Second Avenue Sagas, A New York City Subway Blog :: Second Ave. Sagas

Jan

Weekend service a-OK on J, L, M

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (25) ·

We end a week marked by service cuts with numerous weekend service changes. In fact, only three lines this weekend are operating without changes. Unless you’re relying on only the J, L or M trains — and one of those doesn’t go too far on the weekends — plan extra travel time.

In more long-term weekend service change news, starting next weekend until nearly the Mets’ Opening Day, 7 trains will not operate between Grand Central and Queensboro Plaza. Shuttle bus service and increased N train service will supplant the 7 for the next few months worth of weekends.

For Queens-bound riders, winter service changes on the 7 are nothing new. Transit has a small window in which to work on the 7 because the spring and summer months are dominated by baseball, tennis and other Flushing Meadows events. And so as Transit upgrades the signaling system along the IRT Flushing Line, weekend travel becomes painful.

As always, these changes come to me from New York City Transit and are subject to change without notice. Remember to pay attention to signs in your local station and listen to on-board announcements for the latest. The weekend map is available at Subway Weekender. As for the specific changes, click through. Read More→

Categories : Service Advisories

Comments (25)

Jan

MTA unveils more efficient slate of service cuts

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (65) ·

A month ago, the MTA had a legal obligation to pass a balanced budget, and in the face of a budget gap that may reach nearly $400 million, the agency simply passed a series of cuts that resembled those put forward in late 2008. Following that vote, MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder directed those at the MTA to reassess the service cuts and set for the necessary savings in such a way that will have as little impact on the MTA’s customers as popular.

This afternoon, the agency unveiled those cuts, and barring an economic miracle, they will go into effect in late June. Although the cuts are still reductions in transit offerings and straphangers will see slightly less frequent service and slightly more crowded trains, the latest iteration are designed to minimize the pain and provide more efficient service. Many overnight bus routes have been spared the chopping block, and others have been restructured to ensure that no one is more than a quarter of a mile away from transit in high-density neighborhoods and half a mile away in lower density neighborhoods. As service cuts go, things could have been far, far worse.

As part of the announcement about the new cuts, the MTA has updated its website with some very complete information packets, all of which are available right here. The booklets feature extensive data about bus ridership levels and the cost to the MTA per bus route. “While the cuts in funding to the MTA require painful actions, we have worked hard to limit the impact on customers,” Walder said. “We are now making an unprecedented level of information available to the public so our customers understand exactly how these proposals were developed and the impacts they will have well in advance of the public hearings.”

I’ll be delving into the bus cuts over the weekend. They’re rather extensive, and the MTA should be applauded for the rigorous examination and overhaul to which they subjected their original plans. Numerous bus routes, particularly in Brownstone Brooklyn, have been restructured to provide continuous service, and although some routes were eliminated entirely, those featured some of the lowest ridership figures in the city.

Furthermore, the MTA showed a willingness to respond to complaints raised at last year’s public hearings. Last year, vocal groups of bus supporters showed up, and the new plans reflect those demands. The M8 and M10, both scheduled for elimination last year, have been partially restored. The M10 will no longer run south of 59th St., and the M8 will operate on weekdays only. The crosstown buses through Central Park, the subject of a piece in The Times a few weeks ago, won’t be cut either.

So how then are the changes configured on the subway side of the equation? To find out, you’ll have to click through the jump. Read More→

Categories : Service Cuts

Comments (65)

Ahead of announcements on new cuts, hearing dates set · Later this afternoon, the MTA will unveil its reconfigured slate of service cuts. We’ve been waiting on these cuts for a while, and as news has trickled in, we know, for example, that express buses will be axed and that the V will run along the M line via the Chrystie St. Cut. I’ll have a full report later, but Michael Grynbaum previews the new plan. Generally, the overnight bus routes through Central Park will be spared and so will the Z train. The W will be eliminated, and off-peak trains will run less frequently.

