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Benjamin Kabak

FASTRACK arrives on the BMT Broadway line

by Benjamin Kabak January 28, 2013

written by Benjamin Kabak on January 28, 2013

The Broadway Line will be without overnight service this week. (Click to enlarge)

The BMT Broadway line enjoyed a FASTRACK-free 2012, but the pleasures of uninterrupted overnight service come to end this evening at 10 p.m. Until 5 a.m. each night this week, there will be no service along the BMT Broadway line throughout Manhattan. As FASTRACK goes, this is one of the easier treatments with the three-block walk from 59th St. and 5th Ave. to 57th St. on the F representing the longest gap between the Broadway Line and any other train line in Manhattan.

As far as service changes, here’s what’s happening:

The N will run between Ditmars Boulevard and Queensboro Plaza and between Stillwell Ave. and Jay St.-Metrotech, making local stops north of 36th St.
The Q will run from 57th St./6th Ave. over the Manhattan Bridge via the 6th Ave. line. Q trains will make express stops in Manhattan.
R service in Manhattan ends early, and the R shuttle between Bay Ridge and 36th St. will start earlier than normal.

The folks who have it the worst here are those trying to go from Manhattan to Astoria. A simple one-train ride now because a three-seat ride involving a trip up to 42nd St. and a short stint on the 7. Anyone traveling to Brooklyn via the Brighton Line should be able to replicate their usual one-seat ride with a short walk, and those looking for N service can turn to the D instead. All in all, it’s not terrible.

The next FASTRACK treatment will be on the A Line north of 168th Street for four consecutive weeknights from Monday, February 25 to Friday, March 1.

January 28, 2013 26 comments

Asides PANYNJ

PATH to restore Newark-WTC overnight connection tonight

by Benjamin Kabak January 28, 2013

written by Benjamin Kabak on January 28, 2013

Weekday overnight PATH service between Newark and the World Trade Center stop will resume operations this evening, Port Authority announced today. With this resumption of overnight service, PATH’s weekday overnight service offerings have returned to pre-Sandy levels, three months after the storm swept through the region. Exchange Place and the WTC station will be closed throughout February from 10 p.m. Fridays through 5 a.m. Mondays as crews work to restore weekday service between Hoboken and the WTC and full weekend service.

Meanwhile, last week, Ted Mann profiled the challenges facing PATH in an excellent article in The World Street Journal. PATH has leaned heavily on manual operations and jury-rigged signal systems as well as assistance from New Jersey Transit and the MTA to restore its infrastructure. As Mann notes, a large portion of the PATH system was within the Sandy flood zone. “If I had parts of system that were not affected, yeah, it’d be easier to bring those back, but virtually all of my system was damaged,” Acting PATH Director Stephen Kingsberry said.

While reading Mann’s article and watching PATH and the MTA approach their respective rebuilding efforts, I’ve often wondered if it makes sense to have two distinct agencies responsible to entirely different oversight bodies. While PATH spans two states, it is an integral part of the New York Metropolitan area, and hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyians and New Yorkers rely on PATH to travel across the Hudson. As the region recovers from the storm, perhaps a second look at how PATH operates in relation to the rest of the region’s transit network should become a louder part of the discussion.

January 28, 2013 47 comments

MetroCard

A vague plan for a MetroCard replacement, three to five years away

by Benjamin Kabak January 28, 2013

written by Benjamin Kabak on January 28, 2013

The MTA believes the current MetroCard system will be unsustainable and functionally obsolete by 2019, but a replacement effort is stuck in neutral with the agency aiming for a three- to five-year rollout time for the next-generation fare payment technology. With questions surrounding the widespread availability of bank-issued contactless credit or debit cards and a rapidly changing mobile payments, it is currently unclear what the eventual replacement for the MetroCard will be.

As part of Monday morning’s MTA Board committee meetings, the Capital Program Oversight Committee will hear an update on the new fare payment system, and the presentation materials are already available online [pdf]. From them, we can glean information concerning the current shape of the project, and seven years after the first contactless pilot and nearly a decade since the MTA first acknowledged the impending end of the MetroCard, more uncertainties surround the project than ever before.

