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View from Underground

How the vaccine creates a politically expedient way to end the overnight subway closures

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 31, 2021

Trains keep running every night, but passengers aren’t allowed on the subway. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

Every few weeks, the absurdity of the MTA’s overnight subway closure is thrust into the spotlight. Sometimes, a tweet describing how the trains are still running even though riders aren’t allowed on board goes viral. Sometimes, MTA executives draw headlines when they admit to state representatives that the agency is not in fact saving any money by denying passengers subway rides from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. each night.

That’s what happened last week during an Albany hearing on the very precarious state of the MTA’s budget. When grilled by Robert Carroll, a Brooklyn Assembly representative who has co-sponsored a bill that would mandate restoration of 24/7 passenger service, MTA CFO Bob Foran acknowledged that the MTA is not saving any money. “That was not done as a cost saving effort,” Foran said. “We are still running trains. They are to get our workforce back and forth.”

This is of course not a surprise to those in the know. It was an open secret for months that the MTA is still running its regularly scheduled overnight service but without passengers, and it was an open secret for months that the overnight denial of service isn’t a cost-saving measure. While the MTA can point to some minimal productivity gains that could have been achieved with FastTrack-esque shutdowns, the agency never intended to use the overnight closures to save money or increase capital work. The system is simply too vast with too many projects that were planned too long ago for a short four-window to do much for productivity.

Rather, the shutdowns were about implementing a legal mechanism to permit the MTA to remove unsheltered New Yorkers from the subway system while bolstering a necessary cleaning regiment that could have continued while essential workers were permitted access to the subway overnight. That trains are still running on a normal overnight schedule gives that game away, and headways are long enough at night that the MTA could take yard most trains at the end of their runs if they truly had to clean them with no passengers on board. The incremental personnel costs wouldn’t be out of line with the costs the MTA incurs running empty trains, and essential workers would have normal commutes rather than the lengthy trips I wrote about in August.

This is neither here nor there right now. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, through MTA leadership, has made clear that 24/7 passenger service will not return to the subways until the pandemic is over, a philosophy that incorrectly views overnight service as more beneficial to leisure, rather than essential, travel. But it doesn’t have to be this way. As the vaccine effort ramps up, Cuomo and the MTA have a very easy way to gracefully usher in the return of passengers to the subways on a 24/7 by tying it to access to vaccination hubs.

This is, of course, not a novel idea. In fact, a group of City Council representatives penned a letter to the MTA last week saying as much. “Not only has the suspension of late-night service and frequency reduction caused a great strain on the commutes of essential workers who every day have been putting their lives on the line, but the subway is now going to play an important role in bringing the City through to the other side of this pandemic crisis,” the letter notes. “With the creation of 24 hour vaccine hubs and, hopefully, accelerated supply from the new Biden Administration, New York City is working hard to ramp up its vaccine roll out. If these Vaccine hubs are going to be operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the city will need its public transportation infrastructure to be operating at the same time and capacity…It is of the utmost important to address the limited subway service immediately and restore 24-hour service.”

The political opening is there for the governor, but it’s not quite as easy as removing the chains blocking the stations at night. It requires some careful public messaging that explains how the MTA will keep cleaning and why the risk of viral transmission on transit remains low, two approaches few leaders in American government have taken throughout the pandemic. In a recent internal survey, the MTA found out that over 75% of current customers believe cleaning and disinfecting efforts make them “feel safe” when using transit. The same percentage has noticed that trains are cleaner since the overnight shutdowns began in May, and 55% of lapsed riders say cleanliness of trains is very important to them as and when they return to the subways.

Even though the virus is largely airborne and surface transmission is rare, keeping the trains clean is important for maintaining public trust in transit. Thus, if the MTA restores overnight service prior to the nebulous end of the pandemic, the agency must continue to stress that cleaning continues, as it does during the day, even if surface cleaning is more about perception than actual risk.

This of course puts the MTA in between a rock and a hard place. While the CDC has told the MTA to continue to disinfect surfaces while combating aerosol-based transmission, the MTA will have to keep spending a lot of money on surface cleaning to insure adequate faith in the system. And the issue of homelessness looms large. The MTA is not a housing agency nor are agency staffers experts in housing policy, but by denying passengers access to the trains overnight, the MTA has temporarily solved the problem of people remaining in the way on trains that need to be cleaned. Restoring 24/7 passenger service will force the MTA to reconsider this approach to removing homeless New Yorkers from the trains.

I don’t have a good answer here; it’s ultimately up to the city and state to house their unsheltered residents. But it shouldn’t be an excuse to deny essential workers a fast ride home or a city itching to escape quarantine access to 24/7 vaccine hubs. Allowing passengers on the trains overnight shouldn’t wait until the end of the pandemic when nightlife returns and things are moving back to normal. Once the vaccine supply is in place, Gov. Cuomo should allow passengers back on the subway overnight as a recognition of the way people need to travel and a symbol of a city on the rebound.

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Fare Hikes

MTA to shelve 2021 fare hike for now, citing the economic toll of the pandemic on NYC

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 19, 2021

Amidst an ongoing pandemic that has decimated the economy and reduced daily transit ridership to essential workers traveling to keep the city and themselves afloat, the MTA Board has tabled talks of a fare hike, agency officials confirmed on Monday. The decision comes after months of public pressure by both elected officials and transit advocates, and it marks the first time since biennial fare hikes began in 2010 that the MTA Board — and by extension, the governor — has opted to cancel or at least postpone a fare hike.

Rumors that the MTA would be delaying the fare hike had been swirling since the New Year, and as the local pile-on from elected officials continued throughout the holidays and into 2021, it seemed as though the politics of a mid-pandemic fare hike would make the move untenable. CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer broke the news, and MTA Chairman and CEO Pat Foye sent out a statement a few hours later explaining the decision:

“The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked economic havoc — devastating the MTA’s ridership and revenues and bringing them to levels far worse than the Great Depression. It has also hit people of color and low income communities hardest, many of whom are the very same essential workers that have been on the frontlines of this crisis and who are also most dependent on mass transit.

“As part of our biennial review of fare and toll policy, the MTA conducted the unprecedented level of outreach this year required, holding eight public hearings and receiving 2,100 public comments. What we heard at these hearings was that people are suffering and cannot shoulder even a modest fare increase right now.

“Buoyed by President-elect Biden, incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the MTA also has hope for $8 billion in additional pandemic relief and continued federal investment in mass transit in 2021 and beyond. For these reasons, the MTA has decided to postpone the planned fare increase for several months. We plan to move forward with a discussion and vote on recommended toll changes in February.”

According to Clayton Guse of The Daily News, the MTA will not move to raise the fares until at least the summer, and I expect the agency to delay the hike until the pandemic abates and transit ridership rebounds significantly.

The city’s transit advocates were quick to praise the move. “When riders organize, our governor listens. With offices closed and Broadway dark, a transit fare hike would fall overwhelmingly on essential workers and New Yorkers with no other way to get around beside the bus, subway, and paratransit,” Riders Alliance Policy & Communications Director Danny Pearlstein said. “With the regressive MTA fare hike off the table, Governor Cuomo must now put a stop to state raids on transit-dedicated funds. While riders are breathing a sigh of relief, the governor must craft a bold, progressive solution to his transit agency’s money woes.”

