Second Ave. Sagas

Feb

MTA finishes something ahead of schedule, but delays abound this weekend

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (0) ·

All you frequent riders of the 7 train should breathe a sigh of relief. The MTA has finished some of the track work along the 7 line, and local service to Main St. in Flushing has been restored. Weekday express service won’t return until March.

Meanwhile, everyone else has a whole slew of weekend service advisories with which we must contend.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, February 2, to 5 a.m. Monday, February 4 (and weekends until March 24), 1 trains skip 28th, 23rd, and 18th Streets in both directions due to Port Authority work on the WTC site at Cortlandt Street.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, February 2, to 5 a.m. Monday, February 4, there are no 1 trains between 14th Street and South Ferry due to Part Authority work on the WTC site at Cortlandt Street. Customers may take the 2 or 3 between 14th Street and Chambers Streets. There is a free shuttle bus available between Chambers Street and South Ferry.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, February 2, to 5 a.m. Monday, February 4, 23 trains run locally between 96th Street and Chambers Street due to Port Authority work on the WTC site at Cortlandt Street, roadbed reconstruction at 59th Street and station rehab work at 96th Street.

From 10 p.m. Friday, February 1, to 5 p.m. Monday, February 4, the last stop for some Bronx-bound 4 trains is 149th Street due to track panel installation at Mosholu Parkway.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, February 2, to 5 a.m. Monday, February 4, there are no C trains running. Downtown A trains run locally from 168th Street to West 4th Street, then run on the F line between West 4th and Jay Street, then return to the AC line running locally from Jay Street to Euclid Avenue. Manhattan-bound A trains run locally from Euclid Avenue to 168th Street. These changes are due to Chambers Street signal modernization.

From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, February 2, and Sunday, February 3, Queens-bound E trains run on the V line from West 4th Street to 5th Avenue due to track cable work between 42nd Street and 5th Avenue stations.

From 11 p.m. Friday, February 1, to 5 a.m. Monday, February 4, Coney Island-bound F trains run skip 4th Avenue, 15th Street-Prospect Park and Ft. Hamilton Parkway due to roadbed replacement at 7th Avenue.

From 8:30 p.m. Friday, February 1, to 5 a.m. Monday, February 4 (and weekends until further notice), there are no G trains between Forest Hills-71st Avenue and Court Square.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, February 2, to 5 a.m. Monday. February 4, there are no L trains between 8th Avenue and Union Square due to track repairs. Customers should use the M14 bus instead. — For more on the L service advisories, check out this MTA press release. There are a few more minor changes to go along with this alert.

Categories : Service Advisories

Comments (0)

Sander to deliver MTA State of the Union address · In an effort to bring more transparency to the MTA, new CEO and Executive Director Lee Sander will deliver a State of the MTA address in March. During the speech, Sander will make a push to promote the MTA’s capital campaign plans and plea for more money. The MTA is also looking to spread its word through popular Web 2.0 platforms such as YouTube, podcasts and blogs, according to an internal memo. No word if the audience will applaud after every sentence. [New York Daily News] · (0)

Feb

MTA has hundreds of millions of reasons to support congestion pricing plan

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (20) ·

The new congestion pricing plan. It’s certainly a good start. (Streetsblog posted this graphic on Thursday.)

Economic relief is on the horizon for the MTA’s beleaguered capital construction plans. After a week of bad news concerning rising construction costs and project delays, state commission on Mayor Bloomberg’s controversial congestion pricing plan approved a version of the plan that could send as much as $491 million a year straight to the MTA.

