Second Ave. Sagas - A New York City Subway Blog

Podcast, Episode 11: Inside the MTA’s COVID-19 financial crisis with Nicole Gelinas

by Benjamin Kabak March 19, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on March 19, 2020

The MTA, along with the rest of the world, is in crisis. As social distancing has become the norm in New York City and the service industry has disappeared within the span of a few weeks, the bottom has dropped out of the MTA’s once-rosy ridership projections. After the city witnessed sustained subway ridership growth for the first time in a few years, no one is riding as ridership has plummeted by about 60% earlier this week, and the numbers should look worse in a few days.

Along with this ridership drop comes a huge loss in potential revenue. Already, the MTA is incurring massive extra costs in its attempt to clean subways, buses, commuter rail cars and stations to combat the spread of the coronavirus, and without riders, the revenues are gone. The agency is warning its bondholders of significant material events (a financial term for “very bad news”), and Pat Foye has asked the federal government for a direct $4 billion bailout.

As MTA Chairman Pat Foye said on Wednesday when announcing the MTA’s plans to draw down its credit line, the agency has “encounter[ed] a fiscal cliff.” I’ll have more on the grim details once the situation stabilizes, but today, I have an emergency podcast. Joining me to discuss what this current pandemic means for the MTA’s budget is Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute. We spoke for about 25 minutes, and Nicole talked us through the dire fiscal straits the MTA is in.

You can listen below or at any of the usual suspects: iTunes, Google Play, Spotify or Pocket Casts.

March 19, 2020 17 comments

View from Underground

Transit in the time of COVID-19: The trains keep running as ridership drops while the MTA ramps up cleaning efforts

by Benjamin Kabak March 12, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on March 12, 2020

As this surreal week has slipped by and New York’s response to the COVID-19 threat evolves every few hours, a lot of people have asked me the same questions: Will the trains keep running? Is it safe to ride them? I thought it would be useful to summarize where we are right now.

Transit Is Not Shutting Down

Will the trains keep running? That’s the question I’ve been asked the most, and the answer is clear: Right now, there are no plans to stop running subways, buses or commuter rail services. Rumors circulated throughout the day on Thursday that a shutdown — in effect, a quarantine-in-place for the city — was to be implemented, but the MTA and governor’s office vehemently denied this rumor. My sources within the agency did as well. For now, everything is running, and transit is not shutting down.

Could the state order a transit shutdown?

This one is tougher. The answer is yes; we’ve seen Governor Cuomo halt subway service in the face of a serious blizzard forecast. But for now, the monitoring is simply following available guidance. In an appearance on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show on Thursday morning, interim New York City Transit President Sarah Feinberg explained that the MTA is watching the governmental response closely (and of course Gov. Cuomo could order implementation of the agency’s contingency planning). Ultimately, shutting down the transit system means cutting off health care providers from their jobs and patients from medical care so it’s not a decision the MTA and New York will ever make lightly.

“If the CDC or New York City Department of Health at some point tells us to completely change the way we’re operating the system, we will do that. We take our guidance from them,” Feinberg said. “But for now, we’re running a normal service. We have a lot of people who are using the service, obviously. We’ve seen ridership tick down a bit in the last week or so, but for now, a lot of people are using the system, and we will continue to execute on that.”

How is the MTA cleaning the system?

The MTA has upped its cleaning frequencies. Contact points in stations — Metrocard and ticket machines, benches, turnstiles, and handrails — are now being disinfected twice per day. All subways, commuter rail cars and buses are cleaned at terminals, and the entire rolling stock is disinfected every 72 hours. It’s a Herculean task that lays bare the deficiencies in the MTA’s pre-COVID-19 cleaning practices, and that brings me to the next question.

Is it safe to use public transit?

This isn’t an easy question, and there is no easy answer. As Aaron Gordon explored at the start of the outbreak in New York last week, most epidemiologists felt the subways were safe, but we’ve learned more about this novel coronavirus in the past few weeks. The underlying analysis is the same, but right now, to the extent possible, those who can should stay home. Those who have to travel should try to avoid rush hour crowds (though the crowds are getting smaller), and those who are at high risk should absolutely not be waiting on crowded platforms for crowded trains.

Otherwise, the advice is the same for the trains as it is for any other circumstance right now: Do what you feel is best for yourself and those with whom you’re in constant contact. Practice good hygiene and always wash your hands before touching anything else after you’ve ridden transit. Read on for more about the challenges to adding service and some statements from our political leaders that didn’t fill my with confidence last weekend.

What is happening to transit ridership?

It’s down and precipitously. Earlier in the week, the MTA had reported a “high single-digits” decline, but by Wednesday, the numbers showed a massive slowdown. Ridership on the subways was down nearly 19% vs. March 11, 2019, and the buses saw a dip of 15%. On Thursday morning, Metro-North and LIRR ridership was down 48% and 31% respectively from a comparable Thursday in March. Again, though, the MTA does not plan to curtail service in response to demand. At some point, all of this extra spending and huge dip in fare revenue will put extreme pressures on the MTA budget, but that is a bridge we will have to cross later once the pandemic has subsided. We may need to discuss an MTA bailout far earlier than anyone expected.

Could the MTA run more service to disperse crowds

This is a question I had considered earlier in the week before the city and state started implementing social distancing by fiat and transit ridership started to nose-dive. It’s an academic question at this point as nearly everyone expects transit ridership to decline steeply over the next few days and weeks.

