

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

Gov. Cuomo tours the L train’s Canarsie Tunnel before torpedoing years of planning in a few weeks.

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

It’s a long wait for this A train, but the longer wait for countdown clocks ended this decade. (Photo by Joe Cutrufo)

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

NYC Transit President Andy Byford greets passengers at the reopened 168th St. station in December. (Photos: MTA NYC Transit / Marc A. Hermann)

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.

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PodcastSubway Maps

Second Ave. Sagas Podcast, Episode 9: Subway maps with Kickmap’s Eddie Jabbour

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 26, 2019

As 2019 draws to end, I wanted to release one more podcast episode, and this week, you get to spend a half an hour with me and Kickmap creator Eddie Jabbour as we talk about subway map design. Jabbour’s appearance on the show grew out of an interactive feature on the current NYC subway map The Times published in early December. Ostensibly timed with the 40th anniversary of the map designed by Michael Hertz and Associates that replaced the controversial Vignelli diagram, the Times feature dove into some of the design quirks of the map. But it held back on both the praises that have made the Hertz map a four-decade success story and criticisms that have followed over the decades. That’s where the podcast comes in.

Jabbour’s Kickmap has been around for the better part of two decades, and it began as a passion project. Jabbour, a brand designer who runs Kick Design in his professional life, is a Bay Ridge native and lifelong lover of trains. He combined his eye for design with his love for subways and built the Kickmap as a reimagined map for New York City. The advent of iPhones allowed him to convert it into a digital dynamic map more flexible than the current MTA offerings (and some might say, more visually appealing as well). In this podcast episode, we talk all things maps, both good and bad, and delve into Jabbour’s dream for an international design standard for subway maps.

Now, don’t get me wrong — the episode isn’t only just criticism of the current MTA map. After all, the Hertz map and its current progeny have served as the longest-running subway map in NYC transit history so it must be doing something right. But Jabbour has plenty to say about about subway wayfinding and the way design could be better. Join us for a wide-ranging conversation on the elements of subway map design, what the MTA’s current map gets right and what it gets wrong, and which international city is the Holy Grail for designers looking to create great subway maps. (Hint: It’s in Japan.)

You can find my conversation with Jabbour at all the popular podcast spots — iTunes, Google Play, Spotify or Pocket Casts, to name a few. Or you can listen by clicking the “play” button below. If you like what you hear and have been enjoying the podcasts, please consider leaving a review on your iTunes.

As always, thank you for listening and thank you as well to Joe Jakubowski for sound engineering. I’ve been enjoying producing these podcasts but they take a lot of time and effort. I can keep doing them only through the generous contributions of my listeners so please consider joining the Second Ave. Sagas Patreon. Since this site runs entirely on Patreon contributions, your help keeps the proverbial engine going. And be sure to check out the Kickmap both at its own website or in a digital App Store near you.

As a postscript, Hertz wrote a series of pieces I published in 2010 and 2011 about his subway map. You can read parts One, Two, Three and Four for more on that history.

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MTA Politics

Vanterpool’s MTA Board departure leaves city representation lacking on key transit matters

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 17, 2019

Veronica Vanterpool will be resigning from the MTA Board to join the Delaware Transit Corporation as its first Chief Innovation Officer.

When the MTA Board is at full strength, New York City enjoys four seats at the table. Although the Governor legally nominates every member to the MTA Board, he is required to defer to various stakeholders, and the mayor has the power to request four Board members. Yet, when the MTA Boards meets on Wednesday for its final meeting of 2019, it will be the last time the city has even three representatives as Veronica Vanterpool will be leaving new for Delaware. I can’t recall a time when the city had only half of its MTA Board seats filled, and at key juncture in the history of the MTA, the city’s voice is being silenced as the mayor seemingly refuses to pressure Albany to act.

In a sense, this saga began earlier this year in April when Carl Weisbrod left the MTA after only two years. The former city planning official was widely praised as a strong voice on the Board, and the mayor nominated Daniel Zarrilli to replace him. He is the mayor’s current chief climate policy adviser, as Trottenberg’s replacement, and with 15 years of experience in government and a few years in the transit, Zarrilli’s nomination seemed like a no-brainer.