William Neuman, writing on The Times’ Cityroom blog, has more:

A plan to thin Manhattan’s perpetual throngs of traffic by charging fees to drivers and increasing prices for on-street parking was approved by a 13-2 vote on Thursday afternoon by a state commission appointed to review different proposals. The plan to decrease traffic in much of Manhattan, first proposed in a slightly different form by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg last April, would charge drivers $8 to go below 60th Street from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The commission, the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, also recommended imposing a $1 surcharge for taxi trips starting or ending in the area and increased parking rates below 60th Street. The plan produced by the commission was generally the same as the mayor’s original plan with a few differences. The mayor wanted the pricing zone to begin at 86th street, instead of 60th, and the original plan had fees for trips within the zone as well as for cars entering the area.

The plan also calls for the money raised through fees — estimated at $491 million annually — to be dedicated to improvements in mass transit. The commission also recommended that the city make adjustments to ease the impact that expected increases in parking congestion that could occur as commuters abandon their cars at the fringes of the congestion area. Commissioners also recommended that state legislators consider making changes to tax laws to assist low-income drivers who could be disproportionately affected by congestion pricing.

For more of the details of the new plan, check out this post on Streetsblog or read through the PDF report available here.

Meanwhile, this is of course fantastic news for the MTA, and it couldn’t come at a better time. But before we break out the champagne — or the granite and porcelain — let’s remember that this plan has a long way to go before it becomes law. The plan must now head to the City Council for approval, and council members have been loathe to support something that so many of us want. Ominously, one of the two members on the panel to vote against the plan is a representatives from the city, and as Streetsblog has noted, council members seem to be willfully ignoring their constituents.

But all hope is not lost. Herman D. Farrell Jr., a Democrat from Manhattan, is not flat-out against the plan. “I expect to get more information before I can make an honest vote,” he said to Neuman.

For the plan, a few details need to fall into place. First, the money — projected at a hair under $500 million — must go to the MTA. The new report is adamant in this regard. “All net revenues generated by the congestion pricing fee and the taxi surcharge should be deposited into a dedicated MTA account similar to the agency’s dedicated real estate tax accounts. These funds should only be used for capital investments for system improvement, expansion, and state of good repair projects, excluding normal replacement,” it says.

Second, the city has to institute residential parking permit plans and higher on-street parking rates. If people who would otherwise get charged the congestion fee end up driving to the edge of the fee zone and parking on the streets, neighborhoods will be overrun with cars, and the city won’t be taking in money. Off the top of my head, I would recommend at least $4 an hour for on-street parking and a tough residential parking permit program. A cost that high would deter drivers.

I’m guardedly optimistic about this plan’s chances. Every politician in New York knows what the MTA could do win $491 million a year, and they all know the MTA needs that money. While this plan is a far cry from Ted Kheel’s fantastic plan, it’s a great start. Now, let’s just hope the City Council agrees. Maybe this bad week for the MTA has a silver lining after all.

Categories : Congestion Fee, MTA Economics

Comments (20)

The end of the MetroCard is somewhat near! · Near, of course, being a relative term in MTA speak. Anyway, as I mentioned in October, the MTA is looking to do away with the swipe-and-go MetroCard, a relic of the 20th Century. But instead of just adopting RFID smartcard technology as London and Washington, D.C., currently employ, the agency is, according to the New York Post, “seeking bids on ‘a study of existing and new technologies and [recommendations for] a new/fare toll payment system.’”

So the MTA is going to ask to study existing technologies before figure out the best one. Then the MTA will have to figure out how to overhaul the rather inflexible current system. At that rate, we should see new fare card technology some time before the polar ice caps melt. · (2)

MTA to delay and pare down, but not cancel, big-ticket projects · The MTA will delay but not cancel big capital construction projects in an effort to address nearly $1 billion in cost overruns, Marlene Naanes writes in amNew York. While disappointing, this development comes as no surprise after the news this week has focused on runaway inflation and over-budget MTA projects.