I started thinking about this question last weekend when both Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio started telling people to avoid crowds. At press conference on Sunday, Cuomo said, “If citizens are taking mass transit, if you can move to a train car that is not as dense, if you see a packed train car, let it go by, wait for the next train, same with if you’re taking a bus. It’s the density to proximity that we’re trying to reduce.”

The mayor echoed the governor’s sentiments. “If you are traveling by subway and the train that comes up is all packed and you can possibly wait for the next train in the hopes it might be less packed,” Bill de Blasio said, “please do.”

At first, I didn’t really know what to make of these statements. At their roots, the advice — try to take trains when they aren’t as crowded — is sound, but practically, it’s foolish. Rush hour platforms would be as crowded as trains and thus just as likely to be hot spots for transmission and contagion. On Tuesday night, before the worst of the week settled in, Feinberg went on NY1 to add some much-needed context to these remarks. It’s not, she said, “not possible for everyone” to change their commuting patterns. “People have different schedules, she said. “The thing to know is.. avoid crowded trains when possible…So if you can telecommute, fantastic. If you can walk to work great. Now is a great time to do that. But most people can’t. Most people depend on the subways and the buses. We’re here to provide safe and efficient transportation for them.”

Feinberg’s point is the right one; most people can’t simply change their commuting patterns. Telling people to do something is far different than creating incentives for them to do so. And so, as I said, before many companies started enforcing work-from-home policies on Wednesday, this got me thinking about ways to mitigate crowds. Could the MTA extend service during rush hour? Could the agency create a longer period of peak-hour service frequency in an effort to spread out rush hour commutes and reduce crowding?

In an ideal world, the answer would be yes, but we live in a less-than-deal world with real-world constraints. While not every train line is at capacity, due to the availability of rolling stock, some key bottlenecks and crew availability, the MTA can’t add rush hour service. In the post-peak periods, adding service runs up against FRA requirements limiting the number of hours train operators can work and union regulations. As much as we would love to snap our fingers and add a few hours of frequent service after 10 a.m. or 7 p.m., it just isn’t that easy.

So to avoid crowding underground, we’ll have to again listen to the mayor. “If you have the option of walking to work or taking a bike to work,” he said, “please do.” That, of course, would be far easier and safer had the mayor shown a true commitment to building out a bike lane network or if the mayor had immediately ordered DOT to implement temporary bike priority lanes covering popular commuting routes. It took until Thursday night for the mayor to order city workers to stay at home or come in later, a move that should remove around 100,000 people from the subways at rush hour. This should have happened on Sunday, but better now than later.

Do you have anything to comfort us through this stressful time?

Absolutely. The Cardvaark is always here for you.

March 12, 2020 7 comments

Podcast

Podcast, Episode 10: Catching up on transit news with THE CITY’s Jose Martinez

by Benjamin Kabak March 12, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on March 12, 2020

Jose Martinez (right) and me during a 2015 taping of “In Transit.”

It has, to put it mildly, been a whirlwind few months for transit news. Coronavirus and the MTA’s around-the-clock disinfectant work has dominated headlines, but since the start of 2020, we’ve had to contend with problems with the R179s, Andy Byford’s abrupt resignation and fears of federal interference in the congestion pricing roll-out. We don’t know the fate of the funding for the MTA’s capital plan, and the agency’s budget is hanging in the balance. It can all be a lot to keep up with, and for the 2020 debut of the Second Ave. Sagas podcast, I wanted to bring in a news veteran to help us understand it all.

Joining me for this episode is Jose Martinez, senior reporter for THE CITY and the former NY1 transit beat reporter. Martinez, a popular Twitter presence, has been covering transit since 2013 and hosted the news magazine/interview show “In Transit” on NY1. He’s the perfect guest to catch us up on the news, and there certainly is a lot to cover. We talked about the ongoing response to the coronavirus and the MTA’s around-the-clock work to disinfect the system, Byford’s departure, transformation, and his time on the beat working for one of the city’s cutting-edge local news publications. The conversation went by in a flash, and I think you’ll enjoy this episode, despite the pall the news casts on the city these days.

As of my writing this, the episode is already available via Apple’s Podcast app, and within the next few hours, you’ll be able to find this episode 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.

Thanks for listening, and a big thank you as well to Joe Jakubowski for sound engineering. The podcasts are great fun, 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 Jose’s work at THE CITY and follow him on Twitter. I’ll be back soon with a Second Ave. subway-themed episode of the podcast, among others.

March 12, 2020 5 comments

Subway Maps

Influential subway map designer Michael Hertz passes away at 87

by Benjamin Kabak March 6, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on March 6, 2020

Michael Hertz’s 1979 original. Click to enlarge.

Michael Hertz, one of the lead designers of the current subway map, passed away last month at the age of 87. The Brooklyn native passed away in East Meadow, Long Island, and his map will long survive him. He unified the subway routes, giving single colors to each trunk line, and helped move the city beyond the controversial Vignelli Era. The Times published a touching obituary last week, and I wanted to wax nostalgic about my interactions with Hertz nearly a decade ago.

In late 2010, the Museum of the City of New York hosted a panel on subway map design. At the time, Massimo Vignelli’s diagrammatic map was enjoying a period of rediscovery and appreciation. It had been 30 years since the MTA had moved on from the controversial map, but map experts and designers praised its clarity and simplicity. The panel included Massimo Vignelli, John Tauaranc, Eddie Jabbour and historian Paul Shaw, and I wrote it up for a post. A funny thing happened after that post.

