With the arrival of FASTRACK on the J line this evening, every Manhattan trunk line has gotten to enjoy the pain and benefits of the MTA’s new maintenance program, but media coverage has been nearly non-existent. Since an initial burst of concern over longer rides for those using the subway between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., the media has largely reported the outages with none of those “straphanger-on-the-street” quotes. Although I’m usually skeptical of such coverage, maybe it has a point.
As the MTA has trumpeted FASTRACK, we’ve gotten a laundry list of accomplishments. We’ve heard about bags of debris, pounds of scrap, ties replaced, drains cleared, third rail cleaned, pumped rooms treated. We’ve also heard bits and pieces about station environments. Last week, for instance, at the Lexington Ave. local stations, crews replaced 36 signs, over 1400 station light bults and 57 square feet of floor tile. Considering the state of the MTA’s stations, though, that’s not a considerable amount of work, and riders are starting to notice.
One reader sent me the following about Queens Boulevard a few days ago, and it’s not the first time I’ve heard such sentiments:
I live along the Queens Boulevard line and I happened to get off at Queens Plaza last night. Except for the condition of the rails and trackbed, which looked nice, the station didn’t look at all rehabbed. There were still leaks coming from the walls, and that one area of the station (back of the Manhattan bound local track) where it looks as if the pipe has been leaking forever and the wall is damaged. I am not to sure what the main goals of FasTrack seem to be as far as infrastructure that doesn’t have a short term effect on service but the station was rehabbed in the last few years and I’m wondering why these weren’t fixed.
Now, the purpose of FASTRACK isn’t to fancy up stations. It takes a concerted, long-term effort to do that, and FASTRACK’s raison d’etre involves the hidden infrastructure that runs the system. Yet, it’s always felt like an incomplete program to me because that forward-facing element is missing.
When the MTA takes something away from us, it’s easier to swallow if they give us something in return. For instance, a fare hike that’s accompanied by a service increase is far more acceptable than a fare hike accompanied by either nothing or service cuts. Likewise, if riders are suffering through longer rides, closed stations and inconvenient commutes especially during the already-unreliable overnight, they expect something in return. They want those dingy stations cleaned up and repaired. They want those leaky pipes sealed. They want something more pleasant than what they have now.
For the MTA to realize this desire, FASTRACK would have to be reconceptualized. It has to become something with a notable forward-facing component. It has to offer up tangible improvements and not just online laundry lists of accomplishments. When the next MTA capital campaign features spending on the signal system, the MTA should be able to deliver countdown clocks on the B Division in return. That’s the kind of trade-off that would make FASTRACK more acceptable in the eyes of the public even if we know and recognize that may not have been the agency’s original intentions.
52 comments
Why should it take a concerted, long-term effort to repair a leaky pipe or peeling ceiling in a station? People don’t wait to fix a pipe until they can afford a gut-renovation of their house.
Too many of our stations look like crap and aren’t routinely cleaned. Every shopping mall gets its floors cleaned every day, why not a station that is used by thousands of people?
This 1970s bankrupt mentality can no longer be the excuse but that seems to be what’s happening.
And how many malls are open 24/7?
They can clean when its closed – hard to clean a station or wash walls or get a steam cleaner out or scrub platforms when passengers are around 24/7 let alone do things like painting which require a lot of prep work.
You come up with easy statements about what needs to be done but have very little appreciation on the practicalities of doing things in a subway environment that operates 24/7.
No mall that I know of is open 24/7 on a daily basis. But Queens Center Mall in Queens was open full-time during the week around Christmas.
Under city ordenance Eaton Center in Toronto is, but that only applies to the mall it self & not the stores within.
precisely so they can do the deep cleaning and maintenance when its closed and would have only done only what was necessary – and work that wouldn’t impact on customers – when it was open 24/7 knowing it was for only a very short time.
But when your open 24/7 you really are limited to what you can do – so you can’t have fresh paint being applied when the public are around or get the pressure washers and steam cleaners out. So when the public are around you really are restricted to sweeping and picking up trash.
And there is a lot more space in a mall that you can divert customers to if you are doing work – try that on some of the very narrow subway platforms and the likely hood is you would have an increased risk of people falling on the tracks
And if the leaky pipe is above the tracks you need to close the tracks to be able to get at it and do the work to fix it – its not like you can get the ladders out on the LIVE tracks in between trains is it?
Wrong, they power stations and platforms with passengers on them. They just tell the passengers to goto the other end.
Eh, Chicago runs 24-hour subway stations and they’re not nearly as grimy or trash-strewn. It is actually possible to clean while people are around, or occasionally shut down individual stations overnight to do a deep clean and paint job.
The only lines that are open in CTA during the late night hours are the Red and Blue lines. That’s not even a third of the entire CTA system.