So what’s happening with the project? For starters, it’s getting farmed out to the agencies from MTA HQ. As most of the work centers, unsurprisingly, around New York City Transit’s fare payment system, Transit will now have oversight of the MetroCard replacement project while Metro-North and the LIRR will work together (shocking, I know) to develop a rail road fare payment system. The Fare and Toll Payment System Coordination Committee, run out of MTA HQ, will ensure that all MTA agencies are collaborating on future fare and toll payment systems. Too many cooks stirring the soup or a much-needed division of labor that puts the project under the auspicies of Transit, a far more stable agency than MTA HQ?

No matter the answer to that question, something has to be done, and with Tom Prendergast a stalwart atop Transit even as the MTA has gone through a few CEOs itself, someone has to be willing to push forward. Notably, the MTA documents say that the MetroCard technology is nearing the end of its shelf life. It’s becoming increasingly more expensive to maintain, and the agency does not believe it can keep the equipment in a state of good repair much past 2019. While six years seems like a decent enough lead time, we know how quickly six years can flash by in the MTA’s world.

So with the same goals as earlier — decreasing operation costs, finding a low-cost open solution that won’t put the MTA at the mercy of an old, closed system — Transit will forge ahead with a contactless solution. It may not be as reliant on bank-issued cards as the MTA, under Jay Walder, had suggested a few years ago. According to these documents, bank-issued cards aren’t seeing as widespread an adoption as the MTA had anticipated. The presentation says that the value proposition remains “unclear for customers, retailers, [and] issuers.” With mobile payment technology quickly improving and new players frequently entering the game, the MTA wants to find something forward-looking that can be implemented relatively quickly as well.

So with a new time window — three to five years from now puts the project in the 2016-2018 range — the MTA almost wants to wait out the market. According to the presentation, the rough idea is to build contactless infrastructure on top of the existing system to layer it in while phasing out MetroCards. Such a move could make for a seamless transition when the MetroCard is finally killed. Still, though, the open payments model will not be fully implemented until the “landscape for transit is defined and less risky.”

For now then, the MTA has put forward some more modest goals. They will “refresh” the previous analysis while looking a more options for potential solutions. The agency will continue to build out an in-system telecommunications network as active cell service would be a vital piece for any potential mobile payments system. They will consult with their industry colleagues who have successfully implemented contactless card solutions in Chicago, London and elsewhere.

So where does that leave us? I hate to say the MTA is back at square one because it’s not. But it’s awfully close. The MetroCard shelf life is pushing the timeframe here, and the MTA has basically given itself a year of wiggle room with no clear answer as to a solution. (It’s worth noting that it took the MTA over four years from the first MetroCard pilot to outfit every turnstile in the system for the technology.) Furthermore, it sounds as though the MTA wants to be a leader in a field with no clear answer. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel here if other solutions — like an Oyster card or an Octopus card — are adaptable in New York.

Ultimately, this is one clear area where a lack of institutional champion has left the MTA without a clear path. The next MTA head needs to make MetroCard replacement efforts a priority, and the agency heads now with more oversight on this project should strive to push it through as well. While we’ve prematurely eulogized the MetroCard a few times in recent years, its technological clock is ticking ever close to its end.

January 28, 2013 49 comments

Service Advisories

Fare Hike ’13: Sunset dates, $1 surcharge details unveiled

by Benjamin Kabak January 25, 2013

written by Benjamin Kabak on January 25, 2013

New MetroCards will soon come with a $1 surcharge.

With the March 3 fare hike rapidly approaching, the MTA today unveiled the mechanics of the fare hike. Can you stock up on unlimited ride cards as my parents used to do with tokens? And just how is that $1 surcharge the MTA has been threatening with since 2010 going to work? All of that – and more! – below.

