As the MTA and TWU officials continue the battle over last week’s arbitration decision, the Daily News reports that the transit agency may appeal the ruling. According to Pete Donohue, “a state judge can throw out a contract after concluding arbitrators didn’t properly apply the criteria mandated by the legislation, including an employer’s ability to pay wages and benefits.” The MTA will, of course, argue that it cannot afford the raises over the next three years. While the News article quickly devolves into mud-slinging by unnamed union and MTA officials, it seems clear that this saga is far from over.
1 train service impacted by debris at 181 St.
The MTA is scrambling to restore 1 train service in northern Manhattan following a ceiling collapse at the W. 181st St. station.
According to reports, a 20- to 30-foot section of the ceiling as well as part of an old arch fell onto the tracks at around 11 p.m. last night. While no one was hurt, the debris damaged the third rail, and 1 train service has been impacted since then.
As of now, there is no 1 train service between 168th St. and Dyckman St. Trains are running in two sections between South Ferry and 168th St. and between Dyckman St. and 242nd St. in the Bronx. Shuttle buses are providing service between 168th and Dyckman Sts.
Right now, the MTA has no timetable for a complete restoration of service, but crews are working to repair the damage. I’ll publish an update when I have one, and in the meantime, keep your eye on the MTA’s service alerts page.
Calling for an MTA technology czar
Metro New York rehashed the recent MTA technological failures. (Click to enlarge)
Let’s jump again into Mayor Bloomberg’s ubiquitous plan to reform the MTA. While the constant radio and TV spots scream of the pandering I wrote about last week, one aspect of Bloomberg’s plan deserves a closer look.
Mayor Bloomberg would like the MTA to hire a chief technology officer. According to Bloomberg, this CTO would restore a position the MTA once filled in the 1990s and would be, in the words of our mayor, “responsible for overseeing and upgrading technology for the entire system.” He presents more in the PDF detailing his plan:
Establish a Chief Technology Officer – Much of the MTA’s subway infrastructure was built 75 years ago and upgrading the technology, even under the best of circumstances, is an enormous task. Unfortunately, the MTA lacks a single office that is exclusively dedicated to this task. As a result, the Authority constantly lags in adopting technologies that have been in other systems for years; those technology upgrades and improvements it does attempt to make are consistently scuttled by poor planning, cost overruns, bidding problems, and other failures. The MTA should create an Information Technology department and appoint a Chief Technology Officer responsible for overseeing and upgrading the technology for the entire system. The CTO should be responsible for developing and implementing a technology plan.
Of course, this is a proposal that makes perfect sense, and it’s one that’s a little less populist than the Mayor’s call to make crosstown buses free. The MTA, as Metro New York detailed, has a terrible track record with its recent technology upgrades and innovations. The free daily wrote:
With the exception of MetroCard, the MTA has routinely floundered on high-tech. Contracts to put GPS on buses and an anti-terror surveillance system in the subway are now the subject of lawsuits.
“This agency has real trouble dealing with computer software,” said rider advocate Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign. “They’ve spent years trying to get GPS on buses. Avis has it in cars, so why wouldn’t they be able to do it in buses?” he asked.
According to Metro, the MTA eliminated the unifying CTO position a few years ago. Now, each division handles its own technology, and the results are obvious. From a website stuck in the late 1990s that pales in comparison to Transport for London’s or Washington’s WMATA’s to stalled train- and bus-arrival boards, technology-based projects are years overdue and plagued with problems that just shouldn’t exist.
Once the State Senate finally gets around to confirming Walder, the real work begins. The new MTA head will have to find the right person for the job, and that person will have to be willing to cut through the bureaucratic red tape of an authority whose division are not used to working with each other.
While I was away, NYConvergence suggested Walder himself for the job, but Walder can’t be both the MTA CEO and the MTA CTO. Walder, however, knows the need for a streamlined technology-focused office. I’m with the mayor on this one, and I hope Walder will be too. It’s time for a better and more robust focus on technology from the MTA.