Tauranac, you see, was one of the designers of the 1979 map, but he wasn’t the lead designer. That honor went to Michael Hertz, the named partner behind the design firm the MTA tasked with updating the subway map. A few days after that panel, I received an email from Hertz. He and Tauranac had often publicly feuded over the creation of the 1979 map, and Hertz was upset that he had not been invited to speak to the panel. So I gave him the floor for a few posts.

A prototype of the Hertz map featured trunk lines that were all red with multi-colored bullets designating train routing.

Hertz was 77 at the time, and the map his firm designed had been a part of the MTA lexicon for three decades. It still survives today, now known as The Map, with tweaks Hertz Associates implemented in the late 1990s, some for better and some for worse. It’s by far the subway map that’s been in use in NYC the longest, and while it’s not perfect, it has persisted. Hertz’s map doesn’t always know if it wants to be a diagram or a geographical representation of the city, and the station labels are placed at funny angles, overlapping lines in the denser parts of Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn (flaws Vigenlli himself highlighted in a 2012 talk). Still, whether through bureaucratic inertia or a belief that it’s a useful tool in the arsenal of transit directions, Hertz’s map is now an enduring part of New York.

Hertz Associates came up with the idea of identifying subway routes by their Manhattan trunk lines, despite branching elsewhere. These Pantone colors are still in use today.

After our email exchange, Hertz wrote a free-flowing series of posts both defending his map and explaining it. In Part One, he started out with a vigorous defense of The Map and his neighborhood inserts (and threw some shade at casual designers who did not have to answer to clients). Part Two tackled the Vigenlli Era. Hertz spoke glowingly of the Vignelli diagram but detailed why New Yorkers had such a visceral reaction to it. Part Three was a fascinating look at the MTA’s late-1970s visitors guide and the decision to introduce trunk lines by color to the map, and Part Four ended with a discussion on those colors. Hertz had expressed a desire to continue the series, but the modern history of the map never materialized.

I’ve also been partial to the current redesign of the Vignelli map. It incorporates Hertz’s trunk line color scheme while addressing some of the earlier complaints about Vignelli’s confusing diagram. The water is now blue, but without parks or other landmarks, it’s very much diagram. Still, I’ve grown to appreciate Hertz’s map over the years too. The decision to go with trunk lines helped simplify the map for every-day users even while leading to confusion for tourists and other occasional riders. Still, his map is very much of and about New York. The city is identifiable, and the routes of the subway are too. The 1979 version is cleaner and crisper with whiter whites (rather than beige) and colors that seem to pop more,

March 6, 2020 2 comments

New York City Transit

What Andy Byford showed New York and where it all goes from here

by Benjamin Kabak February 28, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 28, 2020

During the first MTA Board meeting of the post-Andy Byford Era, Sally Librera, the senior vice president of subways, shared some positive news about subway speeds. As the chart shows, subway run times have decreased, year-over-year, on every subway line, and in turn, train speeds are getting faster.

“Peak run times on nearly every line are continuing to improve,” Librera told the Board’s Transit Committee. “Every single line in the system got faster, which is an incredibly encouraging result.” Librera credited a number of initiatives, including the CBTC-based bump in 7 train performance, but in focusing on the A Division — the numbered lines — which showed the most improvement, she praised Transit’s SPEED Unit. These improvements, she noted, “track with the number of civil speed changes.”

In a way, the SPEED Unit was Andy Byford’s crowning achievement and, according to most reports and my own sources, the straw that broke the governor’s back, and the chart Librera presented to a Byford-less room on Monday was a testament to what was and what could have been. Andy Byford arrived in New York amidst a crisis; he listened to a lot of people ask a lot of smart questions concerning slow trains that had gotten slower in recent years, faulty signal timers that were miscalibrated and speed restrictions that were unnecessary. He established a team that carefully and systematically studied signals throughout the subway system and fixed them so that trains could run faster and operators could have faith that they wouldn’t trip a red by going the posted speed. He worked with the union to reduce the onerous penalties train operators would incur by tripping those fault signals, and he produced a subway system that is saving millions of New Yorkers hours per year in unnecessarily slow trips.

What did this effort earn him? Scorn from Albany and a one-way ticket out of the job atop Transit. The signals effort wasn’t the only point of conflict between Gov. Cuomo and his hand-picked Transit president, but as I explored last month in the aftermath of Byford’s departure, it was front and center amidst the conflict. As Byford’s SPEED Unit picked up steam, Cuomo wanted something more — faster returns or more credit.

While Byford was focused on doing the job slowly and carefully while maintaining safety, Cuomo wanting everything faster, faster, faster. It was the same approach he took to completing the Second Ave. Subway, a decision that cost the MTA millions and arguably led to the 2017 declines in subway performance. The governor commissioned his own signals report, which was released at around 5 p.m. on New Years Eve and became a political football in the dispute between the two men. Byford claimed it reinforced the Save Safe Seconds campaign while Cuomo and his allies pushed for a more aggressive approach to speeding up trains, improving dispatching practices and reducing dwell times. It wasn’t quite a bombshell, but it exacerbated already-high tensions between Byford and Cuomo.

As the MTA’s transformation plan picked up steam, Byford and his team were essentially sidelined from the signals process, and that was one area where Byford felt he was in the right and knew he was making the right difference. The governor knew that too as Byford had routinely communicated he desire to remain in charge of signals to the Chamber, but when push came to shove, this was not arrangement Albany wanted to support.