A few weeks later, in June, Polly Trottenberg abruptly stepped down as well. We don’t know why Weisbrod quit, but as Streetsblog detailed in June, the DOT Commissioner seemed fed up with Andrew Cuomo’s meddling and annoyed with the mayor’s refusal to stick up for the city in all matters MTA. The mayor nominated Bob Linn, a labor lawayer, to the MTA Board. Many thought it to be an honorary nomination as Linn has recently retired from his role as the city’s chief labor negotiator, and Zarrilli was expected to pick up the transit slack left over by Trottenberg’s departure.

But with Andrew Cuomo and the MTA, things that should be certain aren’t, and while Linn’s nomination sailed through the confirmation process, Zarrilli’s didn’t. Officially, as Mark Chiusano wrote five months ago, the hold-up concerned the background check. Despite a long career in government, Zarrilli seemed to in limbo, but of course, the state legislature, at the demand of Andrew Cuomo, found time to exempt Robert Mujica from the MTA Board residency requirements. The governor claimed they received Zarrilli’s nomination “late” without enough time to go through the background check process, but that seemed to be a load of bunk. As Dana Rubinstein reported, Zarrilli’s nomination arrived one business day after Linn’s, but what the governor wants, the governor gets. As the MTA Board debated the $51 billion five-year capital plan, the 2020 budget and the AlixPartners transformation plan, the city was down a voice during discussions that could reshape the city’s transit space for decades to come.

At any point since June, the legislature could have picked up and acted on Zarrilli’s nomination. That they have not suggests further reticence from Cuomo, and now the MTA Board will lose another forceful advocate for transit as Vanterpool reports for duty on Wednesday for the last time. Rubinstein broke the news of Vanterpool’s departure last month, noting that the board’s “most outspoken member” will be leaving, and the city will be worse off for it. Vanterpool was the only woman of color on the MTA Board, the youngest member at the time of her initial nomination, and as the one-time executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a long-time player in the transit space. Rachael Fauss of Reinvent Albany called Vanterpool’s departure a “huge loss” in comments to The Post.

For her part, Vanterpool has played down the impact of her departure and defending the mayor to the bitter end. In comments on Gotham Gazette’s “What’s the [Data] Point” podcast, Vanterpool discussed record city investment in the MTA Capital Plan while attempting to parry with the claim that Bill de Blasio has not been invested in transit. (The mayor, you may recall, handed the MTA a blank check without ensuring the money would go only to city concerns, as Michael Bloomberg had done with money for the 7 line extension during his time in office.)

Still, it’s hard not to view Weisbrod’s and Trottenberg’s and Vanterpool’s departures as a lessening of city authority and say over transit governance concerns. We already know, as Vanterpool has said in her various exit interviews, that the MTA Board is Cuomo’s through and through and that, at best, city voices can be squeaky wheels gaining the attention of the press and public as part of the PR war. Practically and politically, the city’s four voices can never carry the day, and going through a prolonged period of time during which only two of the city seats are filled will leave New York City transit riders underrepresented on the MTA Board.

What comes next is tough to say. In her podcast appearance, Vanterpool excused de Blasio’s hands-off approach while also speaking wistfully of a governance model that empowers the Board, and not the governor, to name the MTA leadership. She appreciated the independence the mayor affords his board members and she talked about conversations with “city leadership” generally about transit while pointedly not mentioned the mayor’s involvement. It’s an enlightening conversation, and Vanterpool had similar things to say to Streetsblog as well.

But that independence, and the mayor’s very apparent hands off approach, also means that city voices have no real transit champion speaking up from City Hall. Early last week, I’ve asked the mayor’s team if they have any names ready to replace Vanterpool and if they plan to push Albany and the Governor to act quickly on these nominations and have yet to receive a reply. Most city-watchers and transit advocates I’ve spoken with this month feel the mayor just doesn’t care enough about the MTA to invest any political capital whatsoever in fighting for quick action on the two empty board seats.

Still, the jockeying has begun. In an ideal world, Zarrilli would be approved as soon as the governor passes his nomination to the State Senate, and TransitCenter’s Colin Wright urged the mayor to appoint a disabled New Yorker to the Board. But for now, the city’s voice in its transit affairs will be further diminished following Wednesday’s meeting. While our loss is Delaware’s gain, it’s time for the mayor to step up and fight for adequate NYC representation on the MTA Board. With MTA transformation in full swing and $51 billion in capital investment in the balance, New York City can ill afford to lose its transit voice.