Meanwhile, as the MTA begins the politically wrangling over its funding, the authority has set dates for hearings on the service cuts, Heather Haddon reported late last night. Unfortunately, the agency is planning on holding two hearings a day so not all officials can attend each session. On March 1, Westchester and Long Island will host their hearings. On March 2, the show moves to Queens and Staten Island. The Bronx and Brooklyn will get the full MTA treatment on March 3, and the traveling circus closes up show on March 4 in Manhattan and Rockland County. · (5)

Jan

When the signs don’t say what to do

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (11) ·

Following these signs will get a subway rider nowhere. (Photo by flickr user Hello Turkey Toe)

New York City Transit has a sign problem. Every week, countless signs proclaiming various service changes are plastered throughout the system, and they have begun to multiple to such an extent that no one reads them. Worse still are the ones people read but can’t understand. No wonder few can track what’s really happening over the weekend.

Now, generally, the plethora of signs lead to many headaches but few real problems. Maybe we don’t really know which train is going to take us to our destination on Saturday, but with some patience, we’ll get there nonetheless. The problem pops up, though, when the signs simply do not tell us what to do.

Earlier this week, I examined just that problem. Every subway car has an emergency brake, and yet, Transit’s message has been one of caution. In case of emergency, don’t pull the emergency brake. In that piece, I discussed a sign each car has up with instructions about emergencies. The sign — click the image to enlarge — hangs beneath the brake and supposedly tells straphangers what to do in an emergency.

This sign is highly problematic. It purports to be “Emergency Instructions,” but then has some rather odd directives. If there is a fire, do not pull the emergency brake. If there is a medial emergency, do not pull the emergency brake. If the police are needed, do not pull the emergency brake. Three do-not’s and no do’s. Anyone reading this sign could be forgiven for not having a clue what to do. When exactly should someone in trouble pull the emergency brake?

The message from Transit is to pull the brake only when someone is in danger of getting injured by a moving train. If a rider is stuck in the doors as the train begins to pull away or if some passengers spot someone on the track in danger of getting struck by the train, it is perfectly reasonable to pull that emergency break. You wouldn’t know it from the sign.

On an institutional level, the lack of emergency brake preparedness gets to another problem MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder identified in his 100 Days report on the state of the authority. The MTA has an information problem. As the booklet he produced says, “Information on planned service changes can be overwhelming and extremely difficult to understand.” The same holds true for these emergency instructions.

For the MTA, better communication with customers is vital toward gaining more acceptance as a player in the New York political scene. People do not trust what they cannot understand, and that effort at explanation can start with something as simple as emergency brake instructions or as complicated as a convoluted service change poster. Iin the aftermath of this fall’s D Train murder in which the emergency brake was pulled and riders in one car were trapped with a killer, Transit is currently looking into ways to better present its emergency brake rules. After all, in the event of some emergencies, pull the brake. Good luck for now figuring out which ones.

Categories : MTA Absurdity

Comments (11)

Jan

When a security bollard goes too far

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (22) ·

Outside the new Atlantic Ave. LIRR terminal building in Brooklyn, security bollards double as benches but leave little room for anything else. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

When the new terminal building at Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, critics and columnists praised the light and airy nature of the building. Featuring a seemless integration of art and architecture, the new terminal building is representative of the MTA’s current approach toward offering its customers a convenient and mostly state-of-the-art facilities when it opens new structures. Outside, though, the security bollards tell a different story, one of overreaction and blocked sidewalks to a public structure that needs to be able to handle heavy pedestrian flow.

When the new building first opened, attention was focused on the inside, but the security bollards, shown above, drew some warranted criticisms. Gersh Kuntzman in The Brooklyn Paper was particular critical of their appearance and size. He noted the bunker-like mentality of the security measures and called the giant bollards “14 mammoth concrete coffins that give the beautiful new facility the look of an outpost in the Green Zone.”

I ventured to the new terminal last week to snap some pictures and saw first hand the problem of the bollards. These things are massive. They take up the entire sidewalk and ring from one entrance to another. With little space between them, people are finding it hard to navigate, and anyone with bags or strollers will be out of luck. When trains let out and commuters come pouring out of the building to head to Fort Greene, pedestrian congestion too becomes an issue. As a security measure, these bollards are woefully in everone’s faces and serve as a stark reminder of the threat of terrorism.