Will Sally Librera’s slide — one last victory lap for the beloved Train Daddy — be the MTA’s high-water mark on improving speeds and fixing fault signals? I hope not, but as with much within the MTA these days, we can’t be sure. In the week since Byford has left, the conversation has shifted from fixing things to eliminating things, a move Cuomo apparently had hoped Byford would implement two years ago. But when Byford dug into the bones of the MTA, he found a staff that needed guidance rather than elimination.

Now, though, jobs are on the line, as you can see from this letter Chief Transformation Officer Anthony McCord (the not-a-hatchet-man hatchet man) sent out late on Thursday afternoon. The MTA will soon be radically overhauled, but in a way that doesn’t make sense or attack the agency’s root causes. While some back-office rationalization is necessary, morale within the agency is at a low as workers fear for their jobs, and a bunch of hand-picked Cuomo appointees have come to cut an agency that needs anything but cuts these days. We’ve turned a swift corner, and I don’t like where things are heading. But for now, we’ll have those faster trains, a testament to what can happen when someone with a true vision, dedication and belief in his job is allowed to make positive change. Better things are possible.

February 28, 2020 4 comments

Rolling Stock

With R262 plans, the MTA’s open gangway future finally comes into view

by Benjamin Kabak February 18, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 18, 2020

The R211 open gangway test train, shown here under construction, could become the model for all future NYC subway cars. (Photo via MTA)

After years of debate and an upcoming two-train R211 pilot program, the MTA is set to embrace open gangway subway cars in a big way next week when the MTA Board votes to begin the procurement process for contract R-34262. More commonly known as the R262 contract, this order of over 1360 new subway cars for the A division will replace the R62 and R62A cars currently in use on the 1, 3 and 6 lines and the 42nd St. Shuttle, and the entire order will feature open gangways, connecting five-car sets and increasing capacity on each train by around 8-10 percent.

The open gangways aren’t the only part of the R262 cars that look toward a future with more capacity. The R262s will also be fully equipped with CBTC capabilities, a key element of the plans to resignal the subways and increase throughput on, notably, the Lexington Ave. line. As the MTA Board summary notes, the R262s will replace 1139 R62 and R62A cars, and if the MTA opts to exercise both options for all 1364 of the 51-foot-long cars, the A Division fleet will grow by 225 cars or up to 22 more trains.

It’s far too early to know how the MTA plans to deploy these cars. After all, delivery on the first of the R262s isn’t expected until 2024, and the successful CBTC build-out is years as well. For now, the Board materials simply state that the increased fleet size will “support ridership growth as well as other operational needs.”

In fact, the issue under review by the Board isn’t yet the actual contract to build the R262s. The MTA is instead seeking permission to bypass the standard competitive bidding process and instead issue a competitive RFP. How “competitive” the bidding can really be one way or another is an open question I’ll return to shortly. As the staff summary prepared for the MTA Board said, normal competitive bidding isn’t appropriate for rail car procurement.

“Utilizing the RFP process will allow NYC Transit to select the proposal that offers the best overall value through negotiations and evaluation based on criteria that reflect the critical needs of NYC Transit,” read the staff summary. “More specifically, NYC Transit will be able to consider factors including: (1) the technical proposal, overall technical qualifications including the quality of product, experience of proposer, delivery schedule; (2) overall project cost and financial benefit to NYC Transit; and (3) other relevant matters.”

MTA Board materials released last month included the first mock-ups of the R262s.

The Board had originally intended to vote on the request for an RFP last month, but the decision to embrace an all-open gangway design came as a surprise. Although the MTA Board has been a loud voice in the push for the agency to move to a standard open gangway design, MTA Board members told me that they were not aware of the shift in philosophy until handed the materials. They wanted more time to study the proposal and understand the move to open gangways, and they plan to vote on proposal next week.

Getting the MTA to follow a path forward on open gangways has been a near-Herculean effort spanning the better part of a decade. The agency’s 20-year assessment issued in 2013 identified articulated trains as a clear need, but over the next few years, a debate emerged as to whether NYC could handle open gangways both technically and practically. It always reeked of New York exceptionalism to me. Other cities that use open gangways have train routes that curve and buskers and beggars alike that roam the subways. The problems were of a fear of change and lack of creativity.

When Gov. Cuomo finally grew interested in the subways in mid-2016s, he embraced open gangways. By then, the agency had already indicated the R211s would include an open gangway prototype and an option to add around 700 open gangway cars, but Cuomo’s push and behind-the-scenes work by his Board appointees has led to an all-open gangway R262 order. It is years too late, and the delay essentially means that the NYC subways can’t feature 100% open gangways until the mid-2070s at the earliest. But it’s a positive step nonetheless.

Those R211 test cars, meanwhile, are inching ever closer to becoming a reality. The MTA unveiled new photographs of Kawasaki’s test cars under construction, and delivery is still scheduled for May of 2021.

The R211, shown here under construction, will feature wider doors but fewer seats. The blue livery is the first addition of color to the rolling stock in decades. (Photo via MTA)

But with that future in sight, who will be around to build it? Alstom dropped a bombshell on the rolling stock industry this weekend as it announced a purchase of Bombardier Transportation, manufacturers of the problem-plagued R179s (and various other problem-plagued cars around the world). It’s not clear yet the extent of the penalties MTA intends to levy against Bombardier, but the new debarment regulations could disqualify Alstom, as Bombardier’s new owner, if Bombardier faces debarment.