An explanation behind the weekend service changes
Every week since the beginning of 2007, I have diligently posted the MTA’s numerous weekend service advisories as a public service for my readers. For many, the service changes are obscure and pointless. A track chip-out? No express service down the West Side IRT?
While I was away, amNew York ran a bit on the constant weekend service changes. Let’s take a look:
Even NYC Transit agrees: Weekend subway service is painfully slow. And it might not get better for decades
Less than half of subways are on time on weekends, according to the most recent figures released by transit Monday. The lettered lines were the most delayed, with 59 percent of trains off from the regular schedules, transit statistics from May show…
The MTA’s ambitious maintenance work schedule, which includes dozens of projects to improve the system, is to blame for the ongoing weekend headaches, officials said. In May, transit delayed weekend service 31,000 times for maintenance. Sick customers, in comparison, only caused 94 weekend delays…
This summer, the MTA has also reduced the frequency of service on the lettered lines by 25 percent, with trains now scheduled to arrive every 10 minutes on weekends. It made the same switch on the numbered lines last year to align service with what it could provide given all the maintenance, officials said…Workers are also ripping up track for longer hours. Recently, it scheduled two major maintenance crews to work 12-hour shifts. The push will help workers get jobs done more efficiently, transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges said.
But officials admitted that the aging system will force them to mix up weekend service for decades to come. More than a third of the system’s signals are 50 years and older, which is well-beyond retirement age, according to transit’s head of engineering. The only option to working on weekends would be to shut down the subways for evening maintenance, which officials don’t plan on doing, NYC Transit President Howard Roberts told the MTA board.
It’s all about the state of good repair. While I too bemoan the weekend service changes, if that’s the price we have to be for a system that runs pretty well the rest of the time, so be it.
And with that in mind, this weekend’s changes:
From 1 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, August 15 and Sunday, August 16, uptown 2 and 3 trains run local from Chambers Street to 34th Street due to survey and preparatory work for an upcoming track project. – Got that? It’s a service change in preparation for future service changes.
From 12:01 a.m. to 6 a.m. Saturday, August 15 and from 12:01 a.m. to 8 a.m. Sunday, August 16, Brooklyn-bound 2 and 4 trains skip Bergen Street, Grand Army Plaza and Eastern Parkway due to switch work near Eastern Parkway.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, August 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, August 17, Manhattan-bound 6 trains run express from Hunts Point Avenue to 3rd Avenue due to platform edge rehabilitation at Cypress Avenue, East 143rd Street, East 149th Street and Longwood Avenue stations.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, August 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, August 17, Brooklyn-bound A trains run local from 168th Street to West 4th Street, then on the F line to Jay Street, then resumes local A service to Euclid Avenue due to the Chambers Street Signal Modernization Project.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, August 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, August 17, Manhattan-bound A trains run local from Euclid Avenue to 168th Street due to the Chambers Street Signal Modernization Project.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, August 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, August 17, there are no C trains running due to the Chambers Street Modernization Project. Customers should take the A instead.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, August 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, August 17, D trains run local between 34th Street and West 4th Street due to a track chip-out in the 53rd Street tunnel.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, August 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, August 17, E trains are rerouted on the F from Queens to Manhattan. There are no E trains between 34th Street and World Trade Center. Customers should take the A instead. Manhattan-bound E trains run on the F from Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue to 34th Street-6th Avenue. Queens-bound E trains run on the F from 34th Street-6th Avenue to 47th-50th Sts, then resume normal E service from 5th Avenue to Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer. These changes are due to a track chip-out in the 53rd Street tunnel and cable work along the Queens Boulevard line.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, August 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, August 17, the Manhattan-bound E platforms at Queens Plaza, 23rd Street-Ely Avenue, Lexington Avenue-53rd Street and 5th Avenue stations are closed due to a track chip-out in the 53rd Street tunnel. Customers should take the R, G or 6 at nearby stations. Note: Free shuttle buses are operating between the LIC Court Square G, the 23rd-Ely Avenue E and the 21st Street-Queensbridge F stations.