Despite these delays, however, MTA officials and transit advocates have stressed that the city will still enjoy the benefits; we just might have to wait a little while longer. And when it comes to the Second Ave. Subway, what’s one more year added to the 70 we’ve already been waiting? The MTA will decide in February just how they will delay or modify their capital construction plans to meet budget expectations. [amNew York] · (1)

Jan

Displaced Fulton Streeters are none too pleased

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (10) ·

At some point, a Fulton St. Transit Hub will live here. It might just be a hole in the ground with a ladder. (Photo by Newkirk Plaza David from Subchat)

As the news keeps coming in, this Fulton St. overhaul isn’t getting much favorable play. While the New York Post ~~graciously~~ obnoxiously noted how they knew the ornate hub was doomed from the start, the displaced Fulton St. business owners had their proverbial day in the sun earlier this week.

Writing for the Newsday-owned amNew York, Ryan Chatelain tracked down some of the people who were forced out of Fulton St. by the MTA. Not only are they annoyed, but they claim the MTA didn’t adequately compensate them for their troubles. When it rains, it pours.

Mirza Mamur closed his art gallery, endured 10 months of unemployment, took out loans to make ends meet and then struggled to re-establish his business at a new location.

He was one of more than 140 business owners displaced by plans for the Fulton Street transit hub in lower Manhattan. Now, after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced it was again scaling back the project – and scrapping its centerpiece, a 110-foot-tall, steel-and-glass-domed entranceway – Mamur is asking if he was needlessly pushed out.

“If this thing doesn’t happen, of course I want my place back,” said Mamur, who owns Glamour Art Gallery, now in midtown. “That’s the reason I gave my store.”

But Mamur’s complaint isn’t necessarily about the construction delay. Mamur claims the MTA paid him just $12,000 to relocate while his own appraiser assessed his property at $120,000. Mamur is not alone. Billy Baldwin, a cookie maker, recieved $60,000 on a place that cost him $300,000 to open.

While the MTA, according to Chatelain, is going to reach a settlement with folks who feel undersold, this will just send costs that much higher. Real estate costs were the first sign that the Fulton St. Hub wouldn’t fall within the right budget; an ornate design for Grand Central South followed.

As time drags on and costs rise, budget estimates from two or three years ago will seem even less adequate. What’s the MTA to do? They have a hole in the ground; now they just need a completed transportation hub.

Categories : Fulton Street

Comments (10)

Jan

Maybe granite and porcelain aren’t the best choices for a subway station floor

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (8) ·

It doesn’t make sense to lay the floor first. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

As more details emerge about the MTA’s construction budget crisis, I keep coming back to Scott’s comment about the MTA and crown jewels. How do you balance form, function and visual appeal?

Right now, the MTA is in trouble. As the Daily News noted yesterday, steel and concrete prices have “jumped 91% and 25% respectively” since the MTA budgeted for their projects. Considering how big a role steel plays in the subways, that jump has led to skyrocketing costs. But steel and concrete aren’t about making stations luxuriously opulent.

Rather, granite and porcelain make stations overly expensive, and now, the MTA is saying that granite and porcelain have to go. Pete Donohue has more:

Transit officials looking to save money may swap plans for fancy granite subway and train station floor tiles for a more economical – and drab – concrete. The potential savings are significant and the issue is generating strong opinions. “For me, this is a no-brainer,” said Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member Barry Feinstein, calling granite a “very expensive amenity.”

According to NYC Transit, the MTA’s largest division, it costs $1.7 million to install granite flooring in the standard subway station, compared with $421,000 for regular concrete. After considerable expenditures, it is also scrapping a third type of tiling material: porcelain, which has been used exclusively in underground stations for the past eight years. Since then, 22 stations have received porcelain tile floors, at a typical cost of $1.4 million per station.

Those porcelain surfaces have not held up well and are cracking and chipping, said NYC Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges.

Now, I’m with Feinstein. The only way to describe this option is as a no-brainer. But MTA board member Andrew Albert brought up another point. “A lot of people don’t believe a station renovation project is done unless the floor has tiles,” he said. “It doesn’t look finished.”