Even without debarment, the Alstom takeover of Bombardier leaves Alstom and Kawasaki as the two remaining players in the New York City rolling stock world. Siemens could try to enter the market, and CRRC wants in, despite political concerns over Chinese government involvement in rail car manufacturing. Stadler has an increasingly presence in the U.S. as well, but whether they’re interested in New York remains to be seen.

No matter how it plays out, though, open gangways are finally on the horizon this time around as New York finally looks to catch up with the rest of the world.

February 18, 2020 16 comments

Rolling Stock

After 50 years, R42s set for final ride on Wednesday

by Benjamin Kabak February 11, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 11, 2020

When the R42s entered service on May 9, 1969, Richard Nixon was president, the eventual World Champion Mets were 12-15, and Neil Armstrong’s famous moon walk was still over two months away. Tomorrow, these venerable old cars, the last 60-foot married pairs made by the St. Louis Car Company and the first fleet to come fully equipped with air conditioning, will make their final rides with a ceremonial trip along the A line, hosted by the Transit Museum.

The last run of the R42s has been a few years’ coming, delayed by the problems with the R179s. Most of the R42’s married pairs were scrapped a few years ago when the R160s arrived and the MTA was still reefing old rail cars. The last to be retired have been replaced, haltingly, with those R179s as the 50-year reign of some of the system’s oldest cars come to a close.

Wednesday’s ceremonial ride is sure to attract a large crowd of rail watchers and eager photographers, and the MTA is making it a long one. The ride will depart Euclid Avenue at 10:30 a.m. on the way to Far Rockaway. The express ride from Far Rockaway to 207th St. is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m., and the final final run from 207th St. back to Euclid Ave. will depart at around 1:30 p.m. After that, you’ll just have to catch the R42s at the Transit Museum or immortalized on film in The French Connection.

February 11, 2020 15 comments

Abandoned Stations Brooklyn

With boost from local pols and ADA upgrades on the way, MTA to re-open Bedford Ave. entrances to the IND’s Nostrand Ave. station

by Benjamin Kabak February 7, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 7, 2020

This vast mezzanine, a hallmark of the IND stations, will reopen as part of the work to restore entrances to the Nostrand Ave. A/C train at Bedford Ave. (Photo via Dan Rivoli on Twitter)

After years of requests from neighborhood activists and transit advocates alike, the MTA will finally reopen a pair of shuttered Bedford Ave. entrances to the Nostrand Ave. express stop along the A and C lines, the agency and a pair of local politicians announced on Thursday. The move reverses a late-1980s or early-1990s decision to close a giant mezzanine and staircase to Bedford Ave. and will help provide a shorter connection to the B44-SBS and better disperse passengers at the 77th busiest subway stop in the city.

For riders who live west of Nostrand Ave., reopening the entrances at Fulton St. and Bedford Ave. is a huge boon. The long-closed staircases are approximately 1000 feet away from the station’s remaining entrance and could shorten commute times by as much as four minutes each way. The work to reopen this entrance and a massive IND mezzanine will also restore a long-lost free in-station transfer between Nostrand’s northbound and southbound platforms.

The work involves rebuilding street-level staircases and station entrances, which were decked over as emergency exits decades ago, cleaning up corridors and staircases that haven’t seen passengers in over twenty years, and installing turnstiles and other elements of a modern fare control area. The MTA expects to reopen the entrances by the end of the year at a cost of approximately $2 million, $500,000 of which is being provided by Assembly Member Tremaine Wright and $250,000 of which comes from retiring State Senator Velmanette Montgomery. The MTA will pony up the rest as an operating expense.

“I am delighted to stand with the MTA, Senator Montgomery and our community partners to announce the much-anticipated re-opening of the second exit at the Nostrand Avenue A/C train station,” Assembly Representative Tremaine S. Wright said in a statement. “Every day, more than 36,000 people pass through this station and the re-opening of this passage way will alleviate much of the congestion. We are certain that this will improve the daily experience of subway users as well as enhance safety.”

Stenciled signage in areas of the station closed for decades recall a time when the C train provided service along the Concourse Line in the Bronx. (Photo via Dave Colon on Twitter)

In announcing the reopening, the MTA noted that these entrances were closed 30 years ago “during a period of concerns about crime,” and it’s certainly a testament to the safety of the system today that the agency has embarked on an effort to reopen numerous closed entrances around the city. It’s a topic I first explored in a post nearly a decade ago that highlighted the walkway connecting 7th and 8th Aves. underneath 14th St. and the Gimbels Passageway. Internally, the MTA had identified the Bedford Ave. entrances as prime candidates for reopening in a 2015 line review of the A/C trains [pdf]. Better five years later than never, I guess.

That said, the Bedford Ave. entrances at Nostrand have a tortured history. Although the IND Fulton St. Line originally opened in 1936, the entrances at Bedford will kept sealed until 1950 when the Bedford-Stuyvesant Neighborhood Council finally convinced the Board of Transportation to install turnstiles and open the exits. It’s not quite clear when the entrances were closed as the MTA’s own release puts the date around the 1980s, and available public newspaper articles suggests that the uptown/downtown crossover was shuttered in 1991 in the aftermath of a headline-grabbing rape in a deserted passageway connecting Herald Square to Bryant Park. In essence, then, since the IND’s Brooklyn debut in the mid-1930s, the Bedford Ave. entrances have likely been closed for longer than they’ve been opened.