From 12:30 a.m. Saturday, August 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, August 17, Queens-bound E trains run express from Queens Plaza to Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue due to cable work along the Queens Boulevard line.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, August 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, August 17, Manhattan-bound F trains run on the A line from Jay Street to West 4th Street due to the Broadway-Lafayette to Bleecker Street Transfer construction.
From 12:30 a.m. Saturday, August 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, August 17, Manhattan-bound F trains run local from Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue to 21st Street-Queensbridge due to cable work along the Queens Boulevard line.
From midnight to 6:30 a.m. Saturday, August 15 and Sunday August 16, and from midnight to 5 a.m. Monday, August 17, Queens-bound G trains run express from Queens Plaza to Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue due to cable work along the Queens Boulevard line.
From 8:30 p.m. to midnight Friday, August 14 and from 6:30 a.m. to midnight Saturday, August 15 and Sunday, August 16, there are no G trains between Forest Hills-71st Street and Court Square. Customers who are Brooklyn-bound should take the R to Queens Plaza and transfer to the shuttle bus to Court Square. Queens-Bound customers should take the E instead. Note: Queens-bound E, G and R trains run express from Queens Plaza to Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue. These changes are due to the track chip-out in the 53rd Street tunnel and cable work along the Queens Boulevard line. – Yes, I realize this alert combined with the one above it doesn’t make sense. I have no idea what’s actually happening here.
From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, August 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, August 17, Manhattan-bound N trains run on the D line from Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue to 36th Street due to track panel installation.
From 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Saturday, August 15, uptown Q trains run local from Canal Street to 34th Street due to track cleaning.
From 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Sunday, August 16, uptown Q trains run local from 34th Street to 57th Street-7th Avenue due to track cleaning.
From 6:30 a.m. to midnight, Saturday, August 15 and Sunday, August 16, Queens-bound R trains run express from Queens Plaza to Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue due to cable work along the Queens Boulevard line.
Paterson set to veto public authority reform bill
Toward the end of July, I reported on a bill that would give Albany more oversight over public authorities. Specifically, a State Senate-created commission would review all MTA contracts at $1 million or more. Today, we learn that Gov. David Paterson, with some prodding by Mayor Bloomberg, is primed to veto the bill. As it applies to the MTA, Paterson feels that the $1 million cut-off for review is too onerous, and Bloomberg is of the belief that the independent commission would step on the toes of the city’s oversight procedures. I’m sure Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, this bill’s main sponsor, will continue his push for authority reform one way or another.
Student discount fight continues with express bus move
Earlier today, a Pete Donohue article in the Daily News probably raised a few eyebrows. Donohue notes that the MTA is eliminating student discounts on some express bus routes.
Hundreds of city students from the outer boroughs will have to choose between paying more to commute to school in Manhattan this fall or using a longer route. As part of this summer’s fare hikes, the MTA quietly cancelled the discount on the express buses that gave students half off…The student fare will rise to $5.50 per trip from $2.50.
“It’s pretty upsetting,” said Daniel Masterson, 15, who gets in a morning nap on his hour and 15-minute commute from City Island in the Bronx to Beacon High School in Manhattan. “To me it’s going be a really big inconvenience.”
For the more than 800 kids who took advantage of the express bus discount on the average school day from September to May, the increased fare will add up. Jeffrey Levine, 48, a social worker whose two daughters will commute this fall from Throgs Neck to the Saint Vincent Ferrer school, will endure a $120 weekly increase. “It’s going to be hard on my family affording full fare,” Levine said.
You get the point. According to MTA officials, this hike will impact just 36 percent of Outer Borough express bus routes and is designed to align fares on express buses across the city. “This was an anomaly, and it’s being brought into consistency,” MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin said to Donohue.