And here’s where I think the MTA is messing up their construction plans. Why does the porcelain and granite look so bad? Why does it chip so easily? Because construction crews are installing the decorative aspects of the new stations well before they should be.

Take a walk around the 59th St-Columbus Circle Station right now. It’s a mess. Construction walls are everywhere. Walls, ceilings, floors and staircases are all in various stages of completion. Dust floats through the station faster than pedestrian can maneuver. Yet, despite the mess, the new, fancy floors are already installed on the platforms, and they look terrible. They’re disgustingly dirty and slowly getting ruined. They’re also about six months old.

Now, I have to ask: Does this make any sense? Usually in a construction project, the fancy, delicate parts go last because heavy machinery and constant work will ruin them. That’s exactly how the work at Columbus Circle has turned out.

Clearly, the MTA needs to find a balance between building a functional transit system under budget and constructing something that looks nice. But the first place to start — besides in cutting down porcelain and granite use — should come in the planning stages. Put in the fancy stuff once it won’t get destroyed by ongoing construction.

Categories : MTA Absurdity, MTA Construction

Comments (8)

Sheldon, criticizing the MTA, ignores the easy solution · As the MTA and its capital projects are getting slammed with rising costs due to inflation, New York’s politicians are jumping on the Bash the MTA Bandwagon. First up, of course, is State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. On Wednesday, he issued a statement.

“The MTA’s plan to reduce the size of the Fulton Street Transit Center in Downtown Manhattan is outrageous and unacceptable. Those who live, work and visit Downtown have been misled for far too long with grand plans and unrealistic timetables for projects, and enough is enough,” Silver said. “What was promised to this community by the MTA must be funded and built.”

To Sheldon, I offer up my reply: Fork over the dough. The City and the State have long shirked their MTA fiscal responsibilities. With a looming budget crisis and important capital projects in limbo, now is the time for these bodies to step up. Fund the Fulton St. overruns. Fund the Second Ave. Subway. That’s a pretty easy solution. · (0)

Jan

Second Ave. Subway third track a victim of inflation

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (11) ·

When the MTA hinted earlier this week that budgetary problems and concerns about inflation were going to drastically alter the Fulton St. Transit Hub plans, I figured the Second Ave. Subway would not be spared the proverbial knife as well. When MTA CEO Lee Sander said that MTA Capital Construction was looking to trim $1 billion from a few projects, I knew some aspect of the Second Ave. subway would have to go. Luckily, the cuts won’t be too bad.

The cuts, you see, will eliminate a planned third track in the northern reaches of the planned tunnel, according to Pete Donohue of the Daily News. This third track, viewed as a luxury so that functional trains could bypass hypothetical stalled trains does not appear in the project’s Finale Environmental Impact Statement, and I have to believe that, due to the influx of federal funds, the Second Ave. Subway dodged a bullet.

According to the report, the number of stations in the subway line will thankfully stay the same, but this cut basically eliminates the possibility of any future express service along Second Ave. For a long time, subchatters and Second Ave. Subway proponents have debated the need for a third and fourth track under Second Ave. Why build a subway that’s only local, they argue?

I’ve long believed that the Second Ave. subway can and will succeed with just local stops. These stops are, after all, better spaced than the IRT stops from 100 years ago, and because the Second Ave. Subway will use longer trains than the IRT lines in Manhattan, exits from the stations can cover a wider range of blocks. For example, while the train will stop at 72nd St. and 86th St., thus bypassing the popular 79th St., passengers can exit from those stops at 74th St. and 83rd St., respectively. Walking those few blocks to the middle should be easy.

But New Yorkers long accustomed to false starts and sudden stops won’t see the project delayed. As Sander has stressed, the Second Ave. Subway will become a reality, and New Yorkers can thank the feds for that one. Because the Federal Transit Administration has promised funds for the project, the MTA will be able to construct Phase 1 of the Second Ave. Subway. It may not have those extra tracks; it may not be as opulently ornate as the MTA hopes. But it will provide much-needed relief for the East Side, and it will arrive this time.

