With Vice President Joe Biden in tow — one of the key players behind the federal dollars New York has used in its recovery from Sandy — I’d hope that Gov. Andrew Cuomo would have more to say about construction efforts than what we already know. Perhaps he’d elaborate on how the state and MTA plan to shore up a 100-year-old system that’s underground in some of the city’s more vulnerable areas. Perhaps he’d talk about how the MTA will protect trains, yards and tunnels. Or perhaps, with nearly a full term under his belt, he’d just reiterate what we already know.
If you put money on the latter, congratulations. You’ve won. Here’s how the Daily News’ Daily Politics blog reported:
In hopes of avoiding future Hurricane Sandy disasters, Gov. Cuomo said Tuesday the state plans to plug every hole in the city’s subway system. Cuomo, during a presentation at the state Capitol with Vice President Joe Biden, said that there are more than 540 openings in the subway system that need to be closed ahead of major storms to avoid problems.
The entire system, from trainyards to the tunnels, will be retrofitted as part of a $5 billion upgrade, he said. “We have over 540 openings to the subway system and our challenge is to come up with a way to close all 540 openings before a flood and before the system fills,” he said.
Subway tunnels and stairways will have sealing devices designed to hold back flood waters that wreaked havoc during Hurricane Sandy and caused a multi-day shutdown of the system. He also said the pumping system will be upgraded. “We’re going to do the most fundamental redesign of the subway system since it was created over 100 years ago,” Cuomo said. “And we’re going to retrofit the entire system, every facet of the system.”
In a corresponding press release, Cuomo said more of the same: “The MTA is undertaking a $5 billion overhaul of New York’s mass transit systems – the largest reconstruction of the subway system in 110 years. Every facet of the system’s infrastructure will be improved to withstand extreme weather. The State will invest in technologies to seal hundreds of subway and tunnel entrances, seal station stairways and increase pump capacity in stations and tunnels and projects to protect bus and train yards and the vital infrastructure that makes them run. The State will also explore permanent and temporary technologies to seal automobile and subway tunnels and prevent future flooding. Six under-river tubes used by 1 million people a day will be rebuilt.”
The only new information is that six under-river tubes will be rebuilt. So far, all we know is that the Montague and Greenpoint Tubes are undergoing reconstruction. That leaves four other tubes — for cars or subways — to be similarly rebuilt.
Outside of that, we’ve heard this from the MTA over and over again for nearly a year. Since Sandy swept through, the MTA has spoken at length about the need to seal 560 access points, and although Cuomo reiterated this stance yesterday, we still have no idea how this tale task will be completed. Perhaps I’m being too harsh on Cuomo but 14 months after the storm, we need more than just the same taking points over and over again. We need details, and we need leadership. We’ve gotten neither.
15 comments
“We’re going to do the most fundamental redesign of the subway system since it was created over 100 years ago”
More of the same, some pol taking credit for making things a tad worse.
In the oldest design, there were air powered, waterproof pumps to clear out the tunnels, designed by smart old Yankees. Those kept working after Sandy and may have saved the Lex Ave line.
The new, improved electric pumps died at exactly the time they were most needed.
That was totally predictable, as they were not only not waterproof, they were powered from an electric substation within the historic flood zone. Yep, this one topped the old flood wall, but another storm could have gone under or through the flood wall, eg by floating debris such as a loose barge busting the wall.
Unfreeze and reanimate some of those old Yankees and send certain pompous pols to a permanent career on reality TV, or to North Korea as appropriate.
//grumble
There really hasn’t been any follow-up to the Times’ piece on the subway flooding, and why World War I-and-earlier pump technology was able to at least cope with Sandy while the more modern water removal systems failed, and what (if anything) the MTA learned from this. A future announcement of high-tech plugs and newer pumps that are still powered though the normal Con Ed grid would not be a sign of learning from your mistakes.
(Though to be fair to Cuomo, it is possible while the MTA may know the rough dollar amount and the goal of the program, they haven’t decided how they’re going to get there yet, which would explain why Cuomo wasn’t any more specific than that on Tuesday.)
“and why World War I-and-earlier pump technology was able to at least cope with Sandy while the more modern water removal systems failed”
Because of the character of the people who designed and specified them, who were chosen because of the character and competence of the people who hired them, who somewhere up the chain were put in place by an electorate that at least somewhat valued competence and honesty over whatever version of political correctness they may have been fashionable at the time.
