It must be tough to live through day one at the helm of the MTA. In a city of know-it-alls, everyone wants to be the first, second or even third person to tell you how to do your job, and Jay Walder yesterday was no exception.
Fresh off the plane from England and living on little sleep, Walder took the reins of the MTA and promised big changes. But first, he needs an action plan. “By the end of my first 100 days at the MTA, we will produce an action plan for moving forward with concrete goals and timelines,” Walder said to reporters on Monday. “We will make the objectives clear and the communities we serve should hold us accountable for achieving real results.”
Who wants to wait for Walder though? Heather Haddon of amNew York offered up her brief list of priorities, and Gene Russianoff and the Straphangers, in a press release not available online, also listed what they consider to be Walder’s priorities. The Straphangers’ list is fairly typical: Block maintenance and station agent cuts; improve bus service; utilize the line manager program; support public authority oversight. Ho hum.
With this lists in mind, I’m going to — surprise! surprise! — offer up my own list of the top five initiatives that Walder should tackle. He doesn’t need 100 days to put this action plan together, and in fact, at least one of these suggestions could be accomplished before the 100 days is up.
1. Overhaul the MTA’s Website
This particular initiative is really not that ground-breaking, and yet, it is a topic upon which I have harped for years. As I said in January, the MTA’s website pales in comparison with those of its competitors. When we examine the WMATA’s site, Transport for London’s homepage and the Chicago Transit Authority’s site, we see transit network websites designed with clear interfaces, easy-to-find trip planners and information at our fingertips. When we look at the MTA’s Internet home, we see a mess.
To make matters worse, the MTA’s site hasn’t really improved its look in six years. Don’t believe me? Take a look at its homepage from Oct. 8, 2003. The site has more information than it did during the early 2000s, but the look and navigation remain outdated and impossible to use.
Overhauling the MTA’s website will give the agency a much better public face and presence on the Internet. It’s 2009; those qualities go without say.
2. Open MTA data
In mid-September, I explored how the MTA is struggling in an age of open information. They had been pursuing spurious copyright claims against iPhone application developers, and while these actions have since ceased on the part of the transit agency, the data remains inaccessible. Hand in hand with a website redesign is an overhaul of the MTA’s data policies. The agency should open its scheduling information to developers and allow them to run wild with it. It can only contribute to transit interest and ridership demands.
3. Come clean on the Second Ave. Subway
When the Second Ave. Subway project got off the ground earlier this decade, Phase I was supposed to open in 2012, and the other Phases were to follow by 2020. On the precipice of 2010, we now know that Phase I may not open until 2018, and the other Phases remain unfunded ideas. In fact, in its next five-year capital plan, the MTA is requesting funds to finish Phase I but no money for Phase II or beyond.
While the MTA Inspector General is working on a report, Walder should commission an internal review of the Capital Construction department. Why is this project six years behind schedule and counting? What can be to speed up the pace of construction and restore a drive to see a full Second Ave. Subway with the next 10 or 15 years? What is wrong with the MTA’s process that multi-year delays plaguing multi-billion-dollar projects become the norm rather than exception?
4. Improve Surface Transit
New York City Transit’s buses are so slow that the Straphangers award them medals for lack of speed. Meanwhile, our city streets are so congested with unnecessary cars that buses can’t get anywhere. Make a strong push to reclaim the streets for transit. There is no reason that every avenue in Manhattan without a subway line under it can’t have Select Bus Service by the end of next year or 2011. There is no reason why outer borough thoroughfares should be held captive to automobile traffic at the expense of those using the buses. It might even be time to take a look at Vision42’s plan to remove cars from 42nd St. Since subway line construction is proving fiscally impractical right now, Walder should become a drive to give substantial surface space to bus lines.