To recap, the not-so-fun stuff first: With this fare hike, the base fare will jump to $2.50 with a pay-per-ride discount of just 5 percent on all purchases at or above $5. The 7-day unlimited will cost $30, and the 30-day unlimited will set back regular riders by $112. An express bus ride checks in at $6, and the single-ride cards available only through vending machines will clock in at $2.75.

With the fare hike, the $1 “new card” surcharge will be instituted as well. Each card purchased at a MetroCard Vending Machine, a station booth or at commuter rail stations will cost $1. The MTA says that to avoid the fee, riders should keep and refill current cards. Damaged or expired cards may be replaced at no cost, and those of us who receive pre-tax MetroCard in the mail through a transit benefit organization will not be assessed the $1 surcharge. Those who buy combo railroad/MetroCard tickets also will not be charged that dollar. As with any MTA project, it took the authority only three years since initial reports to implement this fee.

Now what of the question of hoarding? The short of it is that straphangers pretty much cannot hoard cards. According to the MTA, all cards purchased before Monday, March 3 must be activated by March 11 for users to receive the full value. So seven-day cards are valid through March 17, 2013, and 30-day cards are valid through April 9, 2013. What happens if you activate your card after the March 11 date? Glad you asked. So says the MTA:

For unused Unlimited Ride MetroCards purchased prior to the March 3, 2013 fare change, refunds will be made at the purchase price. For partially used Unlimited Ride MetroCards purchased prior to the March 3 fare increase, refunds will be made on a pro-rated basis. Ask for a postage-paid envelope from your bus operator, at the station booth, or download the form at mta.info and mail it to us with your card.

That refund process can be a bit of a pain. So I’d say start using that card by or before March 11 or find someone willing to pay you for that unused card you have lying around your house.

And that’s that. The breakeven point for a 7-day card will be 13 rides and for a 30-day card 48 rides. In that inexorable march of time, the fares will go up. They always do. After all, someone has to pay for this whole thing.

January 25, 2013 38 comments

WMATA

On WMATA and appreciating the MTA’s capital budget

by Benjamin Kabak January 24, 2013

written by Benjamin Kabak on January 24, 2013

Some of WMATA’s capital goals include in-system transfer points between popular stations.

The MTA’s capital plan may be considered something of a mess. For $25 billion – give or take a few billion – every five years, the MTA embarks on a steady stream of expansion and rehabilitation projects. Sure, new construction efforts cost far too much, and sure, nothing seems to be completed on time. But the capital program, born out of the system’s 1970s nadir, isn’t going anywhere. It’s too important to the city, its subway riders and its construction lobby.

Of course, the capital plan isn’t perfect. I can’t overstate how project costs and construction pace have hindered rapid subway expansion, and the MTA is constantly fighting for the dollars it so desperately needs. It’s clear from even cursory glances around the system that the remains elusive. Additionally, as the capital plan has lately been funded through a series of bond issues, the MTA’s dept payment obligations have increased rapidly over the last decade.

The perpetual stream of funding for capital dollars though is not something we should take for granted. Despite the frustrations we often feel toward Albany, someone had the foresight to put such a plan in place. If we turn our eye to the south, we find in Washington, D.C., an agency held hostage by two states, the District of Columbia and the federal government with a clear need for maintenance and expansion but no real plan to pay for any of it.

Earlier on Thursday, WMATA unveiled a new strategic plan called Momentum which includes a modest expansion of the Metro system, some long-awaited transfer tunnels between the Farragut stations and between Gallery Place and Metro Center and, finally, some express tracks along certain routes. Total expenditures would add up to approximately $1 billion a year through 2040, low by New York’s standards but high nonetheless. There’s a catch though: No one knows how these plans will be funded.

Dana Hedgpeth of The Washington Post delves into the funding issue. She writes:

Dubbed “Momentum,” and 18 months in the making, Metro’s new strategic plan catalogues the system’s needs and renews the long-standing argument for Metro to have a dedicated funding source, just as many big-city transit systems do. Metro’s lack of capital investment in the past decade has been blamed on that lack of dedicated funding, and planners say that unless that changes, there is little hope of executing the ambitious strategic plan that will be formally unveiled Thursday.