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MTA ConstructionMTA Politics

Debarment Debacle: Disqualification rule raises concerns over bidding as contractors file suit

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 1, 2019

Contractors have filed suit over the MTA’s debarment regulation as transit advocates worry about the short-sightedness of the new rule.

During last month’s MTA Board Meetings, a routine discussion on a procurement contract took an interesting turn. The agency is currently in the process of awarding a two-year, $38.8 million contract for elevator installation and other accessibility upgrades at the 4 train’s 170th Street station and had initially identified six potential qualified bidders for the project. In the end, only two companies opted to bid on the work while three of the others declined to propose offers, citing, as the MTA put it in Board materials, “excessive risk associated with terms and conditions contained in the contract.”

On its surface, a few companies dropping out due to “excessive risk” hardly seems newsworthy, but underlying that excessive risk was the MTA’s new debarment policy. At the direction of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the New York State legislature earlier this year passed a law mandating that the MTA institute a debarment (or disqualification) policy, ostensibly to maintain better oversight over project budgets and timelines. The MTA’s current emergency policy, designed to comply with law, mandates a five-year debarment for any contractor that delivers a project at least 10 percent late or at least 10 percent over budget.

Watching contractors drop out of the bidding process like flies following the implementation of the debarment rule was anticipated and feared by MTA executives and external watchdog organizations alike, and many have accused Gov. Cuomo of once again taking a wrecking ball to a problem that required a more delicate solution. Now, a group of contractors is fighting back, as they have filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that the MTA’s debarment rule, as enacted, is unconstitutional. Neither the state nor MTA will comment on pending litigation, but so far, debarment has been a predictable mess for the MTA.

A Recent History of Debarment: an Executive Order, a hastily-enacted law, and emergency rule-making

The recent history of debarment in New York State starts with an executive order issued by Gov. Cuomo in late January. EO 192 established a requirement that all state agencies “rely on the determination made by other state entities” regarding debarment of a contractor. Thus, if any state agencies or any public authority for which Cuomo appoints the chair or CEO, as he does with the MTA, determines a contractor must be debarred, every other state entity must adhere to that decision.

With this EO, the risk to contractors doing business with any New York state entity increased exponentially, and for months, the contractor industry has been buzzing with concern over this requirement. It’s compounded by the reality that debarment in one state often leads other states to disqualify contractors, and suddenly, a contractor can find itself out of government work entirely.

Then, in April, as part of the budget negotiations, the state legislature approved a debarment requirement applicable specifically to the MTA. The new requirement, Section 1279-h of the Public Authorities Law, became law with no public hearing or comment period and obligated the MTA to create a “debarment process for contractors of the authority that prohibits such contractors from bidding on future contracts, after a debarment determination” by the MTA. The state directed the MTA to create a debarment regulation applicable “in situations involving a contractor’s failure to substantially complete the work within the time frame set forth in the contract, or in any subsequent change order, by more than ten percent of the contract term; or where a contractor’s disputed work exceeds ten percent or more of the total contract cost where claimed costs are deemed to be invalid pursuant by the contractual dispute resolution process.”

And that’s just what the MTA did. In May, the MTA issued an emergency regulation, since twice extended, that did exactly what the state legislature and governor mandated, each time without any public hearing or comment period. If any contractor faces debarment, three MTA employees will hear the complaint, and while the contractor will be able to present defenses, the debarment panel is not permitted to employ discretion in determining whether to proceed with debarment. If the grounds for debarment are met — if the contractor misses the target completion date by 10 percent or if the project is over budget by 10 percent — the MTA must debar, and the MTA can also opt to disbar the contractor’s corporate parents, affiliates and subsidiaries. It is, to put it mildly, draconian.

Concern over debarment from within and outside the MTA

Even before the contractors filed suit a few weeks ago, debarment has faced criticism from agency insiders and watchdogs who have frosty relationships with Gov. Cuomo. The Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA raised concerns about the process that lead to the debarment regulation in a letter to MTA Chair Pat Foye earlier this year. Lisa Daglian wrote:

We are particularly troubled that this emergency action was taken during the Executive Session…Contractors must be held accountable, but so too must the MTA for the decisions it makes: undertaking such a sea change in secret sends a message that the authority is in a constant state of emergency, is above the law, and can make or bend the rules as it sees fit. The public has a right to know what the MTA’s Board members are voting on, and how. They have a right to review documents in advance of public meetings, and comment on proposed rule changes. They should not have to read about votes taken in secret for “emergency orders” that will ultimately affect them for many years to come.