5. Look to the Future
In early 2008 as part of the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the MTA, then-CEO and Executive Director Elliot Sander unveiled an ambitious if impossible 40-year plan to bring transit to, well, everywhere. In his vision, the major avenues would feature physically separated bus lanes, and a TriboroRX line would connect underserved areas in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. To many this plan is but a dream, but as Walder takes over, he should keep that dream in mind. While the subways need a lot of work today, we can’t be afraid of pushing for a better future. Only by keeping those goals in mind can we realize and overcome the problems facing a healthy and vibrant transit system in New York City.
17 comments
Great suggestions Ben!
Surface transport: Let’s get those hybrid double decker buses running in Manhattan!
Website redesign: Add a commitment to supply monthly detailed updates on Capital Construction projects.
Subway: Enter into private partnerships for redevelopment and maintenance of the system’s 25 most heavily trafficked stations. Unlock the real estate value. Save MTA funds for restoration of less traveled stations.
Commuter: Combine LIRR and MN into one operating admin (keep brand names). Immediately establish a task force with NJ Transit to explore blending rail operations.
Fare System: The more open the sources of payment the better. Debit cards, mobile phones, voice recognition, iris scans.. I don’t care. And please, from the outset, move forward with NJT, the Port Authority and Ferries form the outset.
I agree that LIRR and MNR need to be combined immediately which would enable the MTA to eliminate THOUSANDS of duplicate clerical and managerial jobs.
I wouldn’t advocate monthly updates. I’d rather the MTA spent money on doing things rather than writing any more corporate non-news pieces.
And I’d even be cautious about website redesign: the London experience is that this results in all sorts of useful documents disappearing.
The good thing about Ben’s list is that it’s 5 things. Any plan for improvement needs to have a few very clear priorities, not a dozen.
I would broaden #3 to coming clean about big capital projects in general. The SAS is not the only large MTA project to suffer delays of many years.
Excellent post. I hope someone tells Jay Walder to start reading Second Avenue Sagas.
website: ’nuff said. Blame the RFP process though. I bet it’s the same outside party as it was back in ’03.
“There is no reason that every avenue in Manhattan without a subway line under it can’t have Select Bus Service by the end of next year or 2011.”
The reason is DOT. Physically separated lanes are a must. But the streets and street furniture…..that’s all DOT.
“There is no reason why outer borough thoroughfares should be held captive to automobile traffic at the expense of those using the buses.”
Yes, there is….politicians! At least for Merrick Blvd. in Queens. You can find the answer in the capital plan Q&A.
I’m paraphrasing from memory but said something like: “….dropped at the request of elected public officials”
Ben, that’s really a polite way of saying: “these putzes said ‘hell effin’ no”
I’d be more than happy to help you translate public agency-speak into New York English. Let’s just say it involves profanities not suitable for this public forum.
I can boil down my highest priorities to this:
Provide a safe, comfortable, predictable and reliable trip to where I (in the collective sense) want to go.
I don’t think the website is a #1 priority (maybe your list isn’t in priority order). It’s a nice-to-have, but nobody is going to get hurt or killed because of hard-to-find data. It can honestly be made into a project for some college Computer Science students at little to no cost. Of course, this depends on making the data available (#2).
I’m not sure what you mean by #3. If you’re saying to conduct an investigation and learn lessons, agreed (I’ve got my input, if anyone cares). But “come clean” implies that there are some evil secrets akin to those “9/11 was an inside job” propagandists outside the World Trade Center.
I’d rather focus attention on safe, clean infrastructure. Let the contractor quickly design the repairs based on his own expertise (like the emergency repairs at W. 181st St) rather than the time-consuming back and forth design and negotiating we often see (having a Helvetica font in a repaired station sign is the least of my concerns!)
I think (hope) Walder is setting his sights at a higher level. The (organizational) system and financial system is basically broken and morale is nonexistent. With so many separate, unrelated divisions in charge of different things, it’s impossible to bring the groups together to get things done. The line manager program is a start, but that only affects subway operations; the MTA is much bigger. Until accountability, morale, and finances are improved, nothing will.