Recently, the MTA has opened a number of old entrances, largely in conjunction with work on the L train, but they still have many more to go as attention has slowly shifted to these elements of the built environment that have been unused for most of the past three decades, if not longer. One Wikipedia contributor has built what many consider to be the master list of closed entrances, and recently, NYC Comptroller and a likely 2021 mayoral hopefully Scott Stringer penned a letter to the MTA asking for information about closed entrances. Stringer noted that as of a few years ago, the MTA had identified 298 staircases closed to the public at 119 different stations and requested the agency develop a five-year roadmap for opening these staircases.

“Millions of New Yorkers rely on the subway system every day to commute to work, attend classes, go to job interviews, see a doctor, and take their children to day care. At a time when system failures and overcrowding are already crippling commutes, especially for low-income New Yorkers, the abundance of shuttered subway station entrances across the five boroughs is problematic and unacceptable,” he said in his letter. “This is not just about reducing commute times, it’s about equity and fairness. We need a roadmap to improve mobility and accessibility for transit riders throughout the five boroughs.”

Well-preserved signs recall another era of NYC subway history. (Photo via Dave Colon on Twitter)

As the Bedford Ave. entrances ready for their reopening, I’m reminded of a story I once told regarding the opening of the giant mezzanine during the 7 line extension ribbon-cutting. I overheard an MTA official marvel at the open space as they said “I’ve spent my entire career closing these mezzanines.” For years, the MTA has hidden behind trumped-up concerns about safety to close off vast public spaces that make transit easier to reach and then relied on the argument that the ADA required them to include full accessibility upgrades if they were to reopen station entrances. As Nostrand Ave. is due for those upgrades as part of the 2020-2024 capital plan, the MTA feels that promise is sufficient to overcome legal challenges to reopening the entrance prior to (rather than concurrent with) any ADA work, and the entrances, it seems, are finally coming back to life.

As far as maximizing transit capacity and improving operations, reopening closed entrances is low-hanging fruit that can pay big dividends. For a minimal one-time spend, the agency has made an express station far more convenient for thousands, and by opening up the western end of the Nostrand Ave. station to passengers, the move should better disperse crowds along the platform, improving dwell times and crowd control. With an entrance to the express train now significantly closer for many, the move should also ease some crowding along the C train, and the 6-8 minutes in reduced walking time per passenger each day will add up quickly. This move makes transit more accessible and easier to reach for thousands and should be replicated as fast and as frequently as possible throughout the city.

February 7, 2020 20 comments

MTA Politics New York City Transit

Thoughts and reactions following Andy Byford’s resignation

by Benjamin Kabak January 30, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on January 30, 2020

Andy Byford celebrated New Years Eve by thanking NYC Transit employees working to get everyone home safely. (Photo: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit)

Over the summer, as he does from time to time, Gov. Andrew Cuomo sat down with the editorial board of The New York Post, and the conversation turned to the MTA. At the time, the Transformation Plan had recently been unveiled, and the governor had turned his attention to the signal system and complaints that the MTA had been addressing regarding slower train speeds. It was one of those moments when transit observers and advocates knew that the governor was stepping into a field Andy Byford had been mining, to great success, and concerns grew over fears that Cuomo and Byford would butt heads over a sensitive and important part of the MTA’s long road to recovery.

Over the weekend, Post reporter Nolan Hicks shared pieces of the transcript from that meeting, and it is a prime example of the relationship that had developed after nearly 20 months before Byford and Cuomo. The governor attempts to minimize Byford’s role in fixing the subways while promoting the Subway Action Plan and then he turns his attention to signal timers. The governor claimed that the union brought concerns with signal timers and the steep penalties for tripping red signals to him, and after months of a very public effort by Byford and his team to fix exactly these faulty signals and recalibrate timers, he was the one to fix the problem. Said Cuomo:

I met with the union, and I said, ‘How do we fix this issue where the trains are slower?’ And what we agreed to with the union is we would bring in an outside consultant, the unions would get on a train, the designers would get on a train, everyone would work together, come up with speed limits, fix the signals to calibrate to those new speed limits and the union would be comfortable with the speed limits, comfortable that the signals were actually calibrated. So if it said 20, it actually happened at 20 and that was the resolution.

If that sounds familiar, well, that’s because it is nearly exactly what Andy Byford’s speed unit and the Save Safe Seconds campaign was already doing, as Aaron Gordon subsequently pointed out, except, as Gordon said, “Cuomo wants to add an expensive consultant for reasons.” In a way, Cuomo already had his consultant in Byford. After all, that’s why the governor imported Andy from Toronto, but Cuomo and Byford could not co-exist. And the governor wanted to do things his way.

I chose to highlight this part of The Post’s transcript because the signals are reportedly one of the key issues that pushed Byford to resign for good this time. Even though the legislatively-mandated signals report, essentially demanded by Cuomo as part of the congestion pricing push, landed with a thud late in the day on New Year’s Eve, Cuomo recently sidelined Byford and his team from the discussions on recalibrating signals, and that was one of many last straws for New York City’s most prominent Plymouth Argyle FC fan. Now, Byford is out, and much to the chagrin of transit advocates around the city, Pete Tomlin, Byford’s signals man, is going with him.