But all the other CTA lines except for the Yellow run on some portion of either the Red or Blue line trackage. This is true regardless if the trains opperate via the loop such as the Green or Brown lines.
Keep in mind that the Yellow Line does run through some Red Line trackage in Howard station.
Yes, but Yellow line trains don’t enter the main row beyond Howard. They stay within Skokie city limits as the cars on that line use catenary power vs triditional third rail contact for the rest of the system.
Actually, the Yellow Line uses both catenary and third rail. It’s the only line that does that. But it’s relatively unaffected by other goings-on in the Chicago El system.
If I recall correctly, the CTA dispatched with the catenary a few years back so the entire system is powered by the third rail only
Actually, the Yellow Line was catenary operation only until 2004, when third rail was installed on the part of the line not in Skokie.
The point was that those stations are also 24-hours and still much cleaner than the MTA’s. Yeah, there are fewer of them, but the stations that close for 4 hours every night aren’t noticeably cleaner.
There was a component repair program Walder proposed. It might had been buried. It might be part of FASTRACK as the program matures.
About the J line:
They should really clean up the Chambers Street and Bowery stations. These stations look like a dump. The MTA should start with Fastrack, and do a full-blown renovation later.
~ Someone
Maybe we can have Superstation? Stationice? for stations. I understand that track and signal work is a priority but blitzing the platforms cleaning and fixing leaks, repainting, etc. would be nice.
It seems to me they do that, maybe in second iterations of FASTRACK. The Nassau Street Line is perhaps the dumpiest in Manhattan.
Well, I guess there are crappier-looking lines in the outer boroughs, such as the Sea Beach Line.
Broadway on the Crosstown line looks like the set of a horror movie.
I agree, but I also believe 21st Street further northbound is in a more terrible condition.
I think the trade-off should be worth it to any rider who thinks about it: a little late-night inconvenience a few times a year in exchange for making the system work more smoothly for decades to come. Everything they’re doing needs to be done, no matter what visible improvement we get for it.
Does everything have to be an instantly gratifying quid pro quo? It seems everyone thinks so, and it might be part of the reason things never get accomplished here. Methinks the MTA is FASTRACK exactly right – and it might even be replacing the more annoying late night (to New Yorkers) shutdowns most systems see.
Fixing a whole station is something that does not take 5 nights to do. It takes months. I suggest that the MTA have some Smith-9th Street-style station closures to fix up the stations.
Wich stations do you propose for longterm closure Ryan. Oh, let me see… Woodside 61st, Times Square, Forest Hills 71st, Grand Central, Jackson Heights 74th? That won’t fly.
Actually, I was thinking: 21st Street (G), Broadway (G), Queens Plaza, Bowery, and Times Square (S).
OK that works as the 7 can replace the shuttle. Queens Plaza is a tough one to swalow though.
As we type, Forest Hills 71st is under renovation. The sidewalk southwest of Contenental is wide open with chain linked fencing & all staircases on that side of the street are closed. soon enough the other side of Queens Boulevard will get the same treatment. The station it self is being prept for elevator instalation.
I know. The MTA is also installing elevators at the 23 Street and 68 Street stations on the Lexington Avenue line in Manhattan, at Lefferts Boulevard in Queens, and at Hunts Point Boulevard in the Bronx. Too bad they couldn’t install elevators in some of the more heavily used stations in Manhattan (like Lex Avenue-59 Street).
The station at 59th & Lexington is designed in such a way that elevator instalations maybe next to impossible despite there absolute importance. Just on the basis of that location being a transfer point, that should be justification enough to add elevators. However as stated above, the configuration may prohibit elevators from being constructed.
It’s possible to just build new tracks (or new platforms) and widen the platforms so that they are ADA-accessible, but the MTA, knowing them, are too lazy to do this.
How do you do that considering you have the 4, 5 & 6 running over the N, Q & R. Keep in mind the N, Q & R turn eastward headding to Queens after that stop, so are you widening both levels?.
No, I propose two side platforms alongside the island platform (i.e. a Spanish solution.)
Is there enough room for such construction? also how do you opperate the busiest subway through such construction without a serious disruption in service.
Yes, there is space for such a platform. And you can just wall up the construction.
So, are you going to be the one to tell Bloomingdales about all this “easy” construction work?
A widening project here would make the NIMBYs on Second Ave look like mere children in comparison.
Well, the 59th Street side (the south side) of the station is empty, so that space can be used to build a new side platform easily. It’s the platform on the north side that is a PITA to build.
No it’s not, certainly not without high cost and disruption. The express tracks are below the local tracks, and Lexington Avenue is quite narrow (below 42nd, the Lexington Avenue Line is actually under Park Avenue and numerous other relatively wider throughways).
Did you think that the 59th Street station on the Lex Avenue Line didn’t cost that much? This BMT project would cost as much as that IRT project.
