Sprucing up decrepit stations could improve public perception of the MTA. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

Now that Joe Lhota has been confirmed as the new Chairman and CEO, he’s been unleashed on the media. I’ll have my chance to sit down with him next week, but so far, as he’s spoken with the various New York press outlets, Lhota’s immediate concerns are focused on around improving the image of the MTA. While some may call this a frivolous pursuit, it plays an important part in drumming up some level of public support for the beleaguered authority and the city’s transit system.

For Lhota, the public face of the system concerns its decrepit infrastructure. We see stations with tiles literally falling off the walls as I saw tonight at 7th Ave. along the Culver Line. We see broken staircases, blown light bulbs and paint peeling off of every surface. It’s dirty; it’s dingy; it isn’t a nice sight.

The new chairman sees the need to focus on cosmetics as an extension of the broken windows theory. “The thought was if a window is broken, someone is going to break another window or someone is going to break into the house,” he said. “Fix it. Fix it up front. When paint starts peeling, either peel it off or repaint it.”

Shoddy paint jobs are a particular concern of his. “It’s one of the things that bothers me, and I’d like to fix it as much as we can,” he said. Lhota has been riding the train to work, just like you and I do, for years, and he sees how riders relate to the system.

In addition to paint, Lhota wants to tackle the rat problem as well. During his confirmation hearings while pressed on the issue, Lhota expressed some disgust at the amount of food in the subway. He didn’t advocate for an outright ban on eating underground; that would have been too controversial. But he suggested that riders and their dirty habits are to blame for the influx of rodents. “If you’re going to eat down there,” he said, “take it with you,”

The TWU seems to agree. The MTA’s largest union is hosting a rodent contest to see which members can snap the best photos of the largest rats in the system. They’re using this as a backdrop to argue for more attention to working conditions underground. “Who the hell wants to work around hundreds of freaking rats?” Jim Gannon of TWU Local 100 said earlier this week.

Of course, if the TWU were willing to allow station agents to clean their stations, rats may find fewer morsels underground. That involves a discussion of work rules, and it’s one of the MTA is trying to have with the TWU as the two sides continue their contract negotiations.

Rats and paint are two issues that strike at the fundamentals of the environment. They have nothing to do with systemic failures from Albany concerning transit funding or the need to cut down on ever-climbing capital construction costs. Eliminating rats and sprucing up stations as the FastTrack program is trying to do are cosmetic improvements to the subways that go a long way.

Lhota seems to understand that if he leads an effort to make the subway environment a more friendly, welcoming and clean space, New Yorkers will not view the subways with such disdain. They may never come to love their commutes, with packed subway cars and pushy riders, but if the surroundings are clean, perhaps they won’t come to dread them either. With small environmental improvements, the MTA could see a big rise in public support, and when it comes to those big-ticket topics, more public support could help push politicians to do the right thing. All it might take is a fresh coat of paint.

A true New York City subway connoisseur is not one who knows the fastest way from Point A to Point B. Rather, a true connoisseur is one who knows which set of doors will deposit him or her at the proper staircase to avoid the maddening crowd.

To wit, every morning as I journey from one Grand to another — Army Plaza to Central Terminal — I take a 2 or 3 to Nevins St. and switch to a 4 or 5. I know which doors on the East Side IRT deposit me in front of which staircase at Grand Central, and I know where I need to stand at Nevins on the way back home to make sure I’m primed to beat the crowds streaming to their homes in Brownstone Brooklyn. Sometimes I get a seat; sometimes I don’t. Either way, I’m out of the station quickly, and that’s the way I like it.

The Internet and the advent of mobile apps has rendered the challenge of identifying the set of doors closest to the exit moot. Exit Strategy NYC allows New Yorkers to unlock the secrets of subway exits across the city for a mere $4.99. But that’s cheating. Learn the exit strategy yourself, I say.

But what of the weary who don’t mind trudging slowly up to street level? What of the straphangers who don’t want to hang but just want to sit? For them, my answer is thus: Do not ride at rush hour. Easier said than done, of course.

When the MTA conducted its studies of crowding on the L and F trains this past fall, their documents included a look at the way people board the trains. Due to a variety of circumstances ranging from station layout to personal safety, the authority found that, generally, the back cars are emptier than the front cars. It’s not quite a shocking finding to anyone who rides the subways during off-peak hours, and those who ride during peak hours aren’t likely to notice much of a difference. The Daily News wrote up the findings this week anyway.

As The News notes, trains at isolated parts of the system displayed these crowding tendencies. “The MTA found that at the Bedford Ave., Brooklyn, station on the L line, dozens more riders squeezed into the first car of Manhattan-bound trains that started at the end of the line in Canarsie than packed into the final car. There were approximately 191 riders in the first car of those trains — 46 more than the maximum capacity guideline. Meanwhile, the last car held about 143 riders,” Pete Donohue wrote. “The same front-heavy pattern was found on Manhattan-bound F trains surveyed in 2009 at the Roosevelt Island station and at the Bergen St., Brooklyn, station.”

I’m more fascinated by the “why” of it, and in that why, we see a challenge facing transit planners. The front of the Manhattan-bound train is more crowded at Bedford Ave. because the bulk of the riders want to exit at that end of the station. Similarly, Brooklyn-bound L trains are often packed to the gills in the rear because the station entrances at 1st and 3rd Aves. are at the west end of the stations and because exits at Bedford and Lorimer Sts. are at the back of the train as well. In other words, people gravitate toward those cars closest to their exits. We are all expert riders.

As new transit routes are planned, then, those in charge must watch the ebb and flow of passengers. Some stations should have entrances in the middle of the train and others in the rear or front. Such designs better disperse passengers along the entire length of the train. The new Second Ave. Stations all have front and back entrances, and while platform access points from mezzanines should encourage some movement, by the time the Q from Second Ave. pulls into Times Square, it will have made a series of stops with entrances at only the front and back of the train. If there’s space, riders will learn to move toward the middle. And that’s the great exit dance of the subway rider.