A new Metro line is being built in Northern Virginia, but it is being constructed for Metro by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, with revenue from the Dulles Toll Road financing a significant part of the line’s $5.6 billion cost.

No such obvious source of financing exists for the new rail line and tunnels proposed in Metro’s new strategic plan, and the plan does not specify how the agency would finance the rail expansion and other costly improvements….Unlike other transit agencies in New York, Boston and Los Angeles that depend on some level of dedicated funds from specific taxes, Metro receives contributions from the District, Maryland, Virginia and the federal government for its operating and capital budgets, which total $2.5 billion. Shyam Kannan, Metro’s chief planner, said it will take a “reliable, sustained stream of capital funding from a combination of local and federal” moneys to pay for the slew of proposed projects.

Metro is nearing its maximum capacity, and at some point, the region’s planners and politicians will have to address that prickly issue. If D.C. is to grow, its subway system must grow as well, but without a steady source of funding, that growth is never a sure thing.

Here in New York, we argue for more funding. We argue for direct contributions instead of debt financing, and we argue for more subsidies for the operations budget. Although our system is still struggling to overcome decades of deferred maintenance, a plan, no matter how tough to realize, exists. It’s easy to lose sight of that fact, but it’s one we should not take for granted. After all, it could always be worse: The MTA could be the protect of four governments all with their own political viewpoints, interests and financial endgoals at stake.

January 24, 2013 56 comments

Asides MTA Technology

Countdown clocks, Subway Time app offline after 9 p.m.

by Benjamin Kabak January 24, 2013

written by Benjamin Kabak on January 24, 2013

A missive from New York City Transit on some much-relied-upon technology: “MTA New York City Transit announces that Countdown Clocks and the mobile app, Subway Time, will not be available to the public for a number of hours later tonight in order to test a software upgrade and back-up system. During this time, we will be bringing the servers down and back up several times beginning this evening, January 24, after the p.m. rush hour (about 9 p.m.) and continuing until shortly before the morning rush hour, tomorrow, Friday, January 25. We apologize for the inconvenience to our customers.”

Once upon a time, we didn’t have subway countdown clocks, and waiting for trains overnight was often as painful as a root canal. Now, we know when we have to wait for 15 minutes for a 2 train as I did at Chambers St. at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday night. Tonight, though, New Yorkers are out of luck. The problem with technology, after all, is that someone, sometimes, has to upgrade the whole thing. The clocks should be back on before rush hour tomorrow.

January 24, 2013 3 comments

Abandoned Stations

Inside Metropolitan Avenue’s shuttered G passageway

by Benjamin Kabak January 24, 2013

written by Benjamin Kabak on January 24, 2013

The Grand St. half of the G train’s Metropolitan Ave. stop is currently closed to passengers.

The G train as it winds its way through Williamsburg is chock full of urban underground surprises. The South 4th St. shell sits uncompleted, unacknowledged and adorned with graffiti above the northern end of the Broadway stop, and a few blocks up Union Ave., the Metropolitan Ave. – Lorimer St. stop contains its own little secret. Thanks to an anonymous Second Ave. Sagas tipster, we can take a close look inside an area long closed to the public.

The secret to this station lies in its name. Before the IND Crosstown line and BMT Canarsie line combined to create today’s Metropolitan Ave./Lorimer St. complex, the IND stop was called Metropolitan Ave./Grand St. with entrances along Union Ave. at both intersections. The station featured one of the overbuilt full-length mezzanines that is a hallmark of the IND stations throughout the city. Much of that mezzanine is now blocked off by the police station, some crew quarters and, well, an abandoned entrance.

On the G train platform, evidence of the old name is visible in the tiling, and a shuttered staircase at the southern end of the platform leads upward to the now-closed Grand St. exit. My tipster, encountering an open grate a few months ago, did some exploring, and the photos show the station as it was before renovation in 2000-2001 changed the color scheme.