For now, the relieve is temporary. The MTA will seek to raise fares within the next six or twelve months, but the decision this week is the right. Last month, as the MTA seemed on a collision course with a public economically drained by the pandemic, I wrote a piece urging the MTA to delay the fare hike, and the reasoning holds up. On the backs of essential riders, the MTA would have raised approximately $79 million in total by implementing a 2021 fare hike, and the agency is still requesting $8 billion from the incoming Biden Administration. It would have been political suicide for any fare hike to go through, and from conversations I’ve had with MTA and state sources, it seems clear the Governor knew this.

So what happens next? First, the mystifying debate over the future of unlimited ride fare cards will be delayed a few more months, and that may give us more time to understand why Larry Schwartz, architect of New York State’s current vaccine rollout plan, wants to eliminate them. Second, the bridge and tunnel toll hikes will continue, and this is good public policy. Drivers should be expected to pay more, both as a way to capture the externalities of driving and as a way to encourage transit usages.

The MTA hasn’t revealed the specifics of the planned toll hikes, but we know that crossings could increase to as much as $6.70 for New York E-ZPass customers. We also know the MTA is considering variable tolling based on time of day and/or on so-called Gridlock Alert Days, a quasi-congestion pricing plan. Resident discounts and carpool incentives may be reduced as well. Again, these are all fine proposals that should be adopted, especially as bridge and tunnel traffic has recovered significantly faster than transit usage. (Bridge and tunnel traffic is down by only 16-17 percent from pre-pandemic figures while subway and bus ridership have steadied at around 30 and 45 percent of normal, respectively.)

Still, the MTA plans to reduce some service. The commuter rail lines will see some trips eliminated as part of a pandemic-related “right-sizing” of weekday service, and New York City Transit has had to cancel around 2 percent of scheduled trips in recent months due to crew unavailability, as Jose Martinez reported on Monday. The LIRR/Metro-North cuts will be approved by the MTA Board, but the subway service reductions remain off the books. Ideally, the MTA won’t have to make further cuts, but the budget remains shaky at best.

The big X Factor though involves federal funding. With a technical Democratic majority in the Senate and control of the House, the Biden Administration should be able to secure the rest of the funding the country’s transit agencies have requested, including $8 billion the MTA wants, and the next COVID-19 relief package should include this funding, if Democrats get their way. With no room for error in the Senate, that remains a reasonably sizable “if,” but we should know soon how aggressive Democrats in the Senate will be in determining the future of the legislative filibuster and their political success. The city and the MTA need a strong federal response.

For now, though, cooler and saner heads have prevailed, and transit fares will not increase in April, as originally anticipated. This is welcome news for a city and its workforce hoping to reach the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel and the right move by the MTA and Gov. Cuomo.

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Moynihan Station

Some thoughts on Moynihan Train Hall and designing public spaces with nowhere to sit

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 10, 2021

A panorama of Moynihan Train Hall, New York State’s attempt at righting the wrongs at Penn Station. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

New York spent $1.6 billion on the Moynihan Train Hall, but all we got was a big waiting room/mall with nowhere to sit. New York spent $4 billion on Santiago Calatrava’s Oculus, but all we got was a big waiting room/mall with nowhere to sit. New York spent $1.4 billion on the Fulton St. Transit Center, but all we got was a big waiting room/mall with nowhere to sit.

Are you sensing a trend yet? Why is New York spending so much money on giant waiting room/malls that all have nowhere to sit? And what does this say about how we’ve chosen to treat our public spaces and transit infrastructure? Must we make every public space so inhospitable to the people using it or can we find a better way? I’ve thought a lot about these questions since visiting the brand-new Moynihan Train Hall on Saturday, and while we have a chance, as a city, to design friendlier public spaces, the opportunity is slipping away.

Before I dig into this philosophical discussion on urban policy, let’s talk about Moynihan Hall. It’s very nice – exceedingly nice. It’s so nice that I overheard someone say to his companion, “This place is too nice.” I couldn’t tell if it was a compliment or if he felt truly out of place to be in a clean, light, airy, modern train station in the middle of Manhattan. New Yorkers are so beaten down by the grunginess of Penn Station and the general mediocrity of the design of newer transit infrastructure that something nice is too good to be true. This isn’t New York City; it’s too nice.

Moynihan Hall also isn’t finished. None of the shops or restaurants that will make it feel more like London’s St Pancras Station are open yet, and they won’t be until later in 2021. Even though Gov. Andrew Cuomo insisted on opening Moynihan Hall “on time” — whatever that means during the middle of a pandemic when few people are traveling — the building is still a work in progress. Still, it has high ceilings and clear sight lines and bathrooms with three faucets and feels very much a modern train station should feel. Moynihan Train Hall, a glorified and expensive waiting room, plays the role of a state-of-the-art train station quite well, and considering how much of the problems with Penn Station are aesthetic, that may not ultimately be a bad thing.

Without capacity upgrades or service improvements, I still can’t shake the feeling it’s the infrastructure equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. Ultimately, the space looks like the renderings, and after decades of a cramped, crowded Penn Station, the new Hall is a significant visual and environmental upgrade. It makes going to Manhattan to catch an Amtrak or Long Island Rail Road train a pleasant experience.

An Art Deco clock looms over the middle of the train hall. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

The critics have had a lot to say. You can read a review of SOM’s work at Dezeen and an interview with Peter Pennoyer, design of the Hall’s snazzy Art Deco clock, at Architectural Digest. (I love the clock, even if it is very much A Clock A Train Station Should Have According To Andrew Cuomo.) Justin Davidson likes it and took exception to my characterization of lipstick on a pig while Aaron Gordon found it mediocre. Steve Cuozzo thinks it’s a great example of adoptive reuse but says it can’t hold a candle to the original Penn Station.

As nice as the new hall is, it isn’t all days of wine and roses. What Penn Station enjoys in location, location, location, the Moynihan Train Hall does not. Penn, situated between 7th and 8th Avenues and one block away from Herald Square, is amidst 14 different subway lines. The entrance to Moynihan is west of every single one of the subway lines, and the Hall itself, with escalators down to the Penn Station platforms, is even further west. It pretends to be a Penn Station replacement but without Penn’s greatest asset, and when the world returns to regular commuting, those heading into the city may find the convenience of Penn and the shorter walk to the subway outweighs a nicer glimpse passing through Moynihan.

The hall itself continues the siloed fiefdoms of Penn Station. Although the new hall provides access to Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak trains, you wouldn’t even know New Jersey Transit services Penn Station. There are simply no signs of the New Jersey-bound trains. That’s partially due to the reality that you can’t access every NJ Transit track that far west, but it’s also due to the fact that none of the three entities that use Penn Station get along. Without through-running or capacity increases that won’t arrive until we get new trans-Hudson tunnels and Penn Station South, the Moynihan Train Hall is a testament to the reality that it’s harder to rationalize operations across multiple transit agencies based in different states than it is to simply renovate an old building that was already there.