Since debarment was approved, I’ve spoken with senior officials within the MTA who are extremely concerned with the chilling effects of debarment. Based on the challenges of working with the MTA, an organization known for being unable to manage project scope and budget, and the now-steep penalties, these MTA officials have routinely expressed their beliefs that debarment will lead to a decrease in the number of companies willing to work with the agency and a corresponding increase in project budgets. To combat the potential risk of debarment, those contractors willing to take on the risk will now be incentivized to submit bids with significantly inflated price tags and long construction timelines, thus further exacerbating the MTA’s cost crisis.

Good governance groups have picked up on this potential effect as well. “On debarment — which we strongly oppose — at Monday’s Transit Committee meeting, it was revealed that three vendors didn’t submit proposals on a design-build contract because of risks from debarment,” Reinvent Albany’s Rachael Fauss said to the MTA Board last month. “This risks includes factors beyond their control. Debarment is bad policy and a big mistake because it reduces competition. This means higher prices and a smaller pool of expertise to draw from.”

At a time when the MTA wants to increase the scope of its work and is on the verge of moving forward with a plan that calls for over $10 billion of construction spending every year for five years, imposing a five-year debarment penalty could whittle down the field of contractors to too few to complete the work. If only two out of six would bid on ADA work now, how can the MTA hope to fulfill its promises to deliver 70 fully accessible stations within five years?

And within the environment of the MTA, ADA work is considered relatively easy. I’ve spoken with MTA officials who are concerned that debarment could put Siemens and Bombardier at risk of losing their abilities to bid on MTA projects. If that were to happen, it would be functionally impossible for the MTA to complete most of the five-year capital plan at all. There simply aren’t enough companies able to do work within New York to ensure competitive bids and enough bodies to perform all of the work in the face of a debarment threat.

Contractors file suit to stop debarment regulations

In an effort to stop the MTA from enforcing its debarment rules, a group called the Alliance For Fair and Equitable Contracting Today, or AFFECT, filed suit shortly before Thanksgiving. The Alliance, represented by one-time Acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal, consists of the General Contractors Association of New York, the New York Building Congress, the Associated General Contractors of New York State LLC, the Building Trades Employers Association, and the American Council of Engineering Companies of New York. It is the über-lobbying group for the contracting industry, and in their lawsuit, they say, “Debarment is a death penalty for a public works contractor.”

In short, the suit alleges a variety of constitutional violations, including the Contract Clause, the Supremacy Clause, the Dormant Commerce Clause, procedural and substantive due process, and the First Amendment. The MTA’s debarment regulation applies retroactively and thus rewrites pre-existing contracts. It also affords the MTA with no leeway in determining fault. A few sections of AFFECT’s complaint struck me as particularly noteworthy. Calling New York’s approach to debarment “wildly out of step” with other debarment regimes around the country, AFFECT states:

The Debarment Statute and MTA Regulations do not require any wrongful conduct by the contractor or permit consideration of mitigating factors or allow inquiry into whether the contractor, engineer, or other vendor acted in good faith. MTA authorities must debar a contractor, consultant or supplier once a determination is made that the contractor exceeded the statute or regulation’s schedule or claim thresholds. No consideration is given to why a project went longer or whether a claim for a cost overrun was put forth in good faith. Nor is any consideration given to whether the contractor has taken steps to prevent schedule and cost overruns in the future.

As a result, the Debarment Statute and MTA Regulations create a draconian regime where a contractor operating in good faith may be debarred for merely exercising its express contractual rights to request additional time or costs due to changes necessitated by the MTA or a third party.

Whether this is a winning legal argument is, of course, another question and one premature to answer. The MTA has around two weeks to file a response to the lawsuit, and state and agency representatives have defended debarment all year. “The MTA is changing the way we do business to deliver for our customers and that means ensuring the historic $51 billion capital plan will be delivered on-time and on-budget,” Abbey Collins, an MTA spokesperson, said in a statement last week. “Beyond that, we don’t comment on pending litigation.” 

I find the state’s approach to debarment far too limiting and am sympathetic to the arguments I’ve heard from MTA insiders and advocates that debarment will be harmful in the short-term to an agency looking to build fast. It’s not a solution to the MTA’s cost crisis and actually exacerbate it in the long run. Whether a court decides to invalidate the debarment regulations or not, New York state (and by extension the MTA) and its contractors should work out a better solution to the problem of cost overruns and missed deadlines. The debarment sledgehammer isn’t the answer.