Having specifically looked for it after the 6th Avenue Fastracks, I’ve noticed little things … yellow stripes re-painted on platform edges (in stations where there’s not already a tactile edge installed) and on stairs, bits of ceiling re-painting here and there, and much less trash on the tracks. I agree it’s not something that will dazzle most customers, but how much can the MTA possibly get done in a week that would?
As for the Nassau St line … I am really curious what they are doing at Chambers St. station. Maybe nothing? A few of the other stations on that line are in good shape and could use some basic upkeep maintenance. But if they are going around Chambers St. picking up littler and repainting platform edges, that just amounts to a farce.
Everyone knows why Nassau Street or the B’klyn-Queens crosstown lines don’t get the most attention; because neither goes to midtown Manhattan. At least now that the Bleecker uptown transfer is in place, Fasttracking the J isn’t that much of a logistical ordeal for overnight riders to work around (though it still would be better if they kept the M in service overnight, or at least ran it or the J to West Fourth).
The problem is when you’re in catch-up mode on maintenance, there are just so many things that can be done at one time, either due to logistical or budget reasons. It would be great if the MTA brought in the highest-powered high-pressure steam cleaner they could find this week and attacked the walls and columns at Chambers and the Bowery, but that doesn’t fix the underlying leakage problem that created the mess in the first place. And those are the problems that you can’t fix with just five overnight closures — it’s going to take a major financial and time commitment to take care of things that haven’t been budgeted (in Chambers’ case, probably since the loop section was completed in 1931).
and if you don’t know where the leak starts (so you can fix it) there really isn’t much point in cleaning because in short order the mess will simply re-appear.
And I guess in a lot of stations the leak may even be caused by non-MTA pipes from the buildings above them – and the owners of those properties may not be that interested in fixing something that doesn’t cause them problems
File a trespass and nuisance lawsuit against the pipe owner. Win damages for lawyer fees and delays in owner not fixing it. End of story.
I know Chicago isn’t as transit dependent but when they renew a line … they close the whole line and redo all the stations in one swoop. They’ve done it for the Brown, Blue and now Red. And because of their above ground stations and winter weather they have a shorter building season. (Old Chicago joke, the two seasons in Chicago: winter and construction.)
Repairing our longterm problems are going to require aggressive action and that might inconvenience people for a bit. I think we can survive.
Actually, didn’t CTA only do the section between Fullerton and Belmont?
The entire Brown Line between Chicago and Kimball was redone (which includes 2 Red Line stations, Belmont/Fullerton.) The CTA is about to renovate the entire South Side Red Line this spring (full closure), and recently fixed up all of the North Side Red Line stations with partial closures, which will be followed by an entire reconstruction of the line in the next couple years once funding is in place.
CTA also does “Renew Crews” that close a station for a couple days while they deep clean, repaint, and make minor repairs and upgrades.
Comparing the two, I’d say the MTA does a better job with track/signal maintenance and the CTA does a better job with station maintenance (the CTA still struggles with annoying “slow zones”).
The CTA did look at renewing the Red line using weekend closures only but felt the pain of weekend closures for a good FOUR years would inflict more pain to passengers and cost more in the end that doing a block closure for five months.
I bet if this was in the central zone they wouldn’t contemplate a long term closure but weekends would be OK
As to the stations in the north they did do more than one station but always left an open station either side of the closed ones so people had a reasonable alternative.
And they did recently do a 9 day closure (with another one to come this month) of the Wells Street Bridge because, due to the work required, that was what was required to get the job done.
I heard that the Red Line Extension toward 130th would eventually cause 95th/Dan Ryan to be renovated in 2014. This would probably cause a full closure of the station for some time.
Besides, the closures are on all stations and the closures are supposed to happen for 5 months. That’s unbelievable.
Well, at least the Red Line stations would get new elevators and trackbeds, unlike the Smith-9th Street, Central Avenue, and Knickerbocker Avenue stations in the New York City Subway (only Smith-9th got new trackbeds, and none of them got new elevators.)
The first time the CTA did a full line closure, it was a disaster as ridership didn’t return to preconstruction levels till 2004 when gas prices started spiking. I’m refering to the green line.
Well, they closed that for a full year, and there’s no parallel line for the western leg of it, and they actually DESTROYED part of the line and never rebuilt it (the Englewood ridiculosity, look it up).
The southern Red Line closure is supposed to be met with enhanced service on the Green Line. The stations south of the Green Line terminals will hurt; the part north of there probably won’t be so bad.
I herd the same joke in reference to Minneapolis, as they have equally harsh winters as Chicago.
Yeah, but in Chicago, it’s snow, construction, and wind. The wind isn’t as bad though.
Doesn’t location play a roll regarding the wind?