The only seats in the Moynihan Train Hall are reserved for ticketed passengers only. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

But beyond the politics of improving commuter rail service through the New York City area, a few key aspects of the Moynihan Train Hall speak to decisions we as a city have made regarding our approach to public spaces that do not sit right with me and reflect societal failures to address policy challenges. In a sense, the Moynihan Train Hall is a public space but hostile architecture. It’s designed to look nice, but it’s not designed to encourage reflection or time spent within the space. You are to pass through the space, admire the Instagram-worthy elements of it and leave. Soon you’ll be able to dine and shop as well, but when you’re done with that, get outta here.

To hit you over the head with this element, the new building is closed every night from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m., while Penn Station remains open, and there is nowhere to sit. The new hall is a vast open space with narrow escalators leading down to the platforms, clear sight lines, a stunning skylight and no seats. The only waiting areas are reserved for ticketed Amtrak and LIRR passengers, and while station architects say the dining hall will have seats when it opens in the fall, those will be for people who are eating. Moynihan is, like Calatrava’s Oculus, the Fulton St. Transit Center, and the current iteration of Grand Central, a train station with nowhere to sit.

Why, you may ask do we make public places so anti-public? The answer is rooted in our inability to house the homeless and our societal fear that New York’s homeless residents will take over public spaces that aren’t designed properly. If Moynihan were open 24/7 as Penn Station is, if Moynihan had seats out in the open, if Moynihan were truly a public space, homeless New Yorkers would not leave, as many do not leave Penn Station, the Port Authority Bus Terminal or even parts of Laguardia Airport. Instead of solving for this specific problem, whether through better housing programs or homeless outreach or humane enforcement of public space, the city and state have opted to turn public spaces into museums. You can look at them, but you can’t stay long because staying long isn’t comfortable.

This is, of course, a New York City problem that isn’t constrained to train stations, though the profusion of new train stations in recent years has laid bare this approach to public space. It manifests itself in the lack of public seating throughout the city and the lack of any public restrooms as well. If these spaces don’t exist, then “undesirables” can’t use them or inhabit them.

Now, this should not be read as a defense of ceding public space to anyone or turning those spaces into de facto housing at the expense of the general public at large. But a competent and functional government should be able to design nice new train halls that include spaces where the public can relax while enjoying these spaces and policies that address the root of homelessness. We have chosen not to, and as nice as Moynihan Train Hall is — as much of an improvement over Penn Station it is — it’s hard to look beyond the choice made to design the space. These design choices affect more than just the homeless. For anyone facing mobility challenges or anyone pushing luggage or rolling a stroller, Moynihan offers little respite from the constant on-the-go motion of people passing through. It’s a new train hall, where people come and go, without any place for anyone to simply sit and collect themselves for a few minutes, and that’s a design choice we should un-make in the future.

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Fare Hikes

The MTA should not raise fares in 2021

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 29, 2020

I originally published a version of this piece on my Patreon last week and wanted to share it here as well. As a reminder, Second Ave. Sagas is fully reader-funded, and I will be revamping the Patreon tiers in the new year. Have a safe and healthy beginning to 2021.

With the news emerging from Washington a week and a half ago that the MTA will secure $4 billion in pandemic relief funding from the federal government, the MTA’s Doomsday budget has been averted for now. The agency received only one-third of the $12 billion it requested and may still face a deficit of around $1 billion for 2021 before the figures balloon in the out-years. But that’s something the agency will address down the road. The service cuts, which would have hamstrung New York’s post-COVID recovery before it even began are off the table, at least until the country goes through this unnecessary dance again later next year.

Instead, the transit advocacy world’s focus has turned entirely to the 2021 fare hikes. Over the past few weeks, the MTA has launched the process of soliciting public feedback regarding their fare hike proposals, and the early reviews are negative across the board. Although the MTA has taken great pains to stress how the fare hike was scheduled for 2021 and was going to happen regardless of the multi-billion-dollar hole the pandemic has blown through the agency’s budget, no one is happy with options on the table.

I wrote about those various options a few weeks ago, and examined why the MTA would even consider eliminating time-based Metrocards. The public comments have struck similar chords. No one wants to see unlimited ride cards, which encourage transit usage and eliminate transfer penalties, eliminated, and in fact, many politicians and advocates are taking an even stronger stance this year: They are urging the MTA to skip its biennial fare hike entirely.

It’s almost ancient history these day, but the MTA’s regularly scheduled fare hikes grew out of the 2008 recession and 2010’s own version of the Doomsday budget. As part of the state’s rescue package, in exchange for the payroll mobility tax, the MTA agreed to a series of ostensibly modest fare hikes every two years in perpetuity. This was designed to foist some of the MTA’s own economic pain onto the shoulders of its riders and allow for certainty in revenue increases. That certainty, of course, went out the window as pandemic ridership has dropped to barely 30% of normal, but the fare hikes must go on, or so says the MTA.

Should they though? The question of delaying the fare hike is both an easy one and complicated one. Or maybe it’s just an easy one. For starters, the MTA’s revenue projections for the fare hike are modest. The agency has a need for $8 billion over the next few years, but in the short-term, fare hikes are expected to cover only a small portion of the budget gap.

Setting aside the revenue from bridge and tunnel toll increases (which should continue on sound policy grounds), the MTA expects the fare hike to net just $90 million in 2021 and only an additional $189 million in 2022. Meanwhile, those who are still riding the subways and buses are essential workers who are keeping the city healthy and afloat, and those essential workers are going to be the bulk of ridership well into 2021. Does it make sense to attempt to balance even a small portion of the books on the backs of these folks who have little choice but to ride? Is it a fair and just policy decision?

The answers to those questions depend on whether one views transit as a public good to be subsidized or a quasi-private benefit that should be rider-funded. I fall into the former category. As a strong believer in the claim that transit is a public good and should be treated as one, these fare hikes amidst a pandemic — hikes that will burden essential workers at a time we need them most — are bad policy and should not be approved this year.

There are other secondary considerations at play as well. One is the current elasticity of ridership. In the Before Times, fare hikes generally had little impact on ridership as transit remained the most cost- and time-efficient way to travel. Lately, though, transit ridership has been very sensitive to outside effects. When it snowed on Thursday, bus and subway ridership dropped by nearly 40%, and even the rainy days this fall saw ridership dip by nearly a quarter. Thus, the same expectations may not apply, and with a skeptical public looking for excuses to avoid transit, higher costs could turn some casual riders away at a time the agency needs more fare revenue.

That brings me to point two. Unfairly or not, the MTA has borne the brunt of bad publicity this year. Some of the focus has been around crime (which is up in the subway as trains have emptied out, but still sits at levels comparable to the late 2000s/early 2010s); some of the focus have been around unfounded fears of transmission risks. As the MTA looks to welcome riders back to the system and assuage concerns about the relative safety of transit, raising fares may be counterproductive and, again, a bad policy decision.

Finally, politics rears its ugly head. Even as the MTA pleads poverty and begs for more and more federal funding, even as the MTA looks to foist a fare hike onto essential workers, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is again withholding money earmarked for transit or diverting millions to his pet projects. In a statement before the MTA Board this week, Reinvent Albany’s Rachael Fauss levied this charge:

The MTA board must not approve $148M in fare hikes for 2021 while Governor Cuomo is planning to raid at least $600M in MTA dedicated funds. As the MTA said in July, it is asking for $12B in federal emergency funding, including $600M to compensate for the loss of “state subsidies.” (“Subsidies are a euphemism for dedicated taxes, in this case primarily Metro Mass Transportation Operating Assistance “MMTOA” funding.) This $600M was added on top of its spring deficit of $10.3B which already accounted for COVID-19 revenue losses from ridership and its economic impact on MTA dedicated taxes.