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Queens

Long-awaited Rockaway Beach Branch study reveals subway, LIRR options — and a high price tag

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 20, 2019

Could the M train one day snake through Queens via the Rockaway Beach Branch line? Some rail activists have a plan that could bridge the rails vs. trails gap if stars, and costs, align. (Via The QueensLink)

Re-activating the defunct Rockaway Beach Branch line could cost up to $8 billion dollars and a one-seat ride to JFK Airport using the once-and-perhaps-future LIRR right of way could run to nearly $20 billion, according to a long-awaited report the MTA released last month. If the MTA’s numbers are to be believed, this report may serve not as a rallying cry for advocates to push for rail reactivation but rather an indication that the MTA’s inability to manage costs will back-burner any transit use for this ROW for years to come. Without an obvious political champion pushing this project, one could be forgiven for believing the inflated costs to be almost intentional.

The history of the Rockaway Beach Branch line is a tortured one that I’ve covered extensively over the years. It’s one of those spaces that’s constantly in the cross-hairs of different groups, and nearly since the day after the misguided decision to end rail service in the early 1960s, various factions have tried to lay claim to the route. We’ve seen dreams of a new Rockaway Beach Branch rail line come and go, plans for one-seat rides to JFK live and die, and over the past decade, fights between the so-called QueensWay group that wants to convert these rails into trails and transit activists fighting for train service into underserved areas. Lately, the folks at The QueensLink have tried to bridge the gap, offering a plan for rail use of the ROW with added park space as well.

Amidst this battle, back in 2016, then-Assembly representative Phil Goldfeder secured state dollars for a study examination reactivation of the RBBL. The report was to be due by mid-2017, but the MTA failed to hit that deadline. Eventually, Systra delivered the report in September of 2018, but it languished out of view until Jose Martinez of The City came knocking in early October. Late last month, the MTA finally unveiled the full report in all its glory.

The Long Island Rail Road alignment would return commuter rail trains to the Rockaway Beach Branch.

The report itself is extensive and broken into two phases. The first part [pdf]explores, in great detail, the 3.5 miles of unused right-of-way between Rego Park and Ozone Park where the line then meets up with today’s A train out to Howard Beach and beyond. Systra assessed reactivation via a spur off the LIRR’s Main Line and a New York City Transit spur from the Queens Boulevard line. I’m more intrigued by the subway option that the LIRR routing, but allow me to summarize both.

In each case, the underlying assumption appears to be that most of the current elevated structure — the old Rockaway Beach Branch viaduct — would have to be replaced entirely due to deterioration and modern safety standards, thus driving up costs. The LIRR routing is the cheaper choice but with lower ridership. Sending the Main Line down the Rockaway Beach Branch is projected to cost $6.7 billion and would include new stations at Rego Park, Parkside, Woodhaven, Ozone Park, Aqueduct and Howard Beach. Systra modeled frequencies of 15, 20 and 30 minutes and determined that around 10,800-11,200 riders per day would use the LIRR option with travel times from Howard Beach to Penn Station maxing out at around 25 minutes.

The proposed subway alignment would send a mix of M and R trains to Howard Beach.

The New York City Transit option would include a spur off of the Queens Boulevard Line, approximately 4000 feet of tunneling and new stations at Parkside, Brooklyn Manor, Woodhaven and Ozone Park. As subway junkies know, the current Rego Park station along the Queens Boulevard line has tunnel provisions in place pointed toward the Rockaway Beach Branch right of way, and the report anticipates a mix of M and R trains serving the RBBL with 10-minute headways. Travel times from Howard Beach to Herald Square are estimated at around 45 minutes, and the RBBL could account for 47,000 subway riders per day. This project comes in at a cost of $8.102 billion. Needless to say, both of this plans carry prohibitively expensive price tags, but at least the subway option has a significantly lower cost-per-passenger than the LIRR plan.

The second part of the study examined using the RBBL to serve as a true one-seat ride from Manhattan right to the terminals at JFK Airport. You can browse this part of the report right here, but I must warn you that the costs make it an exercise in futility. To add on a one-seat JFK extension to the LIRR plan above would cost an additional $12 billion for a total of nearly $20 billion. Travel times range from 23 minutes to and from Manhattan with a stop only at Woodside to 30 minutes to and from Manhattan with local stops in between. Ridership estimates range from around 8000 per day to 15,000, and while the report is an intriguing read with alignment renderings fun to contemplate, the combination of the high price tag and lower ridership make this long-desired one-seat ride an academic exercise in futility rather than a viable plan.