A transfer sign and staircases await passengers that will not be arriving any time soon.

We see a sloped ramp and station entrances in pretty good shape. Temporary walls mark the employees-only areas, and access to the platforms is gated off. All in all, there are publicly available and open parts of the system in much worse condition than this spot.

So what to do with it? Earlier today, I mused on the role passageways play in the subway system, and here is a functional one — albeit with some work to be done — sitting there without use. Considering the population growth in the area over the years since it was last in use, it’s a spot the MTA should consider reactivating.

The G train, meanwhile, is drawing some public support. The Riders Alliance — a group for which I sit on the board — along with local politicians is hosting a rally for the G this weekend. They’re not arguing for the reopening of this entrance, but they’re asking for increased G train frequency and out-of-system transfers between the G and J/Z in Williamsburg and the G and Atlantic Ave.-Barclays Center. “As the neighborhoods surrounding the G train continue to grow, it’s vital that their lifeline grow with them,” State Senator Daniel Squadron said.

For a few more shots of the abandoned mezzanine passageway, check out this set on Flickr.

January 24, 2013 54 comments

View from Underground

Fixing the unpleasantness of underground passageways

by Benjamin Kabak January 24, 2013

written by Benjamin Kabak on January 24, 2013

The underground passageway connecting 6th and 7th Avenues beneath 14th Street is not the friendliest of places. (Photo via @EnriquePenalosa)

Underneath New York City, the catacombs of the subway stretch beyond our imagination. New Yorkers vaguely remember passagesways — the one under what used to be Gimbels, the one stretching north from Herald Square — shuttered due to crime and budgetary concerns. The ones we do know are austere and ugly. The massive IND mezzanines seem desolate, the walk between 7th and 8th Avenues underneath 42nd St. is cramped and crammed with people. These passageways do nothing to make us feel good about the subways.

Over the weekend, former Bogota mayor and current NYU scholar Enrique Peñalosa found himself in one of those passageways and issued something of a challenge to New York. While walking underneath 14th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, Peñalosa snapped the photo you see atop this post and issued a short missive. “Walking under the city in subway tunnels,” he said, “is not pleasant.”

Those ten simple words capture the essence of these tunnels. The stations with pleasant walkways, such as those maintained privately that run under 6th Ave. near Rockefeller Center, are few and far between, and the rest seem barely functional with not much in the way of attention paid to them. It’s a sorry state of affairs really.

These passagesways shouldn’t be like that. Even though I’m skeptical of spending, say, billions of dollars to beautify a PATH hub or the Fulton St. Transit Center, the environment of the subways can create better attitudes among passengers. If the system looks maintained and cared for, if we feel comfortable walking down hallways and aren’t assaulted by the smell of urine or something worse, we are inclined to feel more confident in the system and to look it more.

To that end, I asked my Twitter followers how we can fix up the MTA’s passageways. Take a look at a few of the replies:

@secondavesagas don’t you want to commission some intense but uplifting soundscape for those tunnels?

— Nico Muhly (@nicomuhly) January 22, 2013

@secondavesagas art? “Under Bryant Park” is great.

— Franklin Bynum (@franklinbynum) January 22, 2013

@secondavesagas @enriquepenalosa it’s the lighting they use is subway passages; draining.

— Brian R. (@bgrmosaic) January 22, 2013

I posed the same question on my Facebook page and got another array of answers all with a similar theme. The answers focused around better lighting and the use of more color, whether through advertising or an Arts for Transit installation. The Under Bryant Park installation in the short passageway between the 6th Ave. Line and the 7 train seems to draw rave reviews across the board.

Infrastructure for subway passengers doesn’t have to be drab or foreboding. Even the bare minimum of upgrades can make an otherwise unappealing passageway seem less threatening, and the psychology of riders and the way they interact with and appreciate the system can be improved through simple fixes. If international leaders find subway tunnels unpleasant, New Yorkers shouldn’t just accept them as part of the everyday drudgery of the subway ride.