Politicians, meanwhile, are going through the motions. “We have many students in the outer boroughs who do not live near trains, and they depend on express buses to go to school,” Councilman James Vacca from the Bronx said. “They’re not a luxury they’ve become a necessity. … There is still time for the MTA to reconsider.”
But it’s not that simple. While this is just conjecture on my part, this move by the MTA is part of a long-term battle the agency has fought against the city for adequate student compensation. As I reported back in August 2007, the city does not pay enough for Student MetroCards. According to a two-year-old comptroller’s report, the MTA was routinely providing over $70 million a year in free commutes for students because the city doesn’t pony up the money.
Considering the state of its economy, the MTA should be bringing all express bus fares in line across the service area. If the city wants its students to enjoy subsidized commutes, then the city should pay for those commutes. Facing a financial crunch, the MTA should not be expected to offer free rides to students just because.
SAS future hazy in proposed capital program
When the MTA released its proposed 2010-2014 capital program earlier this week, my first run through the massive PDF focused on the Second Ave. Subway. As construction on the much-needed and much-delayed subway line continues apace on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, I was curious to see how the MTA was budgeting and planning for the next five years of construction.
The answer, to me, is disheartening. The upcoming capital campaign focuses solely on the ongoing work needed to wrap up Phase I of this ambition subway line. Phase II is mentioned only as a glimpse of future possibility, and even the Twenty Year Capital Needs Assessment (PDF here) makes a half-hearted case for the full line. New York might get its Second Ave. Subway, but it might just be a shadow of what it should be.
To recap, the current construction focuses around a northern extension of the current Q line. When Phase I is completed in, according to the proposed capital plan, December 2016, it will involve three new subway stops and a two reconfigured old ones. Currently, the Q terminates at 57th St. and Broadway. In seven years or so, the Q will held north under Central Park to the current F stop at 63rd St. and Lexington. While the F continues to Roosevelt Island, the Q will head east and north to Second Ave. where it will stop at 72nd St., 86th St. and 96th St.
While not the full subway line we want, Phase I of the Second Ave. Subway is better than nothing. It will immediately alleviate the overcrowding that currently plagues the Lexington Ave. subway lines, and according to the capital program, “by 2030, SAS Phase I is projected to carry 191,000 riders.”
And that right there is the problem. The MTA’s document does not say that, by 2030, the SAS will carry 191,000. It mentions Phase I and only Phase I. In the preceding paragraphs, the capital program touches briefly upon the full Second Ave. Subway. Once targeted for a 2020 completion date, the full-length Second Ave. Subway remains an idea on paper with no set end-date in mind. In fact, even transfers once proposed for 55th, 42nd, 14th and Houston Sts. remain under evaluation.
With this 2010-2014 capital program, the MTA will hopefully secure the balance of funds for the Second Ave. Subway. To complete just Phase I of the eight-decade project, the MTA is asking for $1.4 billion. The total cost, then, of this 40-block subway extension will come to at least $4.451 billion.
Meanwhile, the Twenty Year Capital Needs Assessment is nearly silent on the future of the Second Ave. Subway. It mentions the subway line on just two of 97 pages, and that section mostly focuses on Phase I. As to the other phases, this document says, “Phases II – IV will generate similar benefits and must be advanced in future.”
Ah, the future. Someone somewhere in the future is riding a Second Ave. Subway up and down Manhattan. For now, though, we’ll just have to wait. Maybe Phase II will pop up in the 2015-2019 capital plan. It will be just another “next time” for this subway line.
The TWU/MTA arbitration decision and dissent
Submitted without comment, for now, is the document that has unleashed a labor war on these pages. The MTA/TWU arbitration decision has been a topic of discussion for much of the last two days, and below is a Scribd copy of the document. You can find the PDF of it right here on the Public Employment Relations Board website.
The opinion contains two parts: the majority order and a dissent by Dall W. Forsythe, the MTA’s selection to serve on the three-member arbitration panel. Check it out.