To be clear, we fully support the MTA getting billions in much-needed federal COVID emergency aid, but at the same time more federal aid is not a license for the Governor to raid at least $600M of MTA funds.

The details get a little wonky, but effectively, New York State is cutting the MMTOA by approximately 35% while state budgets are being cut by only 20% across the board. In other words, the MTA is getting approximately $600 million less than it should have due to Cuomo’s budget moves. Again, riders should not be asked to pick up any of this slack while the governor looks to wash his hands of this decision.

Ultimately, the decision to raise the fares is a political one, and the MTA Board may not have much cover to vote down the fare hikes this time around. But they should. It’s bad policy at this moment in time to attempt to raise revenue off the backs of essential workers who have pushed the city through the pandemic, and it gives cover to bad budgetary decision-making from New York’s politicians. The MTA should not approve a fare hike for 2021. It is the right choice.

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Fare Hikes

As part of the 2021 fare hike, the MTA is considering eliminating unlimited ride Metrocards. Why?

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 9, 2020

No matter what happens with its Doomsday budget, whether federal transit funding comes through or not, the MTA is going to raise the fares next year. The uptick is part of the never-ending, biennial fare increases that see the cost of transit inch upward in New York City every two years like clockwork and not, as MTA Chair and CEO Pat Foye has repeatedly said, part of the MTA’s effort to close its multi-billion-dollar budget gap.

In other words, the fares would be going up with or without the pandemic next year, and while New Yorkers have grown numb to the drumbeat of ever-escalating transit costs, this year’s menu of potential changes to the fares sure has raised eyebrows among the city’s transit cognoscenti. In particular, as part of the strategy of throwing everything against a wall to see what sticks, the MTA has proposed eliminating unlimited 7- and 30-day Metrocards. The agency had previously cut the 1-day Fun Pass and a 14-day card a few years ago due to low usage rates, but it’s not clear why the MTA would look to do away with passes that incentivize more transit usage. To make matters worse, the rationale offered by Larry Schwartz, Andrew Cuomo’s MTA enforcer and right-hand man on the agency board, were mystifyingly mysterious.

We’ll get to all the politics and policy decisions in a minute. Let’s start with a look at the proposals on the table.

Usually, when the MTA prepares for these fare hikes, the agency offers two menus of fare hike options. But after increased criticism a few years ago from MTA Board members who felt they were denied a say in the policy of the fare hikes, the agency has opted for a series of blanket policies and a variety of logic games. It’s not yet clear how the MTA is going to get from here to a concrete set of new fares, but the net impact of the changes to the fares will be a 4% jump in fare-based revenue. The table below, which the agency has labeled “for illustrative purposes” only, offers a glimpse at the “policy options” under consideration.

The MTA put more details online last week, and here we have a quasi-glimpse of the various proposals at play. The permutations are confusing with a lot of conditional statements, but the MTA is essentially considering maintaining the base pay-per-ride fare or increasing it by 25 cents. If the pay-per-ride fares increase, the unlimited ride cars would see smaller increases — a 7-day card could cost $34.75, up $1.75 from the current price, and a 30-day card could cost $134, up $7. If the MTA holds the base fare, the weekly pass could cost $36 or $3 more and a monthly could cost $139, up a whopping $12 from current rates. The monthly hasn’t seen this large an increase since 2010 when the cost went up from $89 to $104.

In this great puzzle of either-or-maybe options, the MTA has also said it could keep the fee for new Metrocard purchases at $1 or increase it to $3 per card. This fee, which is avoidable if you stick an expired Metrocard into a vending machine, should be increased as both an incentive to get riders to switch to OMNY and a way for infrequent or tourist riders to offset commuting costs for transit regulars.

But I’m burying the lede: The MTA is considering eliminating “one or more” time-based passes. There is no trigger here or an either-or option, and it’s not clear what will happen if the MTA decides to embrace the proposal. That is, the move to cut unlimited ride passes stands alone, and the MTA has not the public what the trade-off would be. Would it mean no increase in the pay-per-ride fare or a separate slate of fare proposals? We do not know, and instead, this is a pure policy consideration by the MTA, allegedly separate from the ongoing pandemic slump. It also makes absolutely no sense.

Generally speaking, one goal of a well-run public transit system in a heavily populated cit is to incentivize transit usage. The only way for millions of New Yorkers to move through the city each day efficiently is via high-capacity,, rail, and the more riders the better. Unlimited Metrocards were a revelation for New York City and one that unlocked the transit system for millions. For a one-time upfront fee each month (or week), potential riders could swipe as many times as they wanted, and taking short trips — whether by bus or train — became second nature. It was, in fact, best to maximize monthly swipes to get a better deal. At a time when the MTA needs to attract riders to shore up its finances and help avoid crushing gridlock on city streets, doing away with time-based incentives is foolhardy.

If anything, in fact, the MTA’s unlimited ride, time-based passes should be cheaper. Currently, the breakeven point for a 30-day Metrocard is a shade over 46 rides and for a 7-day card, 12 trips. With the 47th swipe in a 30-day period, it becomes more cost-efficient to pay $127 than to buy rides at $2.75 per trip. This is generally a high bar to clear when compared with international norms. Most international transit systems heavily incentivize time-based passes – in Stockholm, for instance, the break-even point for a 30-day pass is 26 rides and a 30-day Navigo pass in Paris pays for itself after the 39th trip. So the MTA already over-burdens users of time-based compared with international peer systems.

Meanwhile, as OMNY completes its system-wide rollout in a few days, the MTA should look to further incentivize transit while making the system more accessible through fare capping. In essence, fare capping means that after a certain number of rides per time period – whether it be day, week or month – a rider no longer pays for additional trips. In London, for example, generally, rider aren’t charged each week after their 15th trip. This allows riders who can’t afford a monthly pass upfront to enjoy the benefits of limitless transit after reaching a fare level. The MTA has yet to determine if they will implement fare capping with OMNY, but this, rather than the elimination of time-based passes, is the policy discussion worth having.

So why is the MTA considering a shift in fare policy that would disincentivize riders while shifting away from international norms? The answer appears to have arisen in the form of a half-formed rant by Cuomo aide and MTA Board Member Larry Schwartz during last month’s board meeting. Here’s what Schwartz had to say:

I’m going to take the same position I took two years ago. I don’t think the people who depend on the MTA’s mass transit system should have to pay more. It’s for the casual rider that I believe should be paying more in offsetting any increases that the riders who depend on the system. That is why I like freezing the New York City subway fare at $2.75 because it would actually mean a $2.65 fare. It would be a 10 cent decrease. That is why I believe the 30-day commuter – these are people who depend on the mass transit system to get to work as opposed to the casual daily rider that buys an off-peak ticket or to go to a show or restaurant, the doctor or has a trial in New York City. So I’m all in favor of that.

