Brodie Enoch, the leader of Transportation Alternative's Rider Rebellion, urges the city's subway riders to stand up to Albany. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
Over the past few months, as subway fares have gone up and service down, Transportation Alternatives has tried to stir up a Rider Rebellion. They’ve garnered press attention and have a website devoted to the cause as they try to pressure Albany to fund transit in New York. Yesterday, they took to the tracks.
For the first time, TA’s rebellion headed underground as activists staged a flash rally. At 10:15 a.m., the group boarded an A train at Columbus Circle and rode to 125th St. Along the way, they asked riders to support the cause and explained how Albany’s actions in stealing $143 million from transit riders in 2009 led to 2010’s service cuts and fare hikes. With a trumpeter playing the famous “Take the A Train” in tow, TA’s operatives found an audience receptive to their message (and free water bottles).
I journeyed on that A train with the group yesterday and snapped some photos of the event. DNA Info’s Olivia Scheck produced a story and video on the rally as well. The organizers were thrilled with their first-time results, but they have a long way to go to convince New Yorkers that their elected officials must be held responsible for the MTA’s precarious financial state. It is a message that must be heard.
19 comments
The message needs to get out to the general public about how Albany is stealing funds (and especially that these funds are coming from downstate only, and ultimately being reallocated further north). The days of blaming the MTA for fare increases and service decreases need to end, and those responsible need to feel political consequences so that they will stop doing it.
Or perhaps people should not feel entitled to subway coverage and realize that “public transportation” costs something. To have efficient service requires extra cost. Extremely cheap rides (compare fares today to fares 30 years ago) and very efficient services simply do not go together.
Like our free (or heavily subsidized) roads and our free (or heavily subsidized) parking. We never want to pay for our infrastructure.
Speaking of free roads, the city and MTA could do a runaround on the failed congestion pricing by installing HOT/Bus Lanes (with high speed EZPass) on all congested NYC DOT bridges without tolls. The money could then be spent on BRT service expansion.
The net on such a setup would be less than the dead 2008 congestion pricing proposal, but would yield congestion reduction and funds for capital projects and operations within NYC.
A slightly larger version would extend the lanes to all NYC DOT and NYS DOT highways. That would yield more tolls, congestion reduction and bus service improvements, but would require diversion of funds to NYS DOT.
The tolls could also pay to add tray style high density automated park and ride facilities. These would be located at key locations along commuter rail, express bus lines/high volume jitney service and highways in NYC and in the suburbs. DC style slugging could come to NYC.
They already have park-and-rides on commuter rail, often with more parking spaces than riders. As a result, the stations are dreary for the pedestrian and have not enough room for commercial development. (As if anyone would take a train to it given the insane amounts of parking provided.)
Hence high density parking facilities. One could build a platform over a parking lot, or the space left over after the high density automated garage is built, for redevelopment as part of Transit Oriented Design, though that would require land use rezoning within 1 mi of the station in the burbs.
Once quicker commutes could be had with HOV, the parking facilities would fill up quick.
High density parking facilities are expensive, and still consume scarce space and worsen the pedestrian experience. Some paid parking is a good idea, but the bulk of the few hundreds of meters around each station (not a full mile – it’s too far) should be dedicated to walkable mixed-use development. It’s a lot cheaper to get people to walk to trains instead of build them parking, and it adds the possibility of nearly-cost-free-to-provide reverse-peak service.
Eh, it depends on where the station is. For major hubs (Stamford, White Plains, Hicksville, etc.), building up walkable surroundings makes sense. But for simple suburban stations that exist purely to funnel commuters in and out of the city, they are best left to that purpose. Not every station can be a hub, and you just end up destroying the neighborhood if you try to turn every station into one. For example, Wassaic is fine being just a parking lot at the end of the line. The area is not suited to dense development. Certainly no one who lives up there would want it, at least.
Really, what possibly destroys a neighborhood more than parking? I get that there will be park and ride stations, but for the most part they see little off-peak use. It’s much better to encourage low car usage and density where possible.
The NYTimes says that Hicksville has 6,359 parking spaces and Ronkonkoma has 6,059; both numbers are nearly as high as the stations’ total westbound ridership, and higher than their am peak westbound ridership. I have no problem leaving Wassaic as it is, but most stations on major line segments should be local transportation anchors, not parking lots.
Also, bear in mind that “Walkable mixed-use” doesn’t mean “inner-city density.” There might be 1-2 high-rise luxury towers, but beyond that, suburban TOD should aim for a Main Street feel, or maybe an outer-urban neighborhood like Riverdale or the Rockaways (or, for that matter, Yonkers). An area can be walkable without being built at Manhattan scale.
By the way, for an illustration of Hicksville’s insane parking situation, see here.
continue from prior post.
Such a setup could ease the eventual addition of comprehensive congestion pricing. The tolls from the HOT/Bus Lanes could fund capital investment in infrastructure (BRT, jitney hubs, park and ride facilities) necessary to carry people into Manhattan. With systems and practices in place, in operation, and with capacity to carry people into the zone on public/private mass transit or HOV prior to inception, the objections would be less and perhaps result in a successful expansion to the scale proposed back in 2008.
You keep making inaccurate statements suggesting that drivers pay “NOTHING” to use our roads. That is blatantly false. Road that would need to be maintained regardless of people driving personal cars. Roads that are needed for emergency and safety purposes as well as for deliveries to homes and stores. There is a tax of nearly 40 cents per gallon in addition sales tax on purchase of cars and all the state registration fees. OH lets not forget about all the good paying jobs that are created in keeping cars on the road and all the additional economy activity that autos allow. Oh and the last, there would be no middle class in many parts of the boroughs without cars.
The mta’s problem’s were created because they had TOO MUCH MONEY available to spend thus leading to poor management and the UNIONS stealing from the public with work rules that have bled tens of BILLIONS of dollars out of the transit system in the past 15 years.
The job of roads is to transport people, not to employ autoworkers. And the job of transit should not be to employ TWU workers, and the job of health care should not be to employ administrators and doctors, and the job of schools should not be to employ teachers.
Let’s also not forget the economic activity automobiles suppress or slow down – and the many, many costs they impose, including health costs.
For use of many roads and streets, drivers directly pay nothing. Token meter payments aside, in the case of NYC, users often directly pay nothing unless it’s a fine. And this idea that the suburban “middle class” does a great deal of good for NYC is probably laughable. If anything, it’s the other way around.
The bulk of which, if earmarked for anything, is earmarked for highway maintenance. And it doesn’t even cover that.
Technically, all of the roads and infrastructure aren’t free-we pay for them with taxes.
The idea seems to be to run interference for the MTA, lifting some of the heat from where citizens (maybe mistakenly) place it, and get it shifted back to the state leg, where a lot of it belongs. This looks shrewd, to me.
Why do the Labor unions keep getting a pass. nearly $40 for a broom sweeper (including benefits)
two man train crews
3 separate bus companies under the mta banner in the 5 boroughs.
ALL the unions doing . The mta has been trying to get change on these issues for 15 years with no support from the crooks in albany. they side with a small special interest group over the general public.
And how can they get an 11% raise when the mta is functionally insolvent or will be soon
The seperate bus companies is not the unions doing. They were quasi-private franchises untill recently.
As a working man who does an honest days work I resent your hateful hyperbole very much.