Politically fashionable people have enormous contempt for those who design and build things.
One of the other things William Barclay Parsons and the engineers who immediately followed him did with the original IRT was to waterproof the bejeezus out of it at the station stops, which is why the Contract 1 and Contract 2 station areas are so damned hot in the summer. But it would be interesting to also know if, along with the pumps and the drainage option to Lower South Ferry, if all that waterproofing helped the upper SF station survive relatively intact from Sandy, allowing it to be rehabbed and reopened as quickly as it was by the MTA.
That Parsons was a stand-up guy.
Letting a station be “just a little” leaky is no way to control temperatures.
Perhaps the subways being right under the pavement contributes to the heat. You have to wonder if they’d be less broiling if they were about six feet lower; still staircase depth but further from pavement heat. It could be that the amount of heat dumped by the trains at every brake application dwarfs heat gain from the tunnel roof.
…the largest reconstruction of the subway system in 110 years.
lololololololololol!
Please, let that suburbanite troll have his bravado. It’ll be nice to see him soundly defeated in the Democratic primaries so he can go back to the suburbs and stop wasting everyone’s time.
Would like to know more about these “540 openings.” Seems like a VERY low number to me.
My guess is the 540 number is for openings in the Zone A and possibly the Zone B flood areas. Spending money to plug the openings at, say, 181st St. on the A (as opposed to at Dyckman with the lead tracks from the 207th St. yard) in the event of a hurricane would a waste of limited resources.
I’d be more impressed if he announced they were extending the unfinished line running along Houston from the Second Ave station to the East River…
Really, it could be worse. At least they’re plugging the holes. If we had the same mentality in place that we had even in the 1980s, a third of our rapid transit system could easily have been abandoned by now. Obviously, that’s not a tenable position anymore, since if any one thing might be indisputably credited for effecting New York’s revival, it’s probably the Subway.
I will say this comment about it being the Biggest Thing Ever probably belies Cuomo’s lack of understanding or interest in the system. But we knew that.
Put all of the put Cuomo hating aside, and ask yourself the question: Would any you really want all, or any, or just some, a few, or none of the leakage, and damage producing, or potentially damage producing portals – not repaired, and the subways suffering further water damage.
On the NYC-Subway.ORG website among others, there are plenty of pictures of the water damage that has occurred over the years at plenty of subway stations and in the tunnels. Would anyone here seriously, and I mean seriously say without any hesitation or second thoughts the Chambers Street station on the current J & Z lines should never, ever be fixed? To leave it just as it is for a few more decades, just because they do not like Cuomo?
Here’s another point – the water damage has nothing to do with whether the original construction was based upon the IRT company, or the BRT/BMT company or the municipal IND subway. There are plenty of stations all over showing water damage, and plenty of pictures of it.
Second, plenty of folks seem to have forgotten that several subway stations and tunnels were flooded during Hurricane Sandy, and that there were major efforts at getting those places cleared both with the few pump trains, and the pumping equipment that was available that worked. While plenty of credit for the building of the subways can be laid on the original builders and thinkers – several fortunate and unfortunate events occurred during Hurricane Sandy. One example is at South Ferry – some folks want to say that the older loop station was “somehow better” than the “lower stub station” – completely forgetting that all three sets of stations were flooded – and there are pictures that prove that point. The same came be said at other stations. The subways did not come back to life, as if somebody just flipped a switch and all was well.
There are plenty of places within NYC and New Jersey that were impacted by Hurricane Sandy. And more than a year later, there is still much work to be done! Unlike the X-Men and other super-hero movies – which can easily show plenty of destruction and mayhem, it takes real women and men to rebuild, restore, relocate, & restructure after a real life-real world disaster.
Say whatever you want about Gov. Cuomo, at least he is coming up with the money to fix the subways. In transit it takes plenty of money to get things, real things done. Don’t worry, very soon soon somebody will criticize the idea that we dared to repair the subways.
Mike
Say whatever you want about Gov. Cuomo, at least he is coming up with the money to fix the subways.
Except it’s all federal money. That sort of invalidates your entire point, no?
Nope, Cuomo is responding to a problem! Some of the comments here imply that they would really rather not have money spent to deal with the problems, because Cuomo is linked somehow to that effort. Me – I’d rather have the problems attended to.
Mike
I think the problem is with giving Cuomo undue credit.