This afternoon, Streetsblog took a tape measure to the bollards and found them to go well beyond the NYPD recommendations for security measures. While police handbooks recommend four feet of space in between bollards and a height no greater than 36 inches, these granite slabs are over 50 inches high and have less than 3.5 feet of space between them. As some serve as benches too — a last-gasp attempt to make them functional — their widths are tremendous as well.

So far, no one has laid claim to the design. The Empire State Development Corporation is notoriously tight-lipped with its plans, and the architects, the MTA and NYPD haven’t yet responded to Streetsblog’s request for clarification. The bollards were not, however, in the original design for the building.

The specter of terrorism and counterterrorist measures make for uncomfortable subjects. New York City’s subways are notoriously porous, and New Yorkers try not to dwell on the ways our city has become a target for America’s enemies. Still, these bollards do nothing to make a new train terminal accessible or user-friendly. They exacerbate fears about our safety while blocking the city’s sidewalks and its transit access points. There are tasteful ways to guard against terrorism, and then there are these granite blocks, seemingly dropped from a quarry onto Flatbush Ave. with no regard for purpose or appearance.

Categories : Subway Security

Comments (22)

In DC, more fresh coats of paint in less time · A few weeks ago, a regular SAS reader sent me a link to an article on Progressive Railroading about the WMATA’s plans to spruce up their stations. Over the next 18 months, DC-based authority will restore 42 Metro stations. The work includes “cleaning masonry surfaces, painting interior and exterior surfaces, repairing interior masonry, installing or repairing signs, and refinishing platform shelter benches” and is part of the four-year maintenance-and-restoration the WMATA has implemented for its stations.

In New York, station repair and beautification efforts move at a rather slower pace. The MTA is currently amidst a 39-year program in which just 12 stations a year get a fresh coat of paint. By the time this program wraps up in 2047, most stations will be decades overdue for a new coat of paint. Of course, this program is probably going to be discarded in favor of the new component-based maintenance efforts the authority has proposed, but the two projects’ estimated durations are alarming.

On the one hand, the WMATA enjoys the benefit of five hours a day when their stations are not open. Trains do not run, passengers aren’t in the way. Furthermore, in 2008, the MTA said that its painting efforts were delayed by the need to remove old lead-based paint. Still, public acceptance of the MTA would be higher if our stations weren’t so dingy and in need of beautification. If DC can tackle 42 stations in a year a half, the MTA should be able to paint more than 2.5 percent of its stations per year. · (19)

Jan

Seven years after its death, the token lives on

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (16) ·

In April 2003, the MTA ended a 50-year era. For five decades, New Yorkers had to load up their wallets and pockets with tokens if they planned to spend a day out on the town, but on a mid-April day seven years ago, the agency ceded ground to the MetroCard and ceased token sales. It was a death nearly a decade in the making and seemed to represent the death knell for something straphangers had come to love and hate.

There’s only one hitch in this plan to phase out tokens: They won’t go away. In amNew York yesterday, Heather Haddon focused on life after death for the token, and this once-ubiquitous piece of New York life is still kicking. From refunds to jewelry, tokens live on.

By way of framing the story, Haddon spoke with Ward Wallau, head of a California-based company that turns tokens into collectibles. She writes:

Last year, straphangers turned in 27,000 tokens to NYC Transit, up 13 percent from the year before. Those who redeem the predominantly brass discs receive what they were worth when decommissioned, from 20 cents to $4 for express bus tokens.

About 12 million tokens are still out there, with some straphangers known to hoard the coins in the event of a fare hike. Last year, the MTA got back more than 1,000 of the 20-cent token, which haven’t been used since 1970, according to agency figures. “It’s something everybody had to use. It was like the, ‘I belong to New York City badge,’” said coin expert George Cuhaj.

Wallau has tapped into the MTA’s mountain of old tokens, which are stored in a Queens warehouse. Since 1991, he has bought the tokens in bulk at a 40 percent discount to turn into jewelry, with the MTA pocketing about $35,000 a year from the deal, a spokesman said.

I’m struck by the first item in Haddon’s piece. At what point does the statute of limitations on tokens expire? I’m surprised to hear that those of us who hoarded tokens can still turn them in for cash. It’s not surprising that in a bad economy, New Yorkers are trying to milk every last dollar out of the pieces of history left in shoe boxes around the city.