The other thing I want to say is that right now, I am somewhat in favor of eliminating the time based passes because I believe there is a lot of fraud associated with them…I would really like to see the 7-day time based fares on ZIP code or something. Who is purchasing those 7-day time-based passes? Because again, I am not here to hurt the people who rely on the system the most. The people that can afford to should pay more, the people that cannot shouldn’t. But I’m also concerned with the 7-day and the 30-day. There’s been a lot of fraud associated with these things that hurt people who pay the 2.75 trip on New York City subways.

Again, my goal is not to see the base fare increase for both the bus and subway riders and also for those people who depend the most on commuter rail, those monthly pass holders. Again, the people who depend on the system the most should be held harmless, and the people that are casual riders who use the system….um, you know, they can…It’s the best deal in town. They’ll never find an alternative source of transportation other than walking to get from Point A to Point B whether it’s coming into the city or going from one part of the city to another than it is the MTA system….My thing is for those casual people, they can probably absorb a little bit more.

So much of what Schwartz said makes no sense, and if you can make heads or tails of these arguments, more power to you. Even though in pre-pandemic times, over 50% of riders used time-based cards, Schwartz thinks they’re used only by casual riders. He also seems to think those riders don’t rely on the system most and should be socked by higher fares, again a shift from a rational fare policy. I don’t know how or why he thinks eliminating unlimited cards would lower the fare, but the biggest red flag is in his evidence-free claims of fraud.

The last time Schwartz raised an argument like this, it sent us down a years’-long path arguing over fare evasion and its impact. Now, Schwartz, without providing a shred of evidence, claims that 30-day cards are subject to “a lot of fraud.” On its face, that makes little sense as each time-based card carries with it an 18-minute timeout to combat fraud, and Schwartz has provided nothing to back up his claim. But we have to listen to it because he’s the one on the board closest to the Governor, and the Governor is responsible for the decisions made within and about the MTA.

So here we are, staring at fare hikes that involve a lot of moving parts and a threat to cut off the city’s unlimited cards, transit lifelines for millions and one that makes riding easy. If the MTA is truly considering eliminating these cards, they owe it to the public to explain why, and Schwartz owes it to the public to present evidence of this fraud. Otherwise, the MTA should leave well enough alone and make these time-based cards more readily affordable for everyone rather than cutting them out entirely.

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Doomsday BudgetMTA EconomicsMTA Politics

Facing a $6 billion deficit in 2021, MTA could cut subway, bus service by 40%. But is this a real threat or simply a political one?

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 29, 2020

What happens to New York City without its transit system? Can the city function? Can it succeed? Can it serve as the self-professed Center of the Universe if the subways and buses that, in normal times, serve well over 7 million riders a day, can’t run frequently throughout the day? Can the Big Apple recover from the economic crisis of the pandemic without robust transit or will a transit decimated by political failures at every level drag down the city and the country as NYC and the USA, both hanging on by a thread right now, look to a post-COVID future? We may soon find out.

Facing billions of dollars in revenue shortfalls due to the ongoing pandemic, the MTA Board two weeks ago took another step toward enacting the agency’s Doomsday budget. With paralysis gripping the U.S. Senate and Mitch McConnell still refusing to negotiate a new stimulus package, the MTA’s financial picture has not improved since the Board first contemplated the worst-case scenario in August. Now, with the remainder of 2020 measured in days rather than months, the MTA has just a few weeks left to wait for federal relief before the Board is faced with the unenviable task of approving the budget presented at November’s meeting. It’s one that could cut service by up to 40 percent, but it remains a very political document aimed at Washington and with a glimpse at what the MTA truly needs to stay afloat through 2021.

During November’s Board meeting, the MTA did not vote on a 2021 budget; that procedural move will wait until December’s meeting, likely to be scheduled shortly before Christmas. Instead, the agency rehashed the same story it has been telling since the spring and again reissued its non-stop call for federal aid.

“The MTA continues to face a once-in-100-year fiscal tsunami and this is without a doubt one of the most difficult and devastating budgets in agency history,” MTA Chairman and CEO Patrick J. Foye said. “No one at the MTA wants to undertake these horrific cuts but with federal relief nowhere in sight there is no other option. As I have said, we cannot cut our way out of this crisis – we are facing a blow to our ridership greater than that experienced during the Great Depression. We are once again urging Washington to take immediate action and provide the full $12 billion to the MTA.”

What we learned was this: Since the MTA’s July budget, its financial picture has worsened, largely due to federal inaction on a pandemic relief package. Ridership remains as expected — subway ridership is hovering at around 31-32 percent of normal while buses have seen between 45-50 percent of riders return — but the $3.9 billion in HEROES Act funding never arrived. The latest budget projections include a total deficit of $15 billion, as you can see below, and here is where this document turns political.

Visual representation of the MTA's five-year $15 billion budget deficit.

The MTA keeps asking for $12 billion in federal funding, and that number has raised eyebrows. Could the agency actually be this far into the red through only eight months of the pandemic? As the chart details, the answer is no, the MTA’s deficit does not stand at $12 billion for one year. Rather, this is the MTA’s ask across multiple years. To be whole through the end of this year, the MTA needs $2.4 billion – which it can secure through the Fed’s Municipal Liquidity Facility. That loan though will come with more interest that we the riders will have to pay off over the years. It’s an imperfect, though necessary, way to keep the trains running.

For 2021, the MTA’s immediate need is around $6 billion or half of its continued request. The agency then anticipates deficits of $3.6 billion in 2022, nearly $1.8 billion in 2023 and almost $2 billion in 2024 for a total of around $13 billion. Securing $12 billion in one lump sum gives the MTA flexibility to restructure this out-year deficits, incorporating whatever internal cuts the MTA can institute with the federal funding to show balanced budgets on paper, but its immediate needs are $6 billion. If that amount comes in, the MTA can fight anew for a few more billions for 2022 and 2023 – if the Biden Administration and whoever controls the Senate are still in the mood to pass stimulus packages.

Ask for all you need now because you don’t know what will come later. At its very heart, it is a political request, and the MTA is not shying away from politics. Earlier this year, MTA CFO Bob Foran stated the MTA’s ask included $1 billion to account for the Trump Administration’s slow-walking of congestion pricing, and the MTA is asking for more than it needs in the hopes that it can start negotiations with recalcitrant Senate Republicans at a higher baseline. It’s a dangerous game. For most of its existence, the MTA has been politically neutral while leaving the lobbying to politicians, but with federal politicians playing a game of economic chicken with states and municipalities, current MTA leaders have, at the behest of Gov. Cuomo, turned into partisan lobbyists. In fact, Foye recently penned letters to leading Georgia-based companies warning them that MTA capital funding could dry up without federal aid. This was a clear partisan shot aimed at drawing support for the Democratic candidates in the upcoming Georgia Senate run-off.

But the MTA is also hedging on its ask, aiming to draw out that $6 billion. Take a look at the MTA’s internal deficit reduction plan – a series of cuts that lowers its long-term deficit to a still-unmanageable $7 billion over five years.

