Over the next few days, I’m going to delve into some in-depth analysis of transit plans, proposals and projected spending. Both Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to reform mass transit and the MTA’s own proposed $25.5 billion capital plan for 2010-2014 will dominate this week’s coverage on Second Ave. Subway.
Before we begin that journey, though, it’s important to remember just why transit matters. It’s easy to toss out numbers and platitudes: Subway ridership is at 50-year highs; numerous subway lines are operating at — or even above — capacity. What though would New York City look like without a subway system?
In a thought-provoking post on his blog Frumination, Michael Frumin explored a New York City without a subway system. If the city were laid out the same but we all drove cars instead of riding the rails, life in the city would resemble a Big Parking Lot instead of a Big Apple:
From 8:00AM to 8:59 AM on an average Fall day in 2007 the NYC Subway carried 388,802 passengers into the CBD on 370 trains over 22 tracks. In other words, a train carrying 1,050 people crossed into the CBD every 6 seconds. Breathtaking if you ask me. Over this same period, the average number of passengers in a vehicle crossing any of the East River crossings was 1.20. This means that, lacking the subway, we would need to move 324,000 additional vehicles into the CBD…
At best, it would take 167 inbound lanes, or 84 copies of the Queens Midtown Tunnel, to carry what the NYC Subway carries over 22 inbound tracks through 12 tunnels and 2 (partial) bridges. At worst, 200 new copies of 5th Avenue. Somewhere in the middle would be 67 West Side Highways or 76 Brooklyn Bridges. And this neglects the Long Island Railroad, Metro North, NJ Transit, and PATH systems entirely.
Of course, at 325 square feet per parking space, all these cars would need over 3.8 square miles of space to park, about 3 times the size of Central Park. At that point, who would want to go to Manhattan anyway?
At Transportation for America, Stephen Lee Davis noted that Frumin’s post highlights “the invisible benefits” of a transit system. I’d call that a slight to public transportation.
There is nothing invisible about the New York City subways and its tangible positive impact on the city. The subways may be under ground, but we see them every day. We see density and a compact central business district. We see less sprawl and smaller carbon footprints. We see fewer cars per capita, fewer miles driven and less gas burned than any other city in America.
As we debate the merits of Mayor Bloomberg’s call to restore more control of the transit system to the city, as we look at the MTA’s request for tens of billions of dollars over the next five years, we can’t lose sight of the importance of the subway system. Without it, New York would be a car-choked city with nowhere to go and no character. With the current one, underfunded and under-maintained as it may be, the city moves and at a good pace too. As we look to the transit future, we can’t forget that reality or the threat of a city without a subway.
18 comments
Ben, you’re playing to Bloomberg’s hand here. There’s nothing special about Bloomberg’s proposals, except that they’re more brazen than the usual. They’re vote buying exercises, and you’re helping it with them. I mean, you covered the F express idea years before Bloomberg even learned the names of the neighborhoods the F serves in Brooklyn; the RFID idea was treated well by Jeremy Steinmann; the woes of the L’s next-train screens you’ve covered extensively, demanding to know why the MTA isn’t more combative with Siemens. There’s no need to bundle those ideas together as the Bloomberg plan: it’s not as if there’s any chance Bloomberg would actually implement them.
I should clarify that first paragraph. I’m not praising Bloomberg’s pandering attempts to gain votes by bashing transit and offering up reforms we’ve been trumpeting for years. As I wrote yesterday, he’s not doing much of anything when he could be doing a lot with his ability to control city money.
Rather, what he has done, for better or worse, is to put transit back into the headlines. When was the last time anyone bothered to write a front page article about F Express Service as the Brooklyn Paper ran last week? When was the last time people outside of the transit world talked about replacing MetroCards or any other transit improvements beyond no fare hikes?
I don’t think Bloomberg is being genuine, and that’s what my coverage is going to focus on over the next few days. But seeing discussions about real changes and not just the typical “ZOMG!!11! TEH MTA SUX!” coverage in the papers is worth recognizing.
It’s worth recognizing, but I fear that it’ll lead to a public belief that Bloomberg’s actually doing something about the system.
And did the Brooklyn Paper really not say anything about the F express plan back when the local community activists were demanding it?