Finally, I think as a PR move it’s time to abandon the unified MTA branding. In the public’s eye, the MTA is a bloated dysfunctional bohemoth of an agency. It takes away the sense of pride (the “My Subway” campaign tried to instill one) that people had in their local transit system. People associate their home with the redbirds on the “7”, or “Dashing Dan, Route of the Dashing Commuter” on Long Island. No matter what, people will feel like the system in their neighborhood gets the short end of the stick under the MTA umbrella. Just my two cents.
The website certainly shouldn’t be the agency’s overall number one priority, but it’s a project that could get off the ground today. That’s why I put it first. They don’t have to do an environmental impact study. In fact, they don’t have to do much of anything, and it would make an immediate impact.
Yeah, image IS important, and frankly the current web site doesn’t look serious any more.
In concert with a web site redesign, I would add “make a better subway map”. The current one stinks. I know there’s a huge fight between advocates of a “geographical” map versus those of a “diagrammatic” map–I don’t want to get into that. But I do think there are some major defects in the current map that could be addressed regardless of the overall design. First, it’s too big. Second, there’s too much gratuitous detail, especially those bus boxes. Third–and this problem has never been adequately addressed–the routes (e.g. express vs. local) are just too confusing for the average person to understand.
right on. there is a whole laundry list relatively cheap and easy improvements that don’t require environmental imapct statements or billions of dollars. all it takes is for someone in charge to really push to get things done.
[…] app action. Some feel that freeing transit data for developers and overhauling the M.T.A. Web site should be on his priority list. [2nd Ave […]
A few ideas:
1. Cancel the 7 extension.
2. Go over the contracts for subway construction and figure out why a kilometer of two-track subway in Manhattan costs the same as four kilometers in Tokyo and seven kilometers in San Francisco. Until a solution emerges, freeze all construction that can’t be done under $500 million per km, which is twice the level of San Francisco. It may piss off Second Avenue interests right now, but in a year, when new contracts are tendered for one quarter the current cost, it’ll make everything go a lot more smoothly.
3. Through-route commuter rail lines. It’s okay if MNRR and the LIRR keep nominally separate corporate identities, as long as they as well as NJT can run trains on one another’s tracks. Tokyo and Paris have through-routing on multiple agencies and companies’ lines, and so can New York.
4. Triboro. As in point #2, the MTA should not tender contracts unless they’re at least of the same order of magnitude as anywhere else. Surface light rail construction typically costs $15-30 million per km; since Triboro is entirely on the surface, or in preexisting trenches, it should not cost any more.
5. Staten Island-Manhattan rail tunnel. It should cost about the same as the proposed Jersey-Brooklyn tunnel, $7.4 billion. It’s a lot, but it can shave 10-20 minutes off the one-way commutes of Staten Islanders, and promote transit-oriented development instead of sprawl.
#2 – The only potential problem with that is a ton of projects will be designed with lowball cost estimates, and then we’ll get socked with the actual costs during construction.
#5 – This is LONG overdue. Could be some legal ramifications though. Since the Staten Island Railroad connects to heavy-rail freight tracks, it falls under FRA rules, which are stricter than rapid-transit regulations. If SIR is physically connected to the subway, some sort of waiver or other scheme may be needed to avoid upgrading the entire subway system.
Cost escalation is a problem. On the other hand, the costs I cited for Tokyo are actual costs, after multiple escalations caused by the fact that the line in question was deep underground. In general, the rule mandating 25% contingency in the budget should be replaced by contingencies based on how much risk there is in construction. A cut-and-cover tunnel in known geography should incur fewer cost overruns than an underwater tunnel.
The SI-Manhattan tunnel doesn’t even have to connect to the subway. I’ve always envisioned it as connecting to commuter rail (Grand Central, one day, maybe – that would also support through-routing). Connecting to the subway is a problem because it’d make the combined line too long; a combined 1-SIR route would be even longer than the A to Far Rockaway.
As far as no. 1 is concerned–the city’s paying for that, not the MTA. That’s Bloomberg’s decision
Yes, I know Bloomberg’s paying for the 7 extension. He should be paying for extensions that serve populated places instead.