I find Wallau’s jewelry great for subway aficionados. The cuff links with the 1970s-era NYC tokens evoke a particular nostalgia. But this token-oriented renaissance made me reflect back on the death of the token. In March 2003, when the MTA announced the end of token sales, Richard Pérez-Peña of The Times offered up an obituary. Dead at 50, said The Times, the end came via “technology and economics.”

As Pérez-Peña noted though, it was not a surprising death. “The death of the token has been a planned, gradual demise, conceived in the 1980’s and set in motion in 1994,” he wrote, “when the first electronic turnstile was installed and the first MetroCard sold.”

The end was nigh on January 7, 1994 when the MTA introduced fare cards to riders at select stations along the East Side IRT and BMT Broadway lines. By April, transit officials were wrangling over future discounts, and New Yorkers were slow to accept the MetroCard. Not until May 1997 were every bus and subway station equipped with the new electronic fare technologies, and the last station to receive its MetroCard readers was Myrtle Ave. in Bushwick. Even then, the new fare payment system was marred by unpopularity and confusion. The more things change…

In 2003, as token booths became a thing of the past, only eight percent of all subway riders were paid for via those familiar bronze coins. Today, the MetroCard may be on the way out. Jay Walder wants to make the technologically-obsolete MetroCard a thing of the past and bring fare payment systems that allow for quicker entry and cheaper collection to the system. And yet, somehow, the token lives on, a reminder of a bygone era and a fashion statement for subway-loving New Yorkers.

Categories : MetroCard

Comments (16)

Jan

A view of the map with sunglasses

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (3) ·

Have you seen the latest sunglasses in Ray-Ban’s Wayfarer line? The latest rare edition of Ray-Ban’s top-selling frame features an iconic image on the inside. We’ve seen dresses with the Vignelli map, and now sunglasses with our familiar schematic of the New York City subway system are available as well. Between the boxers for sale by the Transit Museum, the dress and these stylin’ glasses, a savvy New Yorker could don the subway map as an outfit.

The rare “NYC Subway” edition of these popular frames retail for just under $145, and they’re going fast. Bloomingdale’s has them for sale in blue, but most places are already sold out. Act quickly before they’re all gone. After the jump, another view. Read More→

Categories : Subway Maps

Comments (3)

Jan

In case of emergency, do not pull the emergency brake

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (12) ·

To pull the emergency brake in a new subway car today requires some thought and some action. While the picture at right shows the pullcord simply dangling at the end of a subway car, today’s emergency brakes are incased in a box so that people don’t accidentally latch onto them as the subway car lurches forward.

But that’s not the only notable part of the emergency brake, that oh-so-tempting way to stop a train car. Rather, as Michael Grynbaum noted yesterday, in case of emergency, subway riders are not supposed to pull the emergency brake. As Grynbaum notes, the cards — often ignored by most riders — that discuss the emergency brake include Rule No. 1: Do not pull the emergency brake. Reminiscent of Fight Club, this makes little sense.

Grynbaum continues:

So what emergency, exactly, does this emergency brake refer to? The explanation, transit officials say, is simple. If someone gets caught between the train’s closing doors, or between subway cars, and is about to be dragged to an unenviable fate, pull the cord. The train will stop, possibly saving a life.

But in case of fire, crime or a sick passenger — in fact, any other situation that could fairly be described as an emergency — the cord should be left alone. Stopping the train between stations will make it harder for help to arrive. The explanation is on the agency’s Web site, albeit accessible only after several clicks.

“We think that it is clear,” said Charles Seaton, a spokesman for New York City Transit.

The Times transit writer goes on to speak to a few straphangers who have no idea when to use the emergency brake, and he highlights last fall’s Murder on the D Train as a prime example. Sensing an emergency, riders in the car where the murder occurred pulled the brake. Some people say that action helped catch the suspected killer while others say it delayed police response to the scene of the crime and trapped innocent bystanders in a car with a killer. Either way, it made sense even if Transit officials urged riders to eschew pulling the cord.