January 24, 2013 55 comments

Queens

Link: The R to JFK via the Rockaway Beach Branch

by Benjamin Kabak January 23, 2013

written by Benjamin Kabak on January 23, 2013

One proposal for the Rockaway Beach Branch Line involves sending the R train to the airport. (Map via Cap’n Transit)

As the effort to convert the Rockaway Beach Branch Line into a park gains state funds and media recognition, transit advocates are starting to raise their voices against the plan. As I’ve written in this space recently, we need to give rail its due as well. At the least, rail should be placed on equal footing with the QueensWay option, and at the most, reactivating a disused right-of-way should take clear precedent if it is technically feasible.

A few fine gentlemen both in need of promotions have gotten the proverbial ball rolling. Capt. Subway and Cap’n Transit have launched a petition urging Gov. Cuomo to reactivate the rail line, and Capt. Subway, writing on Cap’n Transit’s site, offers up his idea. He wants to send the R to Howard Beach via the Rockaway Beach Branch and restore G train service to the Queens Boulevard line.

Here’s a snippet of the argument:

Unfortunately the local tracks, while also theoretically capable of 30 trains per hour, are presently only running at about 20 trains per hour in the peak period. This is necessitated by the terminal at 71-Continental, which can only turn around about 20 trains per hour at the limit, and that not very well. For this reason the 63rd St connection to Queens Boulevard required a “robbing from Peter to pay Paul” switcheroo: the “G” line had to be cut back to Court Square and its slots on Queens Boulevard given over to another, Manhattan oriented service, first to the “V”, and now to the “M”. (For the first few years the “G” line ran to and from Forest Hills nights and weekends, when there was no “V” train service. But this passenger friendly part-time service died to make weekend service changes more doable).

Of course it needn’t be that way. Even in the original MTA plans from the late ‘60s “G” service would have remained intact. The express by-pass alone would have insured this. This is where the old LIRR Rock Line comes into play. By connecting this line to the Queens Boulevard line east (subway north) of 63rd Drive station – the tunnel bell mouths are there specifically for that scenario – the path to another local service terminal would be created, i.e. now the “G”, along with the “M” and “R” could run along the Queens Boulevard local tracks, with one of these service branching off after 63rd Drive and heading off to a new terminal at either Howard Beach or, it would be hoped, JFK, and thus not threatening to overwhelm 71-Continental as a terminal. In this way peak trains per hour on the Queens Boulevard local tracks could be raised from the present day 20 trains per hour up to 27 ½ trains per hour, given the current timetables on those three lines. This would be a significant improvement in service, especially if the “G” were equipped with full length trains.

These are the transit advantages of reactivating the Rockaway Branch as a subway line. Neighborhoods like Woodhaven, Rego Park and Ozone Park get quicker service to Midtown. Greenpoint and Williamsburg can be reconnected to Astoria and Jackson Heights with revived G train service. Local stations on the Queens Boulevard line see seven more trains an hour.

I have very little commentary to add. This proposal is an ideal one for many reasons and would require far less capital investment than building a new line from scratch. At a time when mobility matters and vulnerabilities have taken center stage, reactivating the rail line deserves as much attention, if not more, than the QueensWay initiative. So check out the two Captains’ efforts and give that petition a good skim.

January 23, 2013 128 comments

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News and Views on New York City Transportation

Benjamin Kabak

Benjamin Kabak

FASTRACK arrives on the BMT Broadway line

PATH to restore Newark-WTC overnight connection tonight

A vague plan for a MetroCard replacement, three to five years away

Recommended reading and the weekend service advisories

Fare Hike ’13: Sunset dates, $1 surcharge details unveiled

On WMATA and appreciating the MTA’s capital budget

Countdown clocks, Subway Time app offline after 9 p.m.

Inside Metropolitan Avenue’s shuttered G passageway

Fixing the unpleasantness of underground passageways

Link: The R to JFK via the Rockaway Beach Branch