The MTA assessed two options for a one-seat LIRR ride to JFK. The northern alignment (not shown here) would follow the Belt north of Howard Beach before merging with the AirTrain ROW.

Beyond the dollars and the ridership totals, it’s worth paging through the reports, not least to see how the plans are laid out, where stations are sited, and how the modeling anticipates ridership growth. The subway proposal has some challenges. Off the bat, Systra raises concerns that tunneling close to Queens buildings that abut the right of way could damage foundations, and the report calls for proper mitigation. Plus, as we know, certain non-park uses of the right of way will have to be reclaimed. And for what it’s worth, the report allows for joint park and rail usage including via a trail under the viaduct between 97th and Liberty Avenues, parallel to the tracks south of Fleet Street or via an elevated walkway through Forest Park. But none of it is impossible if only the costs were right.

And therein lies the rub. The costs are not right. Each option — the two JFK one-seat alignments north or south of the current Howard Beach A train stop, the LIRR reactivation and the subway extension — are budgeted with excessive cost padding. The subway proposal, for instance, features nearly $2.5 billion in soft costs, $1.2 billion in contingencies, and escalation factors totaling $2.7 billion. The raw construction is estimated to cost only $1.6 billion in 2016 dollars if the tunneling from the Queens Boulevard Line is cut-and-cover. QueensRail advocates who have been pushing the project believe the price tag is unnecessarily inflated and design-build could carve off billions from the soft costs. Still, once the dollars are out there, it’s hard to overcome the political problems these inflated figures create.

Ultimately, then, it’s easy to see this entire report as an exercise in futility and the one the MTA is keen to leave behind. The costs are far in excess of any money the MTA should be spending here, and reaction from all quarters reflects that concern and a healthy skepticism toward the accuracy of the MTA’s cost estimates. In an extensive piece for Crains New York exploring the current state of the rails-vs.-trails debate, Matthew Flamm spoke with former MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu. “It’s extremely high,” Horodniceanu said of the cost estimates. “Even though you have a tunnel, the estimate is way out of line.”

Horodniceanu told Flamm he felt construction should come with a price tag “at most” half of what the report predicted, and if the MTA has lost Michael Horodniceanu on cost projections, then they’ve really lost the thread.

I asked Stephen Smith of @MarketUrbanism for his view of the costs as well. Smith, a constant critic of the MTA’s profligate spending, said, “While $8 billion does seem high, even for the MTA in 2019, I think we all should have learned by now to never underestimate the MTA’s ability to spend money. Given the densities along the line, this route is going to be marginal in the best of cases with regards to cost, and we are nowhere near the best of cases, to say nothing of the fact that there’s no evidence that design-build will bring costs down to that. There is so much more lower-hanging fruit in Queens transit, whether it’s bringing the LIRR up to rapid transit standards, running the buses and subway more efficiently, or bringing down construction costs. This project isn’t going anywhere.”

The proposed layout for a Parkside subway station near Metropolitan Ave. may be all we’ll see of the RBBL reactivation plan.

I believe Smith is right. With Goldfeder out of office and his successor Stacey Pheffer Amato losing interest in the project, there is no natural champion even as the need for better rail connections through Queens and into the Rockaways are clearly needed to improve mobility in New York City. To make matters worse, City Council rep Karen Koslowitz, who thinks none of the intermediate stops carefully laid out in the report actually exist, has refused to support rail. “She has always been and will continue to be unalterably opposed to the reactivation of the Rockaway Beach branch,” a spokesman said to Crains New York York. “The neighborhood’s not going to get the benefit of converting it to a public transportation line, but the foundations are going to crack, and homes are going to shake.”

Even if the report details mitigation efforts the MTA could take, at great care and cost, to ensure foundations don’t crack and buildings don’t shake, this is a project without a champion and with a cost far in excess of reason. It’s a lesson in maintaining rail service over rights-of-way and not letting them grow fallow. And it’s a lesson in torpedoing a project an agency doesn’t want to do by inflating the price. New Yorkers will continue to dream and agitate for reactivation of the Rockaway Beach Branch, but until the dollars make sense and political support materializes, the case may sadly be closed.

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