In the end, the problem, as a psychologist explains, is one of messaging. The MTA expects its passengers to read signs that explain the emergency brake when most people just assume that an emergency brake should be used in case of any emergency. In reality, people should pull the brake only when someone is in danger of getting struck or injured by a moving train car, but that changes the concept of the emergency brake to one with which we the straphanging public are not familiar.

And so we’re left right back where we started: In case of most emergencies, please do not pull the emergency brake.

Above: Emergency Break photo courtesy of flickr user adotmanda.

Categories : MTA Absurdity

Comments (12)

Jan

For Walder, labor costs an 800-pound gorilla in the room

By Benjamin Kabak · Comments (41) ·

When MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder pledged last Friday to reform the way the MTA does business, he stressed the redundancies inherent in the way the transit organization is set up. There are, he said, 92 different public phone numbers and five call centers fielding complaints from the public. Over 5000 workers perform administrative tasks, and many of those jobs overlap. “There will,” he said, “be layoffs.”

Since his speech on Friday, Walder has received qualified phrase from those watching. The Daily News urged every government official to strike a similar tone, and transit activists were equally enthusiastic about Walder’s priorities. “The speech,” Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said, “was a candid assessment of the financial challenges the MTA faces and of the agency’s commitment to tackling them, such as lowering hundred of millions in administrative, inventory and overtime costs.”

At the time, Walder skirted around the issue of the MTA’s labor relations. “Our unions must be active partners,” he said but refrained from going into detail. After all, at a time when the MTA could least afford it, its largest union had just been awarded a three-year raise, and the agency’s decision to appeal the arbitration result had left many at the TWU bitter toward the authority.

Yet, some would prefer to see Walder, with proper political support, tackle the union and the MTA’s labor cost problem head on. Nicole Gelinas, who has made exploding pension costs her fight, is one of those people, and in yesterday’s Post, she offered up her take on the MTA’s cost problem:

Here are some specifics. The MTA spends $6.4 billion a year on current-worker wages and benefits. A unionized city transit worker earns nearly $94,000 a year, including more than $26,000 in benefits. The unionized commuter-rail worker earns even more — well above $120,000.

Nor is it just union jobs. The average white-collar worker at NYC Transit and Metro-North earns well above $120,000, too. And LIRR administrators beat them by a mile, topping $142,000 each. (Patronage, anyone?)
MTA labor relations aren’t white-collar vs. blue-collar — but everyone against the taxpayers.

The savings Walder laid out are worthy. But cutting, say, 10 percent from administrative personnel would yield just $90 million — a rounding error in the authority’s $12 billion budget. Saving 10 percent in union labor costs, on the other hand (including pensions over time), would yield a much heftier $546 million, because the union workforce is much bigger.

The MTA has long tried doing this in the cooperative “let’s work with our labor partners” way for years — and we’re still waiting for results. What riders need is for Walder to call for full support — from Paterson and the Legislature — for a full labor overhaul. Workers must pay more for health care, and future workers must pay more for pensions, saving hundreds of millions. (Instead, the new contract for subway and bus workers has them paying less toward retirement.)

Gelinas’ basic point is a sound one. From top to bottom, from management to track workers, from blue collar to white, the MTA’s compensation scales are crippling the organization. It’s bureaucratic flow chart makes no sense, and its willingness to give away perks have driven up labor costs in every sense. Cutting from MTAHQ will save some money, but the rising tide of pensions and health care costs will sink all ships.

So what is to be done? In this pro-labor city, it’s tough to tackle the unions. They enjoy public and political support, and workers’ rights shouldn’t be eroded as is. But as some point, the MTA will be unable to pay, and everyone — the riding public, the train workers, the desk jockeys — will lose.

Categories : MTA Economics, Transit Labor

Comments (41)

Page 5 of 191« First...«3 456 7 »...Last »

Weekend service a-OK on J, L, M

MTA unveils more efficient slate of service cuts

When the signs don’t say what to do

When a security bollard goes too far

Seven years after its death, the token lives on

A view of the map with sunglasses

In case of emergency, do not pull the emergency brake

For Walder, labor costs an 800-pound gorilla in the room

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