No offense to the the Brooklyn Paper, but a headline in it doesn’t really count for much.
As others have pointed out here and there, NYC would simply not exist in its current form without the subways. I’ll grant, the facts and figures are kind of fun, but for a more concrete example of the importance of the subways, one need look no further than the occasional strike or disaster that knocks them out of service. I can think of at least three such events in the last ten years or so, and in each case, the city simply ground to a halt. I have no idea what the economic impact of such an event is, but surely it’s much greater than the cost of running the trains.
The fact that the city grinds to a halt when the subway’s knocked out doesn’t mean much. Los Angeles grinds to a halt too when its Metro Rail workers go on strike – not that many people take rail there, but they’re enough to clog the streets with their cars when transit’s unavailable.
While skimming through that MTA document, what caught my eye most was the lack of urgency geared towards replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge. Yes, we need to supplement the existing transit system with new routes, the Tappan Zee is a vital link for vehicular traffic which is literally falling apart.
Yes, this blog advocates mass-transit, but the MTA shouldn’t neglect its other infrastructure. With a piddly $30 million over the next 5 years towards a “Tappan Zee Rail Study”, the bridge will be gone before a new one is designed; and cross-river vehicles will need to go all the way to Bear Mountain or through the heavily-trafficked George Washington Bridge to get from Rockland to Westchester.
I support transit as much as the rest of the group here, but replacement of this bridge should be at the top of the list, not an afterthought.
Well, I take that back. I realized that the Tappan Zee is NOT an MTA bridge – I guess the MTA’s only involvement is the possible mass transit that will run across the new facility. Still, I’d hate to delay the bridge for such a study.
I think it’s time for direct mayorial control of the MTA. It should really be direct Albany control, but then the system would just collapse. Either way, it’s time the politicians responsible for funding the MTA are held accountable when the MTA has problems. Right now they can criticize the MTA publicly while continuing to cut funding privately, as long as the status quo is maintained nothing will ever be accomplished.
I don’t know about the MTA as a whole, but the NYCT part of the budget… Something could probably be done to increase city influence on what is done with that.
The problem with separating NYC Transit from the rest of the MTA is that you lose out on a significant portion of Transit’s revenue stream. The MTA was formed because the subways needed the money from the tolled bridges and tunnels to operate. Without significantly raising the fares, you can’t divorce Transit from the MTA.
But the tolled bridges and tunnels are all entirely within City limits. Couldn’t they also go to the city (as part of NYCDOT), and continue to fund the subways? It’s kind of the opposite of the earlier plan to transfer the free bridges to the MTA.
I don’t know what that would mean, if anything, for LIRR/MNR though.
Placing the TBTA and NYCT under mayoral control would be a monumental change for transit in NYC, on par with the creation of Transport for London. I think it would be a definite improvement, especially under the current administration.
The current administration that you speak of has done nothing in the last 8 years to up the city’s pathetic contribution amount towards the MTA. This is the real issue that is never addressed. The city benefits most from transit but doesn’t pay nearly enough of there share!
I wasn’t suggesting financial structural changes, just that the city has more control over what is done with the piece of the pie that goes to NYCT.
Oh to be clear, the benefits are clearly visible every day in any city where transit takes up such a huge share of travel. I wasn’t saying that we don’t see the benefits. I think I was trying to say that we don’t see what the city might look like without it. And if they truly did, congestion pricing, MTA funding, transit expansion — all these things would be no-brainers. Either way, we’re on the same page about primacy of transit in NYC.
Anything done at this point is better than nothing at all.
I wonder if Albany’s goal is to suck the MTA dry since most of the state doesn’t utilize the services but those state reps outside the metro area can dictate if the MTA gets money at all.
Better yet the city, Westchester & Long Island should be there own state. That way control of the MTA remains local & not subject to the wims of a politico from Rochester.
Some people in Long Island have actually suggested that – it turns out money flows up the river in this state. In the city people tend to want to secede without the suburbs because they think the city’s the only place that gets shafted on taxes, but the same principle works for the entire region.
Mind you, those sentiments are usually clothed in some nasty hatred for anyone who’s not from New York, complete with quasi-racist stereotypes.