Categories : Second Avenue Subway

Comments (11)

Jan

And now it’s gone: the Fulton St. Transit Hub dome

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (17) ·

You get the point.

Originallly, plans called for it to be 50 feet tall. Then, rising costs pushed the height down to 30 feet and then 20 feeet. Now, the glass dome that was supposed to sit atop the Fulton St. Transportation Hub is gone from the plans, the victim of inflation and rising construction costs, according to the MTA.

Not only will these rising costs result in a drastically altered Fulton St. plan, but they could impact the other big-ticket MTA Capital Construction projects current in various stages of completion. According to MTA CEO and Executive Director Lee Sander, the MTA will soon begin a review of their skyrocketing capital budget in an effort to cut $1 billion from their four big projects — the Fulton St. hub, the LIRR East Side Access plan, the 7 line extension, and, yes, the Second Ave. Subway.

William Neuman of The Times has more on what is sadly an unsurprising and familiar story for those of us waiting for the Second Ave. Subway:

Soaring construction costs could force the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to scrap plans for an architecturally ambitious glass-domed subway station in Lower Manhattan and lead to more than $1 billion in cost overruns for the authority’s major expansion projects, officials said Monday.

The rising costs could slow progress on the three so-called mega-projects needed to expand the capacity of the public transportation system, including a Long Island Rail Road link to Grand Central Terminal, a westward extension of the No. 7 subway line and the first leg of the Second Avenue subway.

The news represents another setback for the subway station project, known as the Fulton Street Transit Center, which was envisioned as a central element in the recovery of Lower Manhattan after the terror attack of Sept. 11, 2001.

“We’re just in the middle of a construction inflation crisis,” MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger said. “And from our point of view as an agency that spends an awful lot of money, this is not good news.”

While the future of the first phase of the Second Ave. Subway is ensured — the MTA, according to Sander, has the money from federal sources to finish the project — these budgetary problems may cause delays in all four major construction efforts, and the future of the Fulton St. hub’s outside appearance is very much in doubt. This fiscal crisis reached a head at the end of 2007 when the MTA put out a call for bids for the contract to build the ornate entrance to the hub including the dome. The contract, budgeted at $370 million, received one bid for $870 million. Back to the drawing board went the MTA.

Now, the authority plans to chop that contract into smaller pieces. They anticipate finishing the underground work at Fulton St. by the end of 2009, but the completion date for what once was touted as Grand Central South is anyone’s guess. “I’m sad to say that we cannot build the transit center as currently envisioned in this market with the budget that we have,” Sander said.

Yesterday, in the comments to my piece on the anticipated cuts to the Fulton St. dome, ScottE wondered if the MTA is overshooting on its plans. Does ever new project really have to be the crown jewel of the MTA, he wondered.

Scott raises a very valid question, but in this case, I don’t think the MTA was aiming for the stars only to miss. The Fulton St. Hub, when completed, will be one of the most trafficked stations in the subway system, and it was, as Elizabeth H. Berger, head of the Alliance for Downtown New York, told The Times, supposed to be “center of our future.” But with a recession on our hands and constantly rising construction costs, the MTA is nearly back at square one. Now they just have to figure out how to design a new symbol for downtown while staying at or near budget. That is no easy task for an agency long beset with fiscal problems.

Categories : Fulton Street, MTA Construction

Comments (17)

Page 412 of 462« First «...410 411412413 414...»Last »

MTA finishes something ahead of schedule, but delays abound this weekend

MTA has hundreds of millions of reasons to support congestion pricing plan

Displaced Fulton Streeters are none too pleased

Maybe granite and porcelain aren’t the best choices for a subway station floor

Second Ave. Subway third track a victim of inflation

And now it’s gone: the Fulton St. Transit Hub dome

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