Make no mistake about it, though, these cuts would be devastating. The MTA plans to cut $343 million from annual subway service expenditures and $641 million from annual bus service expenditures. For subways, this means service cuts of up to 40%, including 15-minute weekend headways and other off-peak frequency adjustments. One of the questions driving a cut of this nature is whether the MTA can actually implement a 40% reduction in service. As with overnight trains running but without passengers, there is simply not enough room to park trains that aren’t running, and it’s not cost-efficient to cut service significantly. Just the thread is enough to see how this would ruin the subway system and save a small percent of what the MTA actually needs.

The buses, as always, would bare double the cuts as subways, and a 40% reduction of bus service would practically zero out many local routes. “Bus service reductions of up to 40% may result in reduced frequencies by up to
33% on bus routes that are not eliminated,” the MTA notes ominously. The agency is planning only $265 million in annual cuts to the LIRR and Metro-North but still halving service by up to 50 percent.

But this is all still a threat aimed at scaring the Senate into saving the MTA and the U.S. economy. In my view and in the views of many advocates, the MTA should cut service as a last resort, especially as the pandemic drags on and essential workers need to be able to maintain their commutes. “Failing to save transit at this pivotal moment is not an option,” Betsy Plum, executive director of the Riders Alliance, said. “Should Congress fail to act, the MTA’s doomsday budget must be the absolute last resort. As Chairman Foye said, literally everything must be on the table. At the end of the day, Governor Cuomo must do all he possibly can to safeguard our transit system and New York’s future.”

Yet, the MTA is heading down this path as a way to exert political pressure on Washington. Let New York fail? We dare you.

The state, in fact, has yet to do much to shore up its own struggling revenue picture, and Andrew Cuomo has a responsibility to ensure transit survives. I know various budgets and services have seen the pandemic blow billion-dollar holes through their budgets, but the state should look at other possible revenue streams — gas tax increases, legalizing marijuana, taxing the rich — while at the same time avoiding service cuts and lobbying for federal aid. (Streetsblog’s Dave Colon had a deep dive on this topic worth reading.)

As a last ditch resort before cutting service, the MTA should also look to restructure its debt and secure more credit. The state could help enable this as well by legislatively permitting the MTA to explore bankruptcy, an option currently foreclosed to it due to state prohibitions. This would be additional bargaining chips, designed to bolster political support in Washington for a direct transfer of funds back to a state that, in normal times, pays more in federal taxes than it gets back.

While we can appreciate the budget as the political document that it is intended to be and hope these service cuts are a threat rather than an omen, at some point, though, reality has to settle in. Mitch McConnell isn’t very likely to fund transit on his own, and the state should use the levers it has to cut into the MTA’s deficit so that subway and bus service could survive un-cut in a New York City on the rebound. Otherwise, with transit on the chopping block, cars will choke a city that grinds to a halt, hinder mobility and New York’s recovery and the national one at a time when the country can least afford it.

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Metro-NorthMTA Politics

Metro-North launches air filtration and purification pilot as FRA grants collide with the politics of Trump’s ‘anarchist jurisdictions’ declaration

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 18, 2020

Metro-North Chief Mechanical Officer Jim Heimbuecher demonstrates the new air purification technology. (Photo: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit)

While the world has yet to find a link between transit and coronavirus transmission, in the age of COVID-19, transit agencies themselves are working hard to build up public trust in buses and trains. For New York, masks were an early and easy focus, and compliance remains high across the region. In fact, a 6 train car of around 35 passengers I was on this past Saturday afternoon had universal compliance. Now, as the long-term effects of the virus settle in, ventilation has become the next frontier.

As the world has learned more about COVID-19, we have come to understand that ventilation and air replacement are keys for reducing transmission risks in enclosed spaces. Generally, train cars are very efficient at air replacement. The MTA’s commuter rails, for example, filters air 30 times an hour or once every 120 seconds, far in excess of CDC guidelines, and the air in New York City’s subway cars is fully replaced every 200 seconds. Now, the MTA is piloting a new way to filter and purify air, and if successful, the agency claims these new units could kill 99.9998 percent of virus particles, further enhancing transit safety.

The pilot launched last week on one car of Metro-North’s M7 rolling stock and will soon begin on one Long Island Rail Road car as well. It builds on a proof of concept launched over the summer that uses an electrical field to generate a wave of ionized particles that destroy airborne viruses, bacteria and particulate matter. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will also test this new technology to determine if it can be useful around the country.

“As more and more customers return to Metro-North trains, they want to be confident that we are doing everything that we can to keep them safe and healthy,” Metro-North Railroad President Catherine Rinaldi said at a press conference last week. “If the pilot proves successful, not only does this new air purification technology kill COVID-19, it kills any virus including the standard flu or bacteria that cause the common cold, and even particulate matter like diesel fumes. The benefits provided by this new system would last well after the pandemic has ended.”

An MTA press release added further details:

The new system passes air through three stages. The first stage applies an electrostatic discharge to actively target viruses, and then uses physical filtration to remove the charged particles. The air is then safely exposed within a self-contained unit, to ultraviolet radiation that has long been proven to kill bacteria, mold, and viruses. Third, the air is exposed to a wave of ionized particles that attack pollutants, chemically decomposing them. The ions further travel deeply through the air distribution ducts of the car and into the vehicle interior to enhance the railroads’ existing disinfection of surfaces inside the cars.

MTA officials did not talk about any potential benchmarks for the pilot program other than “effectiveness” and will use the time to assess how quickly this system could be installed on each of the 2200 cars Metro-North and the LIRR couldn’t employ. These officials noted, however, that since Knorr and Merak created the train’s ventilation systems, it can be treated essentially as an add-on. “This addition to our ventilation would be completely invisible to the customers,” Metro-North Chief Mechanical Officer James Heimbuecher said. “We like that it can be incorporated into our existing ventilation systems with minimal intrusion. If this pilot proves successful, our crews are ready to begin adding this system across our entire fleet.”

Ventilation is clearly the current focus as the world hopes to return to some semblance of normal before any potential COVID-19 vaccine arrives, and this pilot gets the commuter rails — where ridership has lagged in recent months — on the right track. Could something like this come to the subway? It’s an intriguing possibility and one I’ll follow up on. Politically, though, there’s a rub.

Last week, the FRA put out a call for the nation’s transit agencies to apply for some or all of a $10 million grant to research COVID-19 (PDF). The goal of the grant is to encourage agencies to “develop, deploy, and demonstrate innovative solutions that improve the operational efficiency of transit agencies…in four major areas: (1) Vehicle, facility, equipment and infrastructure cleaning and disinfection; (2) exposure mitigation measures; (3) innovative mobility such as contactless payments; and (4) measures that strengthen public confidence in transit.”

This sounds right up the MTA’s alley. It is, after all, the largest transit agency in the nation and has been aggressive in testing a variety of approaching to disinfecting train cars through UV light and improving ventilation, as this new pilot demonstrates. But the MTA may not be eligible to apply for this grant. Following the Trump Administration’s political decision to label New York City an “anarchy jurisdiction,” the FRA has said they will consider this designation in determining which transit agencies can receive these grants.