The turf war over signals was but one issue among many that led Byford to leave, and I believe it’s accurate to consider him pushed out. After all, if your boss were to take your job and remove all of your responsibilities from it while indicating how unhappy he was with your public profile, how would you respond? And that’s exactly what happened with the MTA’s transformation effort, as Byford wrote in his resignation letter:

“The Alix Partners MTA Transformation plan called for the centralization of projects and an expanded HQ, leaving Agency Presidents to focus solely on the day-to-day of running service. I have built an excellent team and there are many capable individuals in Transit and others within the MTA family, who could perform this important, but reduced, service delivery role.”

Transformation was a clear-cut demotion, to a position beneath the stature and skills of Andy Byford, and he simply wasn’t going to take it any longer. Many at the MTA has said to me that the transformation plan seemed uniquely designed to minimize Byford and his role even as the New York City Transit President was enjoying success fixing the subways, and The Times also reported that Cuomo wanted Byford out. I have also been told that Byford (along with other internal MTA candidates) was not permitted to apply to the open COO role when Ronnie Hakim departed the MTA, and it was clear the writing was on the wall. The governor could not co-exist with someone of Byford’s popularity and success. As I think on this news, one week later, it all just seems so unnecessary.

I’ve struggled quite a bit with the reaction to Byford’s departure. There’s a lot to say about it, and none of it particularly optimistic. I’d like to think, as Eric Goldwyn argued for City & State, that Byford’s departure will accomplish exactly what we hope it will: that New Yorkers will wake up to the problems with a state-run transit agency and a state chief executive who won’t listen to anyone else and that local politicians will begin to support transit planning decisions rather than oppose them. But I am instead left pondering the question Nicole Gelinas asked: “Why would anyone take over after Andy Byford fled the MTA?” What qualified outsider will willing join a toxic work environment that Byford, a very competent and qualified and well-respected man within the industry, left so quickly? Who will save us from ourselves and the electoral decisions we have made? Railway Age took this one step further and unleashed a loud and angry takedown of the man who ousted Byford and his decisions.

Over the past week, as the dust from Byford’s resignation has settled, I’ve noticed the reticence with which politicians have approached this move and the rhetoric behind their statements. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who is very likely to run for mayor on a platform that calls for city control over its transit system, started a #BringBackByford campaign but transitioned that to a pledge to re-hire Byford if he can wrest control of the buses and subways from Albany. Countless other local pols chimed in with similar sentiments, and the mayor outright embarrassed himself all week calling on Byford to reconsider. “Why don’t we try and convince him to stay?” the mayor asked Brian Lehrer’s audience last Friday. This was a deeply surreal back-and-forth, ignorant of the larger political dynamics at play, and one that warrants a closer look:

Mayor: So, I think the State of New York should get to it to try and convince Andy Byford to stay. Look, Andy Byford has done an amazing job and he put forward a plan that really was transformative. I think his presence was a big part of why we were able, last April, to pass the first plan in memory to actually fully fund the MTA and fix it. And I think, you know, we need him, going forward, and why not try and keep him?

Lehrer: Have you launched some kind of effort to try and keep him? Have you appealed to him?

Mayor: No it’s just the first – I am talking about it now for the first time because it dawned on me this morning that when I thought about history a bit, there have been people who were getting ready to leave and changed their mind or were persuaded to come back. And I think this is a case where he’s a singular talent and he’s obviously getting a great outpouring of support from New Yorkers. Why don’t we try and convince him to stay?

Lehrer: This seemed to happen once already. He was going to resign in October and Governor Cuomo convinced him to stay, right?

Mayor: Well that seems to be the case. I wasn’t in those backroom discussions, but look, I think New Yorkers want him to say, I want him to say for sure. I think the City Council wants him to stay. My appeal to the State of New York is, get in a room with him, try and get him to stay, see what it’ll take to get them to stay. Maybe there are some changes that would be possible that would convince him he could continue on in a productive, positive manner. I don’t think guys like Andy Byford grow on trees. I think he’s a pretty special talent and he’s proven he can handle New York City. Let’s try and keep him.

Lehrer: When you say the State of New York should get in a room with them, you mean Governor Cuomo?

Mayor: Yeah, and whoever else from his team that has been working with Byford. I don’t know who are the people most active in dealing with the MTA, but unquestionably if he needs persuasion that a lot can be achieved – I mean, look again, anybody looking at the outpouring of support in the last 24 hours, he doesn’t have to wonder whether he has popular support or the support of the elected officials of New York City. We all want him to stay. So I think it comes down to the State trying to figure out what’s it going to take to get him to change his mind. I don’t think it’s an impossible equation. I’ve seen harder things done.

Besides laying bare the reality that the mayor has no idea what’s happening within the MTA, the transit system used by millions of his constituents on a daily basis, and that Brian Lehrer seems to have a far rosier view of the Byford-Cuomo dynamic that reality dictates, the mayor’s words and everyone else’s seem to willfully ignore the reality here. Andy Byford is leaving because Andrew Cuomo wanted him out of the way. Only Jumaane Williams and Council Member Antonio Reynoso directly named the governor, and everyone other politician tried to tip-toe around the powerful head of New York or pretend the problem was something else, as de Blasio did. Does this bode well for the future?

All hope shouldn’t be lost though. As a variety of transit activists told Curbed New York’s Amy Plitt, Byford laid a very strong foundation for future success, and while many within the MTA are rightly feeling discouraged right now, the agency should be able to continue to build on Byford’s successes if the right people are given the right support and the right opportunities. There is no way to sugarcoat Andy Byford’s departure. It was far too premature and represents a big blow to New York City. But the governor is allowed to make these decisions. It’s #CuomosMTA, after all, and if everyone is going to push him to take charge, that means accepted the good with the bad for as long as we can. Right now, New York City is worse off for it, but if this becomes a catalyst for increased attention on the politics of transit, perhaps Cuomo will have won a pyrrhic victory.