Wrong and right views of subway service
Earlier this week, lost amidst the brouhaha over the MTA’s capital plan and the TWU arbitration victory, was an internal MTA study on the state of the subways. While the Straphangers Campaign offers up its own take on our transit system, the MTA conducts an annual survey of riders to get their opinions on the underground.
While people love to complain about the state of the MTA and the subway, according to amNew York’s Heather Haddon, the grades weren’t all that bad. On a scale of 10, New Yorkers ranked the subways a 6.4.
According to the report, the MTA is improving in some areas while declining in others. Stations seem safer and subways faster than they were ten years ago. Transit, however, is suffering in areas concerning crowding, buses in general and, of course, fares.
Haddon reports that 75 percent say they were “satisfied overall with subway system.” Twenty years ago, fewer than half expressed that level of satisfaction. The investment efforts are paying off.
Of concern, though, was one category: station smells. Ten years ago, straphangers rated the odor of the system at a mediocre 5.6. Today, the subways are stinkier with a 4.8 rating. This is of course the never-ending problem with operating a 24-hour system. Keeping the smell out is nigh impossible.
While these ratings are generally in line with my views of the subway system, some of the rider opinions expressed in Haddon’s article are patently absurd. One rider — Shawn Kelloway of Brooklyn — had this stupid comment: “Give me a break man. It’s a rip-off.”
The subways are far from a rip-off. With average fares lower than they were 15 years ago and fare-discount options widely available, I think the subways are a good deal. How else can you get from Inwood to Rockaway for less than the cost of a slice of pizza?
Union blames MTA for potential fare increases
As July came to a close two weeks ago, the MTA released a bit of good budgetary news. According to their early projections, the agency would require no fare hikes to keep their books in order for 2010. Considering the back-to-back fare increases over the last two years, this announcement was a good one indeed.
As this week has unfolded with news of an arbitrator-awarded pay increase for New York City Transit’s TWU workers, the MTA has backtracked on that promise. As Newsday reports today, this increase — four percent in both 2010 and 2011 and three percent in 2012 — may may require future fare hikes as the MTA looks to cover an unexpected gap of $350-$400 million.
For most New York straphangers — myself included — the initial reaction was one of outrage. How could the arbitrator, in bad economic times, be so blind to the MTA’s fiscal reality? How could the TWU be so callous in its hunt for higher wages? We pointed fingers firmly at organized labor.
But after a series of conversations I’ve had with union officials over the last 24 hours, I have to reassess my position. In this case, I have come to believe that the TWU is not to blame for any future fare hikes the MTA may have to enact in 2010 to cover these unexpected labor expenditures. Rather, poor planning, even in the face of an impending increase, has yet again put the MTA in a hole.
According to union spokesmen and leaders, this whole arbitration process went something like this: Last year, after the economic downtown, the city of New York guaranteed raises of four percent to many unions, including teachers, sanitation and corrections workers. As the MTA and the TWU headed toward arbitration and as the process continued, TWU officials and their MTA counterparts seemed to recognized that a four-percent wage increase for 2010 would not be out of the ordinary.
Now, generally, faced with this reality, an agency would budget in enough money to cover any potential increase. Therefore, when the MTA released its preliminary 2010 budget two weeks ago, it should have factored in wage increases of four percent for its workers. Instead — and inexplicably — the MTA assumed it would have to dole out increases of just over 1.5 percent to its workers. According to TWU officials privy to the arbitration process, when the end of July rolled out, it was clear that the MTA would most likely be on the hook for that four percent increase next year.
So where does this leave us? As the finger-pointing continues on into the week, it appears as though any potential fare increase in 2010 due to rising labor costs would come about because the MTA did not adequately prepare its budget. Maybe this happened because MTA officials were overly confident of the arbitration outcomes. After all, that attitude has seemingly killed one-person train operations for now. Maybe the MTA was truly blind-sided by the arbitration result. Either way, I no longer feel it is fair to blame the TWU for this turn of events. This one may very well be on the MTA — and our wallets.