The FRA is the first federal agency to make such a statement, and transit advocate organizations are not happy. NACTO sent out an aggressive statement opposing the move:

Denying transit agencies funding obstructs their ability to develop best practices to make transit safer for millions of riders and workers, and the people with whom they interact. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York, TriMet in Portland, and King County Metro and Sound Transit in Seattle together make up nearly half of national transit ridership and have already made major contributions to our understanding of how to keep riders and operators safe from the virus. From testing vehicle filtration and UV light sanitation systems to instituting mask outreach and mandates, the ability of these larger, urban transit systems to evaluate new interventions is especially instructive for operators serving smaller, rural communities where Covid-19 outbreaks are currently most acute and resources are limited.

The Trump administration’s attempt to condition FTA grants on political criteria unrelated to need or merit sets a disturbing precedent. If applied to other forms of federal funding, this “guidance” has the potential to thwart cities’ long-term economic recovery efforts. Cities and transit agencies need a strong federal partner to maintain and restore service, invigorate local economies, and create new jobs.

Withholding federal funding from cities in retaliation for political disagreements is not only legally dubious but vindictive and undemocratic in its intent. Our organizations, representing cities, transit agencies, and transportation experts and advocates, stand in firm opposition to the Justice Department’s designation of New York, Portland, and Seattle as “anarchist jurisdictions” and against the arbitrary and capricious decision to deny some of the world’s most-used transit systems acutely-needed funding solely to serve a political agenda.

Close to home, Transit Center’s David Bragdon echoed these sentiments. “Secretary Elaine Chao’s willingness to expose innocent transit riders and essential transit workers to greater risk of COVID just because of Donald Trump’s unrelated personal vendetta against certain local elected officials is both reckless and un-American. No American, in any city or state, should be sacrificed to a pandemic because of a President’s petty whims,” he said.

The FRA later told Streetsblog New York that the agency had no choice but to follow Trump’s guidance. The MTA meanwhile is “reviewing” the grant application, and the de Blasio administration has threatened to sue if funds are denied. The election could render this all moot in a few days, but for now, at least, studying and enhancing transit disinfectant procedures during a pandemic remains hijacked by the same politics gripping the nation even as the MTA moves ahead with its own clean-air initiative.

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View from Underground

In Defense of Transit: New APTA report finds no link between coronavirus cases and public transit

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 11, 2020

An APTA study led by Sam Schwartz found no link between virus cases and transit usage.

It’s been hard to resist starting every post focusing on the MTA’s current ridership situation and budget woes with the sentence, “It’s been a rough few months for transit,” but it’s been a rough few months for transit. Often associated with the hoi polloi and dirty masses, most transit systems didn’t have reputations for cleanliness before the pandemic and whether fairly or not, quickly become associated with the spread of disease as the pandemic descended on the world.

After a spring in which a spurious MIT study that relied heavily on a correlation/causation error drove the conversation, a group of pro-transit researchers are fighting back, and in a new study released by the American Public Transportation Association, they report no known links between coronavirus cases and public transit.

“As of August 2020, no outbreaks have been traced to public transit in the United States,” the report, authored by New York’s own Sam Schwartz, said. “Based on our data review of case rates and transit usage in domestic cities, the correlation between infection rates and transit usage is weak or non-existent.”

Schwartz’s survey of current pandemic experiences is part of a larger report on transit-related best practices for the COVID-19 era, and you can access the report here as a PDF. It’s very much yet another attempt to change the narrative. The MIT study came out early in April, and despite debunking by Alon Levy and Aaron Gordon, two well-respected voices within the transit community, it set the stage for months of American fears over transit.

Nearly immediately, many one-time transit riders relied upon the MIT study to reinforce ideas that transit isn’t safe and is a source of spread. Even now, seven months after New York started working from home en masse, subway ridership is only around 1.7-1.8 million per day, approximately 30% of normal, and many New Yorkers have said their commute is the biggest barrier to returning to work. The problem is one of psychology and one of science. I understand why people may be hesitant to ride the subway or hop a bus where they may have less control over everyone around them, but sitting in a poorly ventilated office with other people for 8-10 hours a day is more dangerous than the ride shorter to get there. Schwartz is trying to prove it.

Schwartz has to overcome the challenges of proving a negative, and he makes a compelling case. He looks at transit agencies large and small, from NYC to Hartford to the Quad Cities to Northern Kentucky. In each case, after lockdowns eased, increased transit ridership hasn’t corresponded to an uptick in coronavirus cases. Since the spring at least, when mask mandates were instituted and social distancing became the norm, careful transit usage coupled with disinfectant procedures haven’t led to an uptick in positive tests. Here’s Schwartz’s conclusion:

COVID-19 rates appear to be independent of ridership: in Northeast cities such as Hartford, Connecticut and New York, New York where the pandemic has been largely controlled, ridership has grown since peak pandemic low points, but case rates have been significantly reduced. Meanwhile, in Southern, Southwestern, and Midwestern cities, ridership has remained consistent while cases have skyrocketed. These areas are experiencing serious community outbreaks primarily attributed by public health experts to the reopening of bars and restaurants, large gatherings, nursing homes, prisons, and community fatigue of physical distancing practices. In fact, of the fifteen metro areas with the highest cumulative case rates as of August 2020, not one had a typical commuter transit share more than 5%, and most have minimal transit services with very light usage.

What Schwartz cannot ascertain and what will always remain unanswered is whether transit had a role in community spread before we had a better understanding of the science behind COVID-19. It’s generally accepted that the virus was in the U.S. long before the middle of March, and 5.5 million people were riding the subways each day well into early March and long before we knew how effective masks were at slowing the spread. Schwartz even admits as much, noting that “public transit has some characteristics associated with higher COVID-19 transmission risk, including the potential for crowding in enclosed environments on trains, buses and indoor stations.” Ultimately, though, masks, a lack of talking, frequent air replacement and a steady flow of passengers mitigates against risks today whether or not the trains helped spread the virus in March. Based on what we know now, so long as most riders are masked, it’s safe to ride transit.

But will this report matter? That is a question I can’t answer. People’s fears about COVID-19 are fairly baked in right now, and while mayoral candidates are making a show of riding trains, neither Bill de Blasio nor Andrew Cuomo have issued full-throated defenses of subways lately. For better or worse, potential transit riders take their cues from leadership, and leadership is wavering. Still, Schwartz’s study and overview reinforces what many of us have been saying: With proper precautions and a smart approach to personal and communal care, transit trips are no more riskier than any other activity these days.

The final wild card in this psychological battle for the minds of transit riders is, of course, the Trump Administration. Hardly allies to cities and transit riders, the White House has blocked a national order requiring face masks on all transit hubs. Instead, it’s up to localities to approve and enforce these orders. At a local level, the MTA is also prohibited from applying for a federal grant to study how to combat coronavirus spread on transit, as Politico reported late last week.

We’ll know more about this development on Monday, but this is the heigh of petty politics. Despite its flaws, the MTA is best suited to understand how to combat COVID on transit, and the fact that they can’t apply for this grant because the Trump Administration is playing politics with public health three weeks before the election is a travesty. Still, we know the answers — masks, constant service, less talking, ventilation and high-quality air filters. That’s how transit is safe, and that’s why you could ride the subways today without worrying too much about putting your health at risk.