Ultimately, your commute won’t get worse tomorrow or next week or next month, but will it get as better as Byford had promised? That tantalizing reality now remains out of reach, and it didn’t have to be like this.

January 30, 2020 12 comments

New York City Transit

Andy Byford to depart NYC Transit, for good this time

by Benjamin Kabak January 23, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on January 23, 2020

Andy Byford has announced his resignation from New York City Transit.

After rescinding a resignation letter in October and nearly walking away from New York City Transit over a tense relationship with Governor Andrew Cuomo, Andy Byford has officially resigned as the President of New York City Transit after a little over two years on the job, the MTA announced today. In comments following Thursday’s MTA Board meetings, agency Chair and CEO Pat Foye cited “personal reasons” as driving Byford’s departure. But Byford had felt sidelined by the recent MTA Transformation process, especially as his roles changed, and he clashed frequently with the governor. Byford, in his resignation letter, cited transformation as a concern and said his last day will be February 21. The MTA has not yet named an interim president to replace the popular Byford.

Byford’s resignation letter hit the Internet this afternoon, and he clearly pointed to the MTA’s ongoing reorganization as a driving factor. “The Alix Partners MTA Transformation plan called for the centralization of projects and an expanded HQ, leaving Agency Presidents to focus solely on the day-to-day of running service. I have built an excellent team and there are many capable individuals in Transit and others within the MTA family, who could perform this important, but reduced, service delivery role,” Byford wrote to new MTA COO Mario Peloquin.

According to senior MTA officials, Byford felt as though the rug had been pulled out from under him as he was brought to New York City to lead the supposed renaissance of the subways and buses but was instead being siphoned into a service delivery role for which he was overqualified. It will be interesting to see how this impacts potential recruiting for Byford’s replacement as the NYC Transit President role doesn’t carry nearly the same cachet as it used to. I’ve embedded the resignation letter below.

Andy Byford’s letter of resignation.

The news first broke in the middle of the monthly board meeting when Dana Rubinstein published her bombshell report at Politico New York, and the MTA quickly sent out a brief press release acknowledging the news with the following statements from Foye and Byford.

“Andy Byford will be departing New York City Transit after a successful two years of service and we thank him for his work,” Foye said. “Andy was instrumental in moving the system forward, enacting the successful Subway Action Plan and securing record capital funding with the Governor and the Legislature, and we wish him well in his next chapter.”

“I’m very proud of what we have achieved as a team over the past two years and I believe New York City Transit is well-placed to continue its forward progress now that the MTA has a record breaking $51.5 billion Capital Program in place,” Byford said. “I’m very grateful to Governor Cuomo, Chairman Foye and members of the Board for giving me the opportunity to serve New York and to head up North America’s largest transit system.”

Reactions have flown in fast and furious with local city officials bemoaning the loss of Byford, and the impact it’ll have on the city, its transit network and potential for the future. “DEVASTATED,” City Council Speaker Corey Johnson said via Twitter (though he later stopped short of blaming the governor). I’ll round up more of these comments and reactions from transit advocates later.

While local politicials did not specifically blame the tense relationship between Cuomo and Byford as the main driver of his departure, recent reporting from Emma Fitzsimmons at The Times did just that. She writes:

Mr. Byford had considered quitting since last spring and struggled to get along with Mr. Cuomo, who controls the subway and the flow of money to the system.

Mr. Cuomo was angry after Mr. Byford tried to resign in October, according to officials familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The governor signaled to state officials that the tense relationship had reached its end point and that he expected Mr. Byford to be gone by the first quarter of 2020, the officials said.

By December, Mr. Byford made up his mind that he would leave after completing his second year, those officials said. Another likely departure, officials say, is Pete Tomlin, who was brought in by Mr. Byford to run a multibillion dollar overhaul of the signal system.

When asked at a separate appearance on Thursday touting a legislative compromise on legalizing e-bikes if Cuomo was happy with Byford’s departure, the governor said, “No, I thought he was a good man.” The governor had previously praised Byford during the same appearance. “He’s a good man and I wish him well and I think he did great work,” Cuomo said, before launching into a critique of Byford’s plan to re-signal the subways, a cornerstone of Fast Forward and the five-year capital plan, on the grounds that it would have taken too long. (MTA insiders believe Pete Tomlin, the signals guru Byford brought in to oversee CBTC installation will depart at some point in the near future as well.)

Asked about Byford being frustrated with Cuomo's interference in MTA details, Cuomo says Byford's re-signaling plan was going to take too long and given its importance and cost, it is his job to care and question it.

— Ben Max (@TweetBenMax) January 23, 2020

Byford too stressed that his departure was his own decision. “This was 100 percent my decision. There was no external pressure for me to go. This is something I’ve given careful thought to,” he said to Fitzsimmons.

Still, by all accounts, that Byford and Cuomo clashed behind the scenes and personality-wise did not help smooth over any problems with their relationship, despite their public comments. And for now, yet again, New York City Transit is looking for yet another head, leaving New Yorkers to ponder what comes next for the subways and their improvements after the so-called Train Daddy departs.

Check back for updates as I’ll have more on this breaking story.

January 23, 2020 19 comments

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