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Podcast

Podcast, Episode 12: Inside the history of the Second Ave. Subway with Philip Plotch, author of Last Subway

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on September 25, 2020

Earlier this year, Phil Plotch, a one-time transit planner who is now a professor of political science at Saint Peter’s University in New Jersey, published the definitive account of the Second Ave. Subway. The book is called The Last Subway: The Long Wait for the Next Train in New York City, and it traces the tortured political history of the Second Ave. Subway and its various trials and travails. I’ve wanted to talk with Phil about his book and the Second Ave. Subway and finally had the chance to sit down with him this week.

In the latest episode of my podcast, Phil and I discussed the sagas of the Second Ave. Subway, from its often-delayed origins in the early 20th century to its role in pushing the formation of the MTA to the Gov. Cuomo-inspired rush to completion. Is the three-stop extension of the Q train that made up Phase 1 of the project really New York City’s last subway? You’ll have to listen to find out.

As always, you can find this episode at all the popular podcast spots — iTunes, Google Play, Spotify or Pocket Casts, to name a few. Or you can listen by clicking the “play” button below. If you like what you hear and have been enjoying the podcasts, please consider leaving a review on your iTunes.

Thanks for listening, and a big thank you as well to Joe Jakubowski for sound engineering. The podcasts are great fun, but they take a lot of time and effort. I can keep doing them only through the generous contributions of my listeners so please consider joining the Second Ave. Sagas Patreon. Since this site runs entirely on Patreon contributions, your help keeps the proverbial engine going. You can find a copy of Last Subway online or at your local bookstore.

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View from Underground

Thoughts on what’s driving New York’s $50 fine for refusal to wear masks on transit

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on September 23, 2020

MTA Chairman & CEO Patrick J. Foye, Interim NYCT President Sarah Feinberg, LIRR President Phil Eng, and NYCT Chief Customer Officer Sarah Meyer hold a press conference at Atlantic Av-Barclays Center on Mon., September 14, 2020 to launch a new public service campaign to encourage mask usage along with the new $50 fine policy for those who refuse to wear face coverings on public transit. (Photo: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit)

For those New Yorkers venturing onto the subway these day, it has become a hobby of sorts to track mask compliance. Jose Martinez of THE CITY runs Twitter scorecards tracking mask compliance using the terminology from the MTA’s own ad campaign, and while mileage may vary by line and time of day, mask compliance on transit in New York City is generally very good with 90-95% of riders properly masked up, according to MTA figures. For public health purposes, that level of mask usage is sufficient to significantly slow the spread of an airborne virus.

Still, compliance – with a mask over both one’s nose and one’s mouth – may have been slipping in recent weeks, and even 90% compliance isn’t good enough for the governor. Why? I’ll get to that shortly, but to that end, earlier this month, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced a new executive order “directing the MTA to develop a plan to bolster mask compliance across public transportation system’s subways, buses and railroads.” The MTA, in turn, announced a $50 fine for any rider who refuses to wear a mask. In a sense, that’s an academic recitation of events. As Cuomo controls the MTA, he’s the one imposing the $50 fine, and the agency is simply serving its purpose as political cover for the governor’s decision.

“While mask compliance in the MTA system remains very high, we want to make sure that people feel comfortable coming back to public transportation,” Governor Cuomo said in his press release last week.

On Monday afternoon, MTA officials gathered at the Atlantic Ave. subway stop to discuss the enforcement effort and $50 fine. Enforcement of rules in the subway has turned into a bit of a hot-button issue in recent years as the MTA has faced criticism for heavy-handed fare enforcement efforts that seemingly target minorities and a ramp-up of NYPD expenditures at a time when transit budgets are crashing. Yet, during the press conference, MTA leaders took pains to stress the public health effects of wearing a mask and de-emphasize punitive punishment, especially when asked about the impact of a $50 fine amidst an ongoing economic downturn. “We’re not,” NYC Transit’s interim president Sarah Feinberg said, “looking for the police to fine people. We‘re looking for compliance.”

MTA CEO and Chairman Pat Foye echoed this approach. “This is not about revenue,” he said, “and we have no interest in issuing fines and summonses.” Rather, MTA officials said, agency employees and cops will first request that maskless passengers don a proper face covering, and if these riders do not comply, they could face a $50 fine.

On the surface, this seems pretty straightforward: In an effort to drum up confidence in transit, whose reputation has unfairly taken a hit during the pandemic, the MTA is enforcing the state’s mask mandate. The health behind wearing masks is clear: They are one of the single best ways to protect yourself and other people from the spread of COVID-19, and the MTA, which has drawn criticism for resisting permitting its workers to wear masks early on during the pandemic, is trying to be responsible to the riding public and its workers as New York City reopens.

But the intricacies are worth probing because this appears to be a tacit attempt at luring Manhattan desk jockeys back to their offices. Time and again, surveys have indicated that transit rides are a point of contention. Even though sitting in an enclosed office for 8-10 hours a day is far riskier than the 25-35 minute subway rides people take to get there, New Yorkers seem to fear those subway rides – where socially distancing is tough, if not impossible – more than anything. They fear unmasked passengers; they fear buskers and candy sellers. They fear an environment they cannot control, and if even those fears aren’t borne out by the science of the pandemic, they are legitimate psychological fears that politicians and bureaucrats should attack. By mandating masks and making a show of enforcing the mandate, the governor is trying to negate those public fears – and perhaps generate a push to get people back to work. He should ride the trains too. “We have to be able to say to the riding public that everyone will be wearing masks,” Cuomo said, “and if they refuse to wear a mask they will be penalized.”

It’s not quite that easy though, and the pitfalls are obvious. For instance, in late August, when I took a 2 train from Grand Army Plaza to Borough Hall, every passenger on my train was properly masked, but when the doors opened at Atlantic Ave., two cops without masks were patrolling the platform. In fact, some of the most egregious mask violators in the city are cops. Pictures abound online of officers gathered without masks, and a Twitter account tracks those incidents. Mayor de Blasio routinely claims he has spoken with NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea about mask compliance, but cops wear masks only for official press events (and even that’s not a given). Shea says his cops will be a part of the enforcement effort, but will they be wearing masks? MTA officials said only that they’ve requested as much from the police, but they have no authority here. Recently, I have seen an increase in masked cops in the subway, but they still seem to the most egregious and frequent offenders.

The second issue concerns enforcement. When asked by Dave Colon of Streetsblog how the MTA planned to avoid targeting vulnerable communities, Foye said he disputed the premise of the question and declined to offer an answer. Will the enforcement effort focus on everyone? Will the cops target minorities as they often do with quality-of-life enforcement in New York City? Or will the cops pull back when video emerges of an escalated altercation as happened in the spring? Policing transit spaces in New York remains a prickly subject, and tensions are high.

Ultimately, as ridership inches toward 1.7 million per day, still just 31 percent of a normal weekday in 2019, and city politicians and business leaders make more noise about getting office workers back to their desks, comfort with transit will become a key issue. That’s why Cuomo and the MTA are going to enforce this mask mandate. Whether this leads to better compliance with public health orders or more flashpoints between the cops and New York’s citizens is an open question, but persuasion first and fines only after refusals is the path to follow. The MTA and the cops instructed to serve as enforcers should adhere to this approach carefully, and politicians should show their faith in the system by making a show of riding. Otherwise, transit will stagnant amidst public health concerns, and the city’s